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Trash piles up; weight comes off Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Eagle Point High School math teacher LaMarr James shows off part of the trash he collected while walking around Eagle Point this summer to lose some weight. He ended up with 160 bags� worth � and a better understanding of his neighbors� habits and hearts. Fitness walks turn into litter pickup By Vicki Guarino EAGLE POINT � LaMarr James just wanted to lose some weight. But he wound up gaining hundreds and hundreds of pounds � of garbage, that is. The Eagle Point High School math teacher turned a summertime physical fitness routine into a crusade against roadside litter. Everywhere James walked, from Reese Creek Road to Ball Road, or out Stevens Road, around Meridian and looping back on Dutton, he gathered garbage: a one-man adopt-a-bunch-of-highways program. "After a while, I think I covered all of the roads around here," he says. And cleaned them. When school ended back in June, James� plan was to walk off some weight. He began hoofing about eight miles a day. He was trying to enjoying the pastoral beauty of the rural Eagle Point area, but the roadside litter kept spoiling the scene. "I was envisioning how nice the roads would look,�� he recalls. So he took the logical next step, and tucked a plastic garbage bag in his pocket as he left the house. Then two garbage bags. Then five. Then, well, on record trash days James could fill eight bags with litter. Jackson County supplied the bright orange highway litter bags. In no time, James was covering 20 miles a day, 7 a.m. to noon, whisking away trash as he went. Then he�d retrace his route in the car to pick up the bags. He got permission to store them at Eagle Point High School until the county could haul them away. He filled 160 bags in all. "Sometimes, I wondered if I wasn�t a little obsessive," James concedes. The work did become a meditation. James got to thinking about the small community � "Even if they didn�t know my name, people saw me out there and knew I was the math teacher" � and his duty to set an example to teenagers. "I started out thinking about modeling commitment to my students, but then I got to thinking maybe I was modeling commitment to myself," he says. He had a job to see through: tidy roads all the way to White City. He collided with a public works department litter patrol with the same idea, but heading north from White City. Along the way, James learned a few odd things about his community from the odd things tossed from car windows. Given the multitude of Pepsi cups James scooped up, he has concluded with some authority that Pepsi far outsells Coke in the Eagle Point area. The plastic bags shoppers use to tote merchandise out of stores for some reason aren�t needed to get the merchandise home. Wind-blown bags wind up in trees, bushes, everywhere, "right in your face." And golfers? Well there�s no figuring them out. Miles from the nearest golf course, James found balls. "There were golf balls in the weirdest places.�� Some of the trash was disturbing. James plucked a few syringes from the weeds. Then there were the two motorists who regularly cruised Stevens Road, probably intoxicated: In one small area he found 50-60 empty pints of a particular brand of gin and, at another spot, a batch of whiskey bottles. James learned his neighbors are messy and unthinking, yes, but also friendly and kind. "Lots of people thanked me," he says. "They said some really nice things. "I even had students show up with a cold Pepsi. It was kind of nice.�� And that�s not all. "I left about 20 pounds of flab out there." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA