The Loosahatchie Chute, located on the far side of the Mississippi River from downtown Memphis, is a beautiful place to paddle, but it's possible to do so only when the water is pretty high. If the river isn't flowing much above 20 feet on the Memphis gauge, expect to find some ankle-deep water there. Adam Davis shot this photo of me in July of 2020.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Aside from a gym session Tuesday afternoon, I took a few days completely off. I felt like I needed to clear my head a bit. I didn't get back in the boat until Thursday morning.
One of my big challenges is relaxing my body in the boat. It's not a new challenge. I've always been sort of a tightly-wound, spasmodic mess. But I think it's been more of an issue in recent months, and I think it's at least part of the cause of all the muscle soreness and aches and pains I've been dealing with.
Why can't I relax? Well, I reckon I'm no more immune to all the things that cause stress than anybody else. I think my own angst might be rooted in the state of our society where it seems more and more people dislike one another and a global oligarchical cabal that's leveraging that animosity to chip away at democratic institutions, all while the planet careens toward uninhabitability... not to get too specific about it or anything. Oh, and let's not forget this pandemic that's been thrown in just for yuks.
I was tense again during my 60-minute paddle Thursday morning. Once I'd re-entered the harbor and was heading back to the dock, I made a conscious effort to settle down with a little drill. Basically, I just started taking ten strokes at a time while keeping my body as relaxed as I could make it. After a while I bumped that up to fifteen strokes, then twenty; then I was back at the dock.
I stayed home Friday and did another gym session. Yesterday morning I did some stretching at home, trying to focus on breathing deeply and keeping my muscles relaxed, and then went to the river and did some more relaxation drills while warming up in the boat. Then I did three 8-stroke sprints and commenced a hard-but-not-too-hard workout: six 5-minute pieces in which I paddled at medium intensity for 3 minutes, harder intensity for 90 seconds, and sub-maximal intensity for 30 seconds. I kept the stroke rate below 70 strokes per minute during the medium-intensity parts, between 80 and 90 spm during the harder-intensity parts, and above 100 spm during the sub-maximal-intensity parts.
This morning I paddled a steady 80 minutes, going out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River before returning to where I'd started. As I paddled I pondered what I might be doing to cause the muscle soreness in my left shoulder/biceps area. I doubt there are too many kayakers out there who are truly symmetrical in how they paddle, and I paid close attention to how well I was using my larger muscle groups as I stroked on my left side.
Yes, I'm doing a lot of thinking about all this: my physical struggles, my mental struggles... all of it. And maybe that itself is part of the problem. This afternoon I read this article in the Memphis newspaper about Memphis Redbirds shortstop Paul DeJong. DeJong (pronounced "de-young") broke into the major leagues with the Saint Louis Cardinals in 2017 and was one of the team's rising stars; but in the last two seasons his batting prowess has abandoned him and now he's been sent down to the minors, where he's trying to rediscover the magic. The last part of the article contains some advice that maybe I should heed:
DeJong was a pre-med student who majored in biochemistry at Illinois State. He’s intelligent. Maybe too intelligent. His mind, and the instinct to overthink, became his worst enemy in recent years.
“They say a lot of dumb guys are good at baseball, and that’s very true because you’re not questioning yourself,” DeJong said. “For me, I think when things go wrong, I go searching for video fixes or mechanical issues, and I think that’s just a trap. It’s having that plan and sticking to it, and then letting my natural ability take over. That’s the biggest thing. Getting out of my own way.”
So when DeJong joined the Redbirds, [manager Ben] Johnson just told him to have fun. He told him this is what you’re supposed to be doing, even though you’re also supposed to be the Cardinals’ shortstop. He told him to find “joy for the game to start” because only then can DeJong find what he’s searching for in Memphis.
Can I get out of my own way? I don't know, but I'll try.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Paddling into the shore break is one of the fun little challenges of ocean kayaking. That's what I'm doing in this picture at Fish Hoek Beach on the Western Cape of South Africa this past January. Photo by either John or Tamsin of Cape Town Sport Photography.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
This past week has had its share of ups and downs. That's definitely been true of the weather, as the week started out rather cool, then the temperature rose into the 90s later in the week, then some heavy thunderstorms moved through last night, and now it's unseasonably cool again.
How I'm feeling physically has been sort of a roller coaster ride as well. My energy level has been up and down, mostly down; and I continue to have aches and pains in my left shoulder/biceps area and, late in the week, in my wrists and forearms. Meanwhile, my weight continues to be all down: I've been weighing in at 149-152 pounds, some ten pounds lighter than what experience tells me is ideal for athletic performance.
It's in my head that I feel I've been my own worst enemy lately. Ideally, an athlete should have a training plan, and execute that plan a day at a time, letting each day's challenges be sufficient for that day without worrying too much about what he "should" be achieving at any given moment. I've had periods when I've done a good job of that, but lately I've let myself become overwhelmed by the task of preparing myself to perform well in the Pacific Northwest in July without any nearby races to do between now and then. At times like this I should probably focus on the fun aspects of paddling, but instead I've been anxiously wondering how I can get myself sharp for racing and achieve what I think I "should" achieve.
After a gym session Tuesday morning, I got in the boat and did some 100-meter sprints. Rather than doing them on flatwater I did them while ferrying across the Mississippi. I decided to do them that way somewhat on a whim, but I guess it was some good balance and control practice at high intensity. Certainly, it took longer to cover 100 meters that way: on flatwater a good 100 time for me is between 20 and 30 seconds, whereas some of those "ferrying" 100s took me as long as 45 seconds.
The soreness in my arms was pretty bad during a steady 60-minute paddle Thursday, and I had a hard time relaxing my arms as I paddled. I was tense and just... not relaxed.
I stayed home and did another gym session on Friday, and yesterday I was back in the boat. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I timed myself over 5 kilometers in the harbor. My plan was to paddle at a medium-hard pace for 700 meters of each kilometer, and then push harder for the last 300. Doing the piece from the south end of the harbor to the north end, I had a good tailwind the whole time, so my target numbers were 11.5 kilometers per hour for the 700-meter segments and 12.5 kph for the 300-meter ones.
I knew that this would put me at a little over 5 minutes per kilometer. I feel like I "should" be able to average 5 minutes per kilometer without any trouble for 5 km, but this season that's proven to be too tall an order. I was hoping that with the tailwind perhaps I could exceed my expectation, but by the 2-km mark I was hurting pretty bad. For the last several kilometers I struggled to maintain 11.5 kph during the "easier" segments, and I found myself pushing the stroke rate higher than I wanted to (80 per minute) during the 300-meter "hard" segments.
I ended up with a time of 25:45 for the 5 km, and I felt a bit demoralized that that was the best I could do, even with a tailwind.
I know it's not healthy to obsess over what I think I "should" be doing, and it's making me wonder if I shouldn't just forget racing for a while... or even forever. I mean, it's not like the sport won't survive and thrive without me. Then again, I do like having a purpose... the experiences I have traveling to races make it all worthwhile.
Today the handbell group I play with had its last performance before we break for the summer, so it seemed like a good time to forget about paddling and think about some other things for a while. I hope I can use the next couple of days to refocus on the things I should be concerned with while letting go of the things that I shouldn't.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
In July of 2008, my nephew Joel and I did some canoeing on the White River. That's the town of Calico Rock, Arkansas, on the bluff in the distance.
Joel is ten years old in this photo. He's now an EMT and a firefighter preparing for the wildfire season out West.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
The hot weather relented a bit on Friday. This weekend the Fahrenheit highs have been in the 80s, with bits of rain here and there.
I did a gym session Friday. Yesterday morning I was back in the boat looking to up the intensity a bit. I usually do measured intervals in the harbor, but this time I decided to try something different and do several 1000-meter pieces out on the Mississippi. Not knowing the exact speed of the river's current (at yesterday's level of 23.5 feet on the Memphis gauge, I'm guessing it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 kilometers per hour), I wasn't sure how fast I could do a kilometer, but I thought I'd see if I could do it in 3 minutes--that's an average speed of 20 kph.
I didn't quite succeed in the first two pieces: I clocked 3:15-3:20 for both. At times I would go 20.5 kph or faster, but at other times I was slower. The current on the Mississippi is anything but uniform; there are boils and swirls and little eddies and stuff that can slow the boat down. For the third piece I managed to maximize the help I got from the river and finished in 3:00 flat.
I started the 1000s at every 6th minute, so my recovery intervals were between 2.5 and 3 minutes. The workout was as taxing as a 1000-meter workout on flatwater. If the river was in fact flowing at 8 kph, then I had to generate 12 kph of my own to move at 20 kph. 12 kph on flatwater would get me through a kilometer in 5 minutes, a benchmark I'm always shooting for. 12 kph out on the river is probably more taxing than 12 kph in the harbor because of the extra balance-and-control challenges.
I was very tired in the boat today. I did a smooth, steady 80 minutes out on the river, and I hope that'll help me recover for the week ahead.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
We're getting an early taste of full-on summer here, with the mercury rising above 90 degrees Fahrenheit this week. I'm not crazy about the hot weather, but I do like it for paddling. It's nice to wear shorts and short sleeves and have no qualms about getting wet. It won't be long before I'm taking hose baths on the dock after paddling.
I was feeling lethargic again Tuesday morning as I plodded through my little gym routine, and I worried over my ability to kick it into a higher gear once I was in the boat. My left deltoid/biceps area bothered me a lot as I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, but eventually these muscles loosened up to the point that they almost didn't bother me at all.
My workout for Tuesday was a set of six 200-meter pieces starting every 5th minute. In calm conditions my target pace would have been 12 kilometers per hour, but with a tailwind I aimed more for 12.5-13.0 kph. I think the wind picked up a bit because by the last piece I was exceeding 13.0 kph with no trouble.
I did the whole workout near the mouth of the harbor, doing each piece headed north and then looping back to where I'd started. There was a barge rig coming upriver as the workout went along, and I kept telling myself that it wasn't a day for wake surfing, but after the fifth piece I gave in to the temptation and paddled out there. The waves weren't the best I'd seen and no surf lasted long, but I managed to get several good rides before I returned to the harbor. I did my last 200-meter piece and headed back to the dock. Having inserted a bit of "play" workout into my "work" workout, I was feeling pretty good.
As I returned to the dock this morning, we were well on our way to another hot day: it was over 80 degrees when I got in the boat just after 9:30. But out on the river there was a lovely layer of cool, misty air that I usually associate with a mountain stream like the Nantahala.
I'd hoped maybe I could do some more wake surfing today, but there was no barge traffic in sight when I left the harbor. I did a strong loop out on the river instead. As I returned to the harbor I saw a barge rig approaching the old bridges downriver, but by that time I felt that I'd done enough. Maybe I'll get to have some fun with that this weekend.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Today the Mississippi River is flowing at about 18.4 feet on the Memphis gauge. Recent storms in the Tennessee, Cumberland, Ohio, and Missouri watersheds have fueled a rise toward a high around 25 feet. That's a pretty good healthy level.
Eleven years ago, the river crested at 48.03 feet on the gauge. Given that the river spreads out onto a vast floodplain, the actual volume of water at that time, in cubic feet per second or whatever other unit you like to use, was probably many times what it is at 25 feet.
In this photo we see the intersection of Beale Street and Riverside Drive in downtown Memphis. Riverside Drive, which runs parallel to the river, is high enough that it practically never floods, but this low-lying section of it got submerged in May of 2011.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
I haven't mentioned it lately, but I'm still feeling a lot of soreness in my left deltoid/bicep area. I think it's flared up a bit in the last week or so. I've also just wrapped up a rather intense project in my woodworking shop that contributed some soreness and achiness to the muscles in both my arms.
That, along with some feelings of sluggishness I've had the last few days, and some cool breezy weather here in the Mid South, has had an impact on my motivation. It hasn't stopped me from getting out there and going through the motions, but I haven't been excited about it lately.
On Friday I stayed home and did a gym session. I dragged myself to the river Saturday morning, and after warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a workout that's a variation on the 30-second sprint workout I've done a lot in recent years. I did ten 100-meter sprints starting every 4th minute; my goal was to move at over 12 kilometers per hour, but the way the wind was swirling around I either had no trouble exceeding that or really had to fight to achieve it. In the end it felt good just to lay down some hard efforts, and I was proud of myself for doing it despite my lack of enthusiasm.
Adam was out of town and couldn't join me yesterday, so I was on my own for a longer paddle. I left the harbor and paddled up the Mississippi, ferried across above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and paddled up into the Loosahatchie Chute before heading back. My elapsed time was 100 minutes, and it was a decent outing even though I still wasn't feeling much giddy-up.
My next big race is still two months off and there's still plenty of time to get myself ready. But I wish I could find something to get excited about in the nearer term.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Tuesday morning I got in the boat and warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did sort of a variation on the tempo workout I'd done the previous Tuesday. I did five 1000-meter pieces, starting every 8th minute, and tried to maintain 11.5 kilometers per hour while keeping the stroke rate below 80 strokes per minute and preferably in the low 70s. I chose 11.5 kph as my target rate because I thought I'd have the wind at my back, but in fact the wind seemed to be swirling around from all directions, so at times I was moving more like 11.0 kph.
Past performances suggest that I really ought to be able to maintain 5 minutes per kilometer in a 5- or 10-kilometer race. That's an average speed of 12.0 kph. But wishing something doesn't make it so, and back in February I learned that it was counterproductive to set goals for pace workouts based on what I wish I could do rather than on what I can actually do. So I'm dialing back the expectations a bit for these pace workouts, hoping that they'll be good solid aerobic sessions and that I can elevate my speed capabilities in shorter, faster workouts.
Actually, with a big downwind race coming up in July, the focus on pace will probably give way to an emphasis on speed and power sooner rather than later. But at the moment I'm still working on general fitness and saving the more specific stuff for later.
This morning I went out and paddled a steady loop on the Mississippi for 60 minutes. Some heavy rain was on the way, but it didn't arrive until the afternoon. After dropping for a couple of weeks, the river is about to start rising again as a result of storms that have moved across the watershed upstream. The current forecast says it'll get up to 24.6 feet on the Memphis gauge, and I expect that'll be revised upward once this rain we're having here now moves on across the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio basins.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Adam Davis shot this photo as we paddled downriver back toward the harbor yesterday. You can see me just to the left of the left-most bridge piling.
The stats shown here are Adam's. Since I put in about a half-mile farther north in the harbor, I covered about a mile more, and my elapsed time came to about 125 minutes.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Yesterday morning was warm and a strong wind was blowing from the south. I paddled out of the harbor onto the Mississippi, where I found some low-grade downwind conditions. It was mostly like a washing machine out there, but there were definitely some small runs hidden in the chaos and I had fun trying to catch them. I wasn't exactly styling it out there, but it felt good to throw in some sprints after a whole month of nothing but steady paddling.
An isolated thunderstorm came through town last night, and this morning the sun was back out and conditions were calm and still quite warm. I went back down to the river, where I had some company: Adam Davis met me for a couple of hours of paddling. We went up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and then up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge before turning around and coming back. We talked about all the stuff we've been up to since we'd last seen each other, but we also got in a good solid aerobic session. We're hoping to meet again on weekends for the next little while.
The most exciting moment this morning occurred as we were paddling upriver just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge: a big fish (probably an Asian carp) jumped up and hit me in my right side, causing me to flip. I've had my share of encounters with those invasive fish, but this was the first time I'd ever been flipped by one. Actually, a few years went by when I hardly saw any Asian carp, but their abundance seems to be ticking back upward these days, and today they were very active near the bank. Fortunately, I don't think one of those carp is capable of inflicting the kind of harm on me that that seal almost did back in January.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
I'm starting to grind the gears back into motion in preparation for summertime racing. On Tuesday I started up a new gym routine--some arm exercises with rubber bands and some core exercises. Then I went down to the river and did a simple tempo workout. I warmed up for 3 kilometers, paddled a strong tempo for 4 km, and cooled down for 3 km. My target pace for the tempo piece was 11 kilometers per hour; paddling with a tailwind, I had no problem maintaining between 11.5 and 12.0 kph.
Tuesday's weather was cool but bright and sunny. Since then the Fahrenheit temperature has risen toward the low 80s, and it's gradually gotten a bit cloudier. It was still very sunny yesterday when I went to the river and did a steady 60-minute paddle.
This morning I did another gym session. It's supposed to be partly cloudy and warm this weekend and I hope that'll be the backdrop for some good paddling.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
It looks like a pretty nasty rash, but it's just a few superficial burns. On Friday evening I was cooking a swordfish steak in sesame oil in an iron skillet, and I didn't have a shirt on, and when I flipped the steak some hot oil splashed across my torso. I guess I need to go out and buy an apron.
It actually didn't hurt as much as one might think. It stung at first, and then sort of smarted for the rest of the evening. By the next morning I couldn't feel a thing, and with a shirt on all day I forgot all about it. I noticed how bad the marks looked when I took a shower in the evening.
By yesterday morning the spots had started to blister. They still didn't really hurt, but at one point when I was scratching an itch I ripped the skin off one of the blisters and that hurt a lot.
Oh well... I guess they'll heal when they heal. I figured my readers would want to know all about it since my general health is pertinent to my athletic endeavors.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
I've been busy with all kinds of stuff this past week, but I've managed to maintain a general fitness routine. I paddled for an hour both Tuesday and Friday, just steady sessions in which I tried to take good strokes and not get distracted enough for my form to get sloppy. While I do keep an eye on speed, I try not to get bent out of shape if I don't go that fast. All kinds of things out there in nature can slow a boat down.
I did bike rides Thursday and yesterday. I'm trying to heed the advice that the Mocke brothers offer in their instructional video series--that cross-training activities should feel like a break from training, not training workouts themselves, even though they do have training value.
This morning I did another loop around the Loosahatchie Bar. With the Mississippi flowing at 22.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, the course measured 19.76 kilometers and I covered it in one hour, 58 minutes, 10 seconds. I think the fastest I've ever done this course is around an hour 50 minutes, or maybe even a little under that, but once again, I try not to get too obsessed with my time; anything under two hours is a strong effort. The water at the north end of the Bar was shallow and that slowed me down a little.
In another week or so it'll be time to intensify the training a little, now that my next big race (the Gorge downwind race in the Pacific Northwest) is less than three months off.
The weather has been quite warm for the last few days: the temperature has exceeded 80 degrees Fahrenheit each day since Thursday. But summer's not here yet. I think we're supposed to get some rain tomorrow, followed by some highs in the 60s for a couple of days.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, my film "A Paddler's Journey" is available for viewing for ONE WEEK ONLY! You can go watch it here.
For this latest cut of the film, I cheated in several shots from my trip to South Africa this past January. Pictured above is a screen shot from some footage that Dawid Mocke shot on his Go Pro camera. I'm a little blurred by a drop of water on the lens, but that Roman Rock Lighthouse looks majestic as always.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
This past weekend brought us another stretch of cool, rainy weather that makes me wonder if those warm, sunny, carefree days will ever arrive.
Saturday morning I got to the river and realized I was slightly underdressed. The temperature was above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but a north-northwest breeze made things chilly. Once I was in the boat paddling I felt okay, but not cozy. I paddled for 100 minutes, venturing up into the Loosahatchie Chute before heading back. A few raindrops fell on me as I approached the entrance to the harbor.
Yesterday the temperature stayed below 60 with periods of rain. I stayed in and worked in the shop most of the day. In the late afternoon I decided to drag myself outside for a bike ride. I normally prefer to get my athletic stuff done in the morning so I can wind down at the end of the day, but once I was on the bike I found a groove and had a great ride. I covered 34.5 kilometers in 95 minutes, traveling out the Greenline to Shelby Farms and doing a loop around Patriot Lake before coming back home. I felt better after the ride than I'd felt all day, and after a good supper and some reading I promptly fell asleep.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
If you haven't managed to catch my film "A Paddler's Journey" yet, you now have another chance: I've got it posted on Vimeo for one week. The run will end next Sunday morning. You can go watch it here.
This is my leanest, meanest cut of the film yet: it comes in at a svelte one hour 45 minutes, nine minutes shorter than the cut I submitted to the festival. So even if you've seen the film, it's worth checking out again to see what you think.
The film won the Viewers' Choice award at the festival. If you're one of the people who helped it do so, thank you so much! And if you haven't seen it yet, go see if you agree with the people who voted for it!
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
As I paddled away from the dock Tuesday morning I found myself paddling into a stronger-than-usual south wind. I felt sure it had to be over 20 knots. Approaching the mouth of the harbor, I was curious to see what conditions I might find out on the Mississippi. What I found was some sure-enough downwind. It wasn't the Miller's Run or anything, but there were definitely some organized swells out there.
Unfortunately, downwind conditions are so rare around here that I'm usually not prepared when they do happen. On Tuesday I was dressed for the air temperature (72 degrees Fahrenheit and rising) rather than the water temperature (no more than 50 degrees). I was paddling the least-stable ski I own with a small rudder. I had no leash. So I was sort of timid as I attempted to get something going out on the river. I flailed around out there for maybe a half-hour before heading back in.
This week I've got a lot going on in my non-athletic life, and I'm just trying to maintain a modicum of general fitness until I start ramping the training back up a couple of weeks from now. My current project in the workshop includes a lot of strenuous labor-- not exactly organized training, but if nothing else I'm burning calories and falling asleep quickly at night.
I worked hard in the shop all day yesterday. Late in the day a storm front moved through that brought us a huge amount of rain. As of this writing I haven't seen the total, but my guess is that it was more than three inches. The storms moved on across the Tennessee and Cumberland and Ohio watersheds, and as a result the Mississippi is expected to rise from yesterday's level of 17.5 feet on the Memphis gauge to 24.7 feet by next Wednesday.
This morning I did a bike ride. I decided to head out east on the Greenline because I was curious to see what the Wolf River looked like after all that rain. The Wolf is normally a sleepy little stream that you can't hear flowing, but as I crossed the bridge over it today I heard that ever-so-soothing sound of rushing water.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
Once in a while somebody asks me "Why would you want to paddle on that polluted river?" I think that's the wrong question. The one I want to hear people asking is "Why have we decided it's acceptable for our river to be polluted?"
The lower Mississippi certainly has its share of pollutants, the majority being of the agricultural variety--fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, stuff like that. The cities and towns in its watershed discharge treated sewage, and of course "treated" can be an elastic term that depends on everything from weather conditions to mechanical problems to administrative and political issues. Then again, the lower Mississippi River is not the fetid open sewer that some people seem to think it is. It's supposed to be muddy: it's carrying the sediment of two-thirds of the continent, continental erosion being part of the never-ending geologic cycle.
The pollutant that's the least possible to ignore is the floating litter. The photo above popped up as a Face Book "memory" yesterday. The cartoon ran in our local paper seven years ago, and it reminded me of one of the more mendacious lines I hear tossed about by our gutless city leaders in both the public and private sectors: "We have no control over litter that comes to us from those cities up north."
Having spent thousands of hours paddling my boat on the Memphis riverfront, and I am quite sure that over 95% of the litter in the water originates in the greater Memphis area. Go down to the river after a heavy thunderstorm and you'll see trash flowing from the Wolf River, the Loosahatchie River, Nonconnah Creek, and Bayou Gayoso--watersheds that cover all of Shelby County, most of Fayette County, and portions of DeSoto, Marshall, and Benton Counties.
Shortly after the Riverfront Development Corporation, the quasi-governmental organization that manages public properties along the riverfront, completed its signature project, the Beale Street Landing docking facility for the riverboat tourism industry, a local newspaper columnist called attention to the mass of litter that had collected in the area of water between the dock and the riverbank, deeming it a civic embarrassment that resembled a miniature version of the great "island of plastic" that's floating in the Pacific Ocean.
The R.D.C. knew it had to respond. Did it do so by seeking an effective solution to the riverfront litter problem? Oh, heavens no. It placed floating booms at each end of that gap between the dock and the bank, assuring that the litter would just float someplace else. Problem solved. Hey, it was the Riverfront Development Corporation--their job was to build stuff, not care about the health of the river itself. (The R.D.C. has since been re-branded as the Memphis River Parks Partnership, or M.R.P.P., or, as I like to call it, Mr. P.P.)
Of course, it's easy to point fingers at the people in charge, but the biggest finger needs to be pointed at us. Me, you, and every other ordinary citizen. What are we doing to stop litter from escaping into the environment in the first place?
Speaking for nobody but myself, I try to keep my household and workshop garbage contained and pick up as much litter as I can around my neighborhood (I could write many, many paragraphs on nothing but that). But there are further steps than that: I know I need to look hard at what I consume. I practically never drink sodas anymore, so I don't consume many of those plastic bottles, and it's good for my health to boot. I do not buy bottled water; why on Earth would I, when my city happens to have one of the best drinking water sources in the world? Even if that weren't the case, bottled water is often no better than the local tap water. (Yes, I know there are exceptions here and there.) I take my own tote bags to the grocery store so I don't consume the plastic bags they're so eager to give me.
Those are just a few suggestions and I'm under no delusion that I'm superior to anybody else. There are always areas where I could do better.
And... I'm not sure where to take this rant from here. I know it's not what my readers expect from a simple Monday photo feature. I guess I'll wrap it up with this: have some faith that our government institutions can address the problem, demand that they do address the problem, and conduct yourself in a way that doesn't make it any more difficult than it already is for them to do so.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
