New Trash Depths
In a messy neighborhood we found the mother lode of trash. For 90 minutes on the hottest day of the summer we only cleaned the street in front of a half-dozen homes, so nasty was the situation across the street alongside the chain link fence that divides Normal Heights from the hill toward I-805. Typically our group finds a condom or two per week as we pick up trash here. Sunday I lost count. It was about a dozen. There was also a syringe and a whole lot of stuff that had been there so long the sun had faded the material. And there was the debris we couldn’t get, across the fence, along the ground and high in the bushes. Plus a long two-by-four.
A botanist might explain the weeds along the few feet between road and fence; my take is you could recognize a few years’ worth of pesty plants that would grow in the spring and die in the scorching summer before the seeds and decay would spill into the curb, mixing with the loose blacktop and other dirt to leave an inch-high sediment waiting for auto passengers’ feet. Hence I spent a half hour or so doing a Trash Walk first: sweeping! We’ll have to add a broom and dustpan to our quiver.
This week I borrowed the broom from the gracious neighbor who had earlier offered us drink. He too cleans up the road at times, but it’s just too much to manage. His presence was the highlight of the day. I wouldn’t have made it without his G2. Gratitude to my new friend.
