My South: Leaving a place better than you find it

My fourth-grade teacher at Dora Elementary School taught me some things that had nothing to do with reading, writing or arithmetic. Even though I was only 10 years old, I realized Mr. Hocutt was wise. The things he said resonated with me. One of his “sayings” became one of my mantras.

One day after playing on the playground, he asked us to look around and pick up any litter we saw. As we hustled around picking up scraps of theme paper and old Dixie cups, he said, “We should always leave a place better than we found it.”

Through the years, I’ve tried to do that wherever I go.

I thought about Mr. Hocutt this past Tuesday when I was on my way home from a meeting in Birmingham. When I glanced down at my instrument panel, the needle on my gas gauge was lounging on the E. I stopped at the next gas station and pulled up to the pump. Clicking the gearshift into park, I stepped out to gas-up my truck.

My mind was adrift as I stood there in the afternoon sun. When I glanced down at my feet, I saw that someone had thrown two beer cans down in front of the pump. The trash container was less than three feet away, but that distance must have been too great. I could almost see the litterbug kicking the beer cans from under his feet. The driver was either drunk or lazy. I’m pretty sure Mr. Hocutt would have frowned on this.

While I waited for my nozzle to click off, I picked up the two cans along with a few other pieces of trash and tossed them into the can.

A few weeks ago, my wife Jilda and I decided to get our exercise in early. As she bundled up for the walk, I rolled our garbage can down to the road for pickup later that morning.

Our laps took us down through the garden, around the barn and up the old driveway to the main road in front of our house. By the time we’d walked our first lap, I noticed something on the ground next to the garbage can. When I looked more closely, I realized that someone had tossed out a dirty baby diaper. I’m guessing they were trying to be thoughtful by tossing it so close to the garbage can.

I love babies, but their diapers can be disgusting. Looking around, I found a long stick and fished the diaper off the ground and dropped it into the garbage can. The rest of our walk was hard for me to enjoy because I was stewing — trying to figure out what low-life tossed the diaper and thinking of creative ways I could teach them a lesson.

Here’s the thing. We all live in a garden. Leaving a place better than you found it is not rocket science. It can be something as simple as returning your buggy to the bin and grabbing a buggy that someone left the middle of the parking lot. Or it could be a smile or a kind word when someone is having a hard day.

It doesn’t take much to leave a place better than you found it.

Rick Watson is a columnist and author. His latest book, “Life Goes On,” is available on amazon.com. Email him at rick@homefolkmedia.com.