Why Not Just Pick It Up?

When I was 12, I tossed a candy wrapper out the car window. My mother’s reaction was immediate. She stopped the car and told me to retrieve it. Then she gently but firmly told me never to do that again.

When I said that I threw it away because it was trash and that I did not want it, she said that no one else wanted it either and that I could put it on the floor and throw it away when I got home. Now I keep a litter bag in my car.

Recently, a neighbor’s visitor tossed an empty beer bottle into the ivy as he left our building. I wondered what his mother might say if she saw him do that.

Every day I wonder if the lessons my mother taught me are old-fashioned and outmoded. They must be, judging from the daily accumulations of trash I find everywhere I go. Drivers toss cigarette butts out their windows on the freeway. Garbage collectors leave trails of trash behind their trucks. Supermarket carts are left in parking lots a mere 10 feet from their collection racks. Aluminum drink cans litter beaches and hiking trails.

Meanwhile, please excuse me while I go out to my front yard and collect the detritus that has accumulated overnight.

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Thomas M. Nylund lives in Garden Grove.