Well, Ma, we sure grew a banner crop of garbage here over the winter. We raked it all up on Monday and it was a sight to behold. We don't have much land, but when it comes to garbage production, there's no place in this whole wide world that can compare to Niagara Falls!
There were all kind of cups, flattened out mostly, from Burger King and Dairy Queen and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and there were two kinds from McDonald's -- the paper ones they use for the Shamrock Shakes on Paddy's Day and the crunchy clear plastic ones they serve that high-class cappuccino in.
I don't suppose we'll ever get a Starbucks here on the East Side, but with our Mayor Dyster opening up high-end martini bars on just about every street corner, most people are too drunk or too broke to want one anyways.
In the bushes out front we found a big strip of that "Police Scene Do Not Cross" tape they must've used for one of the shootings we had here over the winter. I can't remember which one, since we had so many, but I'll bet it was a good one!
There was a bumper crop of bags too, those plastic bags from 7-Eleven that get caught up in the trees around town and the white paper ones that come from who knows where. There were bags for chips and pretzels and something called Juicy Oozers and I don't know how many other salty or sweet snack treats people who only have 50 cents buy to eat.
But mostly there were the dope bags, the big Hefty Ziplocks they use for quarter pounds of pot and the smaller Baggies they use for ounces, all the way on down to those itty-bitty ones they use for heroin and crack cocaine.
You know, Ma, strikes me that those itty-bitty ones aren't much use to anyone besides dope dealers, and they'd be pretty hard pressed to find something to put those tiny crack rocks into if the big companies that make them just stopped or if Tops would just stop selling them.
Like that's ever going to happen, right? Ha ha!
If you took away the money people made by dealing dope around here, Tops and Walgreens just about every other store on Portage Road would go out of business altogether.
We didn't get any hypodermic syringes this year, but there were a couple of spent shell casings from somebody's .40 caliber S&W, plus a ton of cigarette butts, two pizza boxes, plastic Coke bottles, shingles from somebody's roof, a couple of used condoms and -- you won't believe this one -- the cork handle from an old fishing pole!
I think we were only out there about an hour, but we worked hard and managed to fill one of those big black double-strength garbage bags they make, guaranteed not to biodegrade for at least 10,000 years.
I know some say that the kind of people who would just throw trash around their own neighborhood must have been raised kind of trashy themselves, that they're ignorant and that their mothers didn't teach them right, but I don't look at it that way.
Heck, if it wasn't for all the garbage lying on the streets and sidewalks, in all the vacant lots and people's yards here, those busybodies from the neighborhood block clubs and beautification societies wouldn't have anything to do.
They wait all winter, looking forward to the first day the snow melts in the spring so they can all get together and think about what good people they are for cleaning up other people's trash. They socialize and pat each other on the back and, when they're all done, they eat sandwiches and drink sodas donated by one of the neighborhood restaurants.
It sure beats sitting around their own run-down houses, watching soap operas and game shows on television and thinking about how empty and meaningless their own existences are, don't you think?
When it gets right down to it, they should be thankful for those people who don't know any better than to leave garbage everyplace they go.
The truth is that, if it wasn't for the people throwing garbage around, and the people selling dope, and the people who spray-paint graffiti all around, and the poor, unwed mothers and all their needy children, and the murderers and rapists and muggers and arsonists, the rest of us here in Niagara Falls wouldn't have much to do at all.
For a lot of people here, cleaning up other people's messes is a full-time job!
When you think about it, if we didn't have all the ones who cause problems here, instead of 70 percent of the people being on government assistance, the number would be closer to 100 percent.
Anyway, they can say what they want about Niagara Falls, Ma, but I better never hear anybody say we can't grow garbage here better than just about any place in the world!
Your loving son ...
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 3 2012 |