“Put that down.”

“Don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been.”

“I don’t care if it’s dead you can’t keep it.  When you have your own home you can collect all the dead lizards and discarded Pixie Stix tubes you want but while you’re living under MY roof we still call that garbage.”

Does any of that sound familiar?  If your kids are anything like mine then I’m sure it does.

As we age our eyes tend to pass over most of the “stuff” we see lying around, recognizing it for what it is, some variety of trash.  But to my kids, all that trash represents the next possible addition to one of a dozen exotic collections and they’re forever scanning the ground for that next treasure.

Our closets have dozens of boxes dedicated to various collections.  Oh sure we’ve got the more “traditional” collections, rocks and shells (yawn).  There are the stuffed animals and the super hero’s, but we also have a box of birds nests, or more to the point what our kids BELIEVE to be birds nests but what are actually just wads of weeds and debris. 

My kids have come home with bird feathers, broken calculators, spent “gift cards” from Blockbuster, which they refer to as “money cards”, string, “secret notes” (read grocery list), industrial size bolts, Popsicle sticks, bugs (usually alive but by no means a requirement), wire hangers, pieces of rope, chunks of a plaster cast, bottle caps, you name it they’ve brought it home. 

Last month in Tahoe they found an old pull-tab from a soda can.  You remember those old removable ring tabs?  Natrally they’d never seen one before.  When I agreed that it must be very old indeed they suggested we give it to a museum.  Seriously.   I tried to explain that The Smithsonian has limited space and that I believe their 1970’s pull tab collection exhibit is already complete however in hindsight perhaps I should have allowed them to send it because that pull-tab begat yet another collection.

The point I’m working up to is this. Saturday September 20^th is the next Clayton Cleans Up day. Community volunteers (that would be YOU folks) pitch in to help clean up our creeks, trails and open spaces. The City of Clayton organizes this event, naturally.  My suggestion to CONCORD'S City Council that they chair it for us this year was met with jeers and a shower of items from their children's various collections.  Go figure. In any event, It's a wonderful opportunity to beautify our town as well as add to those growing collections.

Be sure to get there early because I know you’d hate to miss out on the good garbage, I mean treasures.   With my kids, every day is Clayton Cleans Up day but we’ll be there regardless.  And by the way, if anyone finds a Malibu Barbie Doll head please let me know.  It’s the last one we need to complete our collection and we’re willing to deal.

Bio: Clayton Resident, Joe Romano, is a freelance writer for hire. He can be contacted at jromano01@yahoo.com