Garbage In, Garbage Out

So where do people get off just ditchin their trash just about everywhere BUT in the trash can? Is it really that hard to walk a few feet to the nearest trash can and take care of it there? Have we gotten THAT lazy? Have we lost all regard as to how our communities look and the image portrayed by them? Sure seems like a lot of us have become that way.

This is an issue that has really gotten on my nerves over the past few years so I'm just going to dive right in. When I see someone toss their crap on the ground and walk away without the slightest thought given to what they just did, there are a few things that come to mind. Call me judgmental, presumptuous... what ever, but they must not care about anything or anyone but themselves. They must expect the school slave...or I mean janitor... to come around and pick it up for them. They must think themselves above those few foot steps to the trash can. They must disregard the fact that others that share the community might care about how things look and that they might be interested in preserving or improving the wellness of the community. They must ignore, reject, and flip-the-bird to a lot of things with one small gesture such as this. 

Look, I know I don't live in Beverly Hills or Flintridge or South Pas or the upper portion of Altadena, but I don't live in the ghetto by any means, and I'd like to keep it that way for as long as I'm around and for as long as my family and friends are in this nice little (and booming) town of La Crescenta. I feel very blessed to live where I do with a good sized home, three pets, generally friendly neighbors, safe streets, cops that rest more than arrest for lack of anything better to do, and two of some of the most elite public schools in the nation... so blessed that I would do what I can to appreciate all of it and keep things the way they are. And I would REALLY appreciate it if others might give a rats patootie ( yea so that was corny... just go with it.) and take care of the community too. 

I've heard of studies that inquired what it is that turns nice comfortable neighborhoods into sketchy ghettos. One of the biggest contributing factors, as they found, was when a building (house, office, shop, etc.) is left vacant and run down for a prolonged period of time. If the property is unkept, trashed up, tagged on, littered on and left to rot... chances are thats a good glimpse of where the community is headed in the not so distant future. Some of you may know this as The Broken Window Theory. 

Now you may say "oh well c'mon... thats a little extreme. No ones going to let their quaint town turn into a trash dump that easily." Well I would hope not! But there's evidence every day that proves the theory to be true. Just within the last few years that I've been in high school I've seen waaay more people throwing trash all over the place. And just a few weeks ago I learned the story of the Pico Union District and how it used to be a pretty upscale place, but as families moved out and things weren't taken care of, things dove downhill and now its looked down upon as one of the worst areas of LA. So what do we do about it? Well, I've gotten a good sense of who reads my ranting and I don't think you guys are the ones that would trash up a place, so thanks for that! But next time your out and you see someone else dump something on the ground, try saying something... don't get yourself beat up, but if you don't feel threatened or uneasy about the person, tell them to pick it up. And if that doesn't work, then pick it up yourself and throw it away for them because you don't know who else is watching and that act may trigger a thought in their mind to clean up there act, so to speak. We really shouldn't let these things slip by because the more we do, the more the become a cultural pandemic. And when you think about it on a bigger scale, such carelessness and disregard leads to graffiti, even more foul language (now there's something to write a blog about), and just lower standards all together. Not to be a total pessimist, but I don't have a whole lot of hope for my generation, but maybe we can all work towards making the next generation a lot less selfless and a lot more courteous.