ROYALSTON — “Checkpoint Charlie” Scribner has been involved with Royalston’s annual townwide roadside cleanup since moving to town in 1990, taking charge of them for more than a quarter-century.
He organized this year’s April event, which drew a number of advance workers, and a couple dozen workers that day, including a group of students clocking hours toward community service requirements.
Skies cleared and the sun came out just in time for the three-hour event, always held from 9 a.m. to noon on the last Saturday in April. Timing is everything, as Scribner explained. The day was strategically selected to avoid black flies.
Scribner sets a lawn chair by the side of the road to Royalston’s Recycling and Transfer Station — lovingly referred to as R-RATS — and logs the bags of trash coming as a result of the cleanup, notes odd finds and determines the most prominent item picked up that day. It appears this year’s top-trashed items were beer cans, specifically those that had contained Bud Light.
With more than 70 miles of roadside, it would be impossible to cover the miles of roads in three hours normally cleaned during the townwide cleanup, so, Scribner says he appreciates the number of residents cleaning roadsides in advance, some of whom leave bags of trash and piles of recyclables by the side of the road for crews to pick up on the actual cleanup day.
Large stretches of Routes 32 and 68, Jacob’s Ladder, Falls Road, Butterworth Road, Gulf Road, Athol Road, Northeast Fitzwilliam Road were cleaned in advance by Steve Chase and Beth Gospodarek, Sharon Harmon, Pierre Humble, Richard and Rose Lawrence, Deb Nunes, Jim Taylor, Sue Veilleux, Pat Worth and Michael Young, he said. There are likely others, whose names never made it to Scribner.
Recently-retired from the Royalston Selectboard, Linda Alger (under the expert direction of Nancy Skowronski, according to Alger) was still working for the good of Royalston, stopping along the way from South Royalston to R-RATS, tossing roadside bags of trash into her truck.
Taft Hill, Northeast Fitzwilliam Road, Winchendon Road and Turnpike Road were well-policed by a group of Athol High School students earning community service hours for their graduation requirements. Checkpoint Charlie signed community service verification papers for juniors Matthew Davis and Anthony Persson of Royalston. Athol juniors Sebastian Lucier and Tyler Nadeau, and sophomore Scott Barakat of Royalston worked with Royalston’s Board of Health Chair Phil Leger and Ray Maillet.
After three hours, and the final loads of refuse dropped at R-RATS, individuals and teams converged on Bullock Park, where Scribner had a cooker of homemade chili – his mother’s recipe – simmering at the pavilion. He was also slaving over the hot gas grill supplied by Dan Monette, cooking up hot dogs and toasting rolls. There were chips, salsa and gazpacho, as well, donated by Scribner, Leger and others.
Scribner pointed out the responsible products used for the cookout – a simple paper towel as a hot dog holder and paper, rather than Styrofoam, bowls for chili. All packaging and used paper goods from the cookout were being contained in a trash bag, which would be the final bag dropped off at the end of Royalston’s annual townwide cleanup day.
Volunteers are always welcome to participate either in advance or on the dedicated day, which next year will be Saturday, April 27, from 9 a.m. to noon. Residents who clean up the sides of roadways are encouraged to contact Scribner so he can add those to the list to ensure crews are sent to roads that have not been cleaned. Donations of trash bags, gloves and safety vests are always appreciated.