Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I am not "new" to the Gloucester area, but having spent 38 years in Central Florida, you might consider me a transplant or newcomer. Most of my childhood was spent in Gloucester and I have returned and have been living here the last year and a half. I am sure a lot of you who decided to make Gloucester your home have seen a lot of changes. Gloucester has grown, but to me it will always be the small, rural area I grew up in.

I have noticed a significant change here though! Unfortunately, it is not a good change. When I was a child here, life was simpler. My sister and I would walk to Buck Rowe’s store and trade in our soda bottles for money. I have been walking a lot now, and it is not soda bottles I find, but wrappers, cans, beer bottles, cigarette butts, cigarette packs and just plain garbage. I live on a short dirt road and when I moved here, I picked up three garbage bags of old beer cans, bottles, and just trash people had thrown from ...