For Shame!

Country Club Road, Jacksonville, IL

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can 

and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, 

and this was good because Man could then 

take his automobile and buy all his food in one place 

and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator 

and throw away that which had no further use.  

And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags 

and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles 

and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, 

and Man shook his head and cried:  

"Look at this Godawful mess!"  

~Art Buchwald, 1970

            This, my friends, is what I saw when I took a scenic drive on the first morning of spring along the eastern edge of Lake Mauvaiseterre.  

            Country Club Road serenely winds its way along the lakeshore and its woodsy backwaters. Closer to town are the magnificent homes of Jacksonville's wealthier citizens, with immaculately cared-for lawns and the beautiful greens of the Jacksonville Country Club. But just down the road to the south is one of the city's most disgusting, unofficial and illegal landfills --- where the dregs of the human race dump their refuse along the road in the ditches.

           The City of Jacksonville (or the County of Morgan, whichever is responsible for the maintenance of this road) must be proud of the "scenic beauty" of this stretch of roadway, because any time I've ever driven through here, this is what I've observed. Might they not invest in some surveillance cameras to conceal in the trees to catch these lawbreakers in action? Taxpayer money that is (occasionally?) invested in cleaning up the mess might be better spent in preventing it in the first place.