"Are you trying to make a difference?"

Heh. Just finished putting away the last of last week's laundry this morning. I must have washed everything in the house - aside from camping laundry, the cats decided to use rialian's bed as a litterbox to express their displeasure at our absense. I guess that could be considered part of the camping laundry in a way.

This morning something out of the ordinary occurred. I was walking up and down my block doing the usual morning litter run - some of the people who use the bike path haven't been indoctrinated with our anti-litterbug mentality yet... So anyway, I was picking up garbage when I saw that someone had dumped a large bag of bottles and cans plus a good-sized pabst beer box. I tried to get them but I couldn't reach them without climbing down the creek bank. They had been tossed over the side of the creek bank, and if I left them there other people would get the idea and toss more junk on top of them. Dilemma. I figured I'd come back after work and use my ladder to get to them. Just then a man called me from a cross street a half a block away:

"Are you trying to make a difference?"

At first, having never heard those words before, I couldn't comprehend what he was saying. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Are you trying to make a difference?"

I walked a little closer while still leaving enough distance to make a run for it if I had to.

"I'm sorry, still didn't hear you."

"Are you trying to make a difference?"

It took three times, but I finally got it.

"Yeah. People dumped trash along the bike path and I'm picking it up".

"Can I help you?"

"Um, yeah - someone dumped trash where I can't get it - can you climb down there and pick up that beer box and bag of trash?"

After looking along the bank for a bit, he spotted it and got it out, and put it in the nearby trashcan (yes, there is a trashcan, but a lot of people don't use it for some reason).

After I thanked him profusely, he said, "you're welcome", and walked back to the street he had been on, and continued walking toward wherever he'd been going in the first place. So he'd actually walked out of his way to do this.

My first reaction to him had been "keep enough distance to make a run for it." As he was walking away, I thought "I should offer a ride to wherever he's going" but then of course an immediate, "No, can't, stranger, danger, carjacking, murder, rape, no."

I feel somewhat like the native people who were unable to see the ships.