It is with great pleasure that I embark upon this new journey with the readers of Vegas Community Online.  This forum gives me the opportunity to think and write "out of the box", literally as well as figuratively.  I hope to be able to share thoughts, experiences and hopefully solutions as we all navigate life in our beloved Las Vegas Valley.   So.. off we go!

A pet peeve of mine is litter!  There is so much trash lining the parks, streets, highways and desert areas around here it's a wonder we're not knee deep in it.  Why? OK, the smutty handbills don't help, especially near downtown and the Strip.  The distribution of all that is protected by law and we, the taxpayers, pay to have all that trash removed.  Most of that "literature" is directed at tourists, so the case can be made it's the tourists that discard them and cleaning all that up is simply a cost of doing business.  OK, fine.  How about the rest of the valley? 
 

How many of us have seen someone open their car window and toss out a cup, candy wrapper, cigarette butt, or something else they don't want to carry around until they find a trash can.  I can feel the wind from the heads nodding yes.  I confronted someone who tossed a half full cup of soda out of his window the other day.  Guess what the reaction was? Embarrassment? No.  Was he apologetic? No. He was angry with me for pointing it out!  How dare I criticize him?  What the hell is the difference anyway?  There's litter everywhere, someone will clean it up…  sheesh. 

I was in my favorite post office the other day and watched a box holder sift through his mail at one of the tables and separate the bills from the junk.  The bills went with him, part of the junk stayed on the table, the rest of it dropped off when he brushed it on his way out.  It stayed there, until I picked it up.

Don't get me wrong, my desk at the station is a mess and so is my desk at home.  (I DO know where everything is, though..) I understand people don't think about it when they drop their trash because Mom, Dad, the school custodian, the city trash collectors and probably even a spouse have picked up after us since we were born. 

It's time to pay that forward.

Let's take the time to pick up that paper, empty water bottle, etc. and walk it to the trash can, even if it's not ours.  It takes very little time, it's good exercise (can you touch your toes?) and it will make our beautiful community all that much better. 

You can E Mail Casey at caseysmith3@hotmail.com