The Icebag Cometh...and a Pair of New Socks

Three days a week I unofficially lead an aerobics class for active older adults at the local YMCA. And on the other three days I walk at least a mile, perhaps a little further, if my back doesn’t start hurting, and I pick up trash that people have tossed from their cars as they drive along.

Our driveway connects with a ½-mile paved frontage road that runs parallel with Highway 60/63 and then intersects with Highway 76, the 2-lane state highway that one takes to town. The frontage road picks up again on the other side of 76 and runs parallel to the highway for about another ½ mile before it makes a sharp turn and becomes a gravel county road.

I seldom walk on our frontage road because there is challenging hill. It would probably be good endurance and cardiovascular workout to walk the hill, but I don’t want to. So, I drive to the end of our frontage road, park, and then walk across.

Some trash is year round—plastic straws, straw wrappers, lottery tickets, aluminum cans (beer, soft drinks, energy drinks), food wrappers and containers from McDonald’s and other fast food places, plastic water bottles... the list goes on.

As spring segues into summer I also start picking up a lot of empty ice bags.

Conveniently located at the two highway on-ramps and off-ramps is a convenience store combined with a McDonald’s. On these hot summer days, folks decide to head out for outdoor activities, whether to float the river or to hang out at one of the big lakes to the south or other activities. They put their cooler in the back of the pick-up, buy a bag of ice at the convenience store, rip it open and empty the ice into the cooler, and then throw the empty bag in the back of the pick-up. And about 10 seconds after they get up to speed on the on-ramp, the bag blows out of the back of the truck. That’s my theory anyway. This morning I picked up 2 ice bags.

But occasionally there are strange and interesting things scattered. The other day I was walking the frontage road and came across a nice blue sock in good condition. So I picked it up and brought it home.

When I go to town on Tuesdays to pick up the mail and buy bananas (one of the local stores drops the price of bananas to 39-cents a pound on Tuesday), I usually stop at the library. So later in the morning when I drove up to the library, I was very surprised to see another blue sock lying in the gutter in front of the building.

Keeping in mind it’s probably 2 miles between where I found the first sock and the library. How did these socks come to be tossed where they did?

Yesterday I went to my friend Judy’s house to visit her and her long-time friends who are here to be with her in case she needs help while she recovers from knee replacement surgery and to drive her to appointments with the physical therapist, etc. The four of us sat around her table and discussed this briefly.

Eimi supposed that the person had slept in the car on the side of the road, and when they opened the door the sock fell out. Then they decided to go to the library because one can usually sit in a library, which is air conditioned, all day without being rousted, so when they opened the door again the other sock fell out. Interesting, but I don’t think so.

Jim recalled when he was kid their car had a large hole in the floor board and things fell out and were lost, so he decided there must have been a large hole in the floor of the car.

I did not offer a theory.

It will be an unsolved mystery, but come cooler weather in the Fall, I am going to enjoy my new blue socks.