From the Editor

Saturday’s volunteer effort to pick up refuse around Sidney, billed as the Great Trash Race, led to one of my better Facebook posts.

Somewhere along the railroad tracks a member of the Sun-Telegraph team scooped up a discarded liquor bottle still in its cliché brown paper bag. I posed with the find and tapped out the caption “Sure you spend the morning picking up trash, but there are perks.”

OK—not very original. And that was in the giddy moments before we learned that the Girl Scouts, UPS, Cabela’s, Saunders Construction and other teams kicked our tails in the clean up competition.

Still, five of us collected nine full-sized garbage bags of cans, bottles, paper and other junk tossed alongside Sidney streets by careless individuals.

The Girl Scouts clobbered us by about 20 bags. We’re trying not to be bitter.

Along the way we collected the aforementioned skid row cliché, along with several other oddities. Dawn Graves located a discarded baby shoe on the stretch of road behind the Sun-Telegraph office. Almost an hour later, near Safeway, I plucked a baby’s sock from the dirt—a surprising mix and match. Sales manager Brandy Sullivan found two jalapenos, apparently tossed by a restaurant customer annoyed that their “mild” order had gone awry. We dug out a half buried golf ball between Sam & Louie’s and the tracks, an emptied shot gun shell, and my ambition of finding the remains of a gristly crime was rewarded by the discovery of a torso—made of plastic and once belonging to a local child.

Hannah Van Ree is keeping the troll doll she stumbled upon, only its head and outspread hands poking through the ground.

It would be easy to say the real winner was this community. Teams spread out around Sidney, scouring sidewalks and grassy areas. Dozens of volunteers cleared more than 100 bags of trash. But I would argue that those participating in the event received the greatest reward.

No, I’m not referring to the “better to give” sensation we should feel, neither am I laying claim to any smug “I’m volunteering for the common good” ideal. To be honest, I would have been just as fulfilled with my normal sprawled-on-the-couch-watching-British-soccer Saturday morning. But I’m hardly a role model.

Come to think of it, Keep Sidney Beautiful robbed me of couch time.

As we stooped to pluck garbage from the brush, we were oblivious to traffic passing by, to the sun beating down, to the fact that thorns and sharp objects slit our gloves, allowing scuzz to seep inside (making the hand-held lunch offered afterward something of a dare).

We were just part of Sidney as it passes through time. And that’s a feeling rich and indescribable at the same time.

At least, it’s far too complex to express on Facebook.