Have you ever wondered why the sun is yellow? Or maybe why the sky is blue or the grass is green? Well, there are several ways to go about answering those questions. The sun, it’s yellow because it is a medium heat star. The sky, ya.. that’s blue because we’ve got this thing called an atmosphere and the blue you see is the light shining through the atmosphere. Now grass. If you didn’t know, you don’t actually ‘see’ things, what you see is the light reflecting off the object or person you are looking at. So, grass is green because the grass goes about absorbing all the colors but green.

So that was a very scientific way of answering three simple questions. Many parents would just tell their kids because it is. If I weren’t about answering this question, I think I’d say this: Because if they weren’t, the people on this world wouldn’t quite know what to do with themselves. So keep the world clean so that many years from now kids can continue to ask why the sun is yellow, the sky blue and the grass green.

Naomi Shihab Nye wrote a poem called “Valentine for Ernest Mann”. It is a poem about poems. In the poem, one character is ‘a serious man who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly just because the world said so.’ This serious man gave his wife two skunks for Valentine’s Day. When his wife cried, he said this, ‘I thought they had such beautiful eyes.’, and he was serious.’ The man really enjoyed the skunks he gave his wife. He had ‘reinvented them as valentines and they became beautiful’.

I understand that though Richard’s giant bottles are art, they aren’t considered to be a finishing touch completing the natural beauty of the national park. Though I’m sure many a poem could be found in the beauty of Richard’s giant battles, I’m certain that is not the reason they are there. They magnify a part of the park that isn’t pretty. It makes you look, and when you look you can’t help but compare the bottles to their surroundings. The juxtaposing effect is obvious. The way the bottles look so un-indigenous in the park make you re-think tossing your water bottle on the ground! It might even make you go out and buy a reusable metal water bottle.

Don’t look at the bottles and see them as a scar on the face of the park, look at them and see that the world isn’t a utopia. It is a balance between good and bad. A harmony sung with a million parts. The ocean’s melody pleads for us to help her stay clean, and Richard’s song harmonizes with the ocean’s.

Below their music though is the constant chant of the plastic bottles that wash up on the shore. Sing your song clear and strong, and I hope it’s closer to the ocean’s rush and roar than the growling of the bottles on the beach.

Sethra May
8th Grade Student
Bay Area, California
23, May 2011

Sethra May
8th Grade Student
Bay Area, California
March 15, 2011

Though I’ve never seen the movie “Goodnight and Good Luck,” I’ve always liked the name.  To me it says to a person, you are going into an unknown situation, the results hidden by a veil of darkness.  I know you are going, and hate to see you go, but wish you a journey weaved with a strand of luck.  I care enough about them to wish them luck, just like some people care about shoes, clothes, the T.V., or their jobs.  These days though, people are overcome with apathy, not having the capacity to care.  I’ve read essays saying that to stop apathy is to solve all problems in the world.  I think though, that when people are out of practice at things like caring, they need to start small.  If people had the capacity to care about something small like local litter, we could solve pollution.  If people had the capacity to care about something small like that, they could care about bigger things.  So may I ask the harm in trying?

For some reason, I try to be a good person.  When I’m walking around the school campus, I pick up trash I see and put it in the trash can.  I do this so that the campus will be cleaner, and so that maybe some other kid will see me and think, hey I could do that too!  Sadly, all that happens when someone sees me picking up trash is they give me a weird look and walk away.  They don’t care that I’m picking up trash as long as they don’t have to.  So if I’m a doubter in monkey see, monkey do, I don’t think you can blame me.  My hopes lie elsewhere for the world.

Walking down the street, people look at their shoes or their phones completely absorbed in their own problems.  They may frown as they pass a piece of litter, and then are swept away by the crowd and their own thoughts.  When I’m unhappy and see trash all over the place, my mood drops even further.  But if I’m in a bad mood and see a little kid playing in a clean park, a smile crosses my lips.  A clean world is a refreshing and relieving thought.  If people were busy with their own problems and saw a clean street, maybe, just maybe they would be happier with one less problem to think about.  And honestly, if you think one person can’t make a difference, think again.

Richard James is my dad’s friend from college.  Almost every day Richard walks for miles up and down Tomales Beach on Point Reyes.  With a backpack, he packs out 40 to 60lbs of trash each trip and hikes up to 8 miles round trip to and from the nearest parking lot.  Richard doesn’t get paid for what he does; he does it because he cares.  After 3 years of doing this, Richard decided it was time that other people cared too.  He has started up coastodian.org to help raise awareness of the trash that pollutes our oceans and washes up on our beaches.  He’s decided to focus on art awareness.  With the trash he picks up, he makes art and takes professional photos of it in different places.  Knowing Richard and having helped him several times, he sent me an email with the website and his photos.  I forwarded this email to as many people as could, and suggested the people I sent it to send it on.  If this email becomes a chain email, it could do major damage raising awareness.

So to litter, or not to litter.  World, art thou world, I’m not sure how else to ask you to care.  If I’ve gotten one person to care by writing this essay, I shall not have lived in vain.  One person can make a difference.  If you want to, log on to coastodian.org tonight and check it out.  On the off chance you do, know I wish you this. Goodnight and good luck.

Allusions:
Goodnight and good luck~ the movie Goodnight and Good Luck
To litter, or not to litter~ Hamlet
World, art thou world~ Romeo and Juliet
I shall not have lived in vain~ Emily Dickinson