Photo by John Hoff
So a couple weeks ago I was house-sitting for Patty Cake and, while doing that, I saw a large group of youth in yellow shirts come by, picking up litter.
Silly me, I thought they were a church group. A number of them seemed pretty surly, but I figured it was just because their mothers had made them go to church and learn Bible stories instead of hanging out on the corner, getting into trouble.
So when I saw one of the young men with the group try the door on 400 31st Ave. N., a vacant house owned by Phil Kleindl's people, I didn't think much of it. Sure, the young man in question had no good reason to try the door, but his mama was making him do right, making him go to church and pick up litter with the youth group, so I figured he'd stay on the straight and narrow. Why make a big deal out of him merely trying the door on a vacant building?
When Patty Cake got home, I found out the group wasn't a church group at all, but juvenile offenders working off their sentences. I kicked myself and wished I'd been videotaping, so I could get that particular juvenile delinquent in some hot water, like he deserved.
A week or two later, I saw one of the yellow-shirted work crews picking up litter, and after snapping this picture out of my van window, I spoke to their supervisor and said what I'd seen at 400 30th Ave. N. I informed him we watch our block all the time and if I so much as saw one of his minors taking a forbidden smoke break, I'd be taking pictures and making calls.
He didn't say a lot. He got the message.
Oh, another thing: mystery solved in regard to why there is so much litter on the North Side and why the young people can be seen--almost always--tossing their food and beverage packaging on the ground.
Think about it. Submit something in the comments section if you don't understand what I'm saying without saying it.
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5 comments:
I absolutely love these crews! I know some of the individual participants are our future criminals in the makin', but I still love watching them pick up the crap. I kind of wonder why we don't see more of them? I'm sure there is no shortage of bodies.
So why do we see so much garbage on the ground? It can't be lack of trash cans even though we don't have them. One of my neighbors put some out on the Blvd and they still aren't used. Please, please solve this mystery for me.
My theory is the juvies resent picking up litter, and it transforms them into LITTERBUGS FOR LIFE.
Since the juivies only pick up two or three bags of garbage a day but a LITTERBUG FOR LIFE can easily put out a bag of garbage a week--easily!-- what this means is THE MORE WE MAKE THEM PICK IT UP, THE MORE THEY TOSS IT DOWN. And they can toss down more than we can make them pick up.
That's why there is no shortage of garbage blowing around on the streets and sidewalks of the North Side.
The answer: double, triple and quadruple their community service hours. There has to be a perfect mathematical point where they pick up more litter than they are capable of throwing down in the course of ordinary snack consumption.
Of course, maybe what we need are biodegradable snack wrappers made of stuff like corn polymers so litter just breaks down in sunlight and rain water.
It's easy to blame juvies for being litterbugs. But who manufactures all that litter at a profit in the first place?
When I buy some sweet, sticky rice at Bangkok Market, it comes wrapped in a banana leaf. (Which imparts subtle flavor) It's always a pleasure to "guerrilla compost" the banana leaf wrapping. We need more green products like that.
And, um, yeah...increase the community service hours for the litter crews until we actually see a difference in the litter. If the theory doesn't hold water (or Pepsi, or juice) so what? We still have a huge litter problem. So give the juvies more hours picking up litter until we see a noticeable improvement.
Maybe they'll talk to their litterbug friends (or to themselves in a mirror) and we'll see a difference.
I think kids who litter copiously and chronically fall into one of two categories:
A) They perceive their entire world to be an enormous stinking cesspool of trash and have zero respect for anyone/anything. A squirt of Windex on the old perception lens would do a world of good. In this category, Grandma is just as adept at trashing it up as the grandkids. Yet, this group is surprisingly efficient: One fluid movement is all it takes to open a trash-wrapped treat and release the wrapping to the wilds. If only this efficiency could be channeled toward something more, I don't know, productive, like picking up trash, pulling weeds or quietly turning the pages of a good novel.
B) They don't have enough "holistic view" chores. They mean well, but their experience is limited and only touches on the eating portion of the lifecycle. Here's a little conversation starter for this category: "Kids, when you polish off your Flaming Hot Cheetos and release the bag from your gritty, red-fingered grip, you might see it catch in the lovely rugosa rose bushes of yonder neighbor. What you don't see is yonder neighbor bending over to pick up your empty bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos, along with the Dairy Queen napkins, the Coke cans and the Honeybun Stickybun plastic wrappers, and carry them off to a proper trash receptacle. Then, kids, come Monday, the trash collector comes by to empty out the week's collection from said receptacle. Pop quiz: Kids, who pays for Saint Paul's trash service? Saint Paul citizens! OK, next lesson: How Saint Paul citizens create the cash to pay for services such as trash collection. Hey, you there! Get out of the roses!"
It's the dirty diapers I always find in the street that simply amaze (and really disgust) me. Who changes their kid while driving down the street, but they must come from passing cars.
In case you haven't noticed, dealers also love garbage. We watch ours very carefully and have learned all the places they like to hide their stash: bushes, the growth around Blvd. trees, mail boxes, but also under specific pieces of trash - usually soda cans. One day we even saw this dude come out of one of our "houses", set a Burger King bag on the Blvd. and go back inside. A short time later a car drives by, someone gets out and picks up the bag. When there's tons of trash all over the place, that little bag doesn't attract any attention at all. One must observe carefully to learn all the tricks.
Hmm... an interesting theory indeed.
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