What is Uglier Than Old Roadside Snow?

In Boston, we've had the Week of the Great Melting, which is to say that the mountains of snow are trickling into the earth.  Of course the good part is that I can now reach the back yard bird feeders, hell, we may even grill tonight.  The 60 degree weather on Friday was like a miracle, and the rumbling of thunder Friday night bringing melting rains sounded like music.  


That being said, the ugliness is über alles.  The landscape looks like garbage fell from the sky along with the snow.  That isn't how it happened.  Piles of filthy icy ick along the side of the road, and the melting has brought forth the trash and the garbage  that people in this part of the country (some, not all) feel privileged to toss out of their car windows wherever.  Their thuggish don't-give-a-damn attitudes give the landscape the appearance of a garbage scow.   One of the first things we noticed moving here from Chicago was what a dirty, trash-littered city Boston is.  Sad, really.  I don't think Paul Revere and Sam Adams would like the trash-tossers.  I don't.  


Now the cold has returned and we have the most disgusting roadsides you can imagine.  Filthy ice littered with more filth.  Medieval England couldn't have looked this bad, although it may have smelled worse.  Do you recall that fab scene in the movie Tom Jones where they came into London and it was a pig sty?  An untraveled theater-goer whispered to her seat mate, "is that how it looks?" Maybe we need a present day movie of the winter streets and by-ways of Boston, and yes, that's how it still looks. 
Litterers should be arrested and forced to pick up the roadside trash as penance.  Maybe they would see the error of their ways.  With photos in the paper each week of who will be gathering litter and where.  Sometimes, the punishment should fit the crime.  


I am now off to make oatmeal, the five minute kind with lots of fiber and flavor.  We eat it with raisins, turbinado sugar and sometimes a spoonful of cream.  The Yin and the Yang of Oatmeal on this blustery Sunday.