Lost Your Underwear?

If you are a male who wears black Hanes underwear, size medium, I may have found a pair of your underwear.

This past Friday, Jenni and I participated in a clean up day at the Bald Rock Heritage Preserve located on Hwy 276 on the way up the mountain to Caesars Head and the state line.  A wonderful group of volunteers (Friends of Bald Rock Heritage Preserve) are doing their best to protect and preserve this unique natural landmark.  Bald Rock is a granite outcropping on approximately 165 acres.  One can see Table Rock from it almost any time and on a good day you can see Paris Mountain and the buildings of downtown Greenville.

Bald Rock has taken much abuse over the years.  Evidently in the 1940s it was stylish and entertaining to roll flaming cars off the rock and, in more recent years, cans of spray paint have been used by Billy Bob to declare his love for Charlene. 

It’s time for all that to stop and be cleaned up.

So, this week we joined a small group of volunteers and picked trash off of the rock and out of the tree line.  After an hour, I had a bag that held a half dozen spray cans, water-logged fireworks rockets, three golf balls, numerous beverage bottles and cans, and one five-pound diaper.  When we met back at the parking area, one of the more experienced volunteers nonchalantly said he had just found the usual:  socks, bottles, t-shirts, and underwear.  I wondered if he had actually found all those items but I was NOT going to search his bag.  I do have some pride.

While we had been collecting trash, another group had taken chainsaws with them to open up an existing road through the trees.  In time, a tow truck will make its way through the woods to the rock and recover approximately 23 vehicles from below!  Our next step on this day was to drag the branches out of the roadway but I also took along another bag for collecting trash, just in case.  Good thing.

About fifty yards into the woods, I noticed something hanging on a low limb.  It was the aforementioned black Hanes underwear.  Now I’m not one for public shaming, but you better believe that if this person’s momma had written his name on the waistband like mine did for me as a child, I’d be telling the world WHO lost their underwear at Bald Rock!

How does that even happen?  I’ve seen children lose a shoe in a parking lot but you were obviously a grown man!  If the Mexican food hit you that hard, how did you even make the fifty yards into the woods?

Let me add that there are scores of people out there NOT following the #LeaveNoTrace principles of hiking and spending time in nature.  I would hope that if they had to sneak into the woods to relieve themselves, they would either dig a hole or bag what they’ve just done.  Heck, wrap it in your underwear next time and take it with you!

 My goal when I take a walk in nature is to Leave It Better Than I Found It.