14° SAN LUIS - Sunday, June 19, 202214° SAN LUIS - Sunday, June 19, 2022Unión suffered, but kept the Copa Centenario.Photo: Nicolas VarvaraOne of the most emblematic and oldest chacaritas or purchase and sale of scrap metal in San Luis is that of Miguel Argüello, who chose to name it with the initials of his three children: Tatiana, Sebastián and Martín.Argüello remembers that it all started around 1975, when his father, who was a wine distributor for three large wineries (Panquegua, Rubino and Talacasto), had his business in a warehouse on Salvador Chada, on Las Heras street and Passage Santiago del Estero.“The winemakers had a big problem: the lack of liter bottles.They sold the wine but you had to bring the containers, something difficult to get.At that time I dedicated myself to buying liter bottles and in a short time I had a team (truck and trailer) ready to send to Mendoza.They were wire crates for 10 bottles each.I took them to Mendoza, I didn't take long to sell them and from that moment on I made a monthly trip to each of those wineries", he recalls proudly.“Those were my beginnings in the world of scrap, I bought and sold liter bottles.Thus we were able to acquire a piece of land at 300 Santa Fe Street, from a man with the surname Anzorena, who lived in Ayacucho and Falucho.Then I became independent, my father was left with the wine warehouse, a Mercedes Benz truck model 60 and a Rambler car with electric windows.Argüello says that the land in question was a wasteland within the city and very close to two cemeteries.The neighbors wished him luck and many successes in the undertaking, but many doubted it because they said that in that place "they were scary"."It's true," he says, "the only thing on the land was a room without a roof and a huge pepper (aguaribay) eaten away by fire. They said that at night, a woman called 'la llorona' would come out of the cemetery and sit down of the pepper to complain and mourn a man with the last name of Montenegro who had been murdered in that place".He closes the story by telling of an appearance of the famous "headless priest": "It turns out that my aunt Adria Argüello worked at the 'Rawson' hospital near the deposit and always passed by here. Many times she told in family talks that, when passing by There, she was frightened by a character who appeared from behind the tree eaten away by fire and apparently had no head. Over time it was learned that the "funny" was a policeman who lived on Calle 25 de Mayo almost Santa Faith. I never heard 'la llorona', but my aunt had no reason to lie."The chacaritero points out that his beginnings were very hard and difficult.“You had to put up with great heat, cold, wind, rain and snow, rodents, vermin.He was driver, farmhand and boss at the same time;if it was necessary to grind glass he did it and if it was about stacking bottles, the same thing.Everything was manual.In those years there was not as much machinery as there is today, it was almost handmade", he recalls.And he adds: "In the neighborhood there were several carreros-bottleros. Among them Santiago Natel and his brother, the Peralta brothers, don Orozco, Horacio and 'Cacho' Palma; and the old man Peralta, a very nice person who did not know how to read or write but it was very difficult for him to make a mistake. Some of those bottle dealers began to say that they did not want to sell only liter bottles, so I opted to buy the glass from them, then the cardboard and the scrap metal. But an unfortunate event made me lose everything one day. I had. I kept the material I was getting in the room without a roof and one night, taking advantage of the darkness, they took everything I had. They left me with nothing"."My wife, Silvia Balboa, was a teacher at the Saladillo school. When she was receiving her salary and paying all the household debts, when she saw the tragedy that had occurred, she began to help so that I could buy. They were very hard times that, without her support, the situation would have been different. The sacrifice was enormous, I put a lot of desire into it, long hours of work and without measuring the time that passed, until I was able to raise my head", he says.The enterprise grew with the help of her family and a couple of collaborators who were very identified with her work.She continued to bring bottles and glass to Mendoza, adding shipments of paper to sell at larger depots already working with recyclers.One of her freighters was Carlos Gómez Perretti.Argüello recounts several moments that gave him accolades.“The first of them was when Dr. Mazzola, Fiat's representative in San Luis, summoned me to remove all the paperwork and disused material from the Colón y Bolívar building.We took several days and it was very well paid.An event also occurred that I dare to tell because many are no longer here and more than 40 years have passed.Among the garbage I found a checkbook, from Banco Nación, in the name of Dr. Mazzola.I kept it with the intention of handing it over, but I had the opportunity to buy a model 60 Chevrolet truck from a man named Funes from El Suyuque Viejo.I made him a proposal that he was not interested in, he asked me for money and checks, I accepted and wrote him several from Mazzola's checkbook, with the instruction that he should not present them at the bank.He had to bring them back to me and I would exchange them for him.That's right, the last checks I paid them all together.There was never a problem and Mazzola never found out.I know that what I did was not legal, but I did not want to miss out on the opportunity to buy that truck that I needed so much.”He also remembers those who failed him as collectors:Aducci and Naveci de Mendoza.“I gave them the loads and when I went to collect, they refused.I never did business with those people again, they behaved very badly with whoever provided them with the raw material;not so Carlos Paidomani, an excellent person in every way”, he says.Argüello, along with his sons Sebastián and Martín, recount that during the military dictatorship a person came to the warehouse who expressed his interest in having paper that he had in a house in Potrero de los Funes removed.He went with his son Sebastián and when he arrived he found out that it was Ignacio Urteaga's house."The paper was actually thousands and thousands of posters, votes and boxes with cellophane envelopes for ID photos, it was a full room. It had to be taken out urgently due to the situation that existed at that time. It was another stroke of luck. Finally I ended up selling all the paper and envelopes to photography houses in Mendoza and San Luis”, recalls the man.The Argüello brothers say that not everything was rosy for the family: “Like everyone, we had good times and others not so much.This undertaking goes hand in hand with other similar ones, we are a link between the neighbors, the companies, the commerce and the national recyclers.Today, for example, we are selling a lot of glass to Mendoza, paper to Córdoba, and scrap metal to Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, but there were times that were not good, like the fire that caused total losses on Santa Fe street and left my father without nothing, on the street, and got up with the support of the family.Today we are one of the oldest collectors in San Luis”.On November 20, 1992, around 9:00 p.m., the Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 737 LV-JNE, with 113 people on board, had a fire breakout at one of the runway heads at the San Luis Airport.Its passengers were evacuated and the ship was totally destroyed.“Two technical-engineers and a translator arrived from England to carry out the expert report.I was hired to dismantle the plane, I remember that they even brought shovels and picks to work in search of clarification of the event”, says Miguel.His son Sebastián adds: “They removed the black box, the engines, the wing panels, the landing gear and all the key parts.The rest was cut up and thrown aside, we provided the workforce, all the tools you can imagine were at our disposal, it was impressive”.The men remember that the tasks had to be done urgently: “We had to work full force because we had to clear the track, sow the grass, plant the destroyed poles and put up the fence, all in a matter of a few days.They were cautious and very detailed.We took care of the rest, aluminum was essential because it is of very good quality and more consistent.We also loaded the rest of the material that the English technicians were discarding.Once we finished the work, they invited me to dinner at the Quintana Hotel, in the company of my wife and children, translator through.I made the invoice accordingly, but they were astonished and said another amount;I did so and received a very important amount of money, much more than what I asked for.It was incredible.They tripled the amount.I couldn't believe it, and all in dollars."Argüello's good luck fell apart when a fire broke out in the Santa Fe street warehouse that destroyed everything that had been included in a truck: "I was left on the street again, it was a very hard blow and I didn't know what to do , but I had the love of my family and we started again from scratch. We all worked from dawn to dusk, in search of the recovery of the stockpile."And he adds: “I don't want to stop remembering that in the railway station we set up a press for metals, we manually loaded wagons that were 'pulled' with a truck to the central tracks to be sent to different parts of the country.But since it was said that a highway would pass through there, we left the place and got the land on 25 de Mayo where a factory used to operate.We removed all kinds of scrap from the companies in the industrial parks and everything changed”.The industrial location in San Luis finished giving it the boost it needed.He became known in the factories and became a trusted person for many of them, who allowed him access to remove all kinds of scrap.In principle, he had to make homemade tools, such as a press that Magallanes made for him on Julio A. Roca Avenue, and many others that today make up —as a souvenir— the storage area.Retired from the activity, the warehouse is managed by his sons Sebastián and Martín, who dedicate all their time to it.What started as a dream today is a great reality.“I thank God for what he gave me and my children for everything they do.They allow me to live like a millionaire in spirit and enjoy my life.Far away are those days of disappointments, thefts and tragedies, intense cold, great heat, winds, rains and snowfalls.They are an example of children.I'm proud of them."Saint Louis and his peopleSubscribe to the El Diario de la República newsletter and participate in raffles for spectacular prizes!All rights reserved © 2022