On April 1 I happily observed the first sign of spring. It wasn’t the daffodils Mass General has planted on either side of the Yawkey Center along Cambridge Street, although they are nice. It was not the tales of Red Sox play I’ve been hearing from friends who have returned from spring training in Fort Myers, although they are pretty excited.

My pleasure is due to a sound—the first swish of the street sweeper as it sucked up the winter debris on my street. That’s what I call sublime.

I understand that those of you who were towed last week and yesterday so that street sweeping could take place might not have the same feeling of bliss that I am enjoying.

I feel your pain. Like you, I have had the experience of going out to my car, realizing it’s not there, deciding it must have been stolen, and then remembering that maybe I had parked it where I shouldn’t have, and I probably should get in touch with the tow lot. All I can say is that it is a lot easier now than it was when I first moved to the Hill to get the cash to free the car since there are now so many ATMs around.

If you were towed last week or yesterday, you’re lucky in one way. You’ve already learned your lesson, and you’re unlikely to forget again, so you’re in good shape for the next seven months.

If you’re thinking of complaining that we do too much street cleaning and we should have more respect for automobile owners, swallow that thought. The only city I’ve ever seen that is dirtier than Boston is Calcutta. We need those street sweepers, and we need them badly, and we need the city to tow cars blocking their path since drivers won’t move unless they face the threat of towing. This is the third year the city has towed cars impeding street cleaning, and conditions are 100 percent better than they were before they started.

If you’ve lived here awhile you won’t be surprised to learn that when the Beacon Hill Civic Association was first started in the 1920s, one of the major problems they tackled was the cleanliness of the streets. Since we’re still dealing with the problem, I guess they haven’t been very successful.

We’ll have to admit though that the barriers to cleanliness are substantial.

1. With so many people walking around, you’d expect them to have a lot of stuff—tissues, cups, maps and wrappers for example—they need to throw away. How socks, toothbrushes, a sole of a shoe and other strange items get in the gutter by the time winter’s over, is a bigger mystery, but they are there.

2. Dog owners also have items to throw away, and too many of them bad neighbor-type slobs, depositing their dog’s leavings in tree pits or along the curb.

3. We have no trash bins in the residential section of the Hill, so you can understand to some extent the frustration felt by a person who tosses an item he or she is tired of carrying. You understand their frustration, but not their lack of self-control or respect for the neighborhood.

4. Some people are just degenerates who have no business living among others, but they do, and some of them can’t keep anything clean, including the street in front of their own home.

That means it’s up to the mechanical street sweepers to do their job. So get your car out of their way. Don’t complain about it. We can keep our city clean. Yes, we can.