This Morning Messing With Washington Led Me To Mess With Texas Litter

This morning I was searching for images of Washington to put on a Washington webpage. This search for images led me to read an article about Washington in which I learned that something called the American State Litter Scorecard had somehow ranked the 50 states, litter-wise.

Washington was the least littered state. The most littered states included the one I am currently living in.

I copied a paragraph about the Litter Scorecard...

"The 2011 American State Litter Scorecard," ranking the fifty United States on overall quality/effectiveness of public spaces cleanliness and related environmental performances, was presented at the American Society for Public Administration National Conference in Baltimore by Steve Spacek. Best states include Washington (top), California, Iowa, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and New York--most located in New England or Far West regions of the United States. Worst states include Kentucky (bottom), Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Oklahoma, Montana, North Dakota and Texas -- most located in the South, Central United States or Sun Belt regions.

After reading Texas was one of the worst states, litter-wise, I Googled "Texas Litter" looking for a Texas litter image. I saw one I liked and was then surprised to see where it came from.

Me.

A Texas litter picture I'd taken a couple years ago at Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park and used in a blogging titled An Amazing Amount Of Litter Indicates It Is Perfectly Okay To Mess With Texas, that you see screencapped above.

Reading Mess With Texas whilst Googling for Texas litter brought me to a Wikipedia article titled Don't Mess with Texas in which I learned the following....

The phrase Don't Mess with Texas is a trademark of the Texas Department of Transportation, which began as part of a statewide advertising campaign started in 1986. The intention behind the Don't Mess with Texas campaign was to reduce littering on Texas roadways and has garnered statewide attention.

The phrase "Don't Mess with Texas" was prominently shown on road signs on major highways, television, radio and in print advertisements. The campaign is credited with reducing litter on Texas highways roughly 72% between 1986 and 1990. The campaign's target market was 18-35 year old males, which was statistically shown to be the most likely to litter. While the slogan was originally not intended to become a statewide cultural icon, it did.

The Don't Mess with Texas anti-litter campaign brought about a 72% reduction of litter on Texas highways?

This campaign ended in 1990? Has the Texas litter level maintained that 72% reduction? Or in the 23 years since 1990 have those littering 18-35 year old Texas males reverted to their pre-Don't Mess with Texas ways? I can't imagine the Texas roadside litter levels being 72% worse than what we see in 2013

Very perplexing.

If you have ever had the pleasure of taking a roadtrip out of Texas, heading northwest, or west, you will likely have noticed that the decrease in roadside litter starts being very noticeable by the time you reach Colorado. Or New Mexico.

Do Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington have significantly fewer 18-35 year old males than Texas? Is that why those states are so noticeably less littered?

Again. Very perplexing...

Don't Mess With Texas Because If You Kill Someone We Will Kill You Back

Late last night, Elsie Hotpepper sent me the picture of the above sign that she came upon during one of her extensive travels across Texas.

Prior to reading it on this sign, I knew that it was unwise to mess with TEXAS.

I also knew that many Texas citizens carried concealed weapons.

I also knew there was an eye for an eye Texas tendency, where if you kill someone, without a good reason, you'll likely also be killed. Sometimes by the state, sometimes by a self-justified angry Texan.

I actually did not know that Texans enjoy their gunfights because gunfights are a Texas tradition. Though this new information does not surprise me.

I also did not know that there are 120 prisons in Texas. That is a lot of prisons.

An Amazing Amount Of Litter Indicates It Is Perfectly Okay To Mess With Texas

I think one of the biggest industries in Texas must be the production of litter.

This is particularly noticeable when a lot of rain washes an amazing amount of litter into the Trinity River.

You see a lot of "Don't Mess With Texas" signs in Texas. I've been here for awhile now and I still don't understand this slogan. It obviously has nothing to do with no littering.

I took the picture with the "TRUE TO TEXAS" beer can at one of my favorite Fort Worth locations, Oakland Lake Park.

In this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram there was a litter letter-to-the-editor, with the litter letter writer making an amazing litter claim....

Road hazard

Passengers of designated drivers must consume a large volume of alcohol. On a two-mile stretch of highway south of Benbrook, I counted 1,638 cans that had been thrown out of vehicle windows. That was in addition to all the bottles.

Do you think a few people have forgotten "Don't mess with Texas"?

-- Allen McDermott, Fort Worth

I would think Mr. McDermott was exaggerating if I'd not seen similar things in Texas with my own eyes. But, I've never taken the time to count cans. I don't know if I could count that high without getting distracted.

Don't Mess With Texas You Rude Yankees

Feedback comments to my Eyes on Texas website, from Texans, has been a gift that keeps on giving for years now.

This morning I found a good one in my email inbox with the subject line being "Rude Yankees."

The commenter calls him/herself "One Angry Texan." This angry Texan seems a tad defensive regarding Texas being known as the most Littered State in the Union.

Below is the comment from "Angry Texan"......(spelling and grammar left uncorrected, you don't wanna be messing with an Aangry Texan's spelling and grammar)....

I have several comments re: your website. As you may have learned Texans are very proud of our traditions and our beautiful variety of landscape. Your website commented on "Messing with Texas" writing about how we litter even though our slogan is "Don't Mess with Texas". Has it ever occured to you that unlike the stigmas ya'll have about us; not all of us are the exact same. Its like you make it seem that all of the state gets together and has a meeting and says "Okay nobody litter the Yankees might look down on us." You cannot stereotype an entire group of people like that. Is there not litter anywhere else in the country? Let's think about some of the biggest cities in the U.S. Hmmm......Is New York City clean on every single street? What about Washington D.C.? Or perhaps Philadelphia is sparkling clean every day of the year. Maybe you should spend less time pointing out what is wrong in your opinion of Texas and use that energy to figure out ways to help clean up litter or make an old building look nicer.

From one Angry Texan

Day After Xmas With Texas Blowing Hard

All day long, this day after Christmas, it has been blowing hard, real hard. Windiest since the fringes of Hurricane Ike nicked Fort Worth, way back in September.

That is the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony at about 3 this afternoon. You can't tell it from the picture, but the trees are swaying heavily in the wind.

And litter is flowing freely. It's a mess of flying plastic bags out there. Somehow the "Don't Mess With Texas" plan has escaped the notice of way too many.

Meanwhile, Miss Puerto Rico is monitoring the storm on her computer while watching Grey's Anatomy.

Grey's Anatomy sure makes Seattle look nice. Not that that is difficult to do.

I wonder why no TV shows are ever set in Fort Worth? Maybe once the Trinity River Vision becomes clear Fort Worth will be deemed a worthy backdrop for a TV series.

I wouldn't want to be betting on that prospect, though.

Mount Rainier Appears On Day 2 In Tacoma

I am dead exhausted, having slept only an hour or two last night. I've had a busy day today, so tonight I am firing on about a half a cylinder. Whatever that means. Like I said, I'm exhausted.

Even so, tonight we had a BBQ outside. My sister made the tastiest burger I've ever had on the tastiest bun I've ever tasted.

After the BBQ I was asked if I wanted to come along to walk Blue & Max, the poodle pair who will be left in my dangerous care tomorrow, after I take their primary caregivers to the airport, departing for a week in the other Washington, with the initials D.C. at the end.

We drove to Owens Beach at Point Defiance. Point Defiance is a park in Tacoma. It is one of the largest urban parks in the world. As you can see in the photo, The Mountain, as in Mount Rainier, was out tonight. There were large throngs of people having fun at the beach, kayaking, picnicking, jogging, biking, weenie roasting, walking and in one case, an older gentleman appeared to steal a kiss from an older lady with a cane. I told her I hope she knew that man. She said she did.

I was out and about in Tacoma all day today, and again tonight. And just like my previous returns, after extended periods of exile in Texas, I am amazed at how many people appear to have had the air let out of them. I'm seeing so few fat people here. Washington is not doing its part in contributing to the National Strategic Fat Preserve. Or maybe Washington is doing its part in drawing down on the Fat Preserve and helping bring down food prices.

We drove the waterfront back after the poodle walk, lots of people at the waterfront restaurants, Mount Rainier hovering over them. The sun sets way later up north than down in Texas and it sets in very scenic way, what with all the water and mountains. It was perfect tonight. Even a ferry boat got in the view.

I hope Fort Worth succeeds with its Trinity River Vision so Fort Worth can be like Tacoma, with scenic waterfront property and a lot of deflated people using the Fort Worth waterfront. That'd be nice for Fort Worth....

Don't Mess With Texas

One of the things about Texas that immigrants from other states, states like Oregon or Washington for instance, notice when they move to Texas is the astonishing amount of litter. It's everywhere. Floating in lakes, floating in rivers, blowing along highways, blowing across fields of green. It's everywhere.

In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today there was interesting litter news. Among typically goofy Star-Telegram verbiage, as in this gem, "Since its inception in 1986, the acclaimed Don't Mess with Texas slogan has attracted celebrities like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willie Nelson. And it has helped dramatically reduce litter across the state."

Acclaimed slogan??? Who acclaimed this slogan? Is this typical Star-Telegram exaggeration? I'm surprised the article didn't say that states far and wide are green with envy over the Don't Mess with Texas slogan. And the slogan has dramatically reduced litter? Yikes. This means it actually used to be worse than it is now?

I've no idea how the following data was acquired, but according to litter surveys of the Texas Department of Transportation in 2001 1.25 billion pieces of litter were thrown on Texas. By 2005 the amount of litter had fallen below the billion pieces mark to a mere 827 million pieces of litter.

From 1995 to 2001 there was a 51% reduction in litter. From 2001 to 2005 litter was reduced 33%.

And now this truly astonishing statistic which sort of goes to show why it is still such a mess out there in Don't Mess with Texas land. 55 percent of Texans admit that they throw litter from their vehicles while driving the roads of Texas!

There is a Don't Mess with Texas website. It is not known how many Texans have visited this website or how many Texans know they are not supposed to Mess with Texas. I suppose one can extrapolate from that 55 percent who admit to being litterers and assume they have not been exposed to any of the acclaimed don't litter slogans or the Don't Mess with Texas website.

Now, go pick up after yourself.