Litter in Skaneateles

Good morning, David James! We’re hoping you enjoyed that bottle of Sebastiani Sonoma Chardonnay you purchased at Pascale’s Liquor Square at 8:08 p.m. on Saturday, July 28th, with your Visa card at the bargain price of $9.99 and with which you received a snappy black wine bag with silver stripes that somehow found its way to the dewy grass of Austin Park this morning. It made a handy sack for the other litter, which included about six feet of toilet tissue dropped off behind the park sign.

One Keebler elf, on cellophane, holding a huge peanut butter and cheese sandwich and looking very, very happy. A receipt from the Nice N Easy grocery on Clark Street in Montezuma: $34.75 worth of gas on July 27th, on the MasterCard, last four digits 8114, dropped on Genesee Street. On the evening walk around the pedestrian trail in Austin Park, a dozen or so plastic bags and food wrappers, and an AMF bowling pin. You can’t make this stuff up.

Neatly wrapped in a napkin, like a hotdog in a bun, and left by the side of the Austin Park pavilion, a large poop. Somehow, the presence of the napkin made it worse, and one wonders, however briefly, how such a package came to be there, outside the pavilion but not all the way to the nearby wastebasket. Perhaps the bearer grew faint with such a burden and felt a swoon coming on, or was summoned to attend to a more important matter, or feared discovery with such an unsociable object in hand and abandoned it at the earliest opportunity.

In Austin Park, a discarded black tag bearing these words: “WARNING: Stretch cord carefully. Uncontrolled release can cause severe injury to unprotected body parts, particularly eyes. Maximum stretch length 50% of unstretched cord. Over stretching cord can cause hook failure, resulting in sudden, uncontrolled release. Wear safety glasses when attaching and releasing.” I would think you’d want to keep such a warning prominently displayed, a constant reminder. Somewhere, someone is flirting with uncontrolled release, not to mention hook failure.

In Austin Park, someone who really couldn’t follow instructions: one dozen (12) tickets bearing the notice, “KEEP THIS COUPON.” And one half a packet of N(heart)JOY Rich & Smooth Coffee Creamer, loaded with corn syrup solids, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, dipotassium phosphate, sodium silicoaluminate, mono- and diglycerides, artificial color and flavor. Boy, lucky they didn’t use cream.

Big litter in Austin Park this morning: About 4 feet of broken hockey stick, PMPCrosby87, SHER-WOOD, made in Canada by Drolet and approved by Sidney Crosby, born August 7, 1987, in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, captain of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. In addition to his Sher-Wood endorsement, which brings him $150,000 a year, Crosby has endorsement deals with Reebok, Telus, Upper Deck, Tim Horton’s Timbits Hockey and Pepsi. We’ll be watching for more Sidney Crosby litter in the weeks and months to come. And in the evening, a golf ball, 10 Precept MC, with the cryptic designation LADY. Not sure if this is a ladies’ ball, if such a thing even exists, or the property of someone who goes by “Lady,” or, perhaps, an homage to “Lady and the Tramp,” in which case, I’m solidly behind it.

Oft promised but never delivered, until this evening in Austin Park: one Trojan Shared Pleasure Condom, apparently run over and opened by the mower OR used and then pressed, refolded and returned to its wrapper. Now that would be one very fastidious lover. “What… what are you doing?” Another wonderment: If this particular style of Trojan is about shared pleasure, what are the others about? Selfish pleasure? No pleasure at all? Would those be big sellers? Calming things down: one golf ball, Titleist 4, DT So-Lo, emblazoned with the M&T Bank logo, and an ‘H’ in red, felt-tip pen. No mention of pleasure, either shared or selfish, on this one.

In the aftermath of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra’s performance at the Austin Park pavilion, one Doug’s Fish Fry receipt for salmon, fish dinner, cole slaw, big soda and pint milk paid for by MasterCard (last four 5515) at 7:13 p.m., just in time to drive over to the park, set up chairs and dine to the opening piece by Wagner. Otherwise, a very neat and tidy audience. On a sad note, one dead garden toad, on the sidewalk. (A woman on Elizabeth Street allows her cats to roam freely, and they range throughout the block killing birds, moles, baby rabbits, chipmunks — any small, beautiful creature you’d enjoy seeing in your garden — and we imagine the toad was one more victim.)

In Austin Park, a Sun-Maid Raisin box hit by the mower, but the Sun-Maid Raisin Girl was unharmed, recalling the young lady from Fresno who posed for the original painting in 1915, Lorraine Collett Petersen. Her image was first applied to packages of Sun-Maid Raisins in 1916. Today, the watercolor is kept in a vault at Sun-Maid’s HQ in Kingsburg, California.

On the way to work, another Labatt’s Blue can, and a receipt from the P&C for bagels, cottage cheese, provolone cheese and two bags of chips, paid for with a Visa card, last four numbers 5348 on July 23rd at 12:34 p.m. On the way home: Coke can, crushed; Marlboro Smooth pack, crushed; “Loose Change” New York State Lottery Games loser, furled. And three pennies.