Armed only with his trusty litter picker and feeling his way carefully along the frozen, snow-rutted path, Fred Waldburg digs into his memory bank to recall the first time he and his wife, Betty, started picking up everyone else's garbage.
Fred dawns on the realization he and his better half have been, save for a few Snowbird vacations here and there, doing this every morning at 7:45 a.m. for 20 years, or 7,300 days, if you prefer. He's jolted awake, however, from his story-telling revery by a sharp shrill of "wait!" courtesy of Betty's thick German accent.
"Oh, the boss is calling," smiles Fred, who's then directed by Betty to a coffee cup lid he neglected to pick up while regaling the News of why he and his wife get up every morning to clean South Arm Park of their own accord.
"Betty is the spotter; she lets me know straight away if I miss something.
"I have had to sometimes empty three plastic bags per day of garbage. And on Saturday mornings, there are a lot of beer cans and pop cans. I don't know what happens on Friday nights."
THE Waldburgs - Betty, 79, originally from Nuremberg, and Fred, 77, from Berlin - immigrated to Montreal from Germany in 1957, moved to Richmond in 1970 and then, in 1971, moved into their single-family home, a mere 100 yards through the lane to South Arm Park. In their early days of being neighbours to the park, there was a guy, according to the Waldburgs, called "Bob the Banker," who used to rollerblade around South Arm picking up litter. "That's what we called him, only because we knew his name was Bob and the only other thing we knew was that he worked in a bank.
"But he moved away one day and I guess we decided to pick up where he left off."
And for the last two decades, retired mechanic Fred and still-working housewife Betty get up at around 7 a.m. before walking through the lane at a quarter to eight to commence their daily sweep. In the early days, Fred used to jog around while Betty picked up the litter. "There were very few trees around, even then," added Fred.
Asked why the couple shows such devotion for the park that thousands of others use, Fred said simply, "I like to clean the park and we have to walk for health reasons at our age.
"And we hope that some people might see what we do and be encouraged to do it themselves. "If I threw a candy wrapper away when I was young, my mom would have had something to say about it.
"It's about civic pride and looking after your community. We only have one little world to live in, and we have to take care of it."
It's that civic pride that earned the Waldburgs a much-deserved certificate of recognition from the City of Richmond last week.
WE continue our walk, all the way past the rear of McRoberts secondary and Whiteside elementary, past the soccer fields and baseball diamonds. "People around here know us," said Betty. "And we know everyone and their dogs. We see the same people every day."
A few seconds later, we turn the corner and bump into a teenage girl, whose face lights up at the sight of the Waldburgs.
"This is Marissa, we have known her since she was very little," explained Betty.
A few yards further around their 45-minute route (an hour depending on who they meet), dogs run up to the pair and smother them, as if they were their owners. They take a wide berth around this reporter, as if to ask, "why are you here? Betty and Fred are always two, not three?" Picking our way further around the path, a woman tells me unprompted how special the Waldburgs are in the community.
"I kept saying this pair needs a medal or something, so I'm so glad they got some recognition," said Linda Reeve, referring to the couple's certificate.
"I've known them as long as I've been walking my dogs out here, 10 or 11 years. And I tell you what, we know when these guys are not around, you start to see stuff everywhere."
Even still, the Waldburgs say things have improved markedly over the last couple of years.
So much so, that it's only Fred who wields a litter picker now, with Betty's sniper's eyes on point. Is the reduction in littering due to their good example and, therefore, people being less likely to drop their garbage in an already clean park? "I'm not sure, maybe?" said Betty.
"We've found money so many times; 5s, 10s 20s. And lots of jackets and t-shirts. "Some we will wash and hand in to the school, and some we give to charity."
Their pet peeve, however, is people with shaggy dogs grooming their pets in the park and leaving all the hair there.
"It looks terrible. One man told us the hair was good for the birds. I don't think so," said Fred.
PASSING dogs and their owners, schoolkids and their parents, joggers and power-walkers, most know the Waldburgs and either say hi or stop for a chat.
Around every corner, there's another human or four-legged friend that knows all about Betty and Fred.
At the end of the hour-long walk around South Arm, Fred finds the nearest garbage bin and deposits a full plastic bag of stuff people have discarded in their haste or laziness.
We make our way back through the lane to their former family-filled home - their two daughters and one son fled the nest many moons ago - where it's time for breakfast, followed by the crossword and Sudoku and maybe some household chores.
"I can't believe how quickly time flies past when you're retired, I don't know how I fitted anything in when I worked all day," added Fred.
