It's almost Memorial Day, and I did not want this month to slip by without giving a report on the big Design Committee to-do this past May 6. The first annual Main Street Takoma Clean Up Day should be rated a success, as well as (I believe) a good first try. About thirty volunteers came out, it was a beautiful day, a lot of trash got picked up, and a lot of flowers got planted. We concentrated on Triangle Park, at 4th Street, NW, along Laurel Avenue, and on Morrison Park at Takoma Junction. Things look good. Huge thanks and much respect go to the planners, the generous sponsors, and to the intrepid volunteers. You know who you are. Now, we keep at it.

There. That's nice. I don't want to write an angry weblog. Angry weblogs (though undoubtedly the most amusing to read) are usually written by angry, ugly little people with bad hair. Not quite my look. Except for the hair. But The Clash had it right: Anger can be Power. I've talked to a lot of the Clean Up volunteers, and they're angry. Me, too. Angry about trash. And trashy behavior.

Walk down your street, gaze at your feet. What do you see? Probably, someone's stinky cigarette butt. It's like spit, but lasts a lot longer. Now, I'm all for smokers' rights. Used to smoke, in fact. Good ol' Class AA cigs are one of the last net exports this contry has. Now that our blue jeans come from China, smokes are our last shot at world cultural domination. And, let's face it: if folks lived forever, the world would get...well...messy. Crowded. Cigarettes help prevent that. Plus, cigarette taxes are nifty. The State makes beaucoup bucks on smoking, and don't believe them if they say differently. But, come on, folks! Your right to kill yourselves doesn't include a right to drop your garbage on the sidewalk. Your butt doesn't just evaporate when you're done with it! Back when coffin nails were made of rice paper and good Carolina baccy, maybe they'd just decay, but now they make the filters out of cellulose and treat the tobacco with formaldehyde. That's the stuff they put in stiffs to keep 'em around a good long time. Your butt becomes an artifact. Show some respect, people. Put your butt where it belongs. And all the rest of your garbage.

At the Junction, we had this one highly motivated volunteer. As an experiment, along with pulling weeds and picking up the other garbage, she counted (and picked up) the cigarette butts for one block, one side of the street. Total: 452. That's FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO. Spread evenly on a short block with mixed retail, office, walk-in and vacant storefronts. There were 228 on the north half and 224 on the south half. Good statistics. Rotten job. Yeah, we all wore gloves.

As it was with cigarette butts, so it was with the papers, bottles, cans, cups, food wrappers and the venetian blind(?!?) that got collected. They were all things that are easy to ignore if you breeze through life AND CHOOSE TO LIVE A WRETCHED EXISTENCE. Don't do that. Live life like it matters. It does. We can work on saving the world later. Right now, how about putting the trash where it belongs? Main Street Takoma is our living room. Show some self respect. Don't litter. We all live here. Thanks.
John Hume
Design Chair