Scouting into Urban Wilderness: Sweat, Mud, and Lots of Trash

A wave of intense sun wafted across my face as a cloud blew out of the sun’s way. Silly me, I had forgotten to bring my water. We trudged onward toward our pavilion in our scout uniforms. Fortunately, as leader, I get to make rule exceptions for myself. No polo shirt for me. I’ve always hated the looks of those things on women. I am a female sort of female. I don’t like things that remove my female-ness. Nonetheless, I stood there in my dark green heat attracting shirt, like all the other dark green polo shirts around me.

Despite the heat at noon, I was happy to be holding a scout meeting at a park, and therefore not requiring me to clean my house. Back at home, there was underwear tossed on the floor near the laundry room, and I was happy about it.

“Today we are working on our summer community service badge by cleaning up the trash out of the park,” I announced, in case it wasn’t obvious. One of the scouts had brilliantly brought his own little mechanical-hand trash grabber thing. I was a bit envious. I passed around adult-sized gloves to the kids, who I figured would decline, but all eagerly accepted them. I also passed around plastic grocery bags for them to collect their garbage in. I felt a little guilty about that—there we were contributing eight more bags into a landfill along with a bunch of plastic gloves…life isn’t perfect. That’s all I’ve got to say.

The tot, having been ignored during supply distribution, made her presence strongly known. I handed her a blue glove that could eclipse her hand and half of her lower arm, which she wore with pride. She then held onto my bag of supplies, toting it along on her arm like a big kid. Kids do learn so much by observation.

Off we trudged, down a boardwalk, taking our exit into the woods. “Now let’s use good sense,” I called ahead to several children that were rapidly disappearing. “Don’t pick up anything that looks sharp.” I chuckled inwardly. Those kids aren’t picking up anything. I’d passed out the gloves just because I remembered seeing a used condom at some point on my walks in those woods.

We managed about five steps into the trail before our first plastic bottle was found. It was pointed out and a child picked it up like a prize. It was like the honorary cutting of the ribbon to usher in our newest project. The antics that followed probably should have been recorded for posterity. So many children tripped over so many cypress knees. The tot among them, the poor dear. Then the vines, catching little feet like they had devious intentions. The children led us onto the creek that snaked around, harboring a few plastic cups that I got my feet muddy to retrieve. As a Floridian, I am always prepared to get my feet muddy. Thank God for pine needle laden trails and the advent of flip-flops.

“Not that path,” I stopped some of our little over-achievers, as they continued to follow that snaking creek. “That’s to the homeless camp,” I muttered to the adults. The homeless were likely the reason for all the trash in the woods, and also the reason for all that broken auto glass in the parking lot, but I had no particular desire to meet them. “I wonder why they throw all the trash in the woods, since it is their home,” speculated one of the moms. “Some people are better housekeepers than others,” I shrugged.

Onward we went, overtop a fallen pine tree. The kids scrambled over it and the tot hugged it hopelessly like the runt of the scouts. She got a boost, and into the palmettos we went. By now half the scouts had forgotten their purpose. Distant shouts of explorers could be heard ahead among the pine trees. The adults kept pointing out things missed, and picking them up, or shooing scouts back in that direction.

“I’m hot,” some of the scouts were moaning once we had trekked next to that snaking creek until it met a pond. We wound our way back to the boardwalk, picking up bottle caps, a cookie tray, and more of those plastic bottles out of the brush as we went. We visited the sad tree. I told the kids that it was sad because there was so much trash, and I said it with a very serious face. I think they believed me.

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Back at the pavilion we examined our trash bags, and it was then that I realized I was completely unprepared. Bad scout leader. I should have looked up some stuff beforehand, like exactly how many hundreds of years it takes to break down a plastic bottle. Or, exactly all the reasons trash is bad to have in the environment. I could only come up with three on the fly. I don’t think it mattered. A fieldtrip I think is more about the doing than the listening. The doing showed them what they needed to know—a muddy bottle covered in algae slime sticking out of a creek is ugly and shouldn’t be there.

I concluded with “So, the next time you have a bottle with you and there is no trash can around, what are you going to do?”

Silence all around while lots of deer in the headlights looked on. I’m bad about that—when possible never give a bunch of overheated and lazy scouts a question that requires more than a “yes” or “no” answer.

“You hold onto it until you find a trash can,” I said. Lots of little heads in my tribe nodded. Another scout badge in the works, another green shirt sweated through, and a park a teensy bit cleaner.