This is a complaint I wrote to our campus administration that attempted to address the Ride-On leaf blower and its maniacal human operator.
Almost all students, faculty, and staff understand that a clean campus is a wonderful place to study and work—it reflects our pride in our campus and our community. With that being said, the current situation with leaf blowers on our campus has unfortunately drifted into the absurd.
Each morning, the Ride-On leaf blower and its human operator annoys students, faculty, and staff with its noise. One easily hears it across campus tearing its way down walkways in search of errant leaves. Sometimes it stops, reverses, and turns erratically in search of its quarry only to raise a large cloud of dust and pollen.
Now I like our groundskeepers, but at times, their infatuation with the Ride-On leaf blower veers into an unholy obsession.
During my time here, I’ve witnessed leaf blowers dust cars with leaves and debris as the automobiles sat helplessly in the campus parking lot as students and staff frantically took evasive actions.
And I’ve witnessed the operator of the Ride-On leaf blower blow away imaginary leaves—leaves invisible to the naked eye, but perhaps existing somewhere on some other plane of existence.
I’m not suggesting we allow our campus to become untidy, but perhaps we might evaluate how often leaves need to be blown.
Could culling the leaves take place earlier in the morning when fewer students and staff are trying to get to classes or work stations? There may not be an easy solution, but these devices do cause some annoyance, noise, and air pollution, unfortunately making our beautiful campus a little less beautiful.
MARTIAN DEATH RAY 