Rant #2,640: Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)

Today, April 22, is Earth Day.
 
This annual “celebration” has been going on for decades, since 1970, but how do you celebrate the day?
 
I guess I already celebrated Earth Day in my own way, as I took out the garbage this morning.
 
I did not recycle my water and soda and beer containers yet, and I don’t think I am going to do that today, but I do go to the recycling machines for my precious nickels about every other week.
 
I do remember the first Earth Day back in 1970. I remember exactly what I did, and I have to tell you that even then, I wondered exactly what one was supposed to do to celebrate the day.
 
I lived in South Jamaica, Queens, at the time, and a friend and I took the bus into downtown Jamaica to a very interesting book store that sold comic books of all types, including X-rated ones like “Fritz the Cat.”
 
We each bought a couple of comic books—no X-rated ones--and took the bus back home to read them and add them to our collections.
 
I mean, do you really think that I was going to go to a park and pick up garbage from the ground just because it was Earth Day?
 
Heck, I was 12 years old at the time, a few days away from turning 13. \
 
My bar mitzvah was just a few days away, so there was no way that I was going to pick up garbage.
 
I had way more important things on my mind at the time, and quite frankly, the same holds true today.
 
I took out my own family’s garbage, just as I used to do when I was a kid. Back then, when I lived in Rochdale Village, we had the incinerator chute on every floor, and occasionally, we got a show when we took out the garbage, as the incinerator was all fired up, and we dumped our garbage when the flames were shooting up, so we got something of a light show when we threw out our garbage.

Throwing out the garbage, both then and now, should be enough to check off the box about what I did to support the environment on Earth Day.
 
I remember back then, we were all learning a new word, ECOLOGY, and what that meant for our civilization and our planet.
 
We would soon learn another word—RECYCLING—and we have been trying to clean up our planet for the past how many years?
 
Where I live, we have to use our own bags when we shop, so not only do we have to wear a face covering, we also have to bring our own bags with us, which is a bit of a nuisance.
 
But we have been told that plastic bags, and even paper bags, clutter up the environment, do not break down easily, and are a pockmark on our ecological efforts.
 
Of course, this is because many of us don’t know how to discard these bags after we use them, and we leave them about like we leave empty beer cans, paper wrappers, and the like.
 
Now, we have to use these reusable bags which are a nuisance, and which some say hurt our own “human” ecology by festering germs, acting like a vinyl Petri dish of muck.
 
I mean, how many people actually wash their shopping bags after each use?
 
Not me, I can tell you that.
 
Some stores still give out the bags for free, and we can get them when we grocery shop if we want to be charged five cents per bag, but that is not something that I feel the need to do.
 
I go with the flow, and bring my own bags, and heck, they have the insignia of the bank where my wife works right on them, so I am proud to support the cause, whatever cause that is.
 
The fact of the matter is that Earth Day or no Earth Day, my allergies are killing me, and whether that has to do with pollution, the way the world has aged, the junk we still have flying all over the place, or something else really doesn’t matter.
 
I still can’t breathe, and it has nothing to do with anyone putting their knee on my throat. It has to do with my own personal biological makeup, and yes, my allergy shots have helped me immeasurably.
 
Come to think about it, way back on the first Earth Day, I was still about three years or so away from my first allergy shot, which I got when I was 15 years old and have been consistently getting each month since then.
 
And yes, I am better, thank you.
 
But way back in 1970, the study of allergies wasn’t as progressed as it is now. We knew that some people were allergic to some foods—another friend of mine was allergic to orange juice—but the study of allergies as it related to hay fever, pollen and other things was just in its infancy, so I suffered greatly back then on certain days.
 
Only a few years later had this study advanced to the point where using a simple test—it wasn’t really “simple,” per se, but the “staple gun” test was accurate—they could tell people exactly what they were allergic to, and yes, I was allergic to a lot of things in the air and in the environment.
 
So to sum everything up, what does Earth Day mean to me?
 
Honestly, not that much.
 
But I do take out the garbage, I do recycle my bottles and cans, and I do use my reusable grocery bags when I shop.
 
So even though I don’t put too much credence in the day, and I don’t honor it like perhaps it should be honored, I do do certain things that I wouldn’t have thought about doing more than 50 years ago when the first Earth Day dawned.
 
I don’t think I deserve a pat on the back for that; it just means that I have gone with the flow of the mission to clean up our planet not necessarily because I have gone out of my way to do so, but because that is the way it is now.
 
Again, in 1970, my upcoming bar mitzvah was my focus, not what wasn’t making the trash basket.
 
I was no “Phil D. Basket,” but I guess we all are now, to a certain degree.