The Rotten Turkey

Over the years in our community we’ve sent lots and lots of kids to camp.  Far and away the majority of kids went at no cost to them or their family as the Salvation Army was desperate to fill their quota which we were always happy to do and the kids still today recall that week as the highlight of their lives.

One year however it was going to cost us quite a bit of money for the pre-teens to experience cabins and bonfires and hikes, etc. so in return for the financial support from the local merchants we promised to keep their main business strip clean.

Doing ‘the worst first’ is a good life-long habit, and litter pickup – especially where we started – proved a most excellent opportunity to begin to develop this discipline.

At one of the two entrances to our town – accessed only from Interstate 5 – there’s a ditch that parallels the road on which any number of cars await the green light signaling their turn to proceed.  Though it certainly must seem to the drivers and passengers an interminable time to get on with their lives, the wait does allow them to finish their fast-food lunch or late night repast or drink or two and quite often to toss the remains out the window and into the aforementioned ditch.

It was at the bottom of that embankment, so deep the cars above were out of view, that all camper wannabes stood arms-length-and-blue-plastic-gloved-hands apart. 

The objective was to take the hill.  The goal was to leave nothing behind.  The difficulty, on a scale of 1-to-10, based on the collective groans, was off the charts.  Between us and the flat terrain somewhere overhead, a steep incline loomed overgrown with blackberry vines and tree roots, a litter-strewn jungle of wine and beer bottles, household garbage and abandoned furniture - even including more than one mattress.

And a rotten turkey. 

At least we think it was a rotten turkey.

When the young man picked it up he didn’t know the bag’s contents.  How long it had been there probably could have been determined by what remained had it been further inspected.  Certainly his find corresponded not at all with the Thanksgiving season.  But that it stunk was gaggingly beyond question.

And yet that maggot-infested, thought-to-be-turkey carcass, together with every other single stinking piece of garbage, made its way to the dumpster such that not even a lousy gum wrapper remained behind.

What those kids observed that day – they themselves unseen at the bottom of the ditch where only the homeless dare to go - so much of our society doesn’t teach. 

Elected leaders for example play upon the weaknesses of the very constituents they were sworn to protect and serve by encouraging those people, and expanding the opportunities, to play to win – casinos or lottery - not work to win. 

In education, “a new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law.” 

And even our most noble efforts to assist and serve others - undertaken with unquestioned-motive - without some sort of ‘pay it forward’ communicated expectation, quite often may in fact foster just the opposite of the intended result – greater dependency. 

“Very specific steps are required for successful change,” writes Dr. Suzanne W. Morse in her book “Smart Communities”, and those steps begin with her warning that “dependence upon people or outside resources is not a long-term strategy for sustainability” (preface, viii).

As our country collectively, breathlessly – and shamelessly – awaits on this eve of the drawing of who next will become “filthy rich” with the lottery having reached the unprecedented height of $500 million, there was a day when a handful of kids stood on top at the edge of a ditch alongside a road who themselves were filthy, and stinking, and quite proudly: rich.