North Telegraph Road resident Warren Kingsley drives his 1978 handicap-equipped panel van slowly in the pouring rain through Hanover County’s rural roads late after work as a night watchman at the Rock Quarry. Spotting something in the weeds to the right, he slows to a stop, gets out and investigates: it is a well-used former Silverstone frying pan with most of the Silverstone flaked away. It is the perfect complement for his gourmet-style kitchen.
(Pictured. Notice the subtle interplay of the "hot" utensils with the "cool" cabinets and wall colors)
Kingsley has been collecting Hanover roadside discards for over 20 years, and his eclectic and unsanitary household decorations reflect his distasteful lifestyle, which may be a contributing factor to his single marital status and his creepy overall persona.
“Who needs retail when you’ve got a flashlight, a car and all night?” he asks after chunking into the van a Hefty bag of soggy, soiled clothing that he found beside a Goodwill bin in the Wal-Mart parking lot. “I think the Penguin in that Batman movie said it best: ‘what you flush down your toilet, I place on my mantle’.”
“By the way, I watched that movie on a TV out of the ‘too good to throw away’ section at the dump, on a DVD I found in the magazine shack at the same dump, on a DVD player given to me by a guy who wound up taking a thousand Tylenol. He said he wouldn’t be needing it.”
Kingsley reports as he cruises Blanton Road that the biggest prize to date was the sofa that now sits in his living room, found upside down in a muddy ditch off of New Market Mill Road. “Once I got the raccoons and the urine odor out it was just fine, like a brand new one” he reports. “I think it was originally an Ethan Allen, so it was a quality item.”
His most unforgettable find? “Without a doubt, that chest freezer that sat down in the woods off Mount Hope Road. After I found it I drove by it for a week, making sure I was not being followed,” he says. “Little did I know that when I opened it I would be solving a missing person case that was almost 10 years old.”
“After that it became crime scene evidence, so I couldn’t have it. It was a Frigidaire - damn shame.” He said after arriving home and giving a bag of empty Schlitz malt liquor cans the old heave-ho off his 2nd -floor balcony to make room on that raccoon sofa for this reporter to sit. “I could have used that freezer” he says sadly as he listens to the clatter of cans in his dark back yard below. I elected to stand.
Kingsley insists that he does indeed have standards when questioned about them at length. “I steer clear of medical waste and hospital discards,” he admits, although not really believably. “I learned my lesson about discarded needles during the Meningitis scare of 1987. Although I have to admit, hospital furniture can really take a punch!” he says, proudly pointing to a toilet chair he rescued from the dumpster of a Nursing home.
OK, now even I have reached my limit.
