Little Leroy & The Newspaper

Little Leroy Jones was the smallest boy in his class. For the last two days Little Leroy was sick and had to miss school. This morning Little Leroy woke up with a fever and his mom said "You’d better stay home from school again today."

"Awww..." complained Little Leroy. In the last two days he had played all his games, read all his books, and watched all his movies. Today, Little Leroy wanted to do something different. He decided to watch the people at the bus stop near his house.

"Mom, can I go outside and watch the people at the bus stop?" asked Little Leroy.

Although it was cloudy, it was warm outside. And since Little Leroy was getting better his mom approved "You can go outside but stay on the porch. You’re still sick - so no playing around."

"Ok, mom" responded Little Leroy. He moved a chair to get a comfortable view of the bus stop.

After 10 minutes or so, Little Leroy watched as a gentle breeze blew some newspaper toward the bus stop. As luck would have it, the paper got caught in the supports for the bench at the bus stop. Soon, a man in a suit walked up to the bus stop. "Hey, mister!" shouted Little Leroy. "Why don’t you pick up the newspaper?"

"I don’t see any newspaper" said the man who turned his body away from both the newspaper and Little Leroy. When the bus came, the man got on as quickly as he could.

Next, a pretty lady came to the bus stop. "Hey, lady!" shouted Little Leroy. "Why don’t you pick up the newspaper?"

"I’m a fashion model and don’t want to get my hands dirty" came the reply. She also waited nervously and dashed aboard the next bus.

Little Leroy called out to several people to pick up the newspaper, but nobody did. Some of their replies included:

A man with a tool belt said "It’s not my job."

A teenage boy said "It’s not cool."

A teenage girl said "I wouldn’t want my friends to see me."

A lady with a shopping bag said "I’m in too much of a hurry."

A man wearing a cowboy hat said "I don’t live here - I’m just visiting."

A man with a briefcase said "I’m a banker and I only deal with really big, important things."

A man talking on a cell phone said "I can’t be bothered - I’m talking on the phone."

An old man with a beard said "Mind your own business!"

Little Leroy decided to count how many people didn’t pick up the newspaper. He went into the house and got a pencil and some paper. There were 10 quick marks on his paper. Then there were 20 - then 50. Little Leroy stopped counting late in the afternoon after he had 125 marks on his paper.

"Mom, can we go over to the bus stop so I can pick up some newspaper?" asked Little Leroy.

"Why do you want to do that?" asked his mom. Little Leroy told his mom about the people during the day and showed her the counting marks on his paper.

"Sure, but walk with me" said his mom.

In a few moments, Little Leroy had untangled the newspaper from the bench supports and placed the paper in the trash.

"How does that make you feel?" asked his mom.

"Really good" replied Little Leroy. "The newspaper was making the bus stop look dirty and the dirty bus stop was making our whole neighborhood look dirty."

"Good for you" said his mom as she cupped her loving hand behind his head and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"But mom . . . " said Little Leroy somewhat puzzled "if picking up the newspaper made our neighborhood look better - and when I picked up the newspaper I felt better - why wouldn’t all those people pick up the newspaper?"

His mom thought a moment and answered "Maybe none of them has been sick for 3 days like you and had the opportunity to think about the importance of the newspaper."

That evening, Little Leroy thought about his day. He then thought about his city and all the bus stops in his city. "I wonder how many other bus stops might have had newspaper that needed to be picked up? I wonder if the people at those other bus stops took the time to pick up the paper or just left it like at our bus stop?" After some more thinking Little Leroy continued "I guess there isn’t anything special about a bus stop - I guess there could be newspaper laying around in all sorts of places in our city." After more thought, Little Leroy added "And I guess there isn’t anything special about newspaper - all sorts of papers, boxes, and trash might be everywhere in the city and maybe people aren’t doing anything about it."

Little Leroy then started thinking what it might be like to be an adult. "Grownups are bigger, stronger, and smarter than kids. If they don’t deal with the litter that’s easy to see, maybe they don’t deal with their grownup things either."

The next morning, the early sun was shining on the bus stop. Little Leroy checked to make sure there wasn’t any newspaper that he could see. His mom decided that Little Leroy was well enough to go to school. When his teacher asked him what he did while he was sick, he told his story of the newspaper at his bus stop. The teacher thanked him for his thoughtful story. At recess, many of his friends said they thought his story was stupid. Little Leroy kept remembering how bad the bus stop looked with the newspaper, how good the bus stop looked when the newspaper was removed, and how good he felt for having cleaned the place. How could something like that be stupid? He then wondered if his friends would become adults like those who had reasons for not picking up the newspaper themselves.

Leroy decided right then that he would do something every day that would benefit his community and make him feel good in the process.

To this very day, Leroy has kept his promise to himself.

Leroy Jones never did grow to become very tall - however, he would never be "Little" ever again - in fact, on the inside - he was a giant.