And a child will lead them

~ Editor's note: This River City Journal was originally published Friday, April 29, 2005.

When our older son was almost a year old, we were living in New York and getting ready to move to Idaho -- in January, no less.

We were on a family outing and waiting in the ferry terminal on Staten Island. The terminal was not a particularly inspiring place, unlike Grand Central Station or the old TWA terminal at JFK airport.

The Staten Island ferry terminal, across the bay from the lower tip of Manhattan, was purely functional. It accommodated hundreds of passengers a day who paid a nickel each at that time for a one-way trip. The design of the terminal focused on getting all those commuters on and off the ferry in the least amount of time.

There were, in the main hall of the terminal, places to sit while waiting for the next ferry. The walls were painted that institutional lime green -- a color obviously favored by low bidders -- that was adopted by so much of government in the 1960s and 1970s.

In spite of the large numbers of workers and tourists who rode the ferries every day, the terminals were, for the most part, clean places. That is, there wasn't a lot of trash. Perhaps that's because 35 years ago people were less likely to toss trash wherever they happened to be walking, standing or sitting at the moment.

As the time for the next ferry arrival approached, more and more passengers gathered closer to the doors that would take them to the boarding ramp.

Older son, who had just learned to walk, was eager to use his new skill and found the open area of the ferry terminal to be a good place to practice stops and starts and turns. Besides, he was playing to a generally adoring audience. Never let it be said that ferry travelers aren't friendly when cute children are around.

While older son was keeping the soles of his sneakers hot, other people were milling around and edging closer and closer to the boarding doors. That's when we saw a woman nonchalantly put a piece of gum in her mouth and throw the wrapper on the floor of the ferry terminal.

Older son made a beeline for the shiny foil, squatted, picked it up and headed for the gum-chewing woman.

Without saying a word, he stood in front of the woman and held up the crumpled wrapper. She looked at him for a moment before wordlessly taking it back. She walked over to a trash container and threw the gum wrapper away.

The image of a blond, blue-eyed toddler standing in front of a woman and holding up the trash she had dropped has been with me ever since. There was no rebuke in older son's action. The gum wrapper belonged to the woman. The woman dropped what belonged to her. In his innocence, older son was giving the wrapper back to its rightful owner.

I like to think that woman, whoever she is and wherever she is today, does not ever think of littering without remembering those eyes and the sweet smile of a do-gooder not quite three feet tall.

And I like to think that the dozens of ferry passengers who witnessed the silent exchange that only lasted a few seconds also were less likely to litter in the days and months and years that have passed since then.

My only regret is that we can't post 1-year-old sweet-faced sentinels who don't know what it means to litter at every street corner.

If we could, I don't think we would be waging a war on trash.

~ R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.