Feeling a lot better today. My girlfriend and I went to a nature preserve trail last night. There were a few things I found troubling upon arrival. First, it was the first state park that I've ever had to pay to enter. Four dollars is a paltry sum of money, but in Illinois (where I spent my first 2.5 decades) all the state parks are paid for by taxes. It was weird for me to have to pay for a state-run nature preserve, but I was really in the mood to get the hell out of the city for a while, so I considered it money well spent.
I couldn't walk much because of my damned upper-respiratory infection that is going away far too slowly, but we managed to wander a bit and enjoy the sights and sounds. The trail encircles a lake, and has gazebos along the way with cast iron binocular type things to stare out at the herons, geese, ducks, and such. We came to a bend where the path runs very close to the lake. I decided to walk up to the bank and get off the trail for a few. Just above eye-level, I saw a sign nailed to a tree:
Please stay on the trail!
What the fuck? Stay on the trail?! I was outraged, at first, that I had to pay to enter, and then was asked not to deviate from the little path that man had wrought. What kind of nature preserve won't let an introspecting animal wander freely? Then it occurred to me. While I was by no means any danger to the life there, or to the stability of the trees or any of that, most visitors are. It is the bulk of the population that has no concept of anything other than their own immediate satisfaction that could and would quickly bring this beautiful place to ruin.
As we returned to the car, this message was slammed home to me, as I saw a carelessly discarded plastic easter egg, lying a couple of meters from the path. It's odd how I pay so little attention to the trash that builds up in our carefully constructed human zoos, but how one tiny piece is a terrifying contrast in nature. I guess that's a sad commentary on humanity, but there it is.