RESSLIN AROUND By Casey Ressler

Since it's spring, it has to be time for yet another Resslin' Around that whines and cries about how much litter there is on the highways of the Valley. Unfortunately, this column has become somewhat of a tradition, but every year, it seems like there is more and more garbage on the sides of the road when the snow melts.

What got me thinking about it was a 5-minute span in which I saw three people flick cigarette butts out the windows of their vehicles the other day.

Now, before all you smokers start writing letters about how everyone is out to keep the smoker down, yada yada yada, think of it this way - you flicking your cigarette butts out on the ground is no different than a guy throwing a McDonald's wrapper out his window. Yeah, it's a tiny little butt, but I've yet to meet a smoker who has flicked only one single butt out on the ground during their lifetime. The same smoker who is appalled to see someone else toss a crushed aluminum can out of a window doesn't think twice about flicking their butts on the ground over and over again, but it all adds up the same.

My basic thinking is simple - if you want to kill yourself by smoking, more power to you. But please don't make everyone suffer for you being a moron and littering every time you fire up a cancer stick.

My dad is a smoker, and a good friend of mine is a "recovering smoker." But at least they both have the courtesy to put their cigarette butts in their pockets until they find a garbage can.

If you can't get them to quit, at least get them to be courteous about where they place their butts.

Alaska is a great place full of pristine scenery, but it's in a constant state of being ruined, not just by smokers but by all those who litter. I'm an avid fisherman, and there are lots of anglers who contribute greatly to the problem by leaving balls of monofilament on the banks of streams.

It isn't one group that does all the damage, it's many groups doing many little parts of it, and it adds up to one large problem - a problem that could easily be avoided if people would use some common sense.

I'm not trying to point fingers at a specific group, because I'd run out of fingers to point, which is sad.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@

frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor.