Getting back to Scotland, who’ll take the high road while we trash the low road? Schweppes?
Few readers have much faith that the littering of Los Angeles streets can be abated by the posting of signs like those found in Edinburgh, Scotland:
“The amenity of our streets is recommended to your care.”
Expressing the general reaction, Otis H. Wade said in a letter to the editor: “Most laudable, but the trash-ejecting slobs on Broadway and other streets wouldn’t have the foggiest notion of what amenity means.”
However, James Stokley of La Jolla recalls a similarly literary sign that he saw posted in Atlantic City about 1919:
“All persons will please take notice that it is prejudicial to the general health of the community to expectorate on the Boardwalk, and are earnestly requested to refrain from all such practices.”
Stokley doesn’t say whether that sign produced the desired result; but it does suggest that the language of public signs was rather more elegant in those days than it is today.
I have a hunch, though, that men continued to spit on the Boardwalk. Ladies, of course, did not.
I doubt that today’s littering of the streets and sidewalks can be blamed mainly on either sex. From my observations, both are guilty.
Claire Betar, a teacher of English composition at Cal State Long Beach, doubts that most Americans would understand the language of the Edinburgh sign.
“I offer as proof,” she says, “some lines taken from student papers.” For example, “we have in this country an intensely strong nationalistic sediment,” and “for all intensive purposes.” History as well as syntax is mangled: “ ‘The moment Lincoln was elected President in 1860, six states succeeded from the Union;’ and, as a result, ‘Clark Gable rushed to Vivian Leigh’s side . . . when Atlantic City was burning down.’ ”
Readers tend to agree with me that Los Angeles, once the cleanest, is becoming one of our trashiest cities.
“I travel on business around to many major cities in America,” writes Gary Augeri of West Hollywood, “and you are correct. L.A. is fast becoming the most graffiti-ridden and littered city.
“As a transplant from the East Coast (Boston/New York) around 14 years ago, I marveled at how clean all of L.A. was compared to the cities I lived in. Now this is no longer true, and it saddens me. . . . “
David R. Moss recalls that in Israel he found Tel Aviv and Jerusalem filthy, while Haifa was clean. He said a guide told him that in Haifa the city elders concentrated on the young, who were not set in their ways.
“Children were instructed that whenever they saw an adult tossing litter on the sidewalk or street, they were to go pick it up, then take it to the offender and very respectfully announce, ‘You dropped this, sir, but I’ll be happy to throw it in the refuse barrel for you.’ ”
In Los Angeles, I’m afraid, children are a part of the problem.
“I am a skeptic,” writes Glen Ingles of Woodland Hills. “A decade ago I rode a bus from The Hook in the Netherlands to The Hague. En route I noticed only one piece of litter. Upon my return I wrote to our Auto Club to comment on this and express the wish Americans can be induced to be that neat. The answer voiced hopelessness.”
Alice C. Ream of Ridgecrest points out that our desert is worse than our city. “Cities can hire crews to pick up and clean up their messes. The deserts have no advocates. . . . What makes Californians into pigs? Are they so dull-witted they cannot grasp the simple truth that the deserts cannot (for lack of rainfall) cleanse themselves? Do these dolts who throw beer bottles realize the bottles will lie there, marring the landscape, for scores of years?”
Mark Nichols of Beverly Hills applauds the Edinburgh sign, but suggests that an older one is just as good: “Let it not be said to your shame that all was beauty here ere you came.”
Nichols thinks street sweeping should be taken away from big machines and put back in the hands of people. “One of those computer freaks did a study of high-tech street cleaners--their initial cost, high maintenance cost, operator salary and perks--and came to the conclusion that men with brooms and dust pans would be cheaper and cleaner.”
Harry Pace suggests a punishment of flogging for graffiti artists. I’m afraid that would not only be unconstitutional, as cruel and unusual punishment, but if it could be imposed for graffiti might it not soon be imposed for lesser offenses? We might start flogging jaywalkers, and I might be next.
Meanwhile, I have received an object from Dale Herklotz of Pacific Palisades which raises my hopes that the container industry itself is taking a sincere lead in the anti-litter crusade.
It is a green glass one-liter Schweppes bitter lemon bottle, empty, and wrapped in a letter from Mrs. Herklotz:
Across the top of the label is the admonishment: NO REFILL--PLEASE DISPOSE OF THOUGHTFULLY
Mrs. Herklotz’s note reads:
“I have been quite concerned and in a quandary as to what I should do with the attached container. I thought at first that I would bury it in the garden amongst the camellias with a candlelight procession, but then I thought it best to consult with you as to how I might best comply with Schweppes’ request to ‘dispose of thoughtfully.’ ”
I think Mrs. Herklotz’s idea of a candlelight burial among the camellias is inspired.
If we can just get people to be thoughtful about this problem, we’ll soon have it licked.
