My little bit

Charlie telling me it's time for his walk

Every morning, I walk our dog, Charlie, about a mile. I've invited other members of the family to join us but it is almost always just Charlie and I. We walk about 100 yards down the busy, noisy road by our house and brave the fast traffic to cross over to a nice, quiet side street. We do most of our walk there. It's a tree-lined street with nice wide sidewalks. I'm one of the few people who walk this street that cleans up after his dog. Besides it being the law, I consider it the proper thing to do - especially on this quiet refuge of a street. I also pick up some of the trash we see as we walk along (if it will fit in the plastic bag I've brought along). I pick up bottles and cans and discarded cigarette packs as Charlie points them out to me. Someone throws wine bottles a couple of times a week. There are also leftover McDonald's, Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts packaging. Someone left the insides of a tape measure laying on the walk and we've seen a lot of those tiny liquor bottles the airlines sell (one of the local food stores sells them, too). I pick up whatever fits in the plastic bag and that isn't too hard to pick up with the scoop I use to clean up after Charlie.

As happens every year, the leaves and pine needles fell along this street this fall, too. Woods line a long section of the street and the leaves cover a good portion of the sidewalk. So, another thing I do is to push the leaves and pine needles off the sidewalk and back into the woods. I can't uncover the entire sidewalk during one walk, though. I'd have to stop for too long and Charlie won't have that. I just kick a little debris whenever Charlie stops for a sniff or other activity. And I'm getting pretty good at kicking a little bit as we walk along. I know I'm not doing much each day as we walk but since Charlie is insistent that I walk him every day, I get to do my little bit every day. Rain or shine. With no snow on the ground this year, we've had a longer time to work on the leaf cover and the sidewalk is almost entirely leaf and pine needle free.

As this year draws to a close and I think about my place in the world, I feel like this is a metaphor for my life. I'm not one of those people who can organize a great movement to change the world. I'm not one of those tireless people who help others everyday and can balance their private lives well enough to do a full time job and still find time to work toward a larger goal. I'm just someone who is tired all the time. I'm disorganized and I can't see solutions right away like other people. I'm not really smart and can't finish one project and dive into the next one right away. I just plug away at my projects at work. I'm thorough and responsible but I never seem to get too far ahead. I don't have great projects lined up for my children and my wife always needs to keep after me to get projects done around the house. I finally put some shelves up this week-end that have been in the works for months.

But I'll just keep kicking small piles of leaves back into the woods every day. Maybe I'll have an impact some day. Not right away but some day. Have a Happy New Year. May the Lord bless you and your family and friends this coming year.

[Update -  I didn't mean to imply that I push the leaves off the sidewalk all along the mile my dog and I walk. Also, only about a section about 200 yards long has enough trees to make enough leaves to cover the sidewalk so that's the section I work on. And we walk a half mile out and then turn around and walk back the same way. So, I get two chances to push back the leaves each time.]