For the life of me I can't remember why, but a few years ago my domicile somehow generated scrap metal of sufficient heft to lead me to cart it to Riverhead. Correction: to my favorite place in Riverhead — Gershow Recycling.
It offers an unassuming streetscape — a couple of garage bay doors adorning a square storefront only Garden State Brickface and Stucco could love. But out back is where the action is.
There you'll find a scale of industrial size and strength to drive upon, and beyond that Scrap Metal Hill, to borrow nomenclature from a Springsteen tune, which of course it's satisfying to add to with a clanging toss, plus various other points and features of heavy-metal interest.
When I redeemed my slip of paper and was handed back cash money, I was so enthused I uttered aloud, "This place is great!" Which drew a smile from the otherwise gruff dumping-and-recycling M.C.
Then there came a time (last week) to double down on recycling. Like, a 2,600-pound car. Glory be, Gershow-Medford will take it off your hands. Mold discoloring the steering wheel and shifter? No problem. Puddles where WeatherTech floor liners should be? Please. Three tires flat, one wheel rusted into immovability? The tow truck will be there at 6:30 tomorrow morning.
The only ironclad requirement is the presence of the precious-metal catalytic converter, that newly valuable, increasingly stolen device of questionable efficacy. What a transformation, from check engine light-triggering bane for all of us out here enthusiastically driving our cars into the ground, to economic boon.
In fact, the last time I had a junker towed, it wasn't even a junker. Its structural soundness was undercut only by its dual catalytic converters and the outlandish cost to replace them. I loved that 2005 Hyundai Tucson. It met an ignominious end in a North Sea salvage yard.
A yard, I might add, that had its 100-buck outlay handsomely exceeded by Gershow.