Bashing Boxes and a Slough of Stuff
by Tom Serface
Overall our experience living in Creswell has been excellent. We really love it here more than we could ever express in words. The people of Creswell are friendly, helpful, and great to be around. Creswell is a wonderful place to live.
I’ve lived in big cities where crime happens all over day and night. People are robbed, mugged, and murdered and many employ all kinds of security devices to protect their belongings. There is a great disregard for personal property and you see all kinds of graffiti everywhere. The big city can be an exciting place to live, but it can also be exhausting. Part of the reason we wanted to move out to the sticks was to get away from that kind of rat race.
It turns out that while you may think you got out of the rat race, there are still rats everywhere. I guess Creswell has its share.
We have a slough that runs out in front of our property. It’s often filled with water this time of the year, but most of the year it’s pretty dry. While I was out cutting down the grass last year I noticed a bevy of odd garbage items. There were a couple of old Taco Bell cups and the remains of a combo meal that had to be brought all the way from Cottage Grove or Eugene. There were also miscellaneous other yucky things that passersby had left as welcome wagon gifts. It seems that some of the residents of these parts are litter bugs.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if all I found were innocuous trash items. The bigger problem is I found mostly old beer bottles and even a couple of bottles of libations with a little more spirit. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good brew as much as the next guy, but I’m guessing that the people that tossed the remains our way were not walking by (we’re about 3 miles out of town) and I don’t think they drank them at home and packed them out to our small slough because their own garbage cans were full.
I find Camas Swale Road a challenge to negotiate on the best of days. It’s a bit curvy, there are always people coming the other way at “faster than I would go” high speeds, and a lot of the time it’s pretty foggy or really dark at night. The thought of driving down that way sober is, um, sobering enough. I am troubled to think that any of the good people of Creswell would actually try to drink while driving that road.
Maybe they never saw the commercials on TV that show graphic details of kids and parents killed by drunk drivers. Perhaps we have a few Lindsay and Britney wannabes lurking around here that think being drunk in public is great for their image. I don’t know. I can only say that it scares me to think that there are people in our town that are dumb enough to take that kind of risk with their lives and the lives of others.
OK, as if that weren’t bad enough… the other day we came home and found another conspicuous item in our slough; OUR MAILBOX! Apparently someone had driven by and bashed it off its post. Fortunately, they left it lying in the slough so I could put it back up, but this has to be one of the most inane acts of vandalism I’ve ever seen. I can honestly say that in all my life in the big city never once did I have anyone waste their time, or mine, by bashing in my mailbox. Besides being a felony to tamper with the delivery of the U.S. mail, it just seems really stupid to me. Yes, I said the ‘S’ word; Stupid. You can’t take credit for that sort of thing. How would you explain that proud moment? It’s kind of like robbing a Dairy Mart for $10. Sort of embarrassing. You just cause inconvenience to someone you don’t even know, you don’t get anything for it, and, well, what’s the point? I wonder if there’s any connection between the bashed in mailbox and some of the empty beer cans and bottles I’ve found. You know, like those commercials that say, “This is your brain… this is your brain on…”
Well, I got that off my chest. I feel a lot better having complained about it and now and I can go back to my life as a run of the mill Creswellian. I know we weren’t robbed or mugged and that’s a good thing. We were just the victims of drive by stupidity. I have to admit though, I am hoping that all of the beer bottles and mailboxes and whatever I found were all deposited by ne'er-do-well’s from Seattle or something like that. I’m not sure why they’d drive that far just to mess up my day, but it makes me feel better to hope it wasn’t some of my own neighbors.
I still love living here…
by Tom Serface
Overall our experience living in Creswell has been excellent. We really love it here more than we could ever express in words. The people of Creswell are friendly, helpful, and great to be around. Creswell is a wonderful place to live.
I’ve lived in big cities where crime happens all over day and night. People are robbed, mugged, and murdered and many employ all kinds of security devices to protect their belongings. There is a great disregard for personal property and you see all kinds of graffiti everywhere. The big city can be an exciting place to live, but it can also be exhausting. Part of the reason we wanted to move out to the sticks was to get away from that kind of rat race.
It turns out that while you may think you got out of the rat race, there are still rats everywhere. I guess Creswell has its share.
We have a slough that runs out in front of our property. It’s often filled with water this time of the year, but most of the year it’s pretty dry. While I was out cutting down the grass last year I noticed a bevy of odd garbage items. There were a couple of old Taco Bell cups and the remains of a combo meal that had to be brought all the way from Cottage Grove or Eugene. There were also miscellaneous other yucky things that passersby had left as welcome wagon gifts. It seems that some of the residents of these parts are litter bugs.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if all I found were innocuous trash items. The bigger problem is I found mostly old beer bottles and even a couple of bottles of libations with a little more spirit. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good brew as much as the next guy, but I’m guessing that the people that tossed the remains our way were not walking by (we’re about 3 miles out of town) and I don’t think they drank them at home and packed them out to our small slough because their own garbage cans were full.
I find Camas Swale Road a challenge to negotiate on the best of days. It’s a bit curvy, there are always people coming the other way at “faster than I would go” high speeds, and a lot of the time it’s pretty foggy or really dark at night. The thought of driving down that way sober is, um, sobering enough. I am troubled to think that any of the good people of Creswell would actually try to drink while driving that road.
Maybe they never saw the commercials on TV that show graphic details of kids and parents killed by drunk drivers. Perhaps we have a few Lindsay and Britney wannabes lurking around here that think being drunk in public is great for their image. I don’t know. I can only say that it scares me to think that there are people in our town that are dumb enough to take that kind of risk with their lives and the lives of others.
OK, as if that weren’t bad enough… the other day we came home and found another conspicuous item in our slough; OUR MAILBOX! Apparently someone had driven by and bashed it off its post. Fortunately, they left it lying in the slough so I could put it back up, but this has to be one of the most inane acts of vandalism I’ve ever seen. I can honestly say that in all my life in the big city never once did I have anyone waste their time, or mine, by bashing in my mailbox. Besides being a felony to tamper with the delivery of the U.S. mail, it just seems really stupid to me. Yes, I said the ‘S’ word; Stupid. You can’t take credit for that sort of thing. How would you explain that proud moment? It’s kind of like robbing a Dairy Mart for $10. Sort of embarrassing. You just cause inconvenience to someone you don’t even know, you don’t get anything for it, and, well, what’s the point? I wonder if there’s any connection between the bashed in mailbox and some of the empty beer cans and bottles I’ve found. You know, like those commercials that say, “This is your brain… this is your brain on…”
Well, I got that off my chest. I feel a lot better having complained about it and now and I can go back to my life as a run of the mill Creswellian. I know we weren’t robbed or mugged and that’s a good thing. We were just the victims of drive by stupidity. I have to admit though, I am hoping that all of the beer bottles and mailboxes and whatever I found were all deposited by ne'er-do-well’s from Seattle or something like that. I’m not sure why they’d drive that far just to mess up my day, but it makes me feel better to hope it wasn’t some of my own neighbors.
I still love living here…
