The Cleanup Crew from Morris

KEEPING THE HIGHWAYS OF MORRIS CLEAN

Today, Thursday, heralded our newest adventure! Our Garden Club, Morris Area Garden Club (MAGC) has officially adopted a section of busy Highway 47 through IDOT. We volunteered, as a Club, to get out there 4x per year to keep our section beautiful.

Today was our first day! Our IDOT signs were up, and we had a proud moment eyeballing them. 'This section of road maintained by Morris Area Garden Club.' Our six intrepid volunteers, now decked out in full IDOT cleanup gear, met at Morris Municipal Airport, ready to take on roadside trash. It was 9:30 am. We were sure we would finish by 10:30. It's just a mile or two of rural highway, after all.

Three of us covered the North side of 47, and three the South. Before beginning, we folded down the orange "CAUTION: ROAD CREW" signs that IDOT places on the posts under our 'adoption' signs. These signs, as you know, direct drivers to slow down and be careful!

Hubby took the area right along the road. I took the next section down, where the drainage ditch runs through, and our conciencious MAGC past president took the area closest to the corn fields'

Bit by ugly bit, we speared detritus and placed it into the bags.

We all had worn heavy gloves, long sleeves and caps to protect us from any and every thing we could think of. Except the temperature. It kept getting warmer and warmer. We began to sweat, and being aware of the nasty, evil condition of some of the garbage we were spearing, we were unable to use our gloved hands to wipe off the perspiration. Wetter and wetter, hotter and hotter, we trudged on.

And hubby, being by the road, had dust that covered the sweat. We were an ugly bunch. An ugly, sweating, smelly bunch.

By 11:30 am, and only halfway done, we stopped to rest by a bridge. A general agreement was reached that we would come back one more time to finish the second half. We had filled at least 12 bags with trash, and the two members who walked the road shoulder proper were nearly shell-shocked from roaring semis blowing by them and the backdrafts almost knocking them off their feet. Those of us working the ditch were the smelliest. The muddy ditchwater was truly evil. Six pooped volunteers called it a day.

Here are some bullet points we would like to share:

Caution Signs: NOBODY EVERY SLOWS DOWN. EVER! EVEN SEMIS

Top 'Throw Aways': Plastic bottles, and metal Cans. Especially BEER CANS

Unusual Finds: One LARGE pillow
Two FULL beer bottles

Part of a CAMO jacket

A LARGE blown apart truck tire (okay, not unusual, but BIG!)

Various unidentifiable car parts (also, not unusual, but interesting)

We'll be back out there soon to finish our second half. After all, there must be a stray bag of money laying around the side of the road, right?