As I was walking this morning along the rural road that leads up the hillside from our home in Scappoose, I found myself noticing the trash that littered the sides of the road. Lying among the Queen Anne’s Lace and Himalayan Blackberry brambles were countless discarded paper cups from just about every fast-food retail chain you could name (including some that don’t have outlets closer than twenty miles or more) as well as cigarette packets, empty cans from both alcoholic as well as “energy” beverages, and assorted other debris signifying unequivocally “humans were here.”
I found myself getting angry, cursing the uncaring miscreants responsible for the mess as I picked up one empty McDonald’s cup after another and dropped them into the small bag I carry on my walks for just such a purpose. “Don’t these idiots understand that it’s wrong to litter!” Then it hit me – perhaps they don’t.
When I was a child, the ecology movement that would later be renamed the environmental movement was just beginning. From as early an age as I can remember, Woodsy Owl, one of the two great iconic images of the U.S. Forest Service, had been telling me to “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.” Iron Eyes Cody, another of the early icons of American popular ecology, had been looking directly into my eyes through the television screen and, as a single tear rolled down his sun-burnished cheek, conveyed to me the unmistakable message “Pollution hurts all of us.”
Sadly, Woodsy seems to be all but absent from present day public service announcements intended to impress the anti-pollution message upon the minds of our children. The Forest Service still seems to keep him around, but even the website meant to explain Woodsy, his history, and his message, is not fully functional and seems to be suffering from neglect.
Iron Eyes Cody left this realm of existence back in 1999 at the ripe old age of 94.The organization that brought American television viewers the phenomenally effective public service announcements in which he was featured, Keep America Beautiful Inc., is still alive and well, and continuing to work on their core issues of preventing litter, reducing waste, and beautifying communities; however they have not been able to produce anything nearly as effective as their famous “Crying Indian” public service announcements since.
To myself and all those roughly my age and older, Woodsy and Iron Eyes are indelibly impressed upon our minds as eternal symbols reminding us not to litter and to care about our environment. To those younger than me, the images are more transient. I asked our eight year old daughter if she knew who Woodsy Owl is. She said she didn’t nor had she ever heard the “Give a hoot, don’t pollute” slogan. She had, however, heard of the National Rifle Association’s Eddie the Eagle from a presentation that was given in her second grade classroom last year. This in itself speaks volumes about how the priorities and concerns of our nation have shifted since my own childhood.
We need Woodsy back (we need Iron Eyes back as well but that would be a much bigger challenge). Although “green living” and all that goes with it are the topic of seemingly endless messages conveyed to the public today, they are too often high level messages that can be acted upon through purchasing the right products or writing a check to the appropriate organization. Woodsy’s message was far more basic: care about the world around you and don’t harm it. By all means, write a check to Greenpeace or Audubon, but more importantly don’t drop that big gulp cup or flick that cigarette butt out the window of the truck when you think no one’s watching.
Peace and good bird watching.
