View of the Future Is Cluttered by Generation’s Cruelty to Nature : Environment: Leucadia inn owner begins her day picking up trash left by pedestrians, a reflection of the growing disregard she sees in society.

This is not an inner-city story. This is a small town, a bedroom community.

I own and reside in a roadside inn in Leucadia. Each morning, my day begins with the unceremonious task of collecting trash and debris deposited by assorted pedestrians of the night. I then survey the property for damage and delegate the repairs and replacements. I wave gravely to my neighbors who are doing the same. With our ritual completed, we then settle in for the afternoon deluge of assorted food wrappers, cans and bottles that come belching from the windows of passing cars.

I catch myself daydreaming of all the creative, constructive things I could be doing with my time while trapped in this war zone of selfish, mindless destruction. Who are these offenders? What in the world, if anything, is going on in their minds?

At times I think back to my first lesson on litter.

I was about 5, and our family was traveling the old Route 66 to California for our first glimpse of Disneyland, the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. We were driving through Arizona with our canvas water bag tied to the front of the car, singing along phonetically with La Bamba, when the people in the car ahead of us threw a huge bag of garbage out the window. Papers, bottles, even diapers, scattered everywhere.

My tender age had not yet afforded me a working knowledge of concepts like: non-biodegradable, health hazard or unsightly. My innocence mistook this to be acceptable behavior, and I proceeded to roll down the car window and throw out my gum wrapper. My mother spotted my move and shouted: “Stop the car!” My startled father swerved to the roadside expecting the worst, and watched as my mother marched me back to the general vicinity of my deposit. She towered over me while I spent the longest 20 minutes of my young life tearfully searching for my tiny wrapper. Finally retrieving it, I ceremoniously presented it back to her like some bronze trophy. She refused my offering and forced me to stuff it into the pocket of my favorite Bermuda shorts. Humiliated, I trudged back to the car, recoiling from the offensive jeers of my older brother.

That night we stayed in a little cabin in a national park, and my father took me for a walk. I remember how big his hand seemed as he scooped up my tiny fist and led me to a nearby clearing in the woods.

He talked quietly for what seemed like hours about the trees and the animals and how we have to care for the land and respect these living things just as we care for each other. We lay on our backs in the tall grass and listened to the conversations of the forest and made up stories of all the little animal families and laughed at ourselves. Corny, you say? Maybe so, but I never forgot that night.

One of my favorite hobbies as an adult is the challenge of gardening. I use challenge because trying to grow plant life under a choking cloud of car emissions that render the soil useless is, indeed, a challenge. However, backbreaking labor and patient nurturing does, from time to time, yield new shoots through the hard clay. I hover over them like a mother hen.

Then, every day at 3:30 p.m., the dreaded school bus arrives. The children pour from the side door, throwing candy and gum wrappers into the flower beds as they trample across the tiny green shoots. Running to head off the massacre while dodging their barrage of mockery at my excited state, I’m distracted by a young woman at the other end of the property whose dog is relieving himself on a bed of wildflowers.

What isn’t destroyed by the droppings is crushed under giant Labrador paws. When confronted, she replied: “Well, where should I take him?”

Call me crazy, but how about home?

Common sense might alert this woman to the fact that at one time or another I actually had to dig in that same dirt on my hands and knees to create these struggling seedlings. Foresight should have sent a jolt through her brain that I would eventually have to repeat that activity. Unfortunately, neither common sense nor foresight played an active role in this scenario, and she walked off leaving me her legacy of disgusting filth and disease to deal with. “Hey, thanks a lot!” I yelled to her back. But there was no response. Subtleties have no audience with the brain dead.

My heated rantings ricocheted around my empty kitchen in some feeble attempt to blow off steam. Fortunately no one was home, which forced me to confront the appropriate source of my anger. I took a deep breath and marched myself to the apartment building next door, where the previously mentioned offending children live. One of their fathers was outside headed for the trash bin. Did I mention yet that he was a very large man, very imposing and steeped in essence of beer? But, I pushed on. I approached and presented my case in a surprisingly coherent and concise format. I don’t recall him ever looking up once. He turned his back to me and growled an epithet. Feeling uninspired to continue my quest, I shuffled back home feeling defeated. Since that day, my reprimand has been rewarded with several broken flowerpots and a severed sprinkler system.

Imagine, if you will, a society with no regard for self, neighbor or public domain. Where children see no link between environment, their future and the perpetuation of nature. A system where millions of tax dollars and hours are wasted needlessly cleaning and repairing senseless destruction. Where man no longer perceives abuse of self or nature as anything other than “the way things are today.”

Now look around.

Recently I treated myself to a particularly stunning afternoon in Balboa Park. Over the top of my book, I caught sight of a little boy dropping french fries to lure birds so he could pelt them with rocks. His mother sat idly by, laughing at his antics. Imagine my further horror the day I happened upon two youngsters in my garden with a broomstick knocking a hummingbird nest out of a tree. They laughed and danced around the tiny bodies as they stomped them to death.

I struggle daily, fighting to keep an optimistic outlook for this future generation. My only hope is that there are still those among you who will teach your child to step around a delicate blossom. Those who will think twice and stuff an ugly wrapper into your pocket. Even those who will take responsibility for their animals’ deposits. And, God willing, those who may even take the time to sit in the tall grass with your children and contemplate a better life.