Since 2004, I have been part of an Adopt-a-Highway cleanup crew on a section of Highway 61 just west of Hovland. We have learned that it is nice to do the first cleanup as early as possible each spring—after the snow is gone, but before the grass grows up and hides trash. I don’t think we have ever conducted our cleanup before Earth Day (April 22) before this year.
I was amazed as I walked along our section that there was absolutely no snow to be seen. No tiny banks tucked under the pretty pines along the upper side of the road. The ditches were relatively dry as well. There was one lovely little stream running. Someone had built a number of rock cairns around it. I paused and carefully balanced a few more pieces of slate. I wished I had my camera along. It was a harmonious spring picture.
The rest of my road section was dry—bad news for fire conditions, but great news for picking up garbage. We found more trash than we have in the last few years, probably for that reason. There was no snow and no running water to hide pop cans, beer bottles and miscellaneous other stuff that has bounced out of passing vehicles.
Although the amount of trash collected this year was more than last, the pile of trash bags was nowhere near the size of the very first year’s cleanup. The first cleanup saw bags piled nearly shoulder high around our Adopt-AHighway sign. We all filled two or even three bright orange Mn/DOT bags. In more recent years, we’ve all filled just one bag.
It’s nice to know we are making a difference.
And we have fun while we’re doing it, enjoying things like the rock cairns at the streams, friends driving by and waving, semis honking hello, fox sightings and of course, the interesting items discarded in the ditches. Each time our group does its cleanup, we present a prize to the person who finds the strangest piece of trash. In years past the prize has gone to folks who found an entire car bumper, a mutant deer head, a delicate dove knick-knack, and other odd items. This year I won the prize.
I almost missed it. I had to go far down into the dry ditch for a Dr Pepper can. As I bent to pick up the can, I saw something white—no, something red, white, and blue—it looked like the familiar logo of the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign.
Sure enough, when I pushed through the branches, it was a campaign sign. It was wind-battered and faded, but the homemade Obama symbol was still quite readable. I picked it up and hauled it to the roadside, chuckling as I noticed that the sign had been used to the utmost. The hand-lettered 2008 campaign sign was recycled—it was painted on the back of an even more faded Kerry-Edwards 2004 sign!
As we stacked trash bags at our cleanup sign and compared finds, it was agreed I had found the most interesting item. I wondered what the president would think if he found out his campaign sign won a prize in a trash contest.
I don’t think I need to worry about it. I doubt that the president will hear about our highway cleanup in rural Minnesota. But if he did, I don’t think he would mind. Something tells me President Obama would just grin and tell me thanks for doing my part.
Unfortunately, our affluent society has
also been an effluentsociety.
Hubert Humphrey
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