Chewing Gum Targets

Boing Boing posted a story about the chewing gum target, a designated place to stick your gum - presumably so you don't pollute the rest of the city.

Such places already exist, for example Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo. According to some reports, on hot days all the gum gets nice and soft, and the aroma of a million pieces of ABC gum fill the air. I know where my next vacation is going to be!

One previous vacation to Turkey found me at the purported site of the Virgin Mary's last home. Apparently she migrated to Ephesus in modern day Turkey, where the locals had been worshipping the female Athena and had a hard time swallowing this whole Christianity thing until a convenient female figure was emphasized. On the site today is a small chapel, and a fountain. With Mary being an important figure in both Christianity and Islam, the mountain top stone buildings are a popular destination for Turks and foreign tourists alike.

Evidently in Turkey the custom is to leave some small item from your person at a holy place, for example by tying a small string from your shirt to something handy. This custom evolved into people leaving chewing gum on the stone fountain. I suppose even the Blessed Virgin could appreciate some bubble gum now and then.

The thought of admiring a wall of used gum may appeal to some, but I prefer my used gum where it belongs - on the bottom of tables in restaurants and on the sidewalk where I can conveniently step on it.

Photo of Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo copied from Local Links.com

This photograph of the Virgin Mary shrine taken by me in 1999 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

Tags: gum virgin mary slo