In “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost claims that “Good fences make good neighbors.” Sometimes, so do restaurants.
Just two days before opening for the season, Jeff Craiglow, manager at Papa Boo’s, invited volunteers from his Boo Crew to help give back to the community, adopting Avondale Road from Cristland Hill Road to Harbor View and Columbus for a pre-season roadside trash collection.
For some folks, living near Papa Boo’s is another Buckeye Lake amenity – good food, waterfront musical entertainment within golf cart or walking distance. But living close to a popular establishment can also mean traffic snarls, party noise, and, most unfortunately, moron-induced litter.
Craiglow gets it. He decided to do something about something he could do something about: give back to the neighborhood by pitching in and tidying up.
Monday, April 3rd, loomed cool and gloomy. Armed with a trailer, industrial-size garbage cans on wheels, trash bags, boxes of latex gloves, a few grip extenders, and a certain sense of adventure and community action, nine intrepid Boo Crewers, including managers Craiglow and Jessi Strunk (again, all off the clock) sallied forth.
The novelty wore off fairly quickly. Everything from cigarette butts to Styrofoam cups, a heavy salting of cans and bottles, golf balls (The Mighty Shankopottamus walks tall on the Harbor Hills golf course), aerosol cans, paper, plastic, scrap metal made its way into steadily sagging trash bags as the Crew combed road berms and deep into roadside ditches. Latex gloves split; the stench from emptying some glass bottles would’ve gagged a maggot. Crew members slid down steep ditches, crawled into thorny brush, plucked garbage out of funky ditchwater. An air mattress, cardboard signs, and nine discarded tires, bristling with nasty steel belt spines were heaped on to the trailer.
And then there was the sports bra, size “Generous.”
The Crew was getting a little road-rashed by then, and imaginations began to take hold. Soooo…under what conditions does one feel compelled to doff a sports bra and fling it out the vehicle window? A quick poll revealed that several amongst the group had incredibly detailed and plausible explanations – all of which began edging into TMI territory, but made for a welcome distraction as one and all began to think that Avondale would stretch on forever.
But it didn’t. Just when the rain moved from threat to downpour, Craiglow and Strunk gathered their team for a group photo and a new appreciation for a different sort of role responsible businesses can play in community life.
Oh, and if you were part of The Great Sports Bra liberation? Please reply in the comment section below. We’re just dyin’ to know…