Smokers don’t annoy me.

Their butts do.

Each month, my wife Sue and I participate in “Trash Masters.” We are responsible for cleaning the section of West Valley Road between Roche Harbor Road and English Camp. For years we’ve dealt with “Bud Lite Man,” a character who apparently drinks a can of Bud daily and pitches the can into the bushes. When times are tough, he switches to Pabst beer. Not that big a deal. The big deal is the number of cigarette butts we pick up each month. They only got there because they were tossed out some car window. Don’t smokers understand that we’re in a drought, that we live in a tinder-dry forest, and this whole place could ignite? You’d think with the recent poor air quality and the number of fires already burning on the West Coast, people would be smarter and more considerate.

Mike Buettell

San Juan Island