Yesterday I went around picking up trash...

A few weeks ago, there was a large renovation project taking place at my apartment complex. They were replacing the roofs of the units and doing some painting.

After this renovation was complete, I noticed that the workers had left a few things of value behind. One of these things was a roll of industrial garbage bags, each probably 50 gallons large. There might have been 10 or so bags in the roll.

Upon finding it during a morning walk with my dog, I grabbed the roll and took it home with me. Who can't find a use for some heavy duty garbage bags?

Yesterday, I decided to put one of these bags to use. It was a bit cold and damp after work but I decided to spend some time picking up trash on the block that I live on. It's not that there's a trash problem in Westminster...it's quite the opposite in fact. This place is remarkably clean.

So I started off on my quest for errant trash - big ass trash bag in hand. What I found along the way didn't really surprise me but I did smile after coming across a woman's discarded shopping list, which I found soaked and crumpled in the roots of a roadside bush. The list went something like this:

- 1 bra
- 2 panties
- razor
- toilet paper (fluffy kind)
- hand lotion
- food

A few of the items on this list were scratched off, presumably, because the woman had managed to buy the items. I'm also presuming she is in fact a woman, barring the possibility that it could have been a man shopping for ladies undergarments either for his partner or for himself, were he to have a fetish for such dress.

Anyway, as I was standing there on the side of the road with cars zooming by and me growing increasingly wetter due to the falling drizzle, I smiled. It was more of a knowing grin actually, because I realized I was holding a piece of paper that at some point meant something to someone. It, at a time, had real value, because it was a way of helping someone accomplish what most would consider a pretty banal task, namely shopping for underwear and toiletries.

And it just happened that I ended up being the one to find this list, assist it on it's journey into the trash bin, and enjoy a brief moment of involvement in someone else's life without their knowing.

I ended up gathering about 15 pounds of trash yesterday over the course of an hour and a half.

When I returned home I greeted my dog with a hug and concluded the evening with some reading and a few pieces of pizza.

Lyman Ward Military Academy Hazing, Beatings article

http://www.insidehazing.com/letters_view.php?id=8

The above link describes the atrocities at LWMA (Lyman Ward Military Academy) as they're told by the parents of cadets attending the academy.

In 2005 at least 8 lawsuits were filed against Lyman Ward Military School, and to this day at least a dozen are still unresolved.

http://www.insidehazing.com/letters_view.php?id=8

It's stuff like this that gets swept UNDER THE RUG and removed from internet search engines in a pathetic (yet effective) attempt by the academy to keep these awful incidents under wraps.