To help pay medical bills, Hal Rollins covers six, seven, maybe eight miles a day, five days a week, retrieving roadside aluminum cans for recycling. He got sick last year and can’t get a doctor’s release to return to his job operating an overhead bucket on a tree-trimming crew.
“I can be walking along here and all of sudden just start throwing up blood,” Rollins said from behind a bushy mustache, cars and trucks whizzing past on Texas 53.
Rollins works at a wage many would not leave the house for. Aluminum prices have dropped from a record high 90 cents a pound last year to about 30 cents today. An eight-hour walk down Bell, Milam and Falls county roads nets between $5 and $12. One day he hit a $20 jackpot when a friend tipped him off about a fishing camp on the San Gabriel River.
Last January, Rollins visited Wal-Mart and picked up an aluminum (naturally) gadget with a long shaft and small suction cups on the end. He pulls the trigger and grabs the can without bending over. Lifespan for such a tool is about six months - Rollins is on his second one.
Rollins takes job hazards in stride. High grass harbors ticks and ants. Snatching, shaking and stomping aluminum cans often disturbs flying insects attracted to stale beer and soda left inside. Swelling on his left hand from a recent wasp attack is beginning to wane.
And there’s the snake story.
“I found an aluminum chair. I reached in there, pulled it out, and he was tangled up in it,” Rollins said, describing his close encounter with a 4-foot copperhead. “I seen what it was, throwed it out in the road, and went to stomping him. After I got through with him, he curled up in a ball and an old hawk swooped down.”
Rollins takes his aluminum to Temple Iron and Metal. Owner Billy Bachmayer said many regular recyclers are just trying to “make ends meet.”
“Probably right now, 35 percent, maybe 40 percent of our trade are people in that same predicament. Whether they’re young or old,” Bachmayer said, regarding Rollins’ situation.
A couple in their 80s regularly picks up cans to supplement their Social Security and keep active, Bachmayer said.
On Tuesday afternoon, Rollins’ wife followed in a ’95 Chevy pickup, on the shoulder, about a half-mile behind.
She has hand-painted a wolf on the hood to celebrate her Blackfoot heritage. A stuffed bat, wolf, bear and bulldog cover the dash. With her left hand dangling a cigarette out the window, word puzzle books opened upside down on the seat, and binoculars at the ready to keep an eye on her migratory husband, she said she only follows him once a week, when the Rosebud coffee shop is closed.
Her husband’s wanderlust isn’t a problem, as long as the sun shines.
“When it rains, he’s pacing the floor just like he’s about to have a baby. Drives me nuts. He can’t watch TV. He’s up and down,” Kaye Rollins said. “Everybody says he’s got restless legs; he’s got a restless butt.”
This simple life suits the Rollins. It doesn’t seem to bother the carefree couple their Rosebud home is without central air conditioning. Kaye says that’s for rich folks. For now they live off disability insurance and a little can money. On Tuesday, Rollins wore a red medical smock that he bought at a flea market. It’s a simple life. And if the wiry Rollins is mobile, he’s happy.
“If I do like the doctor told me, I’d be dead within a week. They told me to go home and sit. I’ve been active all my life,” Rollins said.
