2003-05-10 - 11:15 p.m.
Every so often when I go looking on my hard drive for stuff to get rid of (I don't so much mind decluttering if it doesn't involve dust), I come across this letter to the editor of the local paper which I wrote about 5 years ago. Every single spring it seems apropo, but especially so this year. Maybe it's the fact that over 1000 people locally were laid off at the end of December. Months of idleness combined with frustration, depression, bitterness and all those emotions that come with being out of work no doubt lead to a less than caring attitude about your surroundings. And there's certainly a lot more driving around doing nothing constructive. Hence more littering? Could be. In any case, the roadsides and woods have been a real mess since the snow melted.
A dozen or two union members were out in the East Millinocket area last week cleaning up the roadsides, and they did an impressive job. They had lined up a huge number of bags filled with refuse--and that was only halfway through the day that I saw them. They didn't get up to our neck of the woods; looks like we're going to have to do that ourselves.
So here is my letter, as it was published. Hope you enjoy it:
Secrets of the Snow
Spring is finally here and I'm learning many things that winter had kept hidden. Everywhere I find clues to the sort of People we are, here in the Katahdin area. We are busy, industrious folks, but we know how to have a good time and we love the great outdoors. I can tell what busy people we are by all the coffee cups and fast food containers on the side of the road. And you can easily tell how industrious we are when you see the cardboard cartons, lumber scraps and bags of trash that fell off our trucks on the way to the dump. We like to hunt and fish and take advantage of our beautiful surroundings, as evidenced by all that fishing tackle and line and empty bait cartons we leave on the shore, and the picnic remains here and there. We're an eager and enthusiastic bunch -- we can't wait until we get home to remove the bags and packaging from our purchases, so we chuck it out the car window. We are dedicated observers of holiday traditions -- so much so that we decorate the sides of the roads with our dead Christmas trees. We are risk takers: I know this because of all the beer cans thrown from vehicles (thanks for including the beverage carton for someone to haul the empties in). And speaking of vehicles, we do love our vehicles, don't we? We would never let any litter collect IN them. That would be an eyesore.
But of all the secrets the melting snow has revealed to me, do you know what I'm most impressed with? It's that simple trust in our fellow man, that cherished faith that someone else will come along and clean up after us.
Next year how about let's keep these secrets to ourselves.
