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Kevin B. is a guy who can't stand waste. In fact, crusading to save as much of the good stuff we all throw away is his life's passion. Well, he fixes lawnmowers in his shop in Georgetown too, but dumpster diving is the love of his life.

"What am I looking for? Well, anything and everything. And I'm not the only one. I've talked to people who put themselves through college by dumpster diving. I found a brand new radio once, still with its wrappings. When I turned the battery around it worked fine. I've found jewelry, and one time I found a pistol." Cleaned up and packaged nicely, these things sell well at flea markets and provide Kevin with a good living.

But it's the food waste that makes him grind his teeth, and he's on a personal crusade to have as much of it utilized as he can. Veggies, frozen meat, canned goods and pastries (though his source for the latter dried up when the bakery moved recently).

He takes a lot of his findings to the food banks, but that's another frustration because much of it ultimately goes out the back door, unused. But he himself rarely buys any food. He's found a mother lode of frozen beef, fish, pastrami, ham and turkey. "My freezers are full. There's so much food out there, good quality stuff that's just trashed. That bakery was throwing out better bread than the food banks had. Did you know that market deli's throw out everything at the end of the day? I understand their concern about liability, but maybe they could have disclaimers. I don't know. It's just criminal. Half the world is starving.

"I just feel good doing this, though it's frustrating sometimes. You never know how people feel when you offer this stuff to 'em. Do I think they're a charity case? Some people get pissed off." But he has no problem with the Intergroup office, which is where I came to know him. His contributions to the volunteers laboring there are always welcome.

Kevin has a regular route that he works every day for about an hour. His reception on his various stops varies "from disdain to very nice. One guy threw rocks at me. But I persist 'cause it's right and just to keep this food from going to waste. I don't want to be told no."

Born in Massachusetts to alcoholic parents, Kevin still thinks about his life there as idyllic. "What a great time that was in America! We had so much of everything. My dad worked at the General Electric plant in Pittsfield . Every 4th of July, the company put on this giant picnic for the employees."

But it didn't last. His father was fired for drinking, and the family moved to California. The memories were overwhelming to Kevin as he talked about this time. "My poor father! I don't know who my father was, or my mother either, emotionally or psychologically. I've had tons of therapy trying to find out, much of it while I was stoned on marijuana. I think I was screwed up till my late 50s."

Kevin spent his teen years in Santa Barbara with his mother, a nurse. He went into the Air Force when he was 18. That's when his drinking took off. An air policeman, he lived in a barracks which had its own bar, presided over by his command sergeant. This was 1958-61, the height of the Cold War, at an air base in Puerto Rico. The air police guarded access to aircraft, including U-2 spy planes.

It was in this period that his serious troubles with alcohol began, specifically being drunk at formation to get his guard assignment. There were other things, too-"rowdiness, you might say"-and the first of the five DWIs he collected over the next two decades. All in all, though, Kevin remembers his military time fondly. "In my dreams, I think I've re-enlisted and gone back to Puerto Rico. It was a time of great camaraderie."

But that was only a dream. The reality is that he returned to Santa Barbara, got a job as a hospital orderly, "and really got my drinking going. Everyone I hung out with were bar people. That's what people did. It just seemed like the thing to do in life."

Then he moved to Venice, California, Venice in the 60s, heartland of the hippies. "Oh, it was so great. I saw my first play on the Venice beach, Othello. I didn't understand it, but I enjoyed it anyway. Venice today has gone to crap.

"I was a maintenance drinker on my job as a telephone installer, partying all the time. Then I got laid off and went to work as a respiratory therapy specialist. I came up here to visit friends and decided to stay. I hired on as a respiratory therapist at the old Doctors Hospital. That was good for a few years, but the field was changing. When I came in, anybody off the street could be an inhalation therapist, but now they wanted people with nurse and anatomy training.

"My job was in jeopardy, so I moved to a medical equipment rental house to do their therapy. Then that changed too. They shifted the emphasis to sales and asked me to start selling. I didn't think I could, but they trained me and I did okay.

"But I got drunk and wrecked the company car. I wasn't fired. I never lost a job for drinking. But I quit 'cause I felt I wasn't doing my job. But there was divine intervention there. I quit drinking."

Unlike most members of A.A., to whom their sobriety date is sacred writ, Kevin isn't exactly sure when he had his last drink. Sometime in October 1981, he believes, right after the accident with the company car.

"A close friend came over the next day and saw what had happened. He didn't say anything, but there was just that look. I felt I'd been knocked off my pedestal, lost face, lost my credibility, you name it. There I was, hung over. I wasn't a role model anymore. I was a mess, and that was my bottom."

Kevin checked himself into a 30-day rehab program, and smoked pot all the time he was there. He says he'd still be smoking it if it hadn't made him paranoid. The paranoia disappeared when he quit. Pot still holds a place in his heart. "Based on my experience, marijuana doesn't do the structural damage that alcohol does. It does not affect behavior like booze does." Thus, in sort of a backdoor way, Kevin supports the A.A. mantra which rejects the popular slogan among young people that "A drug is a drug is a drug."

Booze, pot and one more addiction to go: about this same time, he quit his pack-a-day cigarette habit too. Three down and none to go, but serenity was still out there somewhere to be found. He joined A.A.and A.C.O.A., (Adult Children of Alcoholics). "I liked the way A.C.O.A. talked about current problems. All I hear in A.A, is 'I drank, I got drunk.' I feel good after A.A. meetings, but A.C.O.A. is better. I've had so much disarray in my life because of my family. A.C.O.A. helped me deal with real life situations. A.A. works, though. I'm not gonna knock it. But my A.A. is what I'm doing here, saving food."

Kevin says talking to friends about life's issues is the best meeting for him. "It helps me find peace. That's what I'm looking for."

Interviewed and written by Dick S.