The picnic tables were all occupied, so I was sitting on the ground near a garbage can at the Zion NP Lodge, sweating, after just eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. I was in the middle of downing my giant Coke, on ice, when Bob Johnson stated walking towards me.

At least it looked like Bob Johnson. The spitting image!

For those of you who don't know Bob Johnson, he was my former boss, until several years ago. He sported a goatee and had a very distinctive look.

I almost said, "Bob?" but decided to wait a half second more, to see if he recognized me. It was then he started talking, and I could hear that it was not Bob Johnson.

He stopped, with his trash from lunch, studied the garbage can, and hesitated.

"One says 'trash' and one says 'trash only'", he said. "What in the world does that mean?"

"I have no idea?" I said.

He hesitated a little bit more, unsure what to do. "Maybe they mean that one is for trash, and one is for anything recyclable, plus trash, and they sort it out later so all of the recyclables get put in the right area?" he said.

"I don't think so," I said. "I really don't think that anyone in the United States National Park system would put that much thought into it."

"You're probably right," he said.

"Besides, have you seen some of the people emptying the trash? Do you really think they have the ability, or desire, to sort through all of this stuff to pick out the plastic #2 triangle plastic from the plastic #3 triangle plastic? The park service can't even organize themselves enough to get showers in the campgrounds."

He chucked. "Well, no, I don't think they can."

I went back to my icy cold Coke and he dumped his garbage on the Trash side. I suppose hope springs eternal, and he had a dream that someone would sort out his recyclables.

The real Bob Johnson would have liked that. He is an environmentalist and drives a Prius.

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