The Catholics seem to have figured out something which I can not. How to keep their memorial free of graffiti and trash. On Woodbine and Cypress, there is a memorial to the “Polish Pope”. And this corner of my neighborhood speaks volumes of an age that is slowly fading away. An age of respect. I’ve been to Eastern Europe several times. And in Poland, one of the first things I realized was just how pristine and clean the entire country was. Not a scrap of trash on the streets. Everything neatly thrown away in trash cans. Memorials to the Saints always had fresh flowers. As depicted here. To realize how vastly “better” the aesthetical beauty of Eastern Europe was when compared to America made me wonder why so many of these countries strive to be “Americanized”. Here, now, I have begun to see ‘Polish Rappers’. Young guys driving around in cars, rims, base thumping, acting tough – and yes – trash out the windows, beer bottles tossed at will. And I’ve come to a conclusion – there is a direct parallel with the respect for a nation and its appearance. As respect slips, the trash piles up. Dirty in every way, in violence, in cleanliness, in corruption and even in the way the dead are treated and memorialized. This statue of the Pope is in the shadows of a Catholic Church. Perhaps this is the only reason why the flowers aren’t stolen each night.