TrashMan

After his back was broken in a mining accident, my grandfather became the garbage man in Blanding, Utah, an insular little place, just north and west of the spot where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. It's a town that doesn't sell alcohol within city limits, a place where five or six family names dominate the cemetery headstones.

As the town trashman, he would often take people's broken side tables or bikes or whatever, fix them, and put them back on their front porch.

Grandpa was always picking up garbage. Everywhere we went, he was picking up trash, stooping his broken-backed self over to pick up a stray cup lid or cigarette butt or newspaper. He consistently made a place better than it was when he found it.

I've tried my best to follow suit, to follow the good examples I've received from my male lineage, taking latex gloves from my first aid kit and picking up people's nasty leave-behind garbage. And yeah, humans are really gross creatures. But this weekend, at the Owyhee Hot Springs Rendezvous with TW, I was shocked by the garbage. The 5-cent glass beer bottles and aluminum cans were taken away by enterprising sorts who wanted the recycling credits. But the cardboard box that held the 24-pack of Budweiser was left askew on the water's edge. The toilet paper alone was enough to warrant a second pair of latex gloves. But the topper was the Huggies and Pull-Ups.

What kind of person leaves filthy diapers strewn about? Seriously?