If we're honest, looking hard at problems in our backyard shows we all share the blame

Date published: 6/10/2008

NOT long ago, I was passing through a pastoral setting in Westmoreland County on my way to an assignment.

It was still early, and the angle of the sun cast a pale glow on the cut hay a farmer had raked into rows for baling.

I was surprised by what loomed on one edge of the field--a huge cell phone tower as out of place in that setting as screen doors on a submarine.

While grumbling about how this tower didn't belong in a place like that, my cell phone rang. On the other end of the phone was someone I'd been trying to reach all morning for another story.

I instantly went from griping about what I saw as a real problem--ruining the natural landscape with a cell phone tower--to being part of the problem, a cell phone customer glad to have service right there.

It made me think about how often this happens, how many times I'm part of the problem.

A few days after that, I found myself in a rural part of Spotsylvania County.

Looking out at a field being cleared for a new crop, I was stuck by the patches of white all over.

Straining my eyes, it became clear the white patches were plastic bags that had come to roost all over.

Once again, I grumbled at the way this marker of modern commerce was ruining the natural beauty and unspoiled nature of the land.

It took less than a minute this time to go from grumbler to guilty party as I realized that I not only use plastic bags on every shopping trip but actually had two in the back of my car.

As a rule, I don't let them blow out onto farm fields. And others in my family recycle the plastic bags that wind up in our house and have begun to take reusable bags when shopping.

But I've carried enough plastic bags in my days to fill fields hither and yon, and I haven't given serious thought to the reusable bags.

Largely because I'm lazy.

In a broader sense, I've realized for a while that I can't gripe blamelessly about the growth and development hereabouts.

Date published: 6/10/2008