Cleaning the Fairgrounds frontage: no Carl; no crowd

8/9/14

I got to talk with Carl Wilson on his show on Friday about the campaign for Public Litter Cleaning and the Fairgrounds cleanup, but he said that he had business out of town and wouldn’t be there, though he asked his listeners to show up and help me. 

There had been some talk at the last cleanup, under the Bridge, that it was going to be hot out in front of the Fairgrounds in full sun.  I knew when Carl bowed out that no one was going to show up. 

There was a cooling breeze and I didn’t have to use my mister to wet down my sleeves and hat until noon. But no Carl, no crowd, despite Tom Ray's best efforts to call out some help Saturday morning.  The power of celebrity only works when the celebrity says he'll be there.

The first thing to do was clean the area around my truck, but not the trash pit between the Fairgrounds fence and the Flooring shop retaining wall.  We would have gotten it if anyone else had shown up.

Trash and goat heads (surrounding the butt at the bottom) at the corner of the flooring shop lot.  I cut goat heads on sight, in most places.  They are annuals which need not be pulled; just cut the crown off the root.

The trash pit between the fence and the wall, much of it old and buried.

The second thing to do was to clean the landscaped area around the entrance.  The heck of that area is that one can’t actually see the litter from the road; it is either chopped up by the mower or is between the retaining wall and shrubbery, though there was one cup in the top of the hedge.  There were ties and wire on the fence by people removing signs and balloons (or not, in the case of balloons), but they are not obvious. 

Balloon string and zip ties left in the fence after events.

Sign-hanging wire left on fence.  Cleaned it all off a few months ago.

I was surprised by one piece of trash.  It looked like clothing through the fence, but when I picked it up, it turned out to be the remains of a large balloon:

Still, I got about 10-15 gallons of trash from the hedges, most of a litter bag.  The wind blows it under the fence, but people also know that hedges are a handy place to stash trash.  Hedges that attract trash are forbidden under Portland nuisance code, which is apparently enforced as well as ours--not.  One frequently finds a lot of trash in hedges; the uglier and weedier they are, the more one finds.  Unless they are frequently trimmed and cleaned, they are inherently ugly and attract more ugliness.

Foot traffic in front of the fairgrounds is low in quantity and quality, mostly disorderly types that drop litter, including my leaflets.  I mostly didn’t offer any, unusual for me; I’m usually not picky.  One man who took a leaflet was pushing a shopping cart full of his possessions, heading for Crescent City.  He said that Medford has been taken over by tweakers, and is too violent.  He gave me a dollar right off the bat.  I don't mind taking a dollar from a poor man; his thanks are sincere.

He was once a groundskeeper for a California city, before they fired all their gardeners and hired contractors who don’t care, as most cities did in the 80’s.  City grounds keeping has not recovered from this disaster, and won’t until cities take back the work and do it themselves.  They can’t properly manage their landscaping contractors for building or maintenance, because they have no one among higher staff with knowledge and experience in the work.  I told him that there is a lot of demand for landscaping on the coast, which is why Chet’s garden center is moving to Brookings.

Since I had no one to help me, I knew that I could not do the whole frontage as planned, to the end of the west parking lot.  I decided to do something that would show, and clean detritus from the gutter along the sidewalk on one side of the entrance, creating a “before and after” picture in front: a roadside with grass clippings and straw piled by the wind along with scattered gravel and dirt from traffic, followed by a stretch of cleaned roadside to the flooring shop.  

It’s not a service; it’s a protest.  If I was being paid by the fairgrounds or county, I would not leave a job half-done.  Some glass had been broken in that stretch that had to be cleaned anyways.  Broken glass is something I clean anywhere at any time, stopping my car and turning around to do it if necessary.

I cleaned the litter, but not the detritus, from the north side of the front hedges along the parking lot west of the entrance, inside the fairgrounds. The detritus is thick there, piled by the wind to the west of each blue spruce.  I didn’t get to the north side of the east fence or behind the office at all, except through the fence. 

Detritus along the north side of the south fence and hedge, west of the front entrance.

I ran into a volunteer whom I know on my way back from the bathroom in the Pepsi Building, who takes care of plantings around the Fairgrounds, and wound up showing her the piles of detritus to the west of the entrance.  After she saw the piles, she said she was sorry I had shown her (because she now feels the need to clean them up).  I cried, “I know!  But I had to share my pain!”

I spent an hour or so cleaning the street, left a bit after 2:00 and didn’t go to another cleaning job; I was sore and had an upset stomach that I treated with slippery elm and chamomile tea.

 West frontage, before sweeping

West frontage, Sunday morning.

 East frontage, Sunday morning

Regardless of whether this Indiegogo campaign succeeds as a business, it has raised awareness of litter as a problem that can and must be solved, which is the most that anyone can ask of a protest.  If nothing else, a lot of businesses are posting “Give Your Litter Cleaners Time andTools” and might actually read it.  "#Litter is #tagging" is getting around on Twitter.  And Carl Wilson is telling people,  "Open your eyes and see the litter!" and "Don't let the authorities tell you that nothing can be done about it."

Under the Caveman Bridge: Carl brought a group!

Caveman Bridge, downstream view, North Bank

8/2/14

I had a good radio show with Carl Wilson on KAJO on Wednesday, for about 15 minutes at the end of Eyewitness Reports.  On Friday, he called and said that he’d be working with me on Saturday under the Bridge, and had been asking some friends to join him.  I was thrilled and fairly certain that he, at least, would show up.

As I got in the truck on Saturday, packed for the cleanup, I heard him talking on KAJO about our project, and putting out a last-minute call to the public.  He told people that a litter grabber is recommended, as well as gloves and a bucket, and that he was bringing a box of gloves as well, which made me very happy. 

I got there in time to get my signs set by the entrance and get mostly set up with refreshments and sign-up list before he came, and the group started gathering.  I had them sign up and equipped those without buckets with yellow litter bags with my stickers and “Trash only” written on them, explaining that the city allows me to leave these bags next to their trash cans for disposal, but I have to write “trash only” to stop collectors from emptying them into the trash cans in search of returnables. 

Truly, the Bottle Bill is out of date; it is hardly worth the hassle of turning them in.  I don’t.  I give them to a man who is starting to think it isn’t worth the hassle of putting them in the machine.  I think that they cause more litter than they get cleaned up, making some think that it’s okay to throw them because some bum will pick them up.  I learned on work crew that even many bums don’t think they are worth returning; they slept next to piles of them.

We started on the top of the Bridge, which didn’t take long with the group doing both sides at once, and thoroughly with us changing sides and going back.  From there, we pretty much split up and covered the area, some going after the big trash down by the river, where people eat and hang out on the relatively private rocks; some went out on the disk golf course; some went after the small litter around the tree and the butt pit below.  I decided that the steps needed to be blown off and got my battery blower; I ended up getting a broom and dustpan by the time I got to the bottom; the dirt was thick in the corners and it piled up too much for a blower.

I didn’t get any pictures; my camera battery was dead.  Otherwise I could have gotten a shot of the broken plastic yard chair and twin-sized inch-thick plastic foam pad that Steve Roe brought up from the river.  I later found a fully-equipped fishing pole where I presume he found the furniture, and gave it away within 50 feet.

We stayed pretty scattered out, but four of us gathered below the sidewalk under the Bridge and worked on the butts and broken glass on that slope and especially at the bottom against the curved bridge support.  I used the screen-bottom dustpan that my housemate Donnie made for me to use on that spot, as the soil there is loose fine silt.

We worked there until noon, when Carl said he had another appointment.  Some had already gone home by then, and I thought we were the last still there.  Rebecca and Madison Anderson thereby each won a prize for being the last to leave, after helping me gather tools: their choice of the gardening hats in my bag.  They chose matching hats with large brims all the way around.

I stayed to work down by the river a little while and see what had been left.  At one point, I found glass broken on the side of a concrete pipe, and needed a broom and dustpan again.  As I was going to my truck to get them, I met one of our helpers, Carolyn Henderson, coming in with her tools, saying it was time for her to leave.  She’d gone home to get a rake at one point, and got back to work.  So she won a choice of gardening hats as well.

Carl and I will be working at the Fairgrounds this Saturday the 9th, cleaning the frontage from one end to the other.  I expect he will bring a group there

also, including some that showed up for the Bridge.  The Fairgrounds had the weeds cut along the west parking lot fence.  Hurray!  We'll be working under the Bridge again on the 16th.  Register at Volunteercleanup.org to join the cleanup.

Nine people showed up and participated.  Beside the above-mentioned, Trish Bull, Jiggy Bim, Jennifer Black, Marie Solomon and Kristi Roe worked to help make this “a city that looks safe and is safe.”

Under the Caveman Bridge, Week 3: Back to the 50's

7/26/14

I was going to set up as usual just inside Riverside Park, but the West entrance was blocked off.  A couple of gentlemen came up in a cart and I asked them if all the entrances were blocked.  Indeed they were; a classic car show had taken over the park for the day.  But they said that I could clean litter from under the Bridge.

They had opened the entrance to the skate park on the other side of 6th Street/Williams Highway, and the Boy Scouts were collecting $3 for parking in it, apparently anywhere west of the Caveman Bridge.  The grass there is not watered, so parking couldn't damage it.

Indeed, apart from some mowing and hedging, it is totally unmaintained, and I discovered another patch of star thistle alongside the beginning of the bike/pedestrian path under the Bridge.  I got to thinking that the city needs to aggressively maintain the disc golf course, not use it for occasion parking.  Disc golfers are a messy lot even in a well-maintained area.  Ugly landscaping gives them more excuse for messiness, and maintenance workers less reason to do a good job.  No one likes to maintain ugly.

The Boy Scouts waived away my money, since I would be working.  I offered them some of my lemon water and grapes, and gave them leaflets.  Since I was parking in that end of the park, I had to clean it first, at least along the street and path.  

I quickly found a mess of auto glass where someone had apparently smashed a window, and went back for the broom and dustpan and cleaned it up.  Then I got to pulling trash out of the ivy and bushes to the south of my parking space, and kept going to the corner of Park Street.  

There were 3 bottles smashed along the sidewalk and in the parking lot around the spa place, requiring sweeping.  The owner ignored it as he drove out over it with a hot tub, just as he ignores the other litter and the weeds that infest his pavements.  But I was able to give a leaflet or two to people who saw me working on the glass.

I did all that even before walking the bridge, I think.  After cleaning the top, where I found a bit less trash behind the parapet, mostly old and grown over, I proceeded to the stairs, the tree, and then down to the eating area by the river to get the big trash.  

That's where I ran into Chelsea Bledsoe's brother, who offered to help.  I regret that I forgot his first name, forgetting to fix it in my memory by saying it three times or writing it down.  But the young Mr. Bledsoe helped me for about an hour and was good company. 

It being Back to the 50’s, I decided to skip the 7^th Street Bridge after my mid-afternoon break, but after seeing how dead the park was getting, I went there after all, cleaned the litter from the top, and got the last 2 sections of detritus on the East side.

Under the Caveman Bridge, Week 2

I had a little help in the third hour of cleaning under the 6th Street Caveman Bridge this week.  You can join the cleanup here, or just come down on Saturdays at 10am. 

I decided to be a better host and brought cucumber water and grapes.  Around noon, since no one had shown up, I offered some to a group that I kept passing between the bridge and my truck, saying no one had shown up, and a nice girl, Chelsea Bledsoe, offered to help.  She did for the next hour, which was about as long as I wanted to work on it that day. 

I let her use the litter grabber while I used the broom and screen-bottom dustpan that I got Donnie to make for this project, for sweeping butts off of loose soil.  Then we switched for a while, and switched back.

The first hour, I first cleaned the top, as usual.  It was no different than usual, except behind the parapet at the NW end near the Riverside Inn.  There was only one piece of trash there this week, a cup hidden deep in the blackberries.  Cleaning the bucket-full out of the shielding shrubbery last week might have made a difference.

When I got to the stairs and the tree at the bottom, I was glad to see that the area wasn't nearly as trashy as it was the week before, or even a few days before; I did a bit of work mid-week.  My main fear in this project has been that it would get so trashed between visits that we wouldn't be able to make progress.  But it takes money to make trash, and most people are not deliberate about their littering; it is subconscious.

As I was cleaning up around the tree at the bottom of the steps, a man who was sitting on the steps was greeted by his arriving friends.  "What's up, Mad Dog?" one said.  He replied, "My space is being intruded on.  Let's go."  And he and his friends headed somewhere downriver.

I don't like to intrude, but sitting on narrow steps is inherently rude and is intimidating to some folks, especially tourists.  It is one of the reasons that locals avoid the area of the bridge.  Unless one is walking to the park from the other side of the river, there is little reason to go there.  But I suspect that many walkers cross traffic rather than go down those stairs.

Before I even finished under the tree, I decided to go down toward the river and pick up the food trash that I know gets spread down among the rocks near the drain outlet, a cool place with a nice level concrete surface.  From there, I headed downstream a ways, and realized a lot of the trash there was falling from a path above.  I went back and took that path, and found more falling from level ground at the top.  That was where I found the biggest trash, discarded clothing. 

That filled my bucket, and I headed back to the truck, when I found help for the next hour with Chelsea.  I had planned to work on the 7th Street Bridge later, but I went home for lunch, had a leftover sandwich, and tasted bad meat in the last bite.  I made some slippery elm tea to stop any stomach trouble, but I was weak and gassy for about an hour and stayed home for the rest of the day.  Just as well; it was my daughter's birthday.

I probably won't serve cucumber water again; it seems to be diuretic, and it's a long way to the bathroom, with a lot of trash to clean up on the way there and back.  When one is wearing a Litter Cleaner tunic, it doesn't do to pass trash.  I'll serve lemon water next week.

Cleaning under the Caveman Bridge

It's amazing how small litter disappears in a photograph.  

July 12, 2014

Volunteers joined me for cleaning under the Caveman Bridge on Saturday!  They were missionaries from one of the local churches that I had been talking to over 5 or 6 weeks.  The church, that is, not these particular missionaries; they came in pairs but one of them changed every time they showed up to talk Bible, until I had met 4 sisters in three visits.  We arranged several weeks ago to start the initial cleanup under the Bridge on the 12th.  I was hoping that they would all show up for the cleanup, but two entirely new ones showed up, a bit younger than the other four. 

I was given a link to VolunteerCleanup.org during the previous weekend, so I signed up on that and tried for more helpers, but probably no one in the Grants Pass area is signed up with them yet.  Plus, the notice was rather short. 

I had specified to bring a litter grabber, gloves, and a bucket, but they showed up with only plastic gloves.  I was able to provide one with a bucket, and the other with a yellow ODOT-style litter bag, and we set out to do the top of the bridge first, since my signs were set out on the roadway at the West entrance to the park, and I couldn’t have them up there with a littered bridge.

I took them along the east side first.  I showed them how my gardening scissors are a small litter grabber that gets butts out of cracks and saves 6” of stoop.  (The last 6 inches of stoop is the hardest.)  We cleaned to the very littered NE end and crossed to the NW end, where I showed them the place behind the curved parapet by the Riverside Inn where someone had dumped maple trimmings, making a less thorny but very ugly place among the blackberries to hide behind the wall, do business and pleasure and leave big food litter.  

We stopped between the first two arches long enough for me to tell them about the 3-gallon pile of moldy dog doo someone had dumped there Sunday, two weeks before.

I proceeded to tell them that the litter under the bridge is scaring off tourists, and about a letter from a Las Vegas couple that Councilor DeYoung had told us about at the City Council workshop: They said that they walked from the Riverside Inn into Riverside Park and they will never come back to Grants Pass. 

The easiest route for one to take from the Riverside Inn to Riverside Park is the west side of the bridge to the stairs at the SW end, down to the walkway under the bridge.  The stairs, the area next to them, the area under the tree at the bottom, and below the walkway under the bridge, is the most littered place I have seen in Grants Pass, bar none, mostly butts.  

It's amazing how such small trash disappears in non-closeup photos.

The letter mentioned something about transients hanging out, but the litter announces that disorderly bums own this part of the park. It’s been that way for at least a decade, since I came back to Grants Pass in 1999 after living here in the mid-80’s, when it was a very neat town.

Most Grants Pass and Josephine County residents can be forgiven for not noticing.  If one drives to the park, one has already passed the bridge at the west entrance and proceeds to park closest to one’s destination in the park.  There is nothing to draw one to that end of the park except the disk golf course. 

Park workers try to keep up with litter, but there are not enough of them and none of them are dedicated to litter duty; it is only one of their many chores.  They get most of the big stuff near the sidewalks, but a sea of butts and glass accumulated over time is intimidating to even a dedicated cleaner.  I didn’t want to tackle it without help; it’s lonely down there.

The sisters worked their way down the stairs while I got the slope beside them.  They had to work their way past a man sitting on them.  (He drives in and hangs out with his friends in the park.)  We cleaned up the area under the tree pretty well and started on the butt slope below the walkway.  That is the most intimidating part of the place, and they soon started to lag.  The stooping was constant; they really needed grabbers. 

When I announced around noon that it was time to go empty my 5-gallon litter bucket, they said they had another appointment.  I thanked them, said that I will continue this next week, and that I hope that they could get some more people to show up, even if they can’t.

It should be interesting to see how much accumulates under the tree by next week.  One cannot expect a single cleaning to do any good; it takes several weeks of thorough cleaning in a row to have any impact on behavior.  Some people hate to see their litter disappear and will avoid an area where it keeps happening, but it seems like they first litter overtime to try to mess it up again.  But there is too much litter still within sight to expect to have any impact yet.

After they left, I took a look further down toward the river.  Each area is distinct.  Between the walkway and the first wall under the bridge is the butt pit.  Between that wall and the arches was a lot of broken glass among scattered sticks and rocks on dirt.  

The level area beyond the arches is the disk golf course, relatively clean, the grass kept short by geese.  On the rocky slope to the river is the bigger food trash and discarded clothing, in full view of the jet boats and the Riverside Inn. 

I got one 5-gallon bucket full of that, not all of it by any means, and went to work on the glass area a bit, raking up the sticks to make it easier to sweep the glass and rocks.  I was working there only until 2:00, since I am working on the detritus cleanup on the 7^th Street Bridge on Saturday afternoons.  By the time I cover the whole bridge, it will need another cleaning; the bike lane portion already does.

I had to use the bathroom at one point, and worked my way there and back, handing out leaflets and talking along the way for about a half-hour.  There was a remarkable amount of litter; they need people working on it over the weekends. 

A lot of it was bread that the ducks and geese apparently don’t eat.  Donnie and I have been noticing that birds don’t eat people food like they used to anywhere anymore; natural selection must be killing out the ones who eat our junk.  There are few ducks by the river anymore, and geese prefer grass.

A litter grabber is a very useful tool that grabs a lot more than litter.  It can get stuff out of tight places.  It can grab an object off a high shelf.  It’s just the thing for cleaning up fallen fruit and nuts from trees.  It should be good for picking fruit.  And it saves a lot of stooping when cleaning up litter.

So if one is going to clean litter for even a few hours, from a place where it is highly concentrated, it pays to buy one.  Even the youthful will appreciate it after cleaning litter without one.  I learned this in my first hours on Community Corrections Work Crew; it didn’t take me long to decide to use one.  While my hands can usually grab better, my body prefers less stooping.  And some things one would rather not touch even with gloves.

Fairgrounds Events

Saturday, March 15, 2014

After the Run for the Law, I moved on to the Fairgrounds, which had been calling me for some time, with litter in the hedges behind the front fence.  There were two events happening on the 15^th: a music trading event, and a late afternoon wine tasting, First Crush. 

It was a good day for cleaning the front end of the Fairgrounds.  But not for cleaning the area between the fence and the neighbor’s retaining wall to the west; there’s too much big trash there, and I ran out of ODOT litter bags at Run for the Law.

I first parked and set up my sign in the front of the parking lot right in front of the Floral and Pepsi buildings, and started by picking up the parking lot.  When I was done there, I moved my truck to the other side of the entrance, for better visibility and to be closer to my work in the front hedges. 

I started with the plastic zip ties on the west side of the gate.  It seems that, when some people take down their signs, they just drop the ties.  After the music swap ended and they took down their signs, I found more.  Someone had left rusty wire still attached to the fence east of the gate, presumably from hanging a sign.

I was also finding the occasional string tied to the fence.  When I took one out of a tree with a soft balloon still attached, I understood where they came from. 

I worked the hedge east of the gate, all the way around to the gate, back of the office.  There was a bunch of wild lettuce back there that was starting to bolt; it may well be blooming by now.  It had quite a lot of trash back there, too.

The rest of the afternoon I spent mostly working the west parking lot and the hedges beside it, moving from one to the other as people arrived for First Crush.  I got a nailed-together contraption of 3 treated 2 x 4s that had been teasing me from the front side of the fence, dumped between the fence and the hedge, truly the most remarkable trash of the afternoon.

Early in the afternoon, before the event, I needed to use the bathroom and asked the person setting up in the Pepsi building if I could use theirs; no problem.   Later, after it started, I went looking for a bathroom elsewhere, not wanting to intrude.  The one back of the floral building was blocked by bird guano and locked.  I bypassed the admitting line at the entrance to the Pepsi building and asked the people working if I could use the bathroom.  Sure.  It seems that a Litter Cleaner tunic can open doors, or at least bathrooms.   

Run for the Law

Saturday, March 15, 2014

On this particular Saturday, I had registered to be in the SOS (Securing Our Safety) St. Patrick’s Day Run for the Law 5K/10K Walk/Run, but I didn’t actually walk or run the course.  I was after the litter in and around the staging area, Club Northwest. 

I was a bit late for the start of the race, but in a way, just in time.  I found a parking space a good block away and had put on my tunic and set up my sign when the runners started coming down the road toward me, a bright, colorful mass with their mix of clothing colors highlighted by apple green race T-shirts, the same color as my tunic. I quickly got out my camera phone and started taking pictures until they were mostly passed, which took a long time.  They just kept on coming.  450 people showed up; 400 were in the race, which is pretty good for a race or a demonstration of support for local law enforcement.

By the time I got my leaflets folded and litter bag marked and started picking up litter along the sidewalk up to Club Northwest, there were runners returning up the sidewalk. It was downhill from a vacant lot along one stretch, and rocks had been washing down the clay-silt hillside onto the sidewalk.  The runners truly appreciated me moving the rocks off the sidewalk. 

Officer Dave Daniels was one of the early returnees, moving fast.  I shouted “Run Dave, Run!”  He ended up winning his age class, but I was talking about his run for sheriff. 

As I got to Club Northwest’s first driveway, I found about half an 18-pack of Budweiser 12-oz cans full of beer, some in their half-ruined box that was resting on the hillside below the first parking spot and above the sidewalk, with the rest scattered along the sidewalk and gutter.  After I gathered them up, I had to stop picking up other litter as my arms were full, so I brought them into the race gathering, and laid the full cans out just past the finish line.  They disappeared before the end of the prize awarding, as I picked up litter amongst and around the people.

I got lots of kudos, including another $20 donation from Doranne Long, who also wanted to take some photos of me picking up litter for publication.  I said I need a new one for GPgardener.com for spring. 

I was picking up a lot of pieces of thin white and blue plastic, which at first I thought were flaking paint, they were so fragile, but some pieces were larger and didn’t break up.  After a while, I figured out they were pieces of triangular banners strung along a few booths that were disintegrating from age.  As things were being cleaned up, I heard that they were borrowed, but had been acknowledged as being tired by the folks they were borrowed from.  

As one man started carefully folding them up to return them, I vetoed that and offered my litter bag.  He went for that instead, and I made sure that none of those banners would be spreading litter any more.  I stuck around until nearly everyone was gone and I had gotten all of the litter in the race area.  Next stop: the Fairgrounds for two more events.  

I got to thinking that this could be another service offered for sponsorships: event cleanup: before; during; and after an event, for $100 per event, to be listed on an Event Sponsors page.  The camaraderie and kudos attending an SOS event are exceptional though, and I will continue to do their events for free, just to support the group effort.