When I started at what was then known as CFTO-TV, one of my duties was to check the items on the ABC DEF, which came into the newsroom every day around 3 o'clock.
This was similar to the wire service material, which came in to newspapers from all over the world, but since this was television, CFTO was being sent film footage so what we received was the ABC Daily Electronic Feed.
One day, one of the clips was from Sesame Street, which was then just getting started, and it was all about the letter X.
I have been an ardent admirer of Sesame Street ever since and although I no longer watch it, one day recently the song It's Not Easy Being Green wafted into the daily electronic feed between my ears.
That song was sung by Kermit the Frog and it tells of the difficulties that people face when, for one reason or another, they are marginalized because they are perceived as being different.
Kermit's sad little ditty has renewed significance today, but for an entirely different reason.
My wife, Jean, and I have embraced the cause of environmentalism and we can tell you from personal experience Kermit hit the litter right on the head.
Jean and I are what might be called minor league environmentalists; we throw our litter into any one of the many trash cans in the Beach(es) and every time we venture out onto the streets of this great neighbourhood, we pick up discarded materials and deposit it where it belongs.
We don't pick up everything we see and we never pick anything too foul, and we know we are not the only ones acting in this manner.
So why isn't the message getting across to everyone? Our park system and the Boardwalk are remarkably clean, but poor old Queen Street some days look like the battleground for a food fight. I don't see how this is going to attract visitors with lots of money to spend or upscale stores that will only be too pleased to satisfy their every want.
There are economic and esthetic advantages to maintaining a welcoming landscape so clean streets should not be a matter of indifference to any of us when it should be a matter of pride.
That's why I think the environmental anthem should be It's Not Easy Being Green and that's why I think we should, posthumously, appoint comedian Rodney Dangerfield as our national spokesman and broadcast on a regular basis video clips of him saying his famous punch line: "I get no respect."