A job well done

Well now this picture doesn't look like much.  Just a curb and a corner.  A street and a parking lot.  

But just a few days earlier, the scene was altogether different.  This parking lot was bustling.

Since the parking lot was bustling, you already know that this is not going to be about parked cars.  Parked cars do not  bustle.   This story does have cars though.  And trucks.

And friends and neighbors and garbage.  Lots of it.

That's because a group of neighbors got together and organized a neighborhood cleanup right here on this parking lot.  

This was not the kind of neighborhood clean up where you go around and pick up litter and make sure the streets and sidewalks and parks are clean.  This was the kind of cleanup where you help your neighbors haul their garbage and other junk off their property to be properly disposed of.  

Here's what happened.   Friends of Mt. David, a neighborhood group based in GroveAtopia's historic Northwest Neighborhood, noticed that some neighbors had lots of, well... let's call it stuff... in their yards.   

Now this situation can present a dilemma for anyone who is a neighbor.  We all live close together, even right next to each other, yet we are separate.  We respect each other's space and privacy.  

But if there is a problem between us - say, if your yard is junky - how should I tell you?  Send you a note?  Call you?  Glare at you until you ask me what's wrong?  Really, when it comes down to it, there is no good way to tell someone their yard is junky without someone getting mad or feeling awkward or rude, or having their feelings hurt.  

But the junk is still there.  

So the idea behind this clean up effort was to make it easy for neighbors to, well, clean up.

The dumpster was put on this lot, which is in the center of the neighborhood.  Metal was collected and recycled.  Appliances were collected and recycled.  Electronics were collected and recycled.  Limbs and branches were collected and chipped to be used as much in city parks. Neighbors went to each other's homes to pick stuff up.

This parking lot was quite a lively place when all this was happening.

Then it was over.  A few days later, while neighbors were sweeping the lot clean with brooms, a street sweeper happened to go by.  

"Would you please run your sweeper over this parking lot so it can be returned to the owner cleaner than it was when we got here?"

The answer was yes, and this parking lot, the one that just a few days earlier hosted dozens and dozens of neighbors and their garbage and junk, was left cleaner than it has ever been.

Now that's how every story should end.