A few wishes for 2005 --nothing big

Another year is gone. Each one goes by faster.

I'm not one for making resolutions. How can I resolve to be nicer when I already think I'm a pretty nice fellow?

Lose weight? I've done it a thousand times. I can do it again if I want. No resolution needed.

Stop smoking? I don't intend to start. Not with the prices of cigarettes today.

Be a good husband? I've managed to hold on to my marriage -- thanks mostly to my loving wife -- for 39 1/2 years. I think I've got a few more good years left.

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I have some wishes for 2005.

I wish people who throw trash from their cars could see themselves as others see them.

There are few things more disgusting to me than following a car driven by a trasher. It's not just cigarette butts.

It's anything that fits through the window.

I wish police and highway patrolmen would enforce anti-litter laws.

When I was a teenager and was first permitted to drive the family car, I threw a cup with the leftovers of a soft drink in it out the window. Unfortunately, I had not looked in my rearview mirror first. I was being followed -- tailgated, really -- by the town marshal. Wilson Penturf was his name, as I recall.

I should remember, because Marshal Penturf pulled me over. He didn't have to turn on his siren or lights. He just stuck his arm out the window and motioned me to the side of the road.

He asked if I knew why he stopped me. Of course I did, but the question seemed to leave a little wiggle room.

"I don't think I was speeding," I said -- and then added, "Sir." My high school principal, John Paul Jones, would have been proud of me for adding the "Sir."

"No, you weren't speeding," the marshal said.

"Was it because of the cup I threw out the window?"

"Yup."

The marshal asked me to step out of the car and look up and down the ditch alongside the road. I did.

He didn't have to point out that a whole lot of other motorists had also been careless with their trash -- only the marshal obviously wasn't following them.

I can honestly say that I have never thrown anything out the window of my car in all the years since that encounter with Marshal Penturf. He could have made a federal case out of it. He could have given me a ticket. Worst of all, he could have phoned my parents -- but we didn't have a phone on the Killough Valley farm.

Instead, he taught me a lesson, one that I will never forget.

Every time I see someone throw something from the car -- disposable diapers are particularly disgusting -- I think of Wilson Penturf. And, oh, how I wish we had an army of Marshal Penturfs.

I also wish mothers who take their small children out in public wouldn't scream at them or hit them.

It just so happens that one of the few things I cannot tolerate is a crying baby. It's not that I don't think babies should cry. I know it's in their nature.

What I can't stand is parents who ignore the wails of a human being too young to say in words what his crying conveys.

I want to pick up crying babies and rock them and cuddle them until they stop.

So when I see a mother smack her firstborn in the aisle of the grocery store, I wish for a mommy marshal to make her stop.

If we can cure the trash and smacking problems, 2005 will be a much grander year for me.

Here's wishing you a happy new year.

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