This past Friday, I had a very good experience dealing with the City of Lowell Solid Waste & Recycling Office. For some reason, the recycle containers on my short street were not picked up on Thursday (having been bumped a day due to the holiday). When I went home for lunch on Friday, I checked to see if the wheelie bins (that’s what they are called in London) had been emptied. They were full, so I called the City office that is responsible and got a taped message instructing me to call the City’s contractor, Waste Management, to report a missed pick-up. I called and spoke to a helpful woman who apologized for the mix up and said she would fill out a work order to request a truck to get the bin that afternoon. When I returned home after work all the bins on the street had been emptied. Kudos to the City officials and contractor for providing efficient service in this case. It’s easy to take day-to-day public services for granted, but somebody has to work every day to make sure we have clean water, street lights, ambulances, public schools, and the rest. There’s an action word in the bigger word “government.” That’s what it comes to even with the small stuff: govern.