I will never understand why it's so hard for some people to pick up after themselves, or allow their kids to leave huge messes at our local parks and public use area's. It takes, what, less than 2 minutes to gather up your trash whenever you have a picnic at the park and put it in the garbage cans?

We took the kids to Spring Lake Park a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day and they had the best time playing and going for a walk around the pond. But, I left there just seething at the amount of trash people had left behind at the picnic tables and on the grounds. At one table it looked like an entire Kindergarten class has just finished eating there and not one of them was made to throw their trash away.

Fast forward a week later and we're out camping at the lake and we walked to the playground there. Trash everywhere. Even a dirty diaper filled with poo on the slide! Yuck! Come on folks!

I don't blame the park people for these messes. Yes, the city and the parks at the lake have people that are paid to keep these areas clean, but if people were more respectful for our public use areas, we wouldn't need anyone to pick up the trash at these places.

I was always taught that when you go camping or to the park, you always leave that place cleaner than you found it and that's something I have tried to teach my kids over the years. If anyone EVER sees my kid leave trash behind at a park or throw it out a car window, please let me know and I will deal with that immediately.

Shame on those who litter our public use areas. We should all stand up and demand that everyone respect our local parks and public use areas. After all, our tax dollars pay for for them.

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