Positive Peer Pressure (At Work Again!)

I wrote a blog just before summer about the Frisbee Golf course my friends and I set up in our school yard.  We have been playing there every time the sun shines because we can’t always get to the official course.  It’s actually quite cool and we have modified our course with a few other targets so it’s diverse and we’ve picked up some other kids that already knew about the sport and we’ve all been playing as often as we can.  Mom and Dad don’t seem to mind cause they say they know I’m safe and close by but I think they are just glad to get me out of the house!

When we first started playing at the beginning of summer break the school park was totally overflowing with garbage, I guess since school let out nobody has been around to clean up the mess.  I don’t know if the janitor is there or not but I saw this guy on a riding lawn mower that comes in and mows down the grass when it gets too tall... of course he doesn’t get off that lawnmower for ANYTHING and if there is garbage in the way he gets this wild look on his face as he grips the steering wheel and runs right on over it!  I’m pretty sure that that he was getting some sick pleasure out of watching the garbage being chopped up and thrown in a bazillion different directions because now that we’ve been keeping the schoolyard clean, I don’t see him make that face anymore.

I have been putting a couple of those small plastic grocery bags in my pocket every time we go to a game. What I do is every time I see a piece of garbage laying there in the school yard along my path going to my frisbee, I pick it up and throw it in one of my plastic bags.  I mean I don’t hold up the game by spending half an hour between shots picking up litter but usually without breaking stride I am able to gather up trash and put it in my bag as I play the game. As we go around and the bag starts getting full, I drop it in the trash bin.  It works out great anyways cause we end up shooting for three different trash cans over the course of the game...perfect opportunity!  Then I start all over with a new bag.

Jerry always helps me gather garbage too, if he sees a piece in his path, he picks it up and puts it into the bag I always have going the next time he is beside me.  The thing that really amazed me was that he decided to help me all by his own decision, just saw what I was doing, didn’t think it was a stupid idea and started doing it too!  I mean at first I have to admit, I was a little self conscious running around with a garbage bag in my hand as I imagined other kids snickering cruelly and calling me a “garbage picker” or something like that but being Eco Friendly is cool and catchy!