7/28/11, Kunkel Park, #50

Happy Birthday to me!  

7/26/11, Route 31 South towards circle, #49

Returned to complete the rest of Route 31 South, and easily filled another heavy bag.  It always feels good to pick up large pieces of debris like this sheet of styrofoam, which is such an eyesore and makes such a mess!

7/25/11, Route 31 South towards circle, #48

The facelift that I had guesstimated would take 50 minutes was more involved than I thought, so I will have to return tomorrow to finish it.  I started at Happy School and headed south.  Lots of trash.  I had to leave some behind, as it was sitting along the edge of the woods tangled in patches of poison ivy.

7/24/11, Denow Road Shopping Center, #47

Another extremely sweaty morning crisscrossing hot pavement.  It made me smile when my iPod shuffled up Counting Crow's rendition of Big Yellow Taxi... "Don't it always seem to go -  That you don't know what you got till it's gone - They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot."  It is the perfect theme song for my last two facelifts.  Anyway, I received positive comments from two very nice people.  Thank you, nice people!  That makes up for all of the others that I am invisible to.  Most people just look the other way while Julie and I step and stoop and step and stoop our way across the landscape dragging a black bag.  Sort of like we are like homeless people or something ... you know they exist but you'd rather pretend you don't see them than actually help, because chances are they are crazy and who wants to deal with that?  And I have to admit that I do feel and absolutely appear a little crazy, doing this in the middle of a heat wave!  I gathered a very heavy bag of trash.

7/23/11, Nassau Park Parking Lot, #45 & 46

Julie and I spent a very long time (and there is a heat wave going on, by the way) crisscrossing the humungous Nassau Park parking lot in front of Michael's and Target. Although we were literally dripping with sweat when we finally dragged ourself into Wegman's for a cold drink, we were extremely happy with all of the trash that we had collected.  

Why?  Why eat three and leave five on the pavement?

7/21/11, Kunkel Park, #44

On this particular day at Art in the Park it seemed like there were pieces of litter everywhere.  Much of it was from some projects that had been done, but an equal amount had been left behind by other park guests.  I gave the campers a challenge they were happy to accept:  See how quickly you can pick up 20 pieces of litter.  Within five minutes, the park looked much better.  

7/11/11, Groton Long Point Lagoon, #43

 My amazing friend Sally did a facelift for me around the lagoon at Groton Long Point, Ct.  Seeing as I am coming down the home stretch, I am incredibly grateful!  As a child, I was very lucky to be able to visit Sally and her family nearly every summer at Groton Long Point, and those memories are highlights of my youth.  I can close my eyes and put myself right back on the beach, the hot sun sizzling the baby oil slathered all over my body, listening to the tinny sound of "Beach Baby" blasting out of my red TootaLoop transistor radio.