Fruitless Friday Wichita Falls Search For Litter

Walking to my means of motorized vehicular transport today, en route to Sikes Lake, I looked across the street at what you see here and thought to myself something that had not occurred to me, previously, when looking at this scene. That being that this is something one would seldom see in my old home zone of Fort Worth.

A covered bus stop, with a bench to sit on, and a garbage receptacle in which to deposit litter.

Last Saturday on the way to the Watermelon Festival in downtown Wichita Falls one of my passengers verbalized something along the line that there sure is little litter littering this town.

I have made note of that fact a time or two myself. While in Fort Worth I was regularly astonished at the volume of litter littering the landscape. And floating in the Trinity River.

Why such a difference between two Texas towns? Are Wichita Fallers a more tidy breed of Texan than the people of Fort Worth?

I decided litter was going to be my theme of the day, and that whilst walking around Sikes Lake I was going to look for litter, on the ground and in the lake.

Well, what I quickly made note of during my Sikes Lake search for litter was another thing I'd not made note of previously. That being that there are a lot of litter receptacles ready to receive litter around Sikes Lake.

About every 200 feet there is a bench, with a litter receptacle adjacent to the bench.

Above, looking past the horse of many colors, you see a jogger about to run by one of the aforementioned  benches with its adjacent litter receptacle. Please note that you can see no litter on the ground.

Continuing on, a couple benches later we come to this bench, perched at an angle to the lake, looking east. Again, no litter visible anywhere.

Around Sikes Lake there are several gazebo type picnic structures, such as you see above, with a drinking fountain. And a litter receptacle. Looking through the gazebo you can see another of the gazebos on the other side of the lake.

A look at yet one more bench and its litter receptacle companion, looking northwest, by the shade of an evergreen tree of some variety unknown to me. And, again, no litter to be seen no matter where one looks.

So, why such a contrast between two Texas towns? Litter free Wichita Falls with modern parks with modern facilities and amenities like multiple benches contrasted with filthy Fort Worth with its embarrassing, astonishing, disgusting amount of litter, with few modern parks with modern amenities.

Do the people of Fort Worth, for the most part, not visit other towns, even neighboring towns, and see how far behind the modern world Fort Worth is in way too many ways?

Oh, one more thing. In Wichita Falls I have not come across any sort of anti-litter campaign. Apparently because there is no need for such a campaign.

While in Fort Worth the town's goofy government comes up with dumb stuff like Adopt a Drain, and, I don't know if this is still happening, but a city program encouraging Fort Worthers to pick up ten pieces of litter on Tuesdays.

I don't know if one person could find ten pieces of litter in Wichita Falls, even if one had all week, not just a Tuesday....