Opinion Articles

Not too long ago we, my wife and I, had the most spectacular opportunity to travel by ourselves. I say by ourselves because despite the numerous “vacations” we have taken, every trip before this one had to do with visiting family, coaching, working or something else that didn’t have to do with just us. The first thing that I noticed was how peaceful the entire trip was. Despite having considerable worries before we left, none of them seemed to matter while we were away.

Follow up:

Our first stop was Roaton. I had never been out of the country but my wife had many, many times so I trusted her lead. We decided to walk off the ship at first and not take a taxi right away. It was a good choice. We started toward the “city” and within a few minutes arrived to a scene I had only seen on TV. There were wooden, decrepit buildings with people sweeping the dirt off of dirt floors. It looked awesome to me, simple living and proof that I really shouldn’t have to move all the furniture and clean the carpets every 3 months.

OK so none of this is what I was writing about anyway. Hopefully you are still listening. While we were walking through the city, my wife led the way talking with a local boy that was determined to be our guide. A boy, by the way, who spoke 3 languages at the age of 11 and his English was fluent with few mistakes, even in grammar. My wife said his Spanish and French were just as refined. I know I understood him without problems. While walking along the sidewalk I started noticing things…everywhere. The beautiful lagoons were full of them, the buildings had them hanging off of them a dump truck was driving through the city trying to load up as much of them as possible. The “things” are collectively referred to as garbage and it stunk. One the sidewalks, my wife was dodging a few dead birds without incident. Since I figured she knew what she was doing I just tagged along trying to follow her and the little boy’s conversation as they changed languages quickly enough for me to not to be able to keep up. Later, I found out that she hadn’t even noticed the birds. Trust is an amazing thing.

To give the great people of Roaton credit, we were just behind the effects of hurricane Ivan. Garbage was everywhere. I hear, a lot, that Americans are arrogant. I pride myself in not being one of them…but that in itself is arrogance. So, I remember thinking, at least our country is clean. What an idiot I turned out to be. Upon returning to Alaska I happily made my way down the main artery to my house and saw, yes, garbage. Garbage was everywhere. I mean everywhere. It was hanging in the trees, coating the sides of the road…lining the edges of the water. What the heck was wrong with us?

On the flip side, do you know where I didn’t see garbage? Cozumel, Belize and all of the areas I visited within those to places. No garbage. In fact, in Belize, men, women and children were along the road ways with machetes cutting the brush and probably picking up the garbage, how much ever there was or wasn’t.

So every day, now, I see some serious problems. Everywhere I go within the city I see garbage. It disgusts me. It should disgust you. Why people think it is OK to trash our home is beyond me. The sad part is that I too was complacent about it. I noticed the garbage after the snow melted but didn’t realize that it came back…I’m one of the idiots that I always talk about. My saying “stupidity is believing that you are not stupid like the rest of us” is even more relevant now than ever. The sad part is that I remember hearing some ads on the radio reminding us to pick up garbage all summer long.

Anyway, let’s all make a serious effort to pick up the trash, or better yet NOT spread it in the first place. It is unbelievable what people have done to their own environment. Just 100 years ago people had little to no lead within their systems, now they have a lot and before they stopped allowing lead in gasoline they had 80% more than they do today. Everyone is an environmentalist. Let’s get rid of the garbage.