When I was a first-grader at Garfield School, we lived on Grant Street, just north of English Street, and I spent most of my off-hours at nearby Lincoln Park.

My brother, sister and I loved the swing sets, the slides, the pavilion, the candy stand, and all those big oak trees.

We became friends with the park policeman. He didn’t carry a gun. He was just a kindly older man with a silver badge who kept an eye out on the park. He chatted with the kids and told the rowdy ones to shape up. His main job seemed to be spearing litter with a broomstick that had a nail sticking out of the end of it. Lincoln Park always looked great. As soon as a gum wrapper hit the ground, the park policeman nailed it.

Nearly 50 years have passed, and now I’m the one walking around, picking up litter.

Now that the snow has melted, I’m back in business. Nobody told me to do it, and nobody is paying me to do it. I just like to keep our four-block-long street and our alley looking nice and clean. Passersby sometimes stop and say, “Thank you,” or “You’re doing a good job,” and that is nice to hear.

You can have a beautiful street, lined with lovely, well-kempt homes, but if there are pop cans, plastic bags and old newspapers lying about, or blowing down the alley, it looks terrible. For some reason, the human eye focuses on such things. It’s sort of like a beautiful girl with a little pimple on her forehead, or a tiny spot on a $50 necktie.

Our street is not particularly busy, but every week or so, it needs a cleanup. I have no idea where it all comes from. Some people throw wrappers out of cars as they pass through, I suppose, and others don’t bag their garbage properly. Regardless, it always returns.

In years past, I would just walk my route carrying a couple of shopping bags. I’d pick up all the litter I saw, by hand, fill my bags, bring them home and throw them in our toter. It worked, but it really got disgusting at times.

Now I have a handy tool called an “EZ Reacher,” by Arcoa Industries, of San Marcos, Calif. EZ Reachers are used by janitors, park personnel, farmers, and people like me. You can find them at home improvement stores, farm supply stores, places like that.

The EZ Reacher is a low-tech, spring-loaded grabber, about 3 feet long. It is sort of like those extension “claws” that the guy at the corner grocery store used to grab a can from the top shelf. But instead of being made of heavy steel, it is made of sturdy plastic and lightweight aluminum. Squeezing the pistol grip activates the two large “fingers” at the bottom. Each finger has a rubber suction cup on it. The design is simple and ingenious; in a split second, you can pick up anything from a broken brick to a cigarette butt.

I love my EZ Reacher. It allows me to remove the usual cans, paper cups and scraps of paper much more quickly. I now work standing up, instead of bending over. Because of its length, I can now collect little scraps stuck in bushes or ivy.

It’s great to pick up everything mechanically, especially when you’re sometimes dealing with broken glass, or a disposable diaper, or a paper cup filled with who knows what.

The shopping bags have been retired, too. Now I use an old lawnmower grass bag. It’s made of nylon, it’s strong, and the opening is larger.

It takes me less than an hour to complete my route. Normally, I return with a couple of rain-soaked freebie newspapers, a few empty plastic grocery sacks, a few pop and beer cans, a couple of ragged cardboard boxes, pieces of toys ... things like that. The EZ Reacher grabs them all.

I haven’t found any homeless $50 bills yet, but I keep hoping. I found a dime last weekend, though, and I have retrieved at least a dozen stray nails and screws that could have caused flat tires.

It’s amazing what a difference a little litter removal makes. Our neighborhood, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, looks beautiful again when I’m finished. The eye rises from the gutter, and returns to the buildings, most of which were built in the 1870s and ‘80s. The place looks spic-and-span, cared for, tended to.

I think that even the most rundown neighborhood, anywhere, can be transformed by a few gallons of white paint, a few rakes, and a couple of people with gunny sacks and EZ Reachers.

It’s a rewarding little activity for me, and one that I can do whenever I want to.

The park policeman at Lincoln Park set a good example, I guess.

Danville native Kevin Cullen is a former Commercial-News reporter. Reach him at irishhiker@aol.com.