Love Your Mother

I don’t like to argue.  I don’t enjoy lecturing.  But there are a couple things which I feel very strongly about and one of those things is to not litter.  Put trash where it belongs, in the container.  Why is that so hard for some folks?  Why do people not care about all the trash they let fly? 

So I go out to enjoy a nice windy day at the golf course.  Cloudy, but not too gray;  first hole, golfer in front of us unwinds his cellophane from his cigars, puts it in his open glove compartment, and watches as it flies with the wind.  No motion to pick it up, not even a second glance.  So I get out of my cart to pick it up, put it in the trash, and go to tell the guy, there’s a couple things that I feel strongly about.  He doesn’t get it.  Says he doesn’t want to be lectured.  So I walk off the course.  I’m not associating myself with someone of such vast ignorance.  I do not want people to think that I condone his littering.  Nor his nonchallant attitude about it.  Nor the fact that if I were a man telling him, he might’ve listened, let alone acted.

So I discover that the only people who can truly learn, are those who WANT to learn.  This man has no desire to learn anything.  Now I know why the islanders look at the visitors (read, mainlanders) like they are from another planet.  I guess in Texas it’s okay to pour oil down the stormdrains, or put your plastic grocery bags in the back of your pick up truck.  I guess in Texas, they don’t care enough about their environment to take care of it.  I guess in Texas, they do things just a bit differently.  But let’s be realistic.  Just because this bozo is from Texas, doesn’t mean all Texans are this way.  Just because I’m from the south, that doesn’t make me racist.  But this is the kind of ignorance that makes everyone in the US look like an idiot.  How little effort it takes to go to the trash can, and how little respect some have for Mother Earth.  At least I said something and acted.  Maybe that small action will have an impact upon the man.  Probably not.  But could you stand idly by and watch people trash your beach?  Your forests?  Your ski slopes?  Where is Iron Eyes Cody when you need him?

Happy… New Year?