The First Earth Day

I remember the first grainy, cheaply- printed, black and white, tube-mailed anti-pollution posters. They showed people wearing contemporary clothes but wearing gas masks. You could buy these posters at school through the Scholastic book service, which some of you may remember. I ordered one because I was seeing the air get thick and opaque in the years since since elementary school, from some of my favorite "staring-into-the-distance" spots. I thought maybe by the time I was grown-up the air would be clean, and I could once again see the moon rise over the Sierras from the hill near our house in Orangevale.