Is it so horrible, really, to be inconvenienced by something that does so much good? 

I walk to work every day. While on my pleasant stroll I often come across garbage, (which affects me like a festering sty) I cannot help but pick it up. In the recent past, that piece of eyesore was a plastic bag. Of course, if I pick up a bag, I have to fill it, right? So I spent a lot of time picking up trash. 

What an epiphany when I realized the bags I used to scurry into the ditches for have nearly disappeared on my stretch of the road. Certainly, there are still plenty of plastic bottles and cans for me to fill my hands with.  

However, the vision of a bag flying gently and ever so freely straight into our bay, has dimmed. It is good. 

I know there are plenty more bags available to millions of people around the world, and around our peninsula, but I do see the tiny difference. Oh yes, and when I drive to Soldotna I do see lots of “false gulls” in trees: trash bags are hung everywhere. 

So when I go into Safeway, and have forgotten my bags in the car, I do not say someone has done me a disservice.  I don’t blame the city council. I  simply do one of two things, either run out and get them, or just have the bagger put the groceries back into my cart. I can fill my own bags once I  get to the car. Awkward? Perhaps, but it is a learning curve, and I’ll  get it. I am definitely going to vote to keep the bag ban intact.

Bobby Copeland McKinney