The title of this moodling goes back a long way, to when I was a child and there was an anti-litter campaign. I can still see the little, hang-over-the-car-radio-knob litter bag given out in our classroom. It was decorated with a little character that looked like the one at the left, sitting in a pile of garbage. "Don't be a mess-it. Bag it!" it proclaimed.
It might have been my first lesson in ecology, one that every kid learns, but somehow not every adult obeys. It's so basic, and so ignored.
I find this time of year to be rather discouraging because the snow disappears and litter becomes evident everywhere, and it seems that most of the human race could care less about our environment. But rather than rant about people who litter, I'm more inclined to bag it myself. I think of Alberta's past Lieutenant Governor, Grant MacEwan, and his insistence on leaving the planet a better place than he found it, every single day. The great man couldn't go on a walk without picking up other peoples' garbage and putting in where it belonged.
And it's such an easy thing to do, especially this time of year. Yesterday, during my walk with Shadow pup, no less than two plastic bags made themselves available to me. One was stuck under a bush; the other laying listlessly on a sidewalk. I picked those poor orphans up and used them to gather other waste along the way -- a lost running shoe, sheets of newspaper, empty disposable coffee cups. And I wondered at the people who misplaced these things. How could they be so careless? Or did they just forget to secure their garbage cans and the wind blew? Did they skip their childhood ecology lessons? I'd better watch out, or I'll start to rant...
At any rate, it doesn't take much to make the world a better place, like Grant MacEwan did. And that slogan from my first ecology lesson still holds.
Don't be a mess it -- Bag it!
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