Neatly Done

Home by dinnertime after 2+ hours of roadside litter collecting. Here’s the sociological data: Ed registered us in for this previously announced community activity this morning. We were responsible for doing the 6 blocks of South Beach Road, down to the beach. A neighborhood group was responsible for Maple Beach. No one else had registered by noon. We were given half a dozen large, clear, plastic bags and offered tongs and orange vests. We took the bags and declined the accoutrements because I have my own trash grabbers and I figured we could be seen on the road adequately.

Around 3:30, we headed out with the tools of the trade and indeed were visible on the road. One neighbor couple out for a walk congratulated us on being good citizens; a man in a car stopped and told me that there was really a lot of roadside trash about a block further along and also, ‘thanks for doing this’; a man on the beach, when we got there, asked us if we were doing this on our own time; a woman with a baby was reminded by the sight of us that this was the day to collect litter and vowed to get involved next time; and a lady in a car, as we neared home, stopped and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry; I thought you were someone else.’

The wages of the work? Well, a tidy pile of asphalt shingles, an extraordinarily heavy glass bottle that had at one time contained some fancy kind of alcohol; various metal pipes and strips; a real estate sign; a regulation-sized tsunami warning sign complete with post; a deteriorated aluminum lawn chair; and a plastic quart jar about one-quarter full of pennies. Also, the expected beer cans, soda cans, newspapers, bottle tops, plastic cups, plastic bags, and cigarette packages. The worst? Hundreds of cigarette butts. The other worst? Styrofoam packing peanuts. And the final worst? Plastic bags that have started to fall apart into a hundred smaller pieces of plastic bags. Worst in a different category? The neighbor who has a sign on her front fence that says, “Beware of Dogs.” When you walk by, the dogs race out of the yard in a very threatening manner. Maybe she should keep them in her yard if I need to be beware of them.

So now, we’re all tidy on these streets. It’s a nice fall activity; makes me feel at one with the numerous spiders on our house and in our yard who daily mend and straighten their webs. I hope that there are lot of other Point Roberts residents who are feeling satisfied with their contribution to the community this evening.