Home Opinion Mine Creek Revelations: Rant on Littering

Mine Creek Revelations: Rant on Littering

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YES, I AM STILL HERE looking out my window on Main Street, and today I am still hot over watching someone toss trash out of their car.

I had been behind a little red car in the McD’s drive-thru. Before they even turned out onto Fourth Street trash was coming out of windows on both sides of the car. Let me thank Starz and McD’s for putting large trashcans beside their exits onto Main and Fourth Streets, respectively. The cans are often pretty full and that means that some of their customers are using them.

The people in the red car are not alone. Never have I seen so much litter along our roadsides — and I frequently drive down rural roads in Howard, Pike and Hempstead counties.

The topic of litter came up briefly at a recent public meeting. “Why can’t jail inmates pick up roadsides?” one person asked. The answer was Covid restrictions, but jail inmates and community service individuals haven’t been out to our roadsides in a long time, even before Covid.

It just makes too much sense for our judicial system to let persons ‘work off’ fines by doing community service.

The BEST idea, of course, is for momma and daddy to teach their children to put trash in designated trashcans. Teach them that littering is a bad thing.

The SECOND BEST idea is for cities or counties or states to come up with a way to stop litter.

My late father was a pretty bright fellow, and he used to say that “Crime follows blight.” In other words, something undesirable swoops in when we let our roadsides and neighborhoods become unsightly because of something we otherwise could have prevented.

The roadside trash is not all old soft drink cups or burger wrappers, either. My own personal peeve is the cattle feed bags that have blown out of the back of someone’s pickup truck. I do love beef and I appreciate the men and women who work so hard to raise and market cattle.

But, please, secure your empty feed bags before you get out on the road.

The state of Arkansas should stop wasting money on the highway signs urging persons to report litter. You know what happens? Nothing, nada, zilch, zero. End of rant.

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READING ABOUT the Grammys because I never watch pat-myself-on-the-back shows. Someone had to explain to me the meaning of WAP.

I despair at how far our culture has fallen.

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IT WAS A SURE THING. Recently I attempted to write about moving back into the ‘Nashville News’ building, and at the end of the article I tried to list the people I have worked with producing newspapers in this building and in the ‘Leader’ building.

Of course I left out some of my favorites. Brother Mike reminded me in a letter-to-the-editor last week that I had left out the late Norman Adamson and David Pile. Two fine gents who were friends of mine. Let me remind you that cartoonist Pile was a Marine in WWII. During the day he was a pharmacist on South Main St.

Norman retired here after a career in the postal service. He didn’t rest on his laurels, He pastored a church and started an after school tutoring program for at-risk kids.

But I also left out Eddie Cobb, who wrote football columns and participated in weekly football prediction pieces for both the ‘News’ and the ‘Leader.’ Eddie would prefer that I NOT remind you that he holds the record for shortest Scrapper punt — one that went for negative yards in a howling Friday night windstorm.

And Brent Flaherty has whistled to get my attention.

I am fearful to have left out other men and women with whom I worked in my career at both newspapers. I’d love to hear from you if you know of someone.

You can stop whistling now, Brent.

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THE GOOD EARTH. In my front yard, the Japanese Cherry Blossom tree is sprouting pink and green. It was a birthday gift from daughter Julie and it will do well in colder climes because it is cutting from one of the Washington, DC, trees given to the people of the United States by the emperor of Japan.

But I believe both of my loquat trees may be deceased. Both of them are brown and black and the leaves look like they may fall off any day.

Sad news about ‘our’ peaches.

It seems like every year at this time I’m on pins and needles about late freezes and the peaches.

I can only imagine how bad the pins and needles must be for orchardists.

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THINGS I LEARNED from opening an email: How can a SLIM CHANCE and a FAT CHANCE be the same, while a WISE MAN and a WISE GUY are opposites?

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WORD GAMES. The twins: Rod and Reel. In the spring they’re really interested in crappie and white bass.

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HE SAID: “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov

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SHE SAID: “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” Mary Tyler Moore, tv actress and social advocate

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SWEET DREAMS, Baby

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