Yesterday, this space ran a Greenfield Recorder editorial dated April 21, 1970, “Down to Earth Day.” Memorably, it read, “The adult population of America is generally a vast mass of slobs and it has been so for 200 years.”
The editor may have taken heart, however, from the plethora of local environmental activism as reported in the pages of the Recorder leading up to that first Earth Day:
April 13, 1970: A photo by then-Recorder Photographer Chuck Blake, “Tree for Life,” was captioned: “Student Council Pres. Keith Peters (with shovel) and Grade 7 representatives, plant a “Tree for Life” to begin Earth Day activities at the Greenfield Junior High School. Chr. Richard Campbell, of the selectmen, was also on hand for the planting.”
April 21, 1970: Greenfield Community College announced an all-day program that included a clean-up event, a speech by Irving N. Esleeck, chairman of the State Pollution Board, titled “One man’s concern for the environment,” an engine burial on the front lawn of the Federal Street campus, a picnic at the town dump, a panel discussion on “Moral Aspects of Waste,” a second panel discussion on “What is Happening to Human Beings in the Environment,” an evening speech by Rep. Allan McGuane, and, finally, a summary session including films, displays, discussions and free literature.
On that same day, the Recorder anticipated Earth Day with its own photo gallery of shame, announcing, “Today, throughout its pages, The Recorder presents some of the very common sights that pock the county … rubbish, junk, pollution. Tomorrow, the paper will return to all that’s good, photographically. But today, it’s ‘America the Ugly.’” It started on Page 1 with a highly unusual color photo by Chuck Blake, titled “Welcome to Beautiful Franklin County,” described thusly: “A yellow helmet glistening in a warm sun, a Greenfield Department of Public Works employee drives a bright yellow bulldozer, pushing in front of him all day long the junk that the town’s citizens must dispose of. Clouds of smoke blot out the blue sky and even much of the red flames. This mess represents progress. Greenfield is moving toward a landfill dump and hopes soon to put out the dump fire for good. But what about all the other messes around the town and in Franklin County? Tomorrow is Earth Day, a period set aside nationally to let all Americans reflect on what they are doing to their environment. In this area, Scouts and schoolchildren will be trying to collect some of the junk and hide it.”
Sprinkled inside were photos of litter and overflowing trash barrels at the Greenfield Pumping Station and dam; a tire and auto graveyard along the Green River running west of Deerfield Street; views across Northfield dump (formerly at the bottom of Parker Avenue), with a green scum-covered pond situated in the center of it; an oily Cherry Rum Brook near the Silver/Conway streets area; the refuse of beer parties scattered along both sides of Taylor Hill Road in Montague Center; a motorist caught in the act of scattering lunch debris and the contents of a car ash tray, and a litter-strewn view of the North River between Shattuck and Griswoldville in Colrain. “It is not an uncommon sight along the brooks and rivers of Franklin County,” read the caption.
April 23, 1970: A photo by Blake showed a demonstration by Greenfield Junior High School students in observance of Earth Day. “Gasp,” read one of the placards carried by the small crowd that went down Federal Street. The accompanying story reported that “about 25 Greenfield Junior High School students carried out cleanup operations on Federal and Davis streets and all the side streets in between. The students carried signs which they had been making for days in the basement of the home of Douglas Lyman, one of the participants. Penn Jillette and Colin Moschen, unicycle riders and students, led the small parade.”
April 25, 1970: Following that first Earth Day, The Recorder opined on the day’s national observance, saying, “the occasion was as much anti-war as it was anti-rubbish. And protests almost everywhere took the form of rock festivals and lawn-lounging instead of demonstrations in the form of clean-up parties.”
The Recorder Teen Scene carried a student editorial by Marjorie Davenport of Mohawk Trail Regional School titled, “Earth Day — Forgotten?” Davenport writes, “Everyone should look closer at their own way of life and think of all the ways they are contributing to the gradual destruction of the world. We must correct the smallest abuse.”
We like to think both Davenport and the dyspeptic editor would be heartened by some of the annual events spawned by that first Earth Day, like the Green River Cleanup, part of the Connecticut River Source to Sea cleanup, by the transfer stations that have replaced the town dumps of yore, and by the countywide recycling and composting projects which have diverted some of the former waste stream.
We have a long ways to go, but we have come a long ways, too.