To the Editor:
I read Whit Griswold’s account of his Earth Day 1970 experience with a smile. As he said, “Action was in the air at the time, and I inhaled it. Idealism was in the air, too: The world was ours for the changing.”
My friends and I decided to do pretty much the same thing in the same way that day. First we cleaned up a stretch of road leading west out of Concord, N.H. Going to the dump seemed like it really wouldn’t have any impact. We decided that showing people how irresponsible they were was what was important. The obvious choice was to back the pickup truck to the curb and dump the entire load on the sidewalk in front of the state Capitol Building.
I believe some signs were involved, but memory fails me as to their text. After a while, the local police arrived, and clearly stated we were going to be arrested for littering. Our protest over, we cleaned up and left. I wonder now what the outcome would have been if I had had the patience and maturity at the time to argue David Lamson’s defense of “supervised placing” vs. “littering.” The following week I (a high school dropout) turned 18 and registered for the draft. A few days later Kent State happened.
Rick Brew
Vineyard Haven