PORT HUENEME : Senior Couple Give a Hoot for Neighborhood

When her sons were in school, Mitsy Hunt of Port Hueneme used to teach the neighborhood kids the anti-littering refrain, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.”

Now she practices what she preached.

At 8 a.m. most mornings, Hunt can be found walking a stretch of Ventura Road that runs along the back yard of her 5th Street home. A somewhat frail figure dressed in layers of clothing, warm gloves and a bright orange mesh vest, 77-year-old Hunt uses a city-provided trash picker to gather scraps of paper, food wrappers and any other garbage that dares cross her path.

To regular joggers, she and her husband Scott, 72, are familiar sights, greeted with friendliness and a smile. As part of the city’s “Adopt-An-Area” program, they have cleaned up both sides of Ventura Road between Park Avenue and Pearson Road for more than a year.

Although most participants in the program are civic organizations or neighborhood groups, the Hunts chose to make their contribution as a couple.

“The city was asking for volunteers and we decided to do it,” said Mitsy Hunt. “We need the exercise and we would walk anyway. We figured we might as well be doing something good.”

“We don’t call ourselves trash pickups. We are environmental debris removers,” said her husband.

The regular garbage goes in plastic grocery bags, picked up weekly. But the Hunts also have a collection of finds along the north side of their home, awaiting pickup by the city. Many of the larger pieces of refuse come from motor vehicles--truck antennas and gas caps, a side mirror and numerous hubcaps. The collection is flanked by a bright orange plastic chair on one end and a carpet sampler, with a rainbow of colors from aspen green to summer shell, on the other.

“I know the chair came out of a car,” Scott Hunt said. “You can see the mark here. It must have bounced. It landed on the center divider, right side up. It looked like someone just placed it there.”

Recent radiation treatments to fight a war with colon cancer cause Mitsy Hunt to move a little slower than she used to, but she still tackles her share of the territory most days. When she’s too tired to walk, Scott Hunt covers the extra ground.

“This is new,” Mitsy Hunt said, pointing to a pale green, covered bench marking the bus stop at the corner of Bard and Ventura. “It hasn’t been here very long, but boy is it a trash collector.”

The true value of their work comes in the thanks they receive from the community, Mitsy Hunt said. The two were recently honored at a Port Hueneme City Council meeting, but it is individual thanks they cherish most.

“The best thing is the people who thank you: not just old people, but a surprising number of young people, even teen-agers,” Scott Hunt said. “When you can get a teen-ager to thank you, that’s something.”