Vol. XV No. 23
Friday June 8 - June 14, 2007
"Beyond the Beach" with Andrew Watson
Gerry Rasmus, "The Pollution Solution"
"Beyond the Beach" - Andrew Watson’s news series on Pattaya Mail on TV, starts with "The Pollution Solution", an interview with Gerry Rasmus.
Inevitably, it’s another beautiful Pattaya morning, the sun is out and there’s at least a hint of a breeze coming in from the bay. Andrew runs into an individual who embodies Mahatma Ghandi’s mantra, "Be the change you want to see in the world" and he does it, from the beach.
Gerry Rasmus is larger than life. He is from the United States and he spends his time setting an example to all of us on the Eastern seaboard by taking the most personal care of the environment which we treasure most here - the beach. He is a man with a message for us all and I think it’s going to be worth watching.
Andrew describes Gerry as ‘the Pollution Solution", a sobriquet Gerry is happy to handle. But Gerry’s life, we learn, hasn’t all been plain sailing. He bravely confides that once he was a "waste of skin taking up space". But by as long ago as 1980, Gerry had seen the light. He stopped drinking and became part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.
His effervescent character is nonetheless humble and yet it appears, his devotion to cleaning up the planet is not completely altruistic. The cumulative energy involved in picking up trash from the beach amounts to real exercise and Gerry has invented a name for it - "Waistercizing". And what to do with his collected garbage? Well it appears that there are many strings to Gerry’s net. He creates works of art with it all. So what’s his message, you might ask? Well it’s simple. According to Gerry, if all of us took just a little bit of interest in keeping things clean, the whole world might be a better place. And then something more - ‘love each other’ says Gerry.
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