Clean Up Week

Everything's getting crazy around town this week...it is clean up week.  During this week, people are allowed to throw items that they would normally have to bring to the landfill themselves out on the berm and the trash collectors pick everything up.  Well, they collect it if the scroungers and dumpster divers don't get there first.  Andrea and Kirk threw some junk out, and it was scrounged while we were all gone today.  One of the items was a cheap but still operable bike that they probably wouldn't have put out there if it were not for the fact that someone would take it.  There was also some crappy chairs that were snatched up.  Theirs was one of the only junk piles in the neigborhood that I saw. 

The impressive piles are always in the older neigborhoods farther North.  It seems like the older houses have bigger piles.  Also, the areas around NDSU usually have alot of junk left out.  I was reminded of this because I went to campus for a Continuing Legal Education class (A certain number of hours of CLE classes are required to stay licensed.  They are useful but overpriced, in my opinion) and drove around the surrounding streets looking for a parking spot. 

When I was goung to elementary and high school, our school always had Clean Up Day on a lovely May Friday.  Each class was assigned an area and went out with rakes and bags to beautify the town.  The younger kids stayed close to school and patrolled the school grounds and city parks (the really young kids really didn't do anything but play) and the older kids went out of town on busses to patrol along the highways kind of like a local version of Adopt a Highway.  Although it involved cleaning, we all likeed it because being outside on a beautiful day in May always beats an afternoon in class.  Also, everyone was in a fun mood, including the teachers, and there was alot of joking around and goofing off.  We got rewarded with delcious popcicles and sno cones at the end of the day.  I don't know if they still do it...someone's parents probably complained that their child had to touch germs or something and ruined the outdoor fun for everyone but I don't know for sure. 

Hmmm...now I am craving a sno cone!