When I was a kid we used to go down to the trash dump and rummage through the trash for whatever we could find. Back then the dump wasnt guarded or enclosed in a gate and anybody could go down there and pick through that stuff for aluminum cans, usable pieces of wood, bicycles, etc.
Most of the time it was just a fun way for a 12 year old to occupy his time and not much more. I did find an old radio with a circa 1928 100 dollar bill neatly folded up and hidden inside, but thats the only real nice find I ever had.
Anyway, I would often go with my brother, and my friend and his little brother, and sometimes we would be joined by as many as a dozen of the kids from the neighborhood and elsewhere. I did it for about 4 years until I turned 16 and became too cool to be seen rummaging through the trash.
We found guns, most of them worthless or nearly so but also several times we found nearly brand new pistols.... We didnt know it at the time but those pistols most likely were used in the committing of a crime....oh well.
One time we went down there and found a fur coat or so we thought. I still remember my friend Mark grabbing it and trying to pull it out from under something and finding out it was attached to about 120 pounds of dead deer.
Every day there was always the person who made "the find". Most of the time it was something minor that our parents ended up taking back to the very same dumb the next week or so.
Being poor, I remember coming back with clothes that the neighborhood mothers would wash and make us wear.
One day we took a kid with us who usually didnt go much. He jumped in like a pro and waded through, occasionally holding up something and passing it up to the people who stood at the edge of the dumb. Then he found it. It was a small mason type jar. One of those jars they make jams and jellies in. It was full of 20 dollar gold pieces.
A few days later that kids father went out and bought a 16000 dollar bass boat. That was back when my father made 9700 dollars in a year, around the time when gold was worth about 800 an ounce or so.
Most of the time it was just a fun way for a 12 year old to occupy his time and not much more. I did find an old radio with a circa 1928 100 dollar bill neatly folded up and hidden inside, but thats the only real nice find I ever had.
Anyway, I would often go with my brother, and my friend and his little brother, and sometimes we would be joined by as many as a dozen of the kids from the neighborhood and elsewhere. I did it for about 4 years until I turned 16 and became too cool to be seen rummaging through the trash.
We found guns, most of them worthless or nearly so but also several times we found nearly brand new pistols.... We didnt know it at the time but those pistols most likely were used in the committing of a crime....oh well.
One time we went down there and found a fur coat or so we thought. I still remember my friend Mark grabbing it and trying to pull it out from under something and finding out it was attached to about 120 pounds of dead deer.
Every day there was always the person who made "the find". Most of the time it was something minor that our parents ended up taking back to the very same dumb the next week or so.
Being poor, I remember coming back with clothes that the neighborhood mothers would wash and make us wear.
One day we took a kid with us who usually didnt go much. He jumped in like a pro and waded through, occasionally holding up something and passing it up to the people who stood at the edge of the dumb. Then he found it. It was a small mason type jar. One of those jars they make jams and jellies in. It was full of 20 dollar gold pieces.
A few days later that kids father went out and bought a 16000 dollar bass boat. That was back when my father made 9700 dollars in a year, around the time when gold was worth about 800 an ounce or so.
I share your affection for playing in the junk as well. I too have poked around my share of dumps, the older the better it seems though. Nowadays I look around in areas where old houses once stood. Sometimes, in the early spring I get lucky and spot a piece of old rusty can or a glint of glass peeking through the melting snow and greening moss. They may first appear as only little humps or bumps which I check out with a stick. Seeing the glow of a cobalt bottle poking through time like that, does to me, sort of what the look of raw gold would do to most people. 
