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ties actually appeared to be the product of one or two persons’ ignorance of the true beauty and peace our litter-free byways offer. Because of the I-don’t-care attitude of the few, we all have litter on the sides of our roads.
One offender who travels our hollow smokes a menthol cigarette, and drinks a beer named after an Old Brewing City. Another trash thrower obviously likes to eat ice cream on the way home from the grocery store, but doesn’t want the trash at home. Several potato chip and tostado bags confirmed this as well. We “discovered” beer cans that dated to before the pop-top, strange looking antique liquor bottles and our neighbor even had to contend with a couple of dirty diapers.
When we finished our assigned areas, we traversed the road with pride, enjoying the new-found harmony that such pristeen order brings. But our reverie was broken when we saw that, in the short time since we had collected the litter, someone had already come along and littered again. Another beer can and cigarette pack had been carelessly tossed out of a car.
It is up to us, each one of us, to become aware of the great gifts our clean and healthy planet can afford us. It is up to us to be the caretaker for Earth.
The condition of our roadways reflects, in a minute manner, the sad environmental conditions that exist on our globe today. The destruction of our rainforests (bountiful medicine chests and gold mines of information); the toxic dumping into our oceans; the atmospheric poisoning and creation of “dead zones” (places that are not longer habitable) are annihilating our home, the planet upon which we live.
This summer in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, there will be an international environmental conference called the Earth Summit. Every major (and minor) country on the face of this planet will be represented at this concerned gathering of nation-states as they discuss the present condition and ftiture of our globe, Mother Earth.
One nation, however, has yet to confirm that it will be represented at this conference. The United States. President Bush has not yet announced that the United States of America will be at Earth Summit. How can there be such a setting aside of different ideologies, policies, governments, religions and philosophies, all for the purpose of the health of our planet, without the U.S.A.? The time has come when we must make our awareness known, and put it to work for the good of all.
K.L. HENDERSON
Washington, Va.
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