"Detritus"

"Just a lot of garbage..."


Americans are really amazing people.
We are amazing for our abilities to virtually ignore anything
that we don’t want to see, don’t want to know about and don’t want to associate with. In fact, we have an uncanny way of virtually ignoring anything that might require a double dose of anti-acids.

We marvel at our resiliency to put things completely out of our heads that seem to aggravate the hell out of most other people in the so-called “civilized world.”

Want an example of our cunning obtuseness? . Consider garbage. Garbage doesn’t seem to bother us at all. We can live with it; without it. It doesn’t seem to matter. As long as eventually there are those who can make it all go away!

In fact, we have literally 400 foot mountains composed solely of detritus—the fancy word for garbage. That’s another thing, call it detritus and you could put it right next to mansions on Staten Island; it’s that acceptable. What’s more, it’s rumored that this garbage will someday be transmuted into one of the greatest ski areas in America. And if that isn’t American ingenuity, what is?

It’s my feeling, however, that no matter what you do, if you dig down vertically you are going to wind up with a Twinkie that is as good as the day it was extruded from some machine…

Think about that for a minute!


Are people upset that even these sites are filling up?

No, not one bit. As long as we can find some folks in some far off state like West Virginia who would be glad to take our waste, why should we worry?

Most Americans just tend to think of garbage as the price you pay for existence. Never mind that it is befouling our environment and stinks to high heaven!

Meanwhile, the rest of the world gets miffed even when American visitors toss their waste wrappers all over when they visit. And they can’t seem to understand why their European friends get all bent out of shape. And forget about all the Green laws over there; no American worth his salt would even bother to learn them. After all, it seems implicit in the definition of freedom that freedom means permission to act like an absolute pig, befouling one’s nest and poisoning the environment rather than changing our ways. And anyone who doesn’t realize this, doesn’t deserve to be called an American….

Les Aaron