Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Is That Ghost Made of Trash?

Today I was traveling with my boss out to Lancaster for a client visit. The drive is so beautiful. The perfect rural farm setting: rolling hills, corn fields, pumpkins and farm stands. There were horses and cows slowly grazing. The air had a faint farm smell (if you know what I mean) and some fields had sheep and tiny ponies in them.

There were farms everywhere with white washed fences and small blue Amish foot-propelled scooters parked against the houses. We also saw the cutest thing ever, two Amish girls in blue dresses with white bonnets, holding hands and lunch boxes as they ran to their one room school house. The air was warm but crisp and around every turn you could see buggies coming up the road. In several of the fields, the autumn harvest was taking place; teams of four-plus horses pulled machinery that cut corn stalks or turned hay while men in straw hats perched atop to receive and pile the crop. Just a perfect fall setting.

It was almost ruined though, when we pulled up to a stop. I looked to my right and saw a house "decorated" for the Halloween season. They had so much junk in their yard that I wondered:

A. Where they stored it all in the off-season and
B. How much toxic lead the Chinese had infused into the plastic

They had plastic jack-o-lanterns with painted faces, FAKE leaf garland wrapped around their porch railings (why? I don't know because the tree right next to the porch was doing a pretty good job of providing some real ones), Styrofoam tomb stones, and the piece de resistance, white and clear plastic trash bags in the trees and wrapped around the light post. Out of the corner of my eye I thought it was garbage, but I guess they were supposed to be ghosts.

Just in case there wasn't enough wasted and misused plastic in the world, these geniuses thought it would be a good idea to hit Walmart to add more.

Anyway, I guess my point is, why fix what ain't broke? Maybe what you are trying to recreate is already all around you.