The street sweeper went by our house today.  It blew up a lot of dust and sucked it all back up into its big dark tank.  It was very quick and painless.  Our little cul de sac only took about a minute … maybe two.

It came early in the morning.  Shortly afterwards I left to go to the gym.  As I drove down a nearby street I noticed that the street sweeper had been there as well.  It had only been down one side of that street though because parking is allowed on on the other side of that street.  I admired how clean and grime free the curb area was on the “clean” side.  Then I looked at the “unclean” side.  It was full of leaves and clutter.  And mostly cars.  It was not clean because the street sweeper couldn’t get there when the cars were parked there.  It being basically a huge gasoline driven power scrubber and vacuum cleaner, it cannot go where cars are parked.

It really bugged me seeing one side of the street clean and the other messy.  I like matched sets.  So I started to think about ways that the messy side could be cleaned.  I came up with a novel approach.  I thought of …

… wait for it …

… a broom.

Then I began to think more about it.  What would happen if we got rid of all the gas powered street sweepers and replaced them with brooms?  And paid people who don’t have jobs (homeless people, for example) to sweep the streets?  What might happen?  What other jobs, simple jobs, do we now engage gasoline or oil powered machines to do that people might do?  I think it might kill two birds with one stone.  We could simultaneously give people employment while reducing our dependence on petroleum products.  It might not be much of a reduction, but it would be some.  Maybe there are some other things we can do in small ways to reduce our dependence.

In a similar vein, we participated in the Gas Out the other day.  Which is to say, by coincidence we did not need to purchase gas on May 15, so we did not.  LightGirl and I were talking about it later and thinking about how it really probably didn’t do any good.  Her idea was that there should be a Gas Out Month!  “That would make a difference!” she declared.  “Well … yes,” I thought.  Then I began to imagine what that might do our economy.  How would we go about managing to not buy gas for a month?  How about a week?  Think about it … how long can you reasonably go without getting gas?  How long can you make a tank stretch?  Can you make it go longer?  I wonder if we all just started thinking in terms of how long can I make it before I have to fill up again? it might change our use habits, which might change our dependence.  It might just take a slight change of perspective.

Like brooms, and paying people instead of buying machines.  Like finding out how many days you can take a tank of gas.