Don and I were recently flattened by the flu for nine days. It wasn’t as unpleasant as some sicknesses go. Our fridge was decently stocked and we had fresh batteries in the remote and the cold meds kept us nicely loopy. We accepted our physical limitations without much of a fight and slept our way through the worst of it. But by the time we were finally up and moving again, our place was a disaster.
Which is, of course, when unexpected guests arrived, hoping for a tour of our building.
I’m not entirely sure what we said — likely something about still being contagious — but we managed to dodge that bullet until we had a chance to clean up. Our place still wasn’t truly ready for guests, but at least there weren’t stacks of laundry spread across the back of the couch or a bra dangling from the doorknob or cat-shredded toilet paper decorating the hall.
When our visitors returned, it was a beautiful day, so after showing them our place, we took them to Sandstone Falls, which is just a few miles away. The park’s boardwalk made the trek easy to navigate, and we ended up roaming off trail to explore the water’s edge and scrambling over rocks to get closer to those wide and beautiful falls.
We were on our way to having the perfect day, until one guest pulled out his camera to take pictures — and I suddenly saw the surroundings as if through what their lens would capture.
It was like I was experiencing that whole “Oh no! There’s a bra on the doorknob!†thing all over again, except with a beautiful landscape marred by abandoned Styrofoam coolers, empty beer cans and fast-food containers.
I doubted I could convince our visitor that our whole state had been down with the flu, so I shot Don one of those looks couples have after many years together, and he understood. He distracted our guest while I quickly tidied the shore.
It was so frustrating. I kept thinking how nothing screams “we aren’t ready for tourism†quite like the many plastic bottles, empty bait cups and cigarette butts that spoiled the scene.
The waters hadn’t been high from recent rains or flooding, so the mess wasn’t washed up from a storm, but deliberately left.
There are easier places the litterers could have accessed if they merely wanted to fish, yet they passed those easy spots in favor of the harder-to-reach-but-prettier ones. Once there, they consumed their food and drinks, smashed up their cheap coolers, and walked away, leaving their garbage behind.
It wasn’t just a single location. The more we explored, the more trash we encountered. At nearly every naturally ideal place to sit, there was yet another batch of trash. It was as if people went there, enjoyed the spot for a while, and then flipped the middle finger at everyone who would come along later.
That mindset is baffling. They seem to believe it’s someone’s job to clean up after them, wherever they go. That the world is their trash can, and some big truck is going to rumble by and clean it all up.
Seeing this state so disrespected can trigger a Momma Bear kind of fury in me. And an equally fierce level of shame.
We need another state politician to pick up the mantle A. James Manchin began back in the 1970s, with his war against litter and the “Jumbled Jungles of Junkery†in West Virginia. For now, I’m grateful for all the quiet volunteers who are out in full force this time of year, cleaning up along roads and rivers and lakes. Adopting highways. Tidying shores.
Making up for those who don’t deserve to live in a place as pretty as this.
