Saint Patrick’s Day came and green was everywhere You could even see it in the pool and fountain at the White House in Washington. The Irish green beer was being drunk in plenty in Chicago and New York and probably in lots of other places as well. I bet there were lots of green ties ,shirts and blouses , funny green hats and funny green shoes to be seen in offices, shops, pubs and parties.
I'm not sure why green is associated with Saint Pat or why it comes at this time of the year but we know Ireland is a very green place. Fly over it at any time. There is no doubt green is the color of Ireland.
Green is also the color of a Texas spring. It is just wonderful to see all the bright leaf greens appearing after most of the blossom fades. One thing that surprises me is the many shades of green of the leaves and how quickly the pale green turns darker as the days progress.
As a painter the color green is the one I have most problems in mixing to get the shade I need. I know to get a basic green you mix blue and yellow but I can never quite get the tone I like. My color green is always too intense or primitive.
I suppose it's this variation and the link of the color green and growing plants that has come to symbolize the Green movement. I am happy that it is still moving along and progressing, be it very slow at times but there are still signs of life .
Finally we have curbside recycling in my part of Texas even though we do have to pay for it extra to our garbage pick up fee. I can remember if you wanted to recycle you had to collect all your cans and papers and haul them away to collection bins. That's if you could even find one. I understand there is big money in all these recyclables so I never can understand why we have to pay to have ours collected. Still we would recycle anyhow to do our bit to keep the earth green.
I shudder every time I think of that huge swath of plastic bags and junk that is said to be floating around somewhere in the Pacific ocean that is about the size of Texas just because people are downright lazy and will not clean up after themselves and recycle.
At least a a few countries have started the ball rolling and outlawed the useful but everlasting plastic bag. Finally shopping bags are becoming fashionable again. Maybe there is hope for the oceans yet.
Any plastic bags we do get, I collect to give to a friend who has taken on a self imposed volunteer job to go around clearing up the lanes and roadsides around where she lives as she wants her part of the world to stay green. She uses the bags to collect the bottles and cans that are thrown there by definitely NON green people.Cheers to her. She sets a great example.
I did wonder if these plastic bags and plastic items are made from oil could there not be a process found that could turn them back to oil?That could solvea lot of problems.
I am always amazed at the huge piles of garbage that is still being collected and not recycled. Travel all over the place and new mountains and hills are being made from all the junk we throw away. We have a couple of these mountains close to us. They will make good ski slopes if it ever snows long enough.
The problem is we have too much these days and are very wasteful of our resources. When I was growing up everything was saved. It was during the war and so everything was in short supply and used as much as possible. String was saved to be used over and over again. Paper bags were used as wrapping paper especially at Christmas and for mailing packages. Newspaper was one of the most useful items to be reused. Some of you will remember the time when 'fish & chips” was always wrapped in yesterdays newspaper. Glass jars were very usable and I can remember collecting a halfpenny each for each one I found when I sold them back to the store. Old habits die hard I suppose so recycling is not such a strange idea to older folk.
Just think how quickly nature takes back an area that man has discarded and believe that in the end, green will prevail
Please try to recycle and reuse as much as you can.
