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As I prepare to celebrate ten years as a property owner, I took the opportunity to revel in all the joy that can be (and is) found on Earth Day. A decade ago, my wife and I closed the deal on our little plot of earth, and suddenly we became solidly invested in all the land around us. The litter I see on the street reflects on the neighborhood I live in. I have no real obsession with property values, at least on a large scale. The value I am most concerned with is the palatial estate that surrounds me: Rancho Deluxe.
Having grown up in the very eco-friendly seventies, I have never been a litterbug. I teared up sympathetically with Iron Eyes Cody whenever I saw garbage floating near the shore. Or in the gutter. Or by the highway. It was never in my programming to toss a gum wrapper on the ground. Even now the idea seems completely abhorrent to me. One of my favorite books as a child was Bill Peet's "The Wump World", about the peaceful creatures who were displaced by the smelly old Pollutians. I still enjoy reading Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax" to my son.
This morning I got up and went to my son's school where I spent three hours picking up other people's trash. I tried to imagine the thought process of the people who dropped, chucked, placed or lobbed bottles, cans, wrappers, and sundry debris as I pulled these items from underneath juniper bushes, behind trees and lying in plain sight. My mind drifted to the kids in my fourth grade class. Maybe what makes it so easy for them to sit in a room that becomes increasingly filthy as the day progresses is the level of junk that surrounds them each and every day. The stark contrast for me were the suburban avenues I visited over spring break. I remember my friend's embarrassment over the vandalism in her neighborhood. I looked for the broken glass or spray paint, and then she pointed out the broken egg shells on the sidewalk. How nice to have compostible acts of delinquency.
Ten years later, I have planted some Truffula trees on our little acreage. I take some pride in the the way our Grickle-grass grows. Our little piece of Earth.