Can one person make a difference? Trying feels better than not trying.
I spent a couple hours this weekend doing a volunteer trash pick-up for a river that is 35 million years old, give or take. The Willamette river is the 13th largest river in the U.S. It is 187 miles long.
A key source for this river is Waldo lake, one of the purest lakes in the world.
Willamette Falls, near Oregon City, is the second largest waterfall in the U.S, next to Niagara Falls (in total volume).
Ocean cleanups are great, but why not clean the rivers that lead to the ocean? Pick up the trash before it makes it way out there. This was my small token toward the earth this weekend.
The river abides
It becomes one with the tides
All together now
Instructions: don’t touch needles or animals dead or alive. Also steer clear of camps, feces, and propane tanks. Our leader sent us off with: “It’s just pickin’ up trash. Walk toward the freeway.”
Those who arrived as singles paired up. I got a companion right away. We didn’t find much for a long while, which was a little disappointing. I found a dead pigeon. I left it.
We scoured the landscape for trash. We saw a fox. We chatted:
I wonder if people think we are doing community service because of crimes?
I asked my friends, you wanna do prison work this weekend?
You really said that?
Yes.
Doggone it, we needed garbage. Judy said, let’s go over there, where there’s people, there’s garbage.
She found some shiny cartridges under a pedestrian bridge, the things people get high with. What are they? Anyway, I told her people snorted or huffed or ingested them for some sort of altered state, I guessed. She said, “sounds like a bad use of time.”
The herons, osprey, red-wing blackbirds were active. Even buzzards circled above as we approached the I-5 bridge. This area proved to be the goldmine. Judy found a hypodermic needle. Since we weren’t supposed to touch them, we sent a text to the leader to come get it.
We dropped down near the edge of the water. I fished styrofoam chunks out from a blackberry bush just above the current. Three herons stood nearby.
We got pretty into it. A rotting fanny pack, a McDonald’s bag, a plastic lid, whatever it was we both gave lots of praise for the find.
A lot of people thanked us along the way, with exceptional kindness in their voices.
I found a face-down Hallmark card. I flipped it over and it said Thank You So Much.
If you’re unhappy
everybody loves you
when you collect trash
In fact, I hereby declare trash picking for the holistic benefit toward good mental health. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it works.
Illioo means joyful in the language of the Kalapuya. We honored these people who have lived here for thousands of years. Other tribes closely associated with this area are the Chinook and the Clackamas.
Today 70% of Oregonians live in the Willamette valley and many are a 20-minute drive from this river.
great piece, love the info and the cadence
Thanks! It was fun for me to learn more about the Willamette.
Thank you for doing this, MaryAnn!
Thanks Martha!
Starting from the source is a great idea. There seems to be a trend regarding your activities as of late. Do you just research things to do?
During mass, a friar sang a song about how each of us can make a difference. I’m a bit skeptical about one ripple having much of an effect, but at that moment, the sun got right above a specific piece of a stained window and it shone right in front of them in that golden color that we see in movies when supernatural appears. I took it as a sign that I should at least TRY to make a difference. Like you say – trying is better than not trying.
That ‘Thank you’ card was a pretty cool find.
When I was in school, we picked up trash at least once a year. We all dreaded it, but also enjoyed it because it meant we got to skip ‘real’ classes. Of course, the more time off we needed the less trash there seemed to be.
You are paying attention! I do seem to have a trend going. It wasn’t intentional. I like practicing how to write about an experience- and it really helps when I have a good photo story to play with. I am on enough lists that I get notices about habitat stuff and clean-up work parties. I party hard! As in, I work. Liked the story about your mass. Sounds like a sign to me!
haha funny and lovely / love me some nooks and crannies / i laud you and applaud you / our dinky little river and the watershed surrounding is littered with plastic bags and other junk / i often think about cleaning it up and there is a project but i haven’t joined them yet / your river is beautiful and wild / thanks for the journey / i also enjoy your cadence / i have adopted it / somewhat
Thanks, Rohn, for the laud and applaud : ) You should feature a photo of your dinky little river sometime. Your ecosystem is interesting- much different than here it seems.
very different – our river is spring fed but the spring is dry because the city sucked all the water up from the aquifer so they pump grey water from the water treatment plant into the river channel otherwise we would have no ‘river’ / good idea to write about it
Oh good I look forward to your story when you feel like writing it.