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August 18, 2010

Why have we all become such slobs?

By Jim Rueda Free Press Sports Editor

— Some of you may have noticed the column by Leonard Pitts on Wednesday’s editorial page entitled “Whatever happened to civility?” In a nutshell, Pitts argues we have become much more rude as a society than we used to be.

The piece brought to mind a similar column I’ve been thinking about writing for a couple of years now. Mine is probably best titled: “When did Americans become such slobs?”

Have you ever been to a baseball or football game at the Metrodome and remained in your seats at its conclusion, waiting for the line of fans filing out to get shorter? When you finally get up to leave, it looks like a Tsunami went through the place.

There’s trash everywhere — from pretzel wrappers, to peanut bags, to cardboard hotdog baskets, to giant soda cups. It’s almost impossible to get up out of your seat and walk to the nearest aisle without stepping on a piece of garbage.

At what point did this become acceptable? I was always taught that you take your trash to the nearest garbage can before you leave. Why has that changed?

We green Minnesotans have no problem hauling out our trash when we take a weeklong trip to the boundary waters. Why is it OK to dump half-eaten food and plastic bottles on the floors of our sports stadiums?

Just because we pay $35 for a ticket to the Twins game, does that entitle us to act slovenly? Because we drop $150 a pop for Vikings tickets, is it OK to conduct ourselves as if we were raised in a pig pen?

I’ve been to events at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul and had to stay late writing stories for the paper. As I finally pack up to leave around 11 p.m. or midnight, there is literally an army of workers waiting by the front gates to come in and sweep out the heaps of trash left behind in the stands.

Don’t fans realize that if only half that army of workers was needed to pick up trash, their ticket prices might not increase so drastically every year? More to the point, isn’t it just common courtesy to pick up after ourselves?

We police ourselves at home and on public sidewalks, why is it suddenly OK to be a barbarian when we buy a ticket?

The problem isn’t limited to sporting events. We trash hotel rooms. We leave garbage lying around at outdoor concerts. It’s even difficult to exit a movie theater without seeing at least one upturned tub of popcorn strewn in an aisle.

I’m pretty sure our parents raised us better than this. The question is, can this behavior be stopped and what’s it going to take to make that happen?



Jim Rueda is the Free Press sports editor. To contact him, call 344-6381 or e-mail him at jrueda@mankatofreepress.com

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