Amber waves of grain, cottage cheese bins, purple mountain majesties, majestic beer bottles.

Upon my own version of “Into the Wild” this past weekend, I took off down Route 16, and Route 130 as I headed for Lake Charleston.

While I watched cars zoom by I seemed like a tortoise, watching time in slow motion and with it, all the minute details I never would have noticed had I been traveling by speed of exhaust.

I originally traveled by speed of awe, taking in a hawk a few feet from my head and walking upon Route 130’s decline where the lake nears was invigorating for me.

However, upon return I traveled by speed of exhaustion, but it wasn’t just being tired that I grew tired of.

On the uphill walk back from the lake (kind of symbolic when I think of it), I happened to notice our lovely impact on Mother Nature.

Mingled in the side of the road of Route 130, I spotted everything from empty beer cases to a cottage cheese container. A cottage cheese container? Yes, you heard me correctly. It wasn’t just here and there; it’s as if people like trashing the environment or just don’t care.

I’m going to go with the latter. I am no Al Gore or even Dave Matthews. I have done my share of littering or have been an accomplice in littering (someone once asked if I cared if he threw something out the window, to which I replied, “Go ahead.”)

But I do have a news flash: I loved Captain Planet as a kid, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t exist. Now, there was a band called Earth, Wind and Fire, however (that’s a joke). We can’t expect government to clean up everything.

We can’t think it’s someone else’s problem anymore. Route 130 is literally becoming an inconvenient truth.

I had a vision on that walk as well.

If everyone stepped up and stopped littering and everyone focused on cleaning up his or her communities, maybe just one piece of trash at a time, it’d be nothing short of a chain reaction.

Today, Charleston. Tomorrow, America. There was no way I was going to pick up every single piece of trash on my walk back, but I did manage to toss another empty beer bottle container in the trash near campus.

The following day, I noticed a student go to throw something away.

He missed the trash and just kept walking. Once upon a time, I would have done the same. But after Lake Charleston, that trash was put where it belonged.

This isn’t something that requires writing your congressman or woman or organizing a full-fledge clean up. All it calls for is to not litter and clean up the mess that’s been made already.

Amber waves of grain or cottage cheese containers? What do you want your city to look like?

Because I know what I want.

Kevin Kenealy is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].