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Show plastic garbage bags and leach your children how to keep their grounds looking beautiful. The parks are theirs, you know, and yours and mine. The same goes for public campgrounds in canyon areas. Who enjoys cleaning up the mess another has left behind? It's much easier to clean up our own junk (we're not as careless as the other guy) and the people who follow us into the canyons will want to leave it clean for the next comer. (Well, it's an optomis-tic optomis-tic thought, anyway!) Let's rid Bountiful of its eyesores - beginning with the one in our own backyard. When that's done, we'll ail converge on the "vacant" junk-yard owners. Don't say you weren't warned! Kelley "Kelley Greene . Anw,rs mggg, Shades of Kelly Green Is both an Issues and answers column featured weekly In The Davis County Clipper and the Weekly Reflex. Kcllty U happy to answer your questions, and will also contribute full-length columns on issues and events found in our world and in day-to-day living. We welcome reader questions and hope to create a uniquely Davis County forum herein. Send your ideas and question to: I Clipper Publishing Co. I zzzzi f-o. Box 267 zzzzzzzzzzi Attn.! Kelley Greene Bountiful, Utah 84010 Send your questions today and watch for Kelley each week. Beautiful Bountiful isn't! Eyesores seem to afflict Bountiful, just as they do any city of similar size. Overflowing garbage cans (one new one just doesn't seem to take the place of two of the old kind), untidy, weed-filled yards, and vacant lots, to name a few. There's nothing wrong with vacant lots, as long as they remain vacant, but a quick ride through areas west of the freeway lets one know that many "vacant" lots, particularly in industrial and commercial areas, arc junk-filled, rather than vacant. Problems in the above-named areas cast a blight on "beautiful Bountiful." And the solution? Start close to home, in fact, at home in our own back yard -- or front or side yard - whichever needs the most attention. "Keeping up with the Jones'." with respect to a neat and tidy yard is not a bad idea. It is a relatively simple, though time-consuming chore, to mow. rake and pick up any trash which blows our way. (If a lot of trsh blows our way. another garbage can might be a good investment !) Proper care of our yard pays dividends. It makes us feel good about where we live, and our neighbors point with pride to their "neat neighbors!" neigh-bors!" (It also makes thtm try to keep up with us.) If a friend needs help: to tidy up his yard, lend him. some. He may return the favor some time when you need it. After we're sure that our own neighborhoods arc in order, we can expand our help to other areas, like the "vacant" lots. Maybe all that the owners need to get involved in their own clean-up campaigns is to be embarrassed into it. After all. we've got all of our neighborhoods looking good and their lots are obviously out of place. It's also more effective to apply pressure to another when our own "backyards" arc in line. An offer of help to the owner of some of those "vacant" junk-yards to the west to town might also be a key to persuading them that cleaned-up is better. If all else fails, a petition to the city fathers to have the offending property owners "clean up their act" would not be amiss. While we're discussing eyesores and their perpetrators, have you ever noticed city parks and other public grounds, particularly particu-larly after a town gathering? For some reason, to some people, "public" means "no one." So all feel free to use public property as their private dumping grounds. Even the most casual perusal of the park adjacent to Bountiful Jr. High School, for example, reveals trash in almost every nook and corner. City employees are paid to pick it up. but what a black mark on our public character! We need more sense of civic pride than that. While I'm on my soapbox, and since summer is nigh (we hope!) have you ever been downtown following a parade? Our beautiful Bountiful isn't. The city is nearly engulfed in litter, and extras are hired to clean up after us. Of course, it wasn't you or me who dropped our pop cans and candy wrappers, but the other guy. Next time you're there, watch and see who it is. Remind yourself (whoops. I forgot of course it isn't you) to deposit the trash in one of the many strategically located garbage receptacles, or as a last resort, take it home and use your very own waste can. And when you lake the family to the park for a picnic, bring one of those handy |