Time to collect scrap iron

At that time, my father earned 56.35 yuan a month. Our brothers hardly have any pocket money.

If you want to buy a snack, you have to stand on your own feet. Speaking of friends, they also have a good way to make money, relying on mountains to eat mountains and relying on water to eat water. Relying on steel mills, of course, from iron.

There are steel mills and waste recycling stations, and the way to make money is to sell scrap iron for money. As soon as friends are free, they will go into the factory together, looking for scrap iron piles and rummaging for scrap iron.

Sometimes, as soon as the car that pulls the waste residue is unloaded, friends will flock to it. Some iron slag is still hot and may be burned. Everyone will pull a small rake to see which one is better and pick it up in the basket. Iron blocks with excessive slag content will not be collected by waste stations.

In memory, a dime can only sell a catty of iron. Pick up three or five pounds in an afternoon and you can change a few hairs. When I get the money, I'm looking forward to buying some "whipped sugar" from the food stall at the school gate after school, that is, maltose, and making it into a big yellow piece with some white preserves on it. The boss slowly knocked down a small piece with a small shovel and hammer, put it on a small scale and weighed it, 20 cents.

I took sugar from my boss, but it wasn't too sticky. I bite with my mouth open and my upper and lower teeth are sticky. But it tastes really sweet. My mouth is full of the sweetness of wheat. After eating, I licked my mouth and hands. I washed my hands.

Another kind of sugar is also our favorite. We call it burnt sweet potato candy, which is canned food made of corn paste. The machine can continuously spit out long tubes and then cut them into pieces, yellow and fragrant with corn.

At one stage, the waste collection station saw that children often came to sell scrap iron, and simply launched the business of directly using scrap iron for burning potato candy. The friends carried the scrap iron in, changed hands and carried out a big bag of burnt potato candy, eating while walking, making a lot of money, which was very cool.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. After the strict management of the factory, it is difficult for children to enter the factory, so they have to pick up scrap iron on the scrap heap outside the factory. The difficulty coefficient increases sharply, and sometimes you can't toss out much iron in an afternoon.

One day, a slightly older buddy came up with a bad idea, climbed over the wall and went into the scrap collection station to steal the iron sold the day before yesterday and then sell it. The friends struggled for a long time, but they didn't stop the temptation to beat sugar and burn potato candy. Two brave men turned in through the night, and when they landed, they crashed with a clash, and the friends outside the wall fled in panic.

I had a nightmare in which the police caught thieves all night. The next day, two brave people really brought back the burnt potato candy to share, but the taste was different, and it tasted like chewing wax, which never happened again.

After a while, when I was picking up iron filings in the iron filings pile near the hospital, I was burying my head in it and happened to meet the beautiful girl in my class and her mother coming out of the hospital. When I saw that we were doing this work, wow, wow, wow, wow. How did you get this?

Shame on me, I left and right to find a mound to hide, and the rake was hidden behind me. I faltered, barely said a few words, and hurried home. After that, I basically stopped picking up scrap iron. Of course, the improvement of family situation is also a reason. Mom and dad began to give some pocket money occasionally.

Now that I think about it, collecting scrap iron was another form of work-study program. I earned my first meal by myself, even though I didn't realize it at the time, I just wanted to eat two pieces of candy.

From this point of view, people, for this desire, can do everything possible to make a scene, meet their basic survival needs, and contribute to this interesting time of collecting scrap iron even if the environment is hard.