Doing more than his share

By Lauren Ricks STAFF WRITER

July 04, 2008 10:47 am

— Parents often admonish their children to clean up their own messes.
Here’s a story of a kid that cleans up after others’ messes.
Dalton Duke, with some help from his grandfather. Bill Duke, scrubbed for about an hour-and-a-half late last fall to clean up graffiti at the Athens Railroad Park at the corner of East Tyler and Pinkerton streets.
The Dukes live in the Eustace area.
“Everything is donated there, the benches and bricks. It is such a nice park and I thought it was neat that he was upset about the graffiti,” his grandmother, Linda Duke, said. “He wanted to take his granny to see the beautiful park and when he saw the mess, he was upset.”
“People shouldn’t be doing that just because it’s fun or because they wanted to,” Dalton said. “God gave us this world and it’s the only one we have. That’s why I wanted to clean it up.”
Linda said she thinks Dalton’s upbringing and the school he attends are the reasons for his concern.
“He goes to Athens Christian Academy,” she said. “They talk about the environment there.”
Linda said the graffiti looked to be made by permanent marker.
“He put a lot of work in it,” Bill said. “He is a funny little guy. When we went to the fair at the Arboretum, he picked up cans and threw them away.”
“We tried to use bleach water to get some of it off but it took a lot of elbow grease,” Bill added.
Dalton said he never got tired or thought of quitting.
He said they used scrub brushes about six to eight inches long.
“They had to have pretty stiff bristles to get some of that stuff up,” Bill said.
Linda said they had to drive back to their home in Eustace to get other items to use for the clean-up.
“We used household cleaners. If you keep working on it, it will come off, but it takes a while,” Bill said. “You don’t just throw something on there and up it comes.”
“I just like to see people not making a mess,” Dalton said. “I just wanted the park to be clean.”