Friday, March 4, 2016

Trashing Paradise, by Patrica F. Cooper


Anyone from anywhere in the world who visits eastern Tennessee remarks about how beautiful it is.  That is because it is stunningly beautiful.  We have mountains bordered by mountains in every direction.  We have large expanses of woods green in the summer and branches, creeks and rivers full of stones and boulders rounded by the eons.   

We have trout, deer, bears and a large assortment of smaller mammals and many types of birds including wild turkeys.  We have woods that flower in the spring with redbud, dogwood and other wonderful specimens.  Then, from summer through fall we have other flowering trees.  We have distinctive types of trees and plants many with medicinal uses.  We have wildflowers that will set your heart to beating with their color and shapes.   

We have all these things and almost to a person people are proud of their Appalachian heritage and the beauty of these hills and valleys.  There is, however, one thing that covers many of the roadsides, woods and streams that we cannot be proud of and that is trash.   

No one can make me understand why people litter to such a degree that we cannot enjoy any natural scene without the addition of Styrofoam, paper products, plastic of all varieties, cans, bottles, trash bags … sometimes even full of trash and the list goes on.   

How can people say they love and care about this place (and other places, too) when they actually use that place as a garbage dump?  If we are lucky enough to live in paradise then let us begin to treat it like paradise.  That just does not go for eastern Tennessee, but for every place where humans find themselves.  Deal?   

Patrica F. Cooper
Elizabethton, TN
February 4th, 2016

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