ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604290005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: guest column
SOURCE: ED FALCO
I'm something of a cynic married to a woman who is something of an optimist. Earth Day can be a problem.
This last April 20th, however, optimism prevailed; at 8 on a Saturday morning, my wife and I, her son Will and my daughter Susan were loading our van in the parking lot of the Unitarian Meeting House in Blacksburg, getting ready to go clean up trash with Leslie and Glenn Howard, and Colin Skinner.
By 8:30 we had turned off Glade Road onto Bobcat Road where we found a score of orange-vested volunteers roving the woods, hauling bright orange trash bags. We parked on the side of the road, where a group of Virginia Tech students from Chi Alpha Delta, a service sorority, were already hard at work.
When we made our way into the woods we found a mess. The cynic in me grinned at the shiny white bags of balled-up, rotting diapers, the rusted ancient televisions, the blackened tin cans and moss-filled bottles by the acre. Everywhere there was garbage, and it was obvious that it went down deep. Folks had been dumping here for many years. What were a handful of people going to accomplish in a few hours on one day in April? Nevertheless, with the others, I loaded up bag after bag of garbage and lugged it out to the side of the road. The job was disgusting, but the company was good.
I'd like to report that I was invigorated nonetheless by the effort; that by the time we started home, I felt better about myself and my world. But I wasn't and I didn't. The cynic in me resists that degree of good cheer. In a world so challenged by overpopulation, I don't know what difference Earth Day efforts will make in the long run. Still, I left on the whole feeling good, for myself and my children, and about all the others who were out there cleaning up.
Life in large measure is about attitudes and perspectives as they are embodied in character. Cynicism in proper degree is a virtue - it allows one to see through the slick veneer of cultural propaganda - but the proper degree of cynicism is small. Going out into the woods and cleaning up trash requires an essentially optimistic character. One cleans up trash in the hope of making a healthier world. The perspective of those out there cleaning must be generous and healing, the attitude must be respectful and appreciative.
Trashing the woods requires just about the opposite character - and of the two kinds of people in the world, the ones that trash and the ones that clean up, I'd rather be among those doing the cleaning. I'd rather my children be among those doing the cleaning. The attitude it requires and the perspective it gives make for a better life.
The activities of Earth Day may not be sufficient to leave my children a better world - but they'll help them understand those qualities of character that will make life in the world as it is easier and better.
Ed Falco is a writer and an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech. He and his family live in Blacksburg.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 linesby CNB