I couldn’t help but notice that someone neatly deposited a mattress and box springs set at one of the turnouts on Highway 21 just outside the Forest city limits last week. I can never help but notice kind gestures like that.
One word. Why?
Really it should be more than one word, something like why in the Sam Hill, whatever that means, but replace the Sam Hill with a choice place from down below.
Not that it will change a thing, my climbing back up on this soapbox that is, but still, why not give it a try. Right?
Obviously Highway 21 is the road I travel most frequently since I work in Forest and live in Sebastopol. So, obviously, Highway 21 will be the roadway that I most often can’t help but notice things on, like trash, and litter, and mattressess and box springs stacked neatly along the side of the road. At least someone stacked them neatly and did put them on the side of the road rather than in the road.
Still it is wrong.
Same road, one evening last week, a kind gentleman in a pickup truck in front of me finished his large soda pop, or iced tea, or whatever it was he was drinking and flung the paper cup out the driver’s window, across the roadway, and into the grass on the opposite right of way.
It was still full of ice when it hit the pavement and exploded into the grass. The ice in a drink is my favorite part to crunch on a hot day or any day. Why throw it away with the trash?
Opps, there is that word again. Why?
Guilty parties should be aware that it is really not the ice I’m referencing here, but rather the idiotcy of littering! Why do it? Really. Why?
Oh well.
On the subject of mattresses, it seems to me that this area has the most used up, worn out, mattresses in the world. Seems like there is always someone putting a mattress out by the street for the trashman along Hillsboro and they lay there for a few days, kids bounce on them, it rains and they get soaking wet and then it is even harder to pick up than before. Why not put them out on pick- up day rather than just any day?
It begs the question, what are y’all doing to your mattresses? We’ve been sleeping on the same mattresses at my house for so long that I don’t even remember when or where we got them. Perhaps we need to follow suit and toss ours out and upgrade. Heck, we might even sleep all night long if we did.
I assure you, though, that neither my wife, nor myself, would stack our discards on the side of the highway whether neatly or not. We would, dispose of them properly, whatever that may be.
I can tell you what is not the correct procedure for disposal. Roadside disposal having already been eliminated.
There was a time probably 20 years ago, or so, when we first started cleaning out the Sebastopol house after my mother deeded it to us. Apparently, my people had been getting new mattresses on occasion over the years and when they did, they didn’t know what to do with the old ones either, so they got moved around to the beds that had even older mattresses on them.
At that time there were six full size beds in the house, it was a three bedroom house and the master was the home to three of the six. It now has one bed, ours, and the smaller middle bedroom, which was the home to one bed, is now split into a laundry room and dressing room. The back bedroom still sleeps four on two beds.
But, back to the mattresses. It seems that over the years the oldest of the old ones had made their way to that back bedroom and some of them were really old and turned climbing into bed into an amusement park ride.
One day I decided to burn some of the old cotton ones to make room for some less-old spring-filled ones. Contrary to what I thought, cotton does not burn very easily. It smoulders.
Well, cotton may burn fairly easily, but very, very old cotton mattresses don’t burn very well at all. They smoulder. And they smoulder for days. Without prodding and poking and turning, they would probably smoulder for days, and weeks, and perhaps even months.
So to say that I understand one would rather neatly stack their just-kind-of-old — in comparison to the ones I burned — mattresses on the side of the road instead of burning them, well yes I do understand that. But, again, it is wrong! So, keep that in mind the next time your are tempted and ask yourself why.
There is not an acceptable answer!
