From the dark center of the Eagle newsroom, greetings. I'm Gary Catt, executive editor of Eagle Newspapers. I've come to this calling after a career that's swerved through a half-dozen daily newspapers and an ad agency that was once the world's largest. Along the way I've written or edited most everything and an I've guided successful strategies around times of difficulty for Fortune 50 companies. My job here is to make sure that when you pick up your Eagle community newspaper it's a like a walk down main street, spotting faces you know; discovering news you need to know.
Well, Labor Day has come to pass. I guess it's time to start cleaning up after the people who come to my neighborhood each summer to sip over-priced wine; drive too fast on both the lake and the roads and then throw their trash and empties out the window. Or...sometimes pause their RV just long enough to make a roadside deposit of the leavings of their vacation.
We hear so much about the value of tourists and the cash they bring with them, but no one talks about the filth and flotsam the unthinking leave behind.
Like along the road in front of my house.
A roadside inspection in the 1.1 miles from our front door to our lakefront revealed that "Sun Chips" have replaced "Lays" as the chip of choice among the litter set. "Milwaukee's Best," which held sway for the past couple seasons has been pushed aside by "LaBatt's Blue." This would point the finger of suspicion at the Canadians who have been bringing their fat currency to my area in increasing numbers. But, that's a hard to charge to prove. I prefer to just paint over such behavior with the global derision: "scum."
I don't know what flavor of disposable diaper these people prefer because, I for one, am not about to investigate. There two such incidents this year, but I think they were different brands. Yecch!
What really set off this rant was my morning jog along the lake. There I was huffing and puffing south, trying to leave behind some corpulence when I passed two different family groups -- bathing in the lake! Their heads were all pointy with a soapy sculpture of shampoo. How cute. Whole families were lathered up. Sadly, there's no law against such ignorance, at least I assume it was ignorance. Soaps and shampoos are great pollutants because of their phosphorus content. It's the phosphorus that fertilizes the weeds and hastens the decline of the lakes. I managed to resist the temptation to scream, telling myself that this was the end for this year -- I'm not the envirocop -- and maybe next year the tourist bureau will send us only the smart people.
