With the last vestiges of snow fading away, we are emerging from our winter cocoons and recommitting to our fitness programs. Here’s an idea: how about a trash pick-up fit-walk? In the immortal words of that famous song, Alice’s Restaurant:
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick ….. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both (strange)…. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people [picking up trash] and singin’ a bar of Alice's Restaurant, …... They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day [picking up trash and] singin’ a bar of Alice's Restaurant? And friends they may think it's a movement.
So why not start a neighborhood clean-up movement? First of all, the people who read this are not the ones depositing the trash. I get that. But if I can get people all over the country to start their own fit-walk pick-ups, we could start a trend. All you need are three things:
• Walking shoes
• A grungy old cloth bag with a shoulder strap (not plastic, puleez!)
• Wet wipes
Once a week, you get some friends together and you go out, armed with the above paraphernalia and start race-walking to the first piece of trash. The goal is how fast you can pick up trash and move on to the next piece. It gets your pulse rate up; you get to bend and stoop; use your arms and shoulders; and move those legs. After an hour, you dump your bags of trash in a bonafide trash receptacle, clean off your hands, and reward yourselves with a cup of joe. Then in between your competitive trash walks, when you go out on your own, just stuff a small cloth bag in your pocket and pick up trash as you go. If you happen to see a plastic trash bag as litter, use that to collect your trash. That, my friends is single-person activism at its best! And the adult equivalent of making exercise a game.
