The Gadfly is a series of letters offering commentary on local issues and published in the Warrensburg Gazette.

Warrensburg has completed its semiannual “personal property redistribution day” and, judging by my observations, quite a bit of property was “curbside recycled.” That’s good, because everything else placed by the curbs traveled, via county gravel roads, to the ever-growing 'Mount Trashmore' located just south of Hickory Hills. And that got me thinking – with just a very small amount of work and maybe a little publicity, we could turn trash weekend into a festival!

Think of it – Warrensburg’s Timely Redistribution And Swapping Happily festival. The basics are already in place. Organization? The city already takes care of that. Cleanup? City has that covered, too. There’s certainly a large enough supply of ‘personal property’ waiting on the curbs each year.

There’s obviously demand for the property, as well. Some pickers are specialists, looking for metal such as old appliances, grills, etc. Others specialize in bicycles (an aside – when I was a kid we fixed bikes, we didn’t throw them out because a wheel was bent) or furniture. Still others are profiteers, looking for items that can readily be resold in garage sales or flea markets. I’m partial to firewood, myself.

What’s been missing to make this a real festival is concession stands, and even that is changing. Some young girls had a lemonade stand at Ming and Warren on Sunday. A few more of those, and we’ll have a festival to write about. Do it right and we can get people from Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs (who wouldn’t be caught dead trash picking in their own towns) to visit Warrensburg, take home our trash and maybe even leave some money at our restaurants.

All we need is a better acronym for T.R.A.S.H.