Published: April 25, 2006 12:31 am      

Instead of griping about a problem, fix it

On Thursday night, 6 inches of rain fell within two hours in Homewood, Ala. When I got to the 2.6-mile point of the walking trail off Lakeshore Drive in Homewood on Friday, I discovered the most mud I’d ever seen on this super-nice public trail.

I even had to get off the trail in several places in order to avoid the mess. The worst condition existed under the bridges adjacent to the Homewood High School baseball field. Everybody was taking an inconvenient detour at these bridges.

While on the trail Saturday I asked a few walkers if they had a shovel at home that I could borrow for removing the mud under these two bridges. I called a nearby friend for a shovel. No success.

Sunday morning I woke up with the thought of shoveling for the Sunday morning trail members as part of my daily workout. I borrowed a shovel and took off to the trail with a gallon of water, a bath cloth, three bananas, peanuts, raisins and two mugs of coffee. I parked near the two bridges and started shoveling at 8 a.m. to clear the path. The area was about 60 yards to 70 yards long and the width of a regular highway lane.

Sweat soaked my T-shirt in no time. People immediately were thanking me for my labor. Several asked, “Are you getting paid?” “I use this trail every day, just like you,” I answered. One female law student, Rita, sincerely commented, “I would help if you had another shovel.” One middle-age lady shared that I was making her feel guilty. With no smoking breaks, I worked until noon.

Some of my thoughts while shoveling were:

n What a tremendous outreach this would be for churches to do while wanting to help the community.

n Do we need to depend on the government to do everything for us? (A volunteer act like this might improve the performance rating of President Bush.)

I was so thankful for my fitness, especially at my age of 53.

A nearby security guard jokingly commented that he had enjoyed seeing the people detour across his guarded property, and now I had taken that away from his boring job. He was going to pray for another flood.



Mike Sawyer

Birmingham, Ala.