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Promenade by Martha Marshall June offers the first official burst of summer fun: fairs and festivals and even church bazaars. I love all these, but now that I'm settled in downtown, I know June means parade season, and I can hardly wait until Troy's Flag Day parade. There are those who might say I'm easily impressed, since my original hometown is so small, but anytime I can see a real live bagpipe band a few blocks from my home, I'm impressed. There's been a lot of talk and commentary lately about the impression Troy makes, and many folks have been working hard to improve that with Earth Day work "parties", spring cleaning and planting. Along with many others, I salute these efforts. But spring doesn't last long (not long enough, here in the frozen Northland), and there's also plenty of talk and commentary (which too quickly degenerates into whining) about how soon the newly clean places are littered again, and how the city doesn't do enough to pick up trash or clean the streets or....on and on and on. Whining enervates me, usually from the effort to control my temper and refrain from strangling the whiners. I'd rather be working at anything useful than talking about how many problems Troy has. Troy does have problems, of course, and litter is one of the more obvious. It's also one of the easiest to eliminate. I predict we can eliminate all Troy's litter in a year or less, at absolutely no cost to anyone, in just a few minutes a day. I know - I sound like an ad for some flimflam exerciser, but what I'm predicting can work, and it won't cost anyone a penny. In fact, it may even help you earn a few pennies, and lose weight, too. Here's my testimonial: While I walk to work or wherever I'm going, I pick up plastic bottles. They're my specialty, I suppose, because they annoy me the most. People give me strange looks as I walk along, plastic bottles in each hand, and my office manager laughs at me because almost every day I walk in with several dusty plastic bottles. I'm not sure why I began my own private anti-litter campaign, though I suspect the subtle influence of my kind young landlords. I used to hurry along, but now I find I just can't walk by and leave those obnoxious plastic bottles or BIG GULP cups on the street. Caring is contagious. Besides the funny looks, I often get warm compliments from strangers who see me stuffing trash cans. The other night I picked up just a bottle and two soda cans, and a young family who saw me called me "a Good Samaritan." I noticed their little boy picking up more litter as I walked away. So there's my proposal to eliminate litter: Walk the walk, folks. Just a few minutes, on your way to anywhere, stop for a second, pick up something, put it in a trash can, and Troy will look like the well-loved home we want it to be. In cooperation with Troy United Ink Corp., a not-for-profit corporation 
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