The Tucson Foothills has about the same median household income as Scottsdale, but it comes with aesthetics not found in Scottsdale.
For example, during the early morning of one of our daily five-mile walks and litter pick-ups, my wife and I saw a large bag full of trash on the shoulder of Craycroft Rd., about a mile north of Sunrise Dr., in front of a house worth at least $1 million.
The bag had not been there the day before. It had probably fallen out of a truck or dumped there during the night.
The bag was too large and bulky for us to carry two miles to our house to throw out, so we left it behind and continued our walk. Besides, we carry empty bags on our walks and had already filled one with litter. At our advanced age, we weren’t about to lug two bags home.
We also figured that the homeowner would pick up the bag and discard it, since it was near his driveway and thus easy to carry to his trash container. Silly us.
The next day, we saw that the bag had been moved to the opposite side of the road and thrown in the brush, almost certainly by the homeowner (see photo below). A cynical conclusion? Not in view of the fact that we know of other homeowners who have been just as unneighborly.
Classy, eh?
A couple of days later, I drove to the location and placed the bag in the back of my car to be thrown out at home. Otherwise, it would have been there until the bag deteriorated in the elements and the contents ended up strewn about.
This left me wondering what went through the mind of the homeowner each time he drove in and out of his driveway and saw the bag across the street. Did the unsightliness register with him? Or had he become so desensitized to conditions in metro Tucson that he thought it was perfectly normal for a bag full of trash to be left on the roadside in front of his expensive home?
A recent incident gave us a clue as to the prevailing mindset in the Foothills and the larger metro area. A Foothills resident saw us picking up litter and asked us why we do it. He asked in a way that implied that we are oddballs.
No doubt about it: We are indeed oddballs in the Foothills. We don’t think that trash thrown on the side of the road is either classy or aesthetically pleasing.
Mr. Cantoni is an author, activist, retired executive, and oddball. Contact: craigcantoni@gmail.com.