The Gracke, still going strong

Chad Pregracke

Chad's dad was one of our high school teachers and Chad was a typical teacher's kid. He was kind of a partier, jock, sort of popular kind of guy. As all the jocks were known by nicknames, his was just simply "The Gracke" - not especially creative, but what do you expect from a bunch of pothead jocks.

Anyway, when I heard he was working on the Mississippi near his parents' old house, I just figured it was his attempt at avoiding adulthood while retaining some vestige of respectability. Float on the river, smoke some weed, pick up some trash...

I lost track of everybody from high school a long time ago, so i didn't really think anything of Chad's little hobby. Then a couple of years ago, I picked up a national magazine (I think it was Time) and saw this blurb about a guy dedicated to taking care of the Mississippi river. My jaw dropped when I realized it was Chad and he was really taking the hobby seriously and now getting national recognition.

Well, here it is 2005 and he is still going strong. I am impressed and happy that he is still doing this. It is a long way from being the gym teacher (or something similar) that I always figured he would end up being.

That's cool.

The amount of trash that ends up in rivers is really pretty amazing. Especially around urban areas like DC. You toss an empty plastic soda bottle into the street, and a heavy rain will wash it into the gutter, down a storm drain, and eventually out into the river. There, the wind blows it over to the shoreline, where it and a few tons of other slimey flotsam hang out forever, or until this guy comes and cleans it up.

I've read about this guy before. Cool that you know him, and he is doing some important work, IMHO.

it's been a good ten years since i bumped into him, so i don't really know him today.

i know he is doing great things and that is really cool. i just have a hard time shaking the guy that i knew from my head to replace him with an appropriate image of who he is today.

wow. he's still going strong. good for you Chad.

oh, and thanks for making a difference.

http://http://www.livinglandsandwaters.org/About/chad.htm

http://fromthebottomup.org/blog/index.php/cnns-people-you-should-know-features-chad/

looks like he has a pretty good crew now, too. the captain is one of our old high school teachers.

The second link was a great read - thanks Chad, and lookout