One man’s trash is another man’s 30-foot plastic pipe

Igo over to my friend Ken’s house about twice a week. He has team roping almost every day and I either take a horse or just go watch.

It’s kind of fun, he rides a lot of colts and I like watching him mess with them, even if I don’t rope.

For the last month or so, I’ve noticed a house that’s on the way to Ken’s. The yard at this house is dug up and a muddy mess. There have been two big pieces of thick walled plastic pipe laying there in all of that mud.

I put a French draintype thing in out by my shop a few years ago. It was made of some flimsy type plastic pipe. I drove the dozer over it and my freightliner, which collapsed the French drain.

It’s caused a mud hole to be right in the front door of my shop the entire winter. I absolutely hate wading water to get in the shop.

I called and checked on the price of 4-inch PVC at the local lumber yards. A 20-foot piece was more than $100.

My tightwadedness came out big time when the lumber yard quoted me the prices. I thought to myself, I’ve got to see who owns that place and see if they’d sell that pipe.

So, I went to looking at my hunting app that shows all the landowners. It didn’t take just a minute and I had a name. A few phone calls later, and I had their number.

I asked if they’d sell me that piece of pipe. We met in town and I paid them $100 for it.

When I went out there to get it, all I had was a 16-foot flatbed utility trailer. I didn’t think that piece of pipe was that long. As it turns out it was about 30 feet long.

I got to studying on it and I decided to rachet strap the pipe in a couple of places and just let the tail end of the pipe drag, it’s all back roads from there to my house, so I figured that would be all right.

On my way home I met a neighbor that used to work for the sheriff’s department. We stopped in the middle of the road and visited. He agreed to follow me in case my pipe came loose. It was only about 2 miles to my house.

As we came down the little country road to my house, several of my neighbors were out in their yards. They all gawked as I drove by, wondering what this contraption was I was half-hauling and halfdragging.

That evening one of the neighbors came over and, when he heard my story, he just laughed and said, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

At least I won’t be wading water to get in the shop anymore ... .

EDITOR’S NOTE: James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi Mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses. Email him at 097jhl@gmail.com.