BRAD DYE: Reestablishing a sense of community

Published 4:38 pm Wednesday, October 11, 2023

I have been thinking a great deal this week about an ongoing problem, and I have begun to think that, perhaps, I may be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

This past Saturday was one of my favorite holidays of the year — “Mowtober.” Each year on “Mowtober,” we celebrate the final mowing day of the year.

Fingers crossed that I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that and end up with a “Mowvember” holiday as well, just to make everything look perfect for Thanksgiving at the farm.

However, each time before any mowing can be done on the part of our property that borders Brooksville Road, I must don my “Adopt a Highway” cap and pick up all the litter.

I’ve mentioned this problem before, and I know it is a statewide issue. Based on my observations from daily travels across our state and the frequent social media posts from friends on the subject, it is clear to me that littering is now an epidemic.

In the 30 minutes or so that I spent cleaning up, I gathered one large garbage bag full of trash. That’s a lot of trash for around 500 or so yards of frontage.

Why? I always find myself asking that question during these clean-up sessions. Why would my neighbors do this? I was pondering this question Saturday when it hit me that I really don’t know many of my neighbors.

Certainly, I know Mr. Jimmy and Mrs. Helen across the street and the Sanfords next door, and I know many others up and down our busy country road, but there are far too many that I know nothing about other than what I can discern from their litter habits.

For instance, I know the candy of choice for many of my neighbors that travel Brooksville Road is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They also prefer Natural Light beer in the “Tallboy” cans and usually shy away from the hard stuff, although Belvedere vodka gets mixed in from time to time.

I can also give you a rundown on their smoking habits as well as which fast food restaurants they prefer. You can tell a lot about a person from his or her trash. However, I can’t tell you their names and, most likely, they can’t tell you mine. I see that as a big part of this problem.

In Ellistown, the hamlet where I was born and raised, I could tell you the names attached to every house and mailbox that I passed. For that matter, I could give you the same information for the surrounding communities of Fairfield, Jug Fork and Blue Springs.

For the most part, I either went to church or school with these neighbors or they were friends of my parents or grandparents. We lived in a community with them, but we also lived in “community” with them.

What do I mean by that? Well, if I saw them at one of the three country stores that I frequented on my bicycle in the summertime, I spoke to them by name. If they saw me pushing said bicycle with a flat tire, they loaded me up and took me home, no questions asked.

We looked out for each other, and the thought of throwing trash on their property, our shared community, never crossed my mind. This idea of community, neighbors knowing neighbors (and helping neighbors), seems to be a common theme in several of the books I have been reading lately.

One of those books, “The Need To Be Whole,” by Wendell Berry, speaks directly to our loss of community in this country. We have lost our connection with the land, lost our sense of place and community, and, according to Berry, “as a result, we live in and from an abandoned, unloved, toxic, eroded, and degraded country that most of our people have forgotten or never knew.”

Berry is, I have come to believe, the wisest living person in America (if not the world) today and his thinking is spot-on when it comes to stemming the tide of so much of what plagues both our communities and our society as a whole.

His thoughts on community from another essay, “The Loss of the Future,” provide a solution that goes to the heart of not only the epidemic litter problem, but also so many others. “A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives.”

This knowledge of a place and its people is what makes community possible. “It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”

I have mentioned before that I view loving our neighbors as one of our highest callings. Clearly, to do that better, I need to know more of them and know more about them. I need to expand the bounds of “community” within my community, and, in doing so, perhaps we neighbors will better care for the place we all call home.

Until next time, here’s to getting to know (and love) more of our neighbors, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great (and litter-free) outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.