Dust is one of those things that we always forget about until we are bombarded with it. This is true of dust in the house, in a building, or on the road. I remember when my mother and I were spending time with my grandfather before he passed, he lived right next to a rock quarry. The neighborhood kids and I would sneak in and play around the rocks (don’t do this, it is illegal, dangerous, and neither I nor Neptune agree with these actions) and wouldn’t come home until hours later. I can still remember the amount of dirt and dust that would come off of our clothes, even if we hadn’t done much of anything other than sit there or look for fossils which was my favorite pastime in there.
Growing up, I periodically think back to those times and all that rock dust that came out of the quarry even when they weren’t blasting. Depending on how much time we had spent playing amongst those rocks, it could feel like hours or days until all the dirt was out of your hair. I remember thinking what it must be like to work there every day and how maybe they never get rid of that rock dust.
I remember watching the trucks come in and out of the quarry. They were always gray, no matter what color they had originally been painted. Sometimes you could see the color underneath the dust, but it always looked gray. I don’t know how often those trucks were cleaned back then, but I remember seeing even in the rain it seemed like that rock dust stuck to those trucks like glue.
Working with Neptune, I’ve realized the main reason those trucks always looked so dismal was because they did not have an automated wash system. Even a normal truck wash probably wouldn’t have done much for those trucks, but something like Neptune’s heavy duty wash system or their asphalt release system would have likely cleaned those layers of dust off. Even though I knew why the trucks were dirty, it still made me sad to see them pull out onto the road. Maybe it was the situation in my life, but even the trucks seemed sad. I hope that place uses an automated wash system now. Maybe things seem a little happier than they used to.