Pulled away to the Miracle Mile

Monday, March 3rd-9th, 2014

Boy, did I get behind in writing this.  We had a little family reunion over the weekend of March 1^st and 2^nd in Newport, celebrating Mom’s 85^th birthday, so I lost a day of litter cleaning on Sunday.  With writing a couple of gardening articles on Garden Grants Pass the following week, I got two weeks behind in posting about litter cleaning.

During the previous 2 weeks, I talked to Carl Wilson of KAJO/KLDR radio about sponsoring a site, and he decided on a section of the Miracle Mile, as he likes to call the first mile of the Rogue River Highway, where his station is, at 888 R.R. Hwy.  I told him that, for $500 a year, I could do the portion from his station to the light at Parkdale, a bit over a block, both sides, and one block in each direction from the intersection. 

I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew when I estimate new jobs.  I now know that I can do that block + his station + the Fruitdale Grange for that.  I need another sponsor for the other side of Parkdale along Umpqua’s and Grovers’ frontage and the next block of the highway.  All those shrubs and swales hold a lot of trash.

Having an actual Super Sponsor for a site has pulled me away from Redwood Avenue until I get a Super Sponsor there.  I still have only two days available for litter cleaning until I get enough sponsors to start letting gardening customers go.  I can still find time to work the Intersection of the Redwoods, though, and the 6^th and 7^th street bridges. 

I can see I will be doing a lot of cleanup at the Fairgrounds during events on Saturdays.  It’s time to do most of my litter pickup on Saturday-Sunday and gardening on Mondays.  But I like doing litter after Toastmasters.  We’ll see if I can pick up another Super Sponsor.

So after the reunion, I got out Monday after Toastmasters to do the Miracle Mile.  It took all afternoon to do the block from KAJO to Parkdale; I didn’t even get to all of the Grange property. 

First cleaning always takes a lot longer than weekly maintenance, and gives me a good idea of how much I can do for a single sponsor.  An afternoon’s work for initial cleaning is sufficient, I think, and ought to settle down to an hour after a few weeks.  Even that would be woefully underpaid at under $10 per week, but Super Sponsors are supported by regular sponsors and small donors, making this service far more affordable than hiring someone for the same work. 

That’s the theory; we’ll see how it works in practice.  So far, it’s helping to pay my bills; I haven’t had to borrow yet this month.

The next Sunday, it took only 1½ hours to do the same area and a bit more.  It will probably take a little less time this week, on the third cleaning.  The cleaner an area gets, the less trash gets thrown into it.  The more traffic it gets, the more it gets littered and attracts trash.  There are always the few who will throw regardless of neatness.

The Prize for NO OLD LITTER on that block was presented to two clerks at Little Pantry Market and gas station last Sunday.  I was picking up a bit of new litter at that station, but I can honestly say that there was no old litter, and not much new.

After working that block of RR Highway, I turned the corner and did the west side of Parkdale going south.  There is a business there that has the most discrete business sign I’ve ever seen in my life; it took some time for me to find it, etched into the glass of the door, and I had to walk half-way into the property to read its flowing script. 

I got to the end of my bucket before the end of that block, and went back to the truck.  Decided to go the next block on the Miracle mile, but only got through with Umpqua Bank’s frontage before the end of the day.

That was where I found the litter trees, as I like to call white paper bark birches.  Their bark rolls up, flakes off in big pieces, and looks exactly like paper litter.  I'd been finding pieces of it all the way down by KAJO, blown there by the east wind.  I found a stump about a foot tall, hidden in the shrubbery, but visible enough to look like a pile of trash in there.  A hypodermic needle was discarded right in front of it.  Ugly attracts ugly, and some people like their litter to have company.