PERFECT MORNING TO PICK UP TRASH!

 

I took a few days off to rest my hand.  So my hand didn't hurt, but my knee hurt the entire three hours I was picking up trash this morning.  It usually stops hurting after a while.  That makes a very long day, especially when I walk in grass.

As I drive by the exit ramp from Rt. 8 to Wilbeth Road, I always peek around the corner to see how much trash is surrounding the panhandler.  As usual, he was surrounded with enough trash to fill up my 45 gallon bag!  So that was my first stop.

Poor guy.  He sits there 12 hours a day in the sun and rain, and lately, he has been asleep when I walk up. I call his name, and he looks around and then smiles real big when he sees me.  A car stopped at the light wanted to give him a dollar.  I took it and thanked them and handed it to Roger.  People can't give him any money if he's asleep like that

One day, I'm afraid he won't be sleeping.  That will be horrible.

After I cleaned that, I went to the football field on Wilbeth.  Must have been a pretty fun party.  It was covered with beer bottles.  

I cleaned all that up, and as I was finishing up the area between this little shopping center and the football field, a truck and a van pulled in.  The parking lot was recently blacktopped and looks great. They saw me picking up trash, and immediately started picking up trash with me!  Never had that happen before.

At Wilbeth & Virginia, I cleaned all four corners and then headed south on Virginia.  At Palmetto and Virginia, I saw SO MUCH TRASH!  But I resisted the urge to clean Palmetto.  I did enough for one day.  I'll continue here tomorrow.

On my way back to my trash cart, I saw this liquor bottle.  How did I walk right by that?  I guess it blended in with the dead grass pretty well.  

I love finding glass bottles before they are crushed into a hundred pieces!

So I headed back to my car from Wilbeth & Virginia, and I picked up this water bottle on the road.  It was stuffed with cigarette butts!  

Geez!  Do you think the person who threw that out was thinking it would be easier for me to pick up one piece rather than the water bottle and 20 cigarette butts?  

That's crazy!

And then a really nice woman stopped her car on Wilbeth Road.  I thought she was having car problems.  She got out and said "It's easier for me to pick up my daughter's laundry here than walking from the parking lot."

Seriously?  It's easier to park on one of the busiest roads in Akron where you're definitely not allowed to park?

I was just about to tell her that seemed too dangerous to me, but then she said, "What a great job you're doing!"  So I didn't say anything.

I glanced back at this whole area and smiled.  There are so many other areas I'd like to clean, but Wilbeth Road is a mess every week.  It takes me six days to clean all of it, and then it needs cleaned again.

I remember what it looked like before I started keeping it clean.  It was like driving through a dumpsite.

I picked up 2,264 pieces today.  It was  a wonderful day!  Can't wait to go back out again tomorrow.