I had expected to have made other improvements this week, including a change to recycled toilet paper (not toilet paper which has been recycled, mind you, but toilet paper made from recycled paper products). Indeed, I have asked readers a few times for a recommendation for a recycled toilet paper. To date, however, I have not received word of a single acceptable product.
And to be honest, that’s okay with me. The fact is that I am a Charmin devotee.
Certain dates in my adult life have been indelibly imprinted on my memory. I remember perfectly, for instance, the day I met Tom, the day we got engaged, our wedding day, the day we bought our current home and the day Olympia joined our family.
And I remember the day Charmin toilet tissue made its first beautiful, fresh, glowing appearance in my life. It was July 4, 2002.
Certain dates in my adult life have been indelibly imprinted on my memory. I remember perfectly, for instance, the day I met Tom, the day we got engaged, our wedding day, the day we bought our current home and the day Olympia joined our family.
And I remember the day Charmin toilet tissue made its first beautiful, fresh, glowing appearance in my life. It was July 4, 2002.
Tom and I had decided to join my oldest brother, David, for an Independence Day celebration in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is known for putting on a great July 4 party. Some have equated it with New Year’s Eve in New York City. We planned to watch a parade, listen to music and entertainment and attend the late night fireworks. And because Tom can’t stand being late for anything, we left our hotel long before the parade started and began eleven sweltering hours in nearly lethal Philadelphia heat.
It was maybe 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with 90 per cent humidity, and not enough of a breeze to lift the thousands of starred-and-striped flags drooping everywhere. Even so, it might not have been so bad if not for the fact that the main part of the Independence Day event was taking place, as it does every year, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In case there is any confusion, this parkway has little to with parkland – grass, shade trees and ponds. Rather, it is a broad, long, paved road – covered in black asphalt, already softening that day in the summer sun. Celebrants had been advised to come early to “claim their spots” on the parkway. So we obediently laid a blanket out on the blistering pavement. We couldn’t sit on the blanket, however, as the heat rising from the street was too much to bear. Instead, we spent hours wandering the area, waiting for the headline acts to begin.
It would not be a great day for the environment. As the day progressed, a vast quantity of litter was dropped by the nearly comatose attendees. The event itself was sponsored by Sunoco, which two years earlier, had spilled 200,000 gallons of oil into a nearby wildlife refuge. The fireworks, likely propelled by gunpowder, would later rain toxic pollution over the city. And Tom, David and I, in a losing battle against dehydration, drank bottle after bottle of lemonade and water. At the end of the evening, we would have over a dozen plastic bottles to add to the nation’s landfill…and we had already thrown out many others over the course of the day. And remember that we were only three of hundreds of thousands of people in attendance.
Our dehydration luckily meant that we had no need for a toilet for several hours. But in the early evening, as the air cooled by a degree or two, we decided to seek out a place to relieve ourselves. The stinking porta-pottys drove us away before we could get close. We tried entering into a nearby museum or two to use their facilities, but found all doors closed.
It was maybe 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with 90 per cent humidity, and not enough of a breeze to lift the thousands of starred-and-striped flags drooping everywhere. Even so, it might not have been so bad if not for the fact that the main part of the Independence Day event was taking place, as it does every year, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.In case there is any confusion, this parkway has little to with parkland – grass, shade trees and ponds. Rather, it is a broad, long, paved road – covered in black asphalt, already softening that day in the summer sun. Celebrants had been advised to come early to “claim their spots” on the parkway. So we obediently laid a blanket out on the blistering pavement. We couldn’t sit on the blanket, however, as the heat rising from the street was too much to bear. Instead, we spent hours wandering the area, waiting for the headline acts to begin.
It would not be a great day for the environment. As the day progressed, a vast quantity of litter was dropped by the nearly comatose attendees. The event itself was sponsored by Sunoco, which two years earlier, had spilled 200,000 gallons of oil into a nearby wildlife refuge. The fireworks, likely propelled by gunpowder, would later rain toxic pollution over the city. And Tom, David and I, in a losing battle against dehydration, drank bottle after bottle of lemonade and water. At the end of the evening, we would have over a dozen plastic bottles to add to the nation’s landfill…and we had already thrown out many others over the course of the day. And remember that we were only three of hundreds of thousands of people in attendance.
Our dehydration luckily meant that we had no need for a toilet for several hours. But in the early evening, as the air cooled by a degree or two, we decided to seek out a place to relieve ourselves. The stinking porta-pottys drove us away before we could get close. We tried entering into a nearby museum or two to use their facilities, but found all doors closed.
Eventually, a city worker waved us into a long, snaking line… (to be continued)
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