Real Meaning of Earth Day

Have you either celebrated or did something for Earth Day, which was on Tuesday?

I am writing this story after the fact for a specific reason. It has its origins in a chance meeting.

We live in a society that puts a lot of stock in symbolism. Singing Kumbaya, going green, wearing a particular color to show support for a cause, candlelight vigils, etc., may make people feel better, but in most cases the fact is they do little to correct a problem.

I'm not knocking Earth Day. In fact, I think it is a good thing, mainly because some people (actually most people) often need a fire lit under their backside before they do anything. Complacency is one of the big downfalls of this culture.

"If it doesn't affect you directly, why bother?" seems to be the modern creed. I had several people e-mail me and ask me if I would go to different Earth Day events and celebrations. In every case, I e-mailed the party back and said thank you for the invite, but I could not attend, and added that Earth Day was every day for me. Since I have spent most of my life living and doing things in the outdoors, my respect for the earth goes a lot deeper than a one-day celebration.

It makes people feel good to say they did this or that on Earth Day, and it shows how much they care about Mother Earth. The next day, most go back to their daily grind and forget all about Earth Day.

My point of this story is simply this: What is the real meaning of Earth Day?

A chance meeting on Earth Day put me in touch with a group of people who respect the environment. Three to four times a week I take my lab, Bedford, up the river, close to my home, and throw the decoy for him to retrieve. The 15-month-old, 85-pound dog is full of energy and would swim all day if I let him. Well, this past Tuesday, I was along the river just north of the Calhoun Street Bridge by the water treatment plant swimming the lab, when along came a pair of boats, with several people in them, loaded with tires and junk.

They docked the boats at a nearby dock and began putting the tires and bags of garbage into a couple of pick-up trucks. I hitched up Bedford to his leash and walked over and struck up a conversation with Tom and Jane Cooper of Yardley, Pa., who run Big Oak Exxon. They live right on River Road, a short hop from the dock where the boats put in. I asked Jane if the group was doing the clean-up as part of an Earth Day project. She smiled and said, "No, we do this every year. We clean up the islands on the river and have been doing it for the past seven years. We try and pick a day when we have good river conditions and do it early enough in the spring so the vegetation doesn't hide the junk, and that day just happened to be Earth Day this year."

The Coopers have been doing the river clean-up for the past seven years because Tom is a fisherman, and want to put something back into the river they both respect, and care about. Their house is right along the river and has been flooded out three times in recent years. Each time they put the pieces back together, and this last time they raised the house to protect it from flooding so they could continue to live along the river they love.

Each year they close their business for a half day in the spring and they, their employees and several other friends use their boats to clean up the tires and other debris on the islands. They started the river clean-up with their sons Mike and Mark, who are now in college, to teach them respect for the river. They don't do it for publicity or expect anything in return. It's enough for them to know that they gave back something to the river they respect. It's only by my chance meeting that anyone would know about their efforts.

I guess my point is this: All the hoopla about Earth Day can't compare to the Tom and Jane Coopers of the world and their friends who participate in projects such as the river clean-up.

You don't need a special day to respect the environment.

You can reach us with your fishing or hunting reports, comments or questions by e-mail at jb.kasper@verizon.net or jbkasper@hotmail.com; or by mail at J.B. Kasper c/o The Times, 500 Perry St., Trenton, NJ 08605.

[News Contents] [Top]