Our paper is full of political letters to the editor. I thought I would write on another topic: Keeping our city clean. A true story follows:

On my way to work last summer, I drove by a discarded mattress set leaning upright on a tree.

This mattress looked like it had been part of a crime scene — just awful.

I named it the murder mattress, as day after day I had to look at its disgrace. Finally we had a big rain — lasted days.

Much to my amazement, the murder mattress turned white! How did rain clean it? Was it acid rain?

A week of drying, the mattress disappeared. I hope some unlucky person didn’t set it up in his bedroom.

As I drove by that mattress, and even now, these verses pop into my mind:

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall become as wool.” And, “Wash me, Oh Lord, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

So on my end, it was good for something — and perhaps, for the person who picked up a free white mattress set.

Kim Christianson

Albert Lea