Inspired by the cooler autumn air, I found myself standing on the right-of-way of East River Road. I noticed that the prisoners had cut and cleaned up this stretch of highway a few days ago but it was already building into another eyesore of trash. Some of my fellow citizens seem to forget that they have trash containers at home. At least, I assume that they have trash containers at home, but they prefer to litter their (our) highway for some (ungodly?) reason.

Anyway, here I am getting my exercise bending and stretching and loading my plastic bag with crushed beer cans, half-empty/half-full bottles (99% plastic), cigarette packs, convenience store cups both plastic and Styrofoam, and you-name-it-what-else while trucks big and small, cars new and old, people rich and poor, whiz by in a hurry. And I look twice. I see something different. Would you believe?

A bowling ball on the right-of-way.

It’s mud caked and cracked and obviously unable to roll down an alley without clunking and lurching and probably rolling over like unto dead. I can understand that this ball is now trash, worthless in the hands of anyone calling himself or herself a bowler,  but I do not understand why somebody left it on the edge of our highway? If he/she tossed it out of a vehicle’s window, I would like to get an instant replay of the action. A cute joke? I guess so. Cuter than snuff containers, hair brushes and plastic bags.

But let’s press on beyond the humor. How ridiculous is this? Would it be any more ridiculous to ask our new Recreation Authority to start a Highway Bowling League so folks can go play out in the road and roll their bowling balls and hope to score a strike on all the bottles and cans that jerks eject thoughtlessly (it has to be “thoughtlessly”) from their moving launch pads.

Basil Lucas