One of the things I learned growing up and still practice today is not throwing litter out of my car. I don’t trash up streets where I park, or throw fast-food wrappers out of the window. Apparently, this type of behavior has gone the way of the 8-track player and the lace-up leather dress shoe.

9 out of 10 cars that park on my street leave something along the curb. Over the past weekend, a group of five teens parked on the other side and when they left there it was…..aluminum cans on my neighbor’s lawn.

A woman just stopped her car to wipe something off and threw the paper on the street and drove off.

Gardeners and lovers, prostitutes and johns, boyfriends and girlfriends, anyone with a car, a hand and a mouth…leaves behind litter: McDonalds, Mars candy, Gatorade, Anchor Steam, Bud, etc.

Was Los Angeles once considered a dazzlingly clean city? How I long to have the habits of the Japanese and the Swiss transported to this city.

Just a small complaint, symptomatic of a larger social illness besetting this metropolis of mediocrity.