Happy Father's Day To The Old Man Picking Up Litter In South Holland

An old man with a white beard walks around my parents' neighborhood picking up all kinds of trash — cigarette butts, chip bag tumbleweeds, plastic bottles, glass bottles, baby bottles, broken bottles and face masks. So many face masks.

"Just put it this way: If I can see it, I pick it," he told me this week.

He stalks sidewalks pulling a makeshift trash cart that his daughter got him for his birthday. He uses one of those grabber gadgets you can get at the dollar store to pick up pop cans, coffee cups and, that one time, a used condom in the schoolyard.

"I started picking up down that block and back. Two blocks. Now, I cover 12 blocks," he said. "This is how I get my exercise."

The old man has been "picking up" — that's what he calls his regular neighborhood cleanup sessions — for more than a year now.

---

"I pick up at least a half [a village trash bin] full of people's trash every week," he said.

In that particular patch of suburban South Holland, the old man is hard to miss. He wears a construction-site orange vest and surgical gloves to keep himself safe from speeders and bio-hazardous materials.

"He's such an awesome person to care so much for his neighborhood, for our neighborhood, to continually do something on his own like this without being asked. He's out there — looks like to me every day — caring about our neighborhood. It's beyond words," his neighbor Joyce Kennedy said. "No matter where you see him, he always has such a pleasant attitude."

That was shocking to hear. Having grown up in that part of town, I am familiar with the old man's grump-like tendencies.

I ran into the old man's wife and told her what folks were saying about her husband.

"Hey, Ma! The neighbors just told me that Dad is always 'pleasant.'"

We laughed until it hurt. After all, there's a reason my dad's trash cart warns drivers: "SLOW: Children. Dogs. 1 Grumpy Old Man."

Let's just say Michael Konkol wasn't always known as South Holland's Mr. Sunshine.

Dad earned a reputation as a prolific, if not pain-in-the-rear, public commentor at South Holland Village Board meetings.

Sometimes, my dad would just pop into then-Mayor Harold Gouwens' office to air his grievances.

Folks who run the public works department probably remember my dad from his pesky random visits to report potholes, road kill and snow-covered fire hydrants that they often ignored.

In 1993, he got fed up with too many uncontested elections that kept Gouwens in power for 33 years with his band of rubber-stamp trustees.

My Dad, a self-employed janitorial contractor and Thornwood High School Booster Club president — didn't have more than a couple hundred bucks to spend, a political organization, or many pals for that matter. He took on South Holland's equivalent to Chicago's Daley family anyway.

Dad publicly accused Gouwens of not being responsive to residents' concerns and conducting too much public business behind closed doors. Nobody thought he would win, and they were right.

Dad lost by a 7-1 margin — except in the 89th Precinct, which includes the dozen blocks where he now picks up litter for fun. In our neighborhood, Dad beat Gouwens — the nine-term mayor whose uncle and father-in-law were South Holland village president before him — by six votes, 61-55.

Gouwens died of lung cancer a few months after the election. The village turned an empty field next to Seton High School — in the 89th precinct — into a park and named it Harold Gouwens Park.

Dad didn't run for office again. He was done with politics. He stopped regularly attending village board meetings. He's 75 now, and has lived in the same house for 45 years.

Why does he spend so much time picking up trash?

"I don't like seeing garbage in the street," he said. "I don't like driving down my block and seeing people's trash, disrespecting other people's property. And when I see people around, they say they appreciate it. That's what it's about. Appreciation."

---

A new neighbor caught Dad picking up trash in front of his house.

"He said, 'I see you picking up' and handed me $25 dollars," Dad told me. "Normally, I wouldn't accept it, but he insisted. So, it was only polite."

Father's Day Gift Guide 2022

Other neighbors have slipped Dad a few bucks and left gifts in his mailbox.

He's met nice people who don't really understand why he's picking up trash on their block.

"A lady on Avalon asked me if I worked for the village. I said, 'No.' She asked if I was with a community volunteer group. I said, 'No. I just pick up trash,'" Dad said. He giggled to himself. "That's it. I pick up trash."

And it's made Dad a hyperlocal celebrity.

A few folks even offered to circulate petitions asking village officials to rename the short stretch of Seton Road that leads to Gouwens Park after the old man who picks up trash along the road's shoulder.

"We would get out there with petitions and pound the pavement," neighbor Tammy Kennedy said. "Your dad is a blessing."

I couldn't be more proud of my strange, trash-obsessed old man.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.

Read More From Mark Konkol:

• Remembering The Wisdom Of Chief Keef's Granny, Margaret Carter
• Bailey Leads GOP: Good News For — And Brought To You By — Pritzkers
• Chicago Doesn't Need Another Family Legacy Alderman In City Council
• Collins Has More Going For Her Than Fame And Bucks — But Is It Enough?
• Never Heard Of Mayoral Candidate Ald. Roderick Sawyer? Let Me Help