America the Beautiful

    When I was a boy just starting to grow up I remember phrases like: “America the Beautiful.” It has become a trash dump since then, along the roadsides instead of seeing plush scenery you see all the local fast food restaurants. From the discarded Styrofoam cups to the cardboard food containers these things liter the streets and find their way into our rivers and water supplies. Just the other day I was walking around the town picking up all the discarded cans throughout the town. I even fished some out of the rivers and entangled in the vegetation. Some of these where sun faded and had been sitting there for long enough for the sun to bleach them. Most where alcohol related by nature, Budweiser, Bush, and sometimes a Cools Light bottle littered the ditches and even the parks with garbage. I remember a slogan “Give a Hoot don’t pollute.” It sadly gripped my heart as I picked these objects up and placed them in a garbage bag. It is ridiculous to see the ads on T.V. now most referring to drunken driving, prescription drugs, and even far as corrupt government officials. There is less talk about the damage we are doing to the natural order of the environment. Trash liters our cities and streets, from a distance it almost remains invisible to the naked eye.


    As we rush by in our routes of the day we miss it completely. The hedges on the lawns are cut nicely the lawn is mowed to a quarter of an inch. But if one stops and takes the second to look what is lodged in the hedges you can’t miss the pieces of discarded garbage stuck to the trunk or the roots of the plants. Everyone talks about going organic, and planting gardens. But would you want trash in your food at the super market. What would you say to the store manager if you pick up some fresh fruits and vegetables to find your local fast food restaurant wrappers and food container clinging to them? Yet every day some careless commuter not wanting the garbage in their nice clean car decides it is a good idea to throw it out the window or toss it on the ground. Would you take our children to the garbage dump and tell them go and play? Would you go to the nearest salvage yard to do some fishing?


    I have even witnessed someone careless distaste first hand! While at a friend’s house in the middle of town, someone drives by and throws their trash out the window into the street. To make it even better they sped off like they were elevating a dead body. Have we come to the point that we now say “It’s not our mess let the next man deal with it.” Long ago in England they to once toss their trash to the streets without a second thought. It led to sickness, disease and finally death of a large part of the population. Are we doomed to repeat our ancestor’s mistakes, when will we wake up and take responsibility for our actions