I'd been gone a long time from Marshall, and when I returned I started to think back about what my great grandfather used to always talk about--change in the environment. He died in 2079 when I was eight years old. The day before he died, he said, "I've told you this a lot, but you should know I mean it. The environment is changing. Always pay attention to what is happening around you. It'll affect you sooner or later." As I walked along Pllcher Road I noticed that a lot of things were different since I left eight years ago. A couple of apartment buildings had been built back in what used to be the tundra. Also, a couple of my old friends owned a solar-powered snow machine rental place and had about 25 different new and used snow machines parked out front for rent. There was also a dealership where you could buy and rent solar-powered along with the old fossil-fuel-powered cars or trucks. The population here in Marshall is about 50,000 and almost every family who can afford one owns a car or truck or new advanced snow machine. But snow machines can only be ridden on the edges of the city on the tundra and in the little wilderness that is left.

Speaking of wilderness, since I hadn't been near it for a long time, I rented a snow machine and drove up toward Pilcher Mountain. The city went all the way up to the base of the mountain, so I drove up as far as I could, then stopped the machine and started to hike to the top. I remembered my Uncle Wayne used to hike like this. When I was in high school he used to try to get me to go to the top. One day I got so tired of him teasing me that I didn't have the stamina, I raced him to the top. Of course, he won, but I was glad I went up.

This time on the way up the country still looked beautiful from a distance and, since it was in the evening, the sun was just going down and the river looked really peaceful. But from the top of the mountain things looked different. With my binoculars, I could see a lot of trash and most of the trees in my great grandpa's pictures were gone. When I looked down at the river I could see it was very polluted. And when I glassed the surrounding tundra areas, there was trash scattered there too. Then I started feeling guilty that in the four years after I graduated from college and won the $2 million lottery, I had stayed away from Marshall too long. I could have come home and helped the city out, but instead I traveled to places like France and what's left of California and just enjoyed myself.

Right then I decided I'd do something about the mess. I went home, got on my computer and typed up a petition. I printed up 200 copies and used my rented snow machine to hang them up at the malls, arcade centers and other public areas. The petition asked for the city to hire people to go out into the surrounding tundra areas, including Pilcher Mountain, and to pick up trash there. Within two weeks I had 6,500 signatures. Then I appeared at the next city council meeting and presented my idea. Most of the people on the committee agreed. I volunteered my services and they put me in charge. After only a month, all the trash on the tundra and Pilcher Mountain which we could find was gone. We put the trash in the city dump and burned it in the smokeless incinerators. My next project was to get out petitions to clean up the polluted river, but that is a whole different story.

Rose Lynn Fitka