Thanks, Joe.

I don't always plan well. Like times I've gone shopping without my wallet or been caught in traffic jams without a way to pee or so far from my last snack that I can feel my insides gnawing each other looking for sustenance.

Yesterday was not one of those times.

We've had two boxes of toxic materials waiting to be properly disposed of for longer than I want to admit. Some of the items came with the house and are corroded paint and paint thinner that was shelved in Jeff's area of the basement. Others are paint from when we moved in, assorted mercury-containing light bulbs and various electronics.

After collecting them and putting them in boxes in the garage, I was sure I'd get them to a Tox-away day, but they've sat in the garage long enough to collect cobwebs. I finally tracked down where I could take them and got up early yesterday. 

Indianapolis has a great service that allows you to drop your toxic stuff for free. All you have to do is get it there and they take care of the poisons without having them pollute the ground, air or water. I took my non-toxic recyclables to Broad Ripple Park - another great city service - and headed to the south side to the tox drop site.

I was certain I wasn't the only Indianapolis resident with toxics cluttering up my garage, so I brought food, coffee and a book just in case I would have to wait a bit. It took the better part of an hour, but it was amazingly stress-free. Vehicles were parked on a major street, curled around another one and lined up into the drop site when I got there. It was probably a mile long at 10:30 when I got there. It had opened at 10 a.m. No one was blocking driveways, and no one was honking in annoyance at the blocked traffic lane. And no one tried to jump in line by pulling into one of those tempting, empty spaces. (Yes, I did consider it when I first didn't realize that was the line in and had to back track.)

My working theory is that if you're the type of person who'll drive to properly get rid of toxins, you're probably not a line-cutter. Anyway, there I was, uncharacteristically patiently reading my book while in stop-and-start traffic when I looked up to see I was a half-block away from driving right back on to the very street I'd started on.

My heart raced for a minute. Had I followed the wrong person? Had I missed a turn because I was paying more attention to the book than where to go? The book was good, but not good enough to take another turn in that line.

Thankfully, I spied the frontage road that ran parallel to the city street. Five minutes or so later, a guy came and took away my boxes and directed me to the exit. I didn't even have to get out of the car.

The line was way longer behind me as I drove home, way less toxic than when I'd arrived.

 

After I got home, Jeff, Ali and I took a bike ride and found the Fall Creek trail is under improvements and way nicer than the last time we'd gone that route. At one point in a particularly wooded section, a doe was standing to the left of the trail, seemingly happy to count the humans as they went by. Ali and Jeff were ahead of me and she backtracked to see the deer again as I passed her. By the time Jeff got to us to see what we were doing, the deer was gone, only to burst across the path, double-timing it into the woods.

She scared a couple of walkers coming our direction, but it was a delightful kind of scare. We've counted thousands of turtles and ducks and fish and the like on our biking trips, but that was our first city deer.

In other news, Indiana lost a hero last week and I didn't write about it here. I just wasn't ready, and there were so many others who were writing lovely, thoughtful things that it seemed sufficient. There's a Facebook page where some of us have shared memories. It's an amazing, wonderful tribute created to replace what COVID-19 has taken from us: the ability to safely gather to mourn. 

 Joe Kernan was an amazing person, and I was so fortunate to know him. Not as well as many, but enough to have learned from him and to continue doing things to make the world a little bit better if it's only to say thank you or to pick up litter. Because of Joe, I have a group of friends who lift me up when I'm down, make me laugh, make me proud and make me want to be there for them if they need me.

I'm trying to emulate him more than I have in the past. Joe spent 11 months in the Hanoi Hilton as a prisoner of war. He wasn't bitter or jaded or mean about it, and he didn't talk about it much. What he did say is that he was grateful to make it home safely. "I don't have many bad days," he would say, acknowledging that he daily embraced the freedom he'd lost and regained.

I, of course, haven't endured anything terrible like Joe did. But I don't always embrace the positive like he did, either. Getting rid of those toxic materials was just the start of me clearing out junk, both physical and metaphoric. Thanks, Joe. For everything.