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.

It is difficult to see from the subway platform of the M Line at Forest, yet if you look down it’s there. A flag pole with an American flag that looks as old as the subway platform itself, tattered and torn, stands watch over the memorial marker of Private First Class Richard Gilley who was killed in Vietnam. Perhaps I’m a bit partial, but it seems as though for the most part the people of today have little respect for the freedoms they enjoy and take for granted. The only thing which has kept this memorial somewhat clean is the 12 foot razor wire topped fence surrounding it. One could easily see that people waiting on the platform for the train have decided to use this little area as a trash depository. Hence, the close up of my photograph. I thought the least I could do was zoom in on the Private and zoom out the trash. It’s everywhere. A dumping ground of filth and disrespect. And I think I discovered something important in the process – people seem to only respect the memorials of those whom they know. Like in life, it’s easy to disrespect others. A man, barely in his twenties, died for the freedoms of those who now, disrespect him.