Clean-Up Day gives trash in town special attention

Lou Marzeles
Editor and Publisher

     This Saturday Goldendale will go to Technicolor from black and white, like Oz when Dorothy first stepped into it. That will happen when all the citizens of the city get rid of their trash, junked cars, recycling, and other unsightly, unwanted items during the city’s annual Clean-Up Day.
     Granted, that vision is ever so slightly hyperbolic and perhaps a tad overly idealistic. That’ll happen sometimes, when one considers the benefits of spring cleaning on a community level. There’s a lot of stuff—not to get too technical—that can be offloaded for free on Saturday. Get rid of those leftover piles of old newspapers (preferably out-of-town ones), those myriad cans of caviar, that ancient Dodge that hasn’t run since Eisenhower left office, those bags of trash artistically arranged as makeshift scarecrows. Give it all to the professionals out in trash/recycling land, who know how to properly handle these things. Trash simply doesn’t work well in the hands of us amateurs. Let’s recognize our limitations.
     Clean-Up Day can be fun, and one might as well look at it that way. We can do this easy, or we can do this hard, but easier is better, far more efficient, and acknowledges the inescapable reality that this town is going to get cleaned up, one way or another, sooner or later. It’s in the air, unmistakable, undeniable, like the feel of spring in its inexorable approach. The character of this area will, in the end, brook nothing less.
     So the city has conveniently organized a special day just for our trash. It doesn’t do that kind of thing for just anything, you know. Our trash is special. It gets special attention, on its own special day. It’s an honor we cannot ignore.