Wondering

 

Sitting beside the stream watching leaves fall from the trees on a comfortable 77 degree day, I stared at the clear sky and wondered. Both windows were open in the car and the slight breeze that came through was refreshing. Leaves skid past leaving the dried sounds of fall behind them. The surrounding trees are a combination of green, yellow and brown. The high grasses alongside the stream are wheat colored, bent over and dying. Scattered between them are the high dark brown remnants of once green and flowering stalks.

    The stream is low and the reflections on it are mirror like. This is where I come to relax and to forget about the turmoil of the world. It is a place that is quiet and soothing. The just barely audible sounds of the steam hide the other noises of society; airplanes, cars and trucks to name just a few. It is a perfect spot to sit, read and contemplate.

    Sitting here I can hear the leaves falling through the trees and occasionally I hear a branch join them on their way to the ground. Insects buzz around but the birds are all silent today. Stalks of Goldenrod bounce back and forth when the breeze increases. It’s a wonderful spot! Occasionally I see others here, fishermen standing in the stream attempting to lure a fish onto their hooks or walkers on the paths beside the stream. Dog and their owners enjoy the area also.

    The reason I am wondering is that when I pulled into the spot this morning I saw that there had been some other visitors since I was there last.  Brown paper bags were scattered around filled with landscaping debris. Some logs had been dropped off also. I counted 23 of these large bags tossed in piles and thrown over the hillside by the stream. Trash, left behind by… I don’t want to print the words that come to my mind.

    I have never understood why people would toss trash along the roads, parks and overlooks. Why would they destroy this beauty?  I’ve seen it so many times and I’m sure you have also. It is nothing new, it is a continuation of destruction, ruining the beauty that most of us have come to love. It is especially bad when it happens to a place you are familiar with, a place you frequent, a place you cherish!

    In the past I have hiked for miles to visit an overlook or a waterfall and found empty cans of beer lying in the woods along with snack wrappers and cigarette butts. They carried them in, why can’t they carry them out? People clean up after their pets and then leave the bags beside the trail, do they think the “rangers” will come along to pick up after them or do they just not care?

    I’ve been to pull offs near streams with nice views of the creek below and found piles of trash dropped off by someone, old TVs, bags of clothes, garbage, and pieces of construction debris. I’ve seen entire trees tossed over the hills on back roads after having been cut down. Didn’t these people’s parents explain to them about littering? How about preserving the wilderness or even more important, respect for others? I can only guess not.

    They needed a cheap place to drop off their trash and here was a deserted spot. No thoughts were given to anyone else, only that they could toss it before someone saw them.

    I find it extremely frustrating. I have seen this before at this very site. Someone always cleans it up, I don’t know who but I’m indebted to them. A large trash can sits close at hand but people still drop their water bottles and candy wrappers on the ground beside it. The carcasses of “out of season” deer slowly dissolve, adding a foul smell to the air until only bones mark their final resting spot, just another of the many things discarded near-by.

    Nothing can be done unless someone sees them doing it. Police can’t prosecute without solid evidence. Is it a sign of the times, “I don’t need to follow the rules”? I just believe it is people with no care for others, people who have never been told about respecting other people’s property. People with no empathy, people that needed to get a stern talking to by their parents!

    We can only hope that eventually they realize what asses they are, and clean up their act, for both us and even more importantly, the wildlife that live here!

Lunch and a Movie

Leaving a little after twelve this past Sunday, Ann Marie and I drove over to the town of Sewickley. A friend had told us about a movie that was playing there, and we had purchased some tickets for it. Our plan was to get some lunch and then stroll around the borough for a bit before the movie started.

    Arriving we saw signs advertising the Library Book Sale. We both had the same thought, another place to visit while we were in town. We found a parking spot close to the theater and started our walk from there. The day was perfect for walking, the sun felt good and lots of others were enjoying the day along with us.

    A few blocks from the car, we stopped at the Mediterra Café. We have been to this establishment before, along with the one located in Lawrenceville and had enjoyed both places. Being a Sunday afternoon, the place was rather crowded but as we ate our lunches the crowd dwindled down, Sunday was the first Steelers game of the season. Once the game started, most of the stores and restaurants in the Pittsburgh area would be empty. The fans will have moved to sports bars and their homes to watch the game. (I find this a great time to do my weekly food shopping; the grocery stores are almost empty! Don’t make the mistake of going before the game, you’ll get stuck in the pregame rush!)

    We sat and talked about books and people watched, both favorite activities of ours. Finishing our coffees and after getting some “to-go” boxes, we returned to the sidewalk. About a block away sits a gazebo where we stopped for a minute or two to look for a geocache hidden near-by. After a short search, it was Ann Marie who found the small container. The library sat about a block away, that would be our next stop.

    We were afraid that it might be closed but luck was with us. This was the third day of their sale, so we were browsing through rather slim pickings. Even so, Ann Marie found a book by an author she liked and I found two for myself.

    The walk continued eventually bringing us back to the car. We put our “to-go” boxes in the car and went across the street to the plaza in front of the Lindsay Theater. There we sat in the sunshine, reading our new books. There were lots of people walking on the sidewalks and biking in the streets.  More than a few dogs were getting their afternoon constitutionals. We shared the patio with another couple. The sunlight felt good on my back.

        The movie we had come to see was called Rebel with a Clause, starring Ellen Jovin who had written a book by the same name. She is a “grammar nerd” and she, along with her husband Brandt Johnson, who filmed the project, visited all fifty states. She sets up a small folding table and then invites people who pass by to ask her grammar questions. The movie is a compilation of the people she met and their questions.

    Now I am far from being an expert on grammar or English. PLEASE, never ask me to diagram a sentence! I tend to speak and write in a way that I feel “sounds” correct. Sadly, my teachers would never accept that reasoning when I explained why I had written something the way I did. Still, the movie sounded like it would be fun to watch and Ann Marie, whose skills at grammar are so much higher than my own, was excited to see it also.

    We watched the movie with 27 other people. (No one came in wearing a Steelers jersey.) I would have to guess that the average age of the audience was probably 60 or 70.

    Wherever Ellen set up her table, she always met a wide variety of people. All ages were represented and along with your "average" people, she was also visited by a few eccentric ones. They added to the humor of the film. All most everyone had a question for her. There were questions about which word is correct, who or whom. Questions included proper use of semicolons, apostrophes and commas. The questions often branched out to other topics such as how words are pronounced in different sections of the country. Ellen is the type of person who is able to turn difficult things into positive experiences, her interactions with the visitors almost always ended with everyone smiling, including the audience. I am pretty sure that everyone enjoyed the movie as much as we did.

    I thought it was interesting that the book I had bought at the library, and that I was reading before the movie was called Lapsing into a Comma. The book was written by Bill Walsh who was the Copy Desk Editor of the Washington Post. It tells about the various mistakes that can occur during writing and printing and how to avoid those, many of which were mentioned in this film!

    Walking out of the movie we were saying how interesting it would be to meet Ellen. Someone mentioned that she had been here at this theater last week. Oh well, you win some and you lose some!

    Returning home, we shared a couple beers and caught up on some late-night TV shows. The day turned into a great afternoon date; lunch and a movie, what a wonderful way to spend a September afternoon.