I remember when I walked on the beach, wearing an old painter’s apron. One pocket would be for treasures; sand dollars, lightning whelks and angel wings. And one little pocket would be for trash; the occasional piece of plastic, the jettisoned fish line.

This week we went to a little park on the beach near home. It was a state park, and had a restricted area where no vehicles could drive, pets had to be leashed, and campers could rent chairs and umbrellas. When we got there in late afternoon, there were no other visitors. None. We soon found out why.

As the sun began to sink into the dunes, and the heat became less fierce, I took some yard-size garbage bags and took a walk. From the center of the main area I walked about 200 yards east along the water’s edge. In that space, and in about 30 minutes, I filled six large bags with trash. Six! Aluminum cans, mostly, with a few fluorescent light bulbs, several industrial rubber gloves, a black radiator hose, several large pieces of netting and yellow nylon line, a blue hard hat and lots of plastic drink bottles.

The offshore oil platforms squatted on the horizon, and the shrimpers patrolled west-to-east just beyond the outer surf. I found a half-full pesticide can labeled in Chinese and an almost empty 5-gallon pail for 40 weight motor oil. I did not find any sand dollars, lightning whelks or angel wings. Looking down the endless stretch of sand, there were only more bottles and cans and trash as far as I could see. But then I could not see very well. There must have been salt spray in my eyes.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), July 22, 2001

Answers

D**m shame there are people who don't take the Lord's rule seriously to maintain the earth for the benefit of all people, animals, and plants....

Will be in Charlotte NC for a couple of days on business....can't see the beach from there, but the mountains are pretty from a distance.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 22, 2001.

I'm sorry to hear that, Lon. Could you get a local news station to do a report on it? Maybe generate a clean up drive? It won't bring back the wildlife, but maybe it'll help a little.

-- helen (never@seen.a.beach), July 22, 2001.

How sad Lon, that a beautiful beach has turned into a trash dump. Thank you for making an effort to clean the beach. It warmed my heart to see that you did that. If only others were so responsible, it could be a beauty again! Helen has a good idea, about motivating others!~ Whaddya think?

-- Aunt Bee (aunt__bee@dellmail.com), July 22, 2001.

Actually, there are several organized beach clean-ups each year on Texas beaches, but the brutal truth is simply that cleaning is a loosing battle. I covered the same area early the next morning, and got two more bags of trash which had come ashore overnight. As long as we are a disposable society, spoiled to the rampant waste of dedicated consumerism, we will continue to slowly loose the battle of our environmentally sensitive areas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not preaching, just lamenting. I'm as bad as anyone; we have more vehicles than family members, we eat out often, buy water in plastic bottles, and have more garbage bags out front on Saturday momrning than anyone in the neighborhood. We don't have a recycling program out here, so I've let that go, and this year, I even stopped composting. I tell myself I don't have time, I won't make a difference, I am only a little fish in a big ocean. I sit on my dock and watch the styrofoam drink cups float by, and bemoan the pristine areas of other days.

I dream of the northern rain forest of Costa Rica, where I stayed in a house with no electricity, and woke to the noise of a tucan on the tin roof. We cleared the forest to the complaints of howler monkeys and planted orange trees so office workers in Chicago could have OJ with their egg Mcmuffins. My mind wanders to the clear limestone streams and wild persimmons of my teenage years in central Texas. We cleared the old oaks and built pens for cattle unsuited to a terrain we forced them on, in order to make money that we spent on more pens and more cattle. And I often today think of my year on a towboat in the intracoastal waterways of the Gulf coast, when the railing was the garbage can, and we drained excess fuel through a two-inch hose at night into eternal cypress swamps alive with the noise of night birds.

Baa baa, black sheep, have you any sins? Yes sir, yes sir, six bags full.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), July 22, 2001.

(((((Lon))))) One person CAN make a difference. Don't ever stop caring.

We live in a society where there is little respect for even a LIFE anymore. People are killed for their money, cars, shoes, etc. We see it on the news every day and are no longer touched by the reports. If the death of a fellow human being doesn't move us, why would we care about litter or the environment? It's all about instant gratification. Live for today... live for yourself. That seems to be the prevailing theme. How did we as a society become so selfish?

I believe a child learns by what they see the parent do, also. My kids never litter. (The trash in their cars is proof of that! LOL! I have to get after them to get a trash bag and clean it out, but at least it's not beside the highway somewhere.) They clean up after themselves at fast food restaurants, and even when leaving a hotel room. You can't always control their behavior, but you certainly can influence it by the example you set. (But how do you get the parents to care?)

Sometimes I wonder where our country will be in 20 years... what will it be like? It's a scary thought!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), July 23, 2001.