This Land is Your Land

It always takes me a minute to figure out what my son is trying to tell me. Usually it's hard to decipher because it's so obvious. Yesterday he wanted to know if the runners of the Falmouth Road Race were "bad" because they threw their paper cups on the side of the road after passing a water stop.
Bad? Why would they be bad?
Because they're littering of course!
There's an exception to the rule isn't there? Even littering.
As glad as I was to realize that my daily musings about grubbing up the planet were getting through, I was in a fix trying to sound compelling in excusing the runners' behavior. It seemed like a weak argument to explain that it's okay for runners to throw their cups on the side of the road because the volunteers would pick them up. It's like saying "sure, dump out that box of Legos, mommy will pick them up." He took it at face value though and didn't pursue the question. He actually seemed disappointed as we walked along the course that the volunteers had, indeed, picked up all the trash and there wasn't anything left for him to help with.
As you can imagine, the short stretch of road between our house and daycare is, for the most part, trash free.

song: This Land is Your Land • artist: Woody Guthrie