The first time I came to this state in 1973, I could only describe it as a paradise. Everything sparkled, traffic moved, drivers signaled, the weather was perfect and the state completely lived up to the mystique that was California.

Now, however, I think we all need to take our eyes off our cellphones and look out the car window and realize that nobody is picking up our trash from the side of the road anymore.

We long ago stopped funding proper highway cleanup. Adopt a Highway has a noble purpose, but it’s just not working.

Am I the only one who sees the buildup of plastic grocery bags, water bottles, Styrofoam cups, blown out tires––you name it––collecting week after week?

It’s third-worldly at times.

Obviously, if we can’t hire teachers for classrooms, we can’t afford to hire people to pick up after us. So in addition to stopping with the littering already, let me make a suggestion.

Why couldn’t Caltrans entice businesses to clean up our highways? They could increase the size of the signs by a third for businesses that adopt stretches of highways, making the signs like small advertisements to lure the companies (such as Vons, Starbucks, WalMart, McDonald’s, etc.) whose packaging litters much of the landscape anyway. These businesses could hire an inexpensive service or get employee volunteers to do much of the work. They would, in turn, be providing a very muchneeded public service and be gaining goodwill and advertising to boot. Such a program might even take a billboard or two off the highway.

There are two things in this state that don’t require money to enjoy: the weather and the natural beauty.

I’d like to see this state sparkle like it did the first time I saw it in the 1970s, when there was still money to pay for trash collection. Let’s take pride in this state again, California—there’s not another one like it.
Mike Preddy
Westlake Village