The other day I was out picking up trash with kids in the park.   For some reason this ruffled feathers of people around us.    I speculate as to why, I'll get to that.

As I'm picking up trash and children are huddled around me finding trash and commenting on what they find an adult comes to me and says, "That's somebodies job to pick that up."  I answered, "So it's our job to litter?" 

Look, I'm not a Jesus Freak, I'm not a flaming liberal, I'm not even the guy stands up in the board room and cries foul.  I'm just a guy.  I do know that a parkland is all our responsibility, it belongs to all of us.  In fact I said that to this lady that was quite incensed I had taken the initiative to do so.  In fact, it was the third day in a row I had been doing this.  After I stated, "This is our park."   She shot back, "You don't own it, it's not yours."  Initially I was perplexed that she had an answer for everything that suited her, but then I realized... I was married once.  Women hone this skill. LOL  I'm joking of course.  I will say I knew it would be useless to argue with this person.  They then shot some insults at me and I answered, "I'm not the one with the problem, you are and this conversation is over."  

As I continued to pick up trash I considered the woman's verbal attack.  I didn't think about her, I thought about me.  I'll do the right thing as I know it will pay dividends in my children's character over time.  They learn by my examples.

I then  thought about how ...   more »