Antidote to going to hell in a hand basket
8/2/2023
“We are all going to hell in a hand basket.”
Really?
Well, yes. Look around. Canadian fires to the north. Floods to the east. Dangerous heat extremes to the south. And no water to the west.
Yikes.
And that isn’t even mentioning that Iowa’s acclaimed virtue of tolerance is getting stuck in the mud of book bans, bathroom bans, medical bans, and other Thou-Shalt-Nots. It makes you wonder if funnel cakes might be the next divisive issue after some national extremist organization decides that Iowa should have a law stating: “Carnival workers shall not knowingly engage in or cause a minor to eat a funnel cake.” My goodness. And trust me, folks, a funnel-cake ban is just a slippery slope away from banning corn dogs.
“We are all going to hell in a hand basket,” my elderly mom exclaims.
All of this makes an old man despair.
“Do you know Paul Morrison from Drake?” Kim Jones asks.
What?
“Oh, he’s a good story.” She smiles.
Kim Jones sits on the edge of her chair, leaning even further forward with her enthusiastic enthusiasm.
“Paul Morrison really inspired me. He had a little briefcase he carried to work, and he worked for Drake for over 50 years. He was 100 years old when he passed. He lived in the Drake neighborhood, and with this little briefcase he picked up trash on his way to work, and he picked up trash on his way home. I knew him.”
Come to find out that Paul Morrison was a big deal. He was called Mr. Drake by his gazillion Drake fans. Before his death in 2017, Jim Duncan from CITYVIEW did a cover story and an interview with Morrison, who was, at that time, nearly 99:
“He was hired by Drake as the school’s first communications bureau director. That was 1945. He’s been going to work on the campus ever since. By the mid 1950s, he simultaneously worked as a one-person ticket office, a one-person sports information office and as Athletics Business Manager.”
And although Morrison does not mention his trash picking up duties in the story, he does say: “The walking I think was the key to my good luck with health. It was the only exercise I had time for. Drake was both my job and my hobby.”
Hah! According to Kim Jones, picking up trash is what Morrison did on those walks.
“All the years he did this without any fanfare. No one even knew. He was just the best. He just quietly picked up trash. Think of the difference he made over those years.”
Kim Jones was a graphic designer/art director in the first part of her life, a softball coach at the high school and college level in the second part, and now works in the alumni office at Drake as the Senior Assistant Director for Student Engagement. But her title in her family is “Trash Slinger.”
“So, I’ve always been a little bit obsessive about trash and picking up trash and having my kids pick up trash. I’ve even had my Drake students pick up trash.”
And this started because?
“I always feel as if I have so much privilege and people did so much for me so I did a lot of volunteering for Urbandale. As work became more demanding, I volunteered less and less and became obsessive about picking up trash.”
My goodness, why?
“It’s very cathartic for me, being out and seeing things that you want to keep looking good and feeling like you have a respect for what is there. I’ve always felt this way. And now I have just a small sliver of hope as I think about our environment.”
And the inspiration of Paul Morrison?
“I’ve really encouraged my students at Drake to pick up trash. So, twice a year, we have the Paul Morrison Spruce-Up Day. It’s a neighborhood pickup day. His daughter is a really active alum, and I told her we should honor him. So we partnered with the local neighborhood association already doing a clean-up day and blew it up. We now have 100 students and do two clean-ups a year.”
And your two kids, their spouses, and your husband?
“Well, my family comes to visit, and we do a major trash pickup on Mother’s Day and on my birthday. My daughter always asks what trash-slinging job we are doing this year.”
Wow, nothing says Happy Mother’s Day like picking up trash.
“Listen, I can only do part of what Paul Morrison has done. But I’m just going to do a little bit at a time. It’s helps me spiritually.”
Besides your family, any other followers of the Trash Slinger?
“Well, the neighbor kids, Fitz and Cora, also want to be known as Trash Slingers.”
So there you go. Paul Morrison to Kim Jones to Fitz and Cora. A legacy.
And does picking up a bag of neighborhood trash affect climate change, intolerance or the price of corn? Arguably not. But, hang with me here:
1. Does picking up trash today make things nicer for you and me tomorrow? Certainly.
2. And is tomorrow our future? You bet.
3. Is picking up trash an unselfish act? Absolutely (and if you’ve ever picked up someone’s discarded baby diaper, you are at the Mother Teresa level of trash pickup).
4. Is an unselfish act for the future a game changer? Of course.
So, trash slingers — doing unselfish acts for our future — are game changers. And that, my friends, is how we keep from going to hell in a hand basket.
Now, I’ll take two funnel cakes, please, before they’re banned. ♦
Joe Weeg spent 31 years bumping around this town as a prosecutor for the Polk County Attorney’s Office. Now retired, he writes about the frequently overlooked people, places and events in Des Moines on his blog:
www.joesneighborhood.com.
