Stumbling Across Good Works

Today on my walk, I caught two middle-aged men in the act of picking up trash by a pond’s edge. In their “hello” to me, they grumbled about more trash building up from yesterday. They said “we pulled out two large garbage bags with trash yesterday. ”

I asked, “are you being paid to clean this place up?”

“No. We just want to. This place is much too beautiful to trash.”

“I swam here as a child,” said the older gentleman. His eyes twinkled and he smiled broadly revealing a missing tooth.

“There used to be a beach here,” said the other gentleman.

“Thank you for doing this.” I said. “You inspire me.”

The rest of the way home, I pondered my idea of inviting  a group of children to meet regularly to pick up trash and plant flowers.

Yes. Absolutely. I will do that.