Last Saturday was Green Day. All across town, dozens of Westport volunteers picked up trash.
For Bob Braczyk and Scott Williams, every day is Green Day.
Nearly every weekend for 40 years, Bob and his wife Monica Bernier come to Westport from their Manhattan apartment.
Every morning they’re here — rain or shine — Bob joins Mark Yurkiw and his wife Wendy Van Wie on their daily 3 1/2-mile dog walk. The route includes Cross Highway, Sturges Highway, Meeker Road and Bayberry Lane.
Bob is here to relax. But when he joins Mark and Wendy, Bob brings a plastic claw, and the biggest recycled plastic bag he can find. He wants to clean the streets of his weekend hometown.
No matter how big the bag — and some are huge — he always fills it up. By the end, he’s stuffing in more trash than it can hold.
Bob Braczyk, with one day’s haul. Keeping pace is Wendy Van Wie.
Mostly, Mark says, the garbage is coffee cups, beer cans, liquor bottles, cigarette packs, fast food wrappers, and “really gross things.”
Just imagine what Westport would look like if — every weekend, on every walk — Bob just passed it all by.
Scott lives just down Sturges from Bob and Mark. You know his place: the iconic horse farm on the corner of Cross Highway.
Scott is a 1-man army. He cleans up all around the Merritt Parkway underpass — both sides of the bridge.
People use it as a dumping ground. For some reason, truckers park there and unload their trash.
On the other side of the bridge he cleans up dead trees, manicures and mows.
Scott Williams’ iconic farm. He cleans up all around, all the time. (Photo/Lynn U. Miller)
Mark says that Scott keeps the farm, and environs, looking exactly like it did on a Saturday Evening Post cover (and the opening shot of the “Stepford Wives” movie).
Scott’s farm actually falls on the Fairfield side of the town border. But he — and Bob — are true “06880” heroes.
And any other zip code.
(To nominate an Unsung Hero, email dwoog@optonline.net)
