Walking in Early Spring

This week, second week of March, the forecast predicts temperatures in the 50s. Last Friday the temp was a record -3F so this is quite a change (and very welcome for my daily walks). This morning it was 30F when I went out. The upside was that birds were singing and the sun was shining. The downside was that snow cover next to the roads has gotten very dirty. Just last week the last snow lay fluffy and white on my route where today it is a dark gray smudge along the berm.

But that isn’t the only issue. As the snow retreats the trash captured in months of snow cover slowly appears, layer by layer, so that now I see the accumulation carelessly tossed out of car windows by nature haters. (I was going to refer to them as swine but that would be discourteous to the pigs.) I have a deep reverence for Nature so seeing the beer cans, soda and water bottles, McDonald’s bags filled with the remnants of an unhealthy meal, cigarette packs and butts, receipts, losing lotto tickets, socks, junk mail, newspaper, and plastic car parts disgusts me. I walk each day in my neighborhood and pick up small amounts of trash to place in my recycling bin. So I note each new disgusting trend like the spit bottles. Apparently used plastic water bottles have become the perfect receptacle for tobacco spit when one is confined in his car. He unscrews the top, discharges a vile brown mixture on saliva and tobacco juice into the bottle, then recaps it. When the bottle starts to fill--no problem!—just toss it out the window for someone else to deal with. I don’t know whether it is just one cretin or several around here that do this, but now I empty and recycle at least one of these containers a week on my normal route.

Who does this kind of thing? I can tell from the type of trash (beer & booze bottles, tobacco offal, lottos, junk food wrappers) that these are not my people. I don’t hang out much with folks who use these elixirs. (Well, except for the wine bottles. But even those—we don’t drink THAT kind of wine.) The beer cans are the cheapest brands, the junk food packaging speaks for itself—cheap calories. These are poor and ignorant people mainly. So I don’t imagine they live here either. My neighborhood certainly isn’t posh but it’s not a hellhole either, just a nice middle class place with nice people as neighbors. Do “pignorant” people trash decent neighborhoods out of spite or are they this hateful for some other reason. Has life dealt them bad health? Are they angry all the time? Do they hate us?

This attitude rather reminds me of the Middle Eastern terrorists. They attack soft targets killing innocent people in all parts of the world because they’ve been trained to hate them. They have no agenda, they are biased and ignorant, and manipulated by evil strongmen who have been reared biased and ignorant as well. How else can we explain so many people willing to kill innocents against their own self interest? And by the way, they are also mainly poor.

Instead of the signs on local byways warning “Littering will be prosecuted; $500 fine” (which fines are rarely levied), maybe we should post signs reading “No matter how bad your life sucks, littering will not improve it.” Is that too subtle? When I imply litterers are acting against their own self-interest I mean in the large sense that polluting Nature inevitably poisons the very thing that sustains us. If litterers are pignorant as I say above, I doubt this message will work.

So, why are these litterers poor? Isn’t it likely they are poor (and unhealthy) because they are ignorant? This implies that our education system is failing to raise many people’s skill levels to a point where they can earn a livable income. I mean, most of the people driving around here must be going to and from jobs. Why else would they just drive around on these rural lanes? It isn’t Eden. Most of their money must be spent on a means of transportation to/from work. Again, they surely don’t spend much on food and drink. I don’t see Chateau LaFite bottles. I don’t see Dalwhinney 15 year old single malts. I don’t even see boutique beer bottles. I see Bud Light! I don’t see Carrabba’s carry out bags—I see McDonald’s fries. I don’t see Cuban cigar wrappers, I see Marlboros. (Before I get accused of elitism let me set the record straight. I can’t afford to use elite products either. It’s simply that I’ve had sufficient education to earn a living through the years. A modest living but consistent. I’m not sure that’s available in the USA any more—and that’s a topic for another day.)