My husband and I saw the Niagara Falls with a tour group, headed by a tour leader who called himself King Kong.
We often talk about King Kong who was a bit out there, even among the most outrageous of tour leaders. He led us forward holding an old umbrella aloft and yelling out instructions in at least three languages. We barely understood his English, but we followed like the dutiful mice we were, him leading us like the Pied Piper.
His enthusiasm for the job is what made him someone to be remembered, and not necessarily in a good way.
I’ve been thinking about him a bit lately because a new tour leader of life has taken a new and unexpected face. Where King Kong brandished an old umbrella, my entry to explore new worlds has become my water bottle.
Yes folks, I was slow to get onto the plastic water bottle round-about, but I am quick to get off it. It saddens me that we never looked forward to oceans polluted with plastics and iceburgs frozen thick with our waste. Shame on me and shame on all of us that we, of the generation that grew up with pig farmers taking our scraps and papers going straight to the incinerator, didn’t immediately jump on the excessive use of plastic bottles and other unnecessary waste.
Ours was the generation that used paper bags and grease proof paper for our school lunches. We wrapped our rubbish in newspapers. We brought home a week’s groceries in one large paper bag with a box for loose fruit and vegetables. Our cheese was bought off the wheel. Our milk was delivered in recycled glass bottles and the bread was put straight in the bread bin at the front door. Our waste was plastic free, minimal and our lives were simple.
But I have digressed, because now instead of relying on the bubblers of old, I have taken to carrying around a water bottle. And this water bottle has caused me to look at life anew. And not just from it being recyclable. it seems the waterbottle has a sense of adventure.
Just how many more places do I have to return to and retrieve the tricky little bottle? I find myself regularly retracing my steps in my quest to find the elusive new friend and in so doing, I look at things anew. I just wish I could retrace the earlier steps that caused plastic pollution in the first place.
