Last year, our family went hiking in the hills along the Selkirk Valley. This is a beautiful, unspoilt area full of tumbling waterfalls and heather where sheep and wild goats graze. You can see herons, red squirrels, owls, buzzards and sparrow hawks, among other wild animals, and even when it is cloudy and rainy, the scenery is breathtaking.
We had a friend of our daughter with us who, halfway up the hill we were climbing, suddenly remembered that she was afraid of heights. Personally, I thought it was more a case of her not wanting to huff and puff her way to the top simply for a chance to see a good view, but I played along and accompanied her and my daughter back down. We had to walk back to the car some three kilometers away, so I figured we would do something useful: we would pick up trash along the way.
Bear in mind that although the road we were on is fairly busy, this was in the autumn, and there was little traffic. In five minutes' time, perhaps one or two cars would pass us. I imagined that we might each collect up to one grocery bag full of rubbish along the way. We always take a lot of plastic bags along when we hike (they come in handy going down the really steep slopes if you happen to have weak ankles), and on this occasion we started off with six and found even more bags along the way.
By the time we got to the car, three kilometers away, we had filled every single bag and could not physically carry any more. When we finally reached our destination, we had over fifteen bulging bags of trash. And we weren't just burdened down with trash; we were filled with disgust for all the littering slobs who'd jettisoned it. By the time we relieved ourselves of those bags, we could have happily let the air out of the offenders' tires.
Here is a sampling of what we found tossed out along this beautiful, grassy, heather-studded road: disposable diapers, plastic bottles, newspapers, magazines (plenty of them pornographic), Styrofoam take-away containers, tires, shoes, clothing (you really do wonder), cigarettes butts (we left them), toys, half-eaten sandwiches, CDs and tapes, cigarette lighters, aluminum cans, glass bottles, dogs' collars and leashes, rope, sanitary napkins (used), candy wrappers, pantyhose, condoms, sunglasses and empty sunscreen bottles, empty pharmaceutical bottles, beer bottles, lightbulbs, empty lighter fluid cans, and umbrellas. Clearly, people were lightening their loads as they travelled.
Along the way, we amused ourselves by imagining what the oafish litterbugs we were picking up after looked like and what kind of cars they drove.
"They're lorry drivers," my daughter's friend said. "They throw their rubbish anywhere."
"They're probably other kids," my daughter sighed. "They can't be bothered to carry any of it home."
"They're everybody," I claimed. "Look at the stuff we've found! Diapers? That's families. Dog collars and dogfood cans? Dog owners, obviously. Cigarette lighters and cigarette butts? Smokers. Pantyhose? Someone on a hot date."
At precisely that moment -- this is the God's truth! -- a well-dressed man in a shiny-clean, brand-new Mercedes drove past us. Slowing down, he opened his window and leered out at us as he tossed out an empty can -- just like that. We all stopped in our tracks and stared after him, openmouthed. To this day I curse myself for not having had the presence of mind to get his license plate number.
"They're posh bastards!" exclaimed my daughter's friend, without missing a beat.
