I felt lower than the dirt under a worm’s belly.

I felt like a first-class jerk.

I’m ashamed to say I used to be a litterbug with a capital “L”. Anything I didn’t want was quite easily disposed of … I just rolled down the window of the car and pitched it out.

It didn’t matter a lot what it was; cardboard coffee cups, apple cores, directions not needed anymore, candy-bar wrappers, you name it, I fired it out the window.

It took an old gentleman with a cane to make me realize what a slovenly cuss I was being.  

After all, I didn’t have to pick it up; somebody else did, or it would just lie there and contribute to the mess many of us create in this beautiful city, county and country we’re so very fortunate to have.

The reason I recently felt like such a genuine bone-headed jerk was a relapse I suffered while waiting for my wife outside our local drug store.  

My daughter had given me a whole batch of yummy chocolate balls her company was using in a promotion.  

She had more than she could possibly use, so, knowing her old man was a choc-o-holic, she made the mistake of saying, “help yourself”.

I did … big time.

The only problem was the delicious chocolate balls were encased two per tiny box, and then, wrapped in their own candy-kisses-type foil wrap. In order to get my chompers on them I had to open the box, shake out the two foil-wrapped goodies and then store them in their easily-opened foil in a handy place in the car.

So while parked in the lot at the drugstore - waiting for my wife - I thought I’d get rid of the little cardboard boxes encasing my treasure of chocolate. I rolled down the window and began popping the foil wrapped goodies out of their cardboard cases and chucking the empty boxes out beside the car.

I had tossed at least two dozen of these little boxes on the ground and had candied up-to-the-top, two cup holders located handily between the bucket seats, when I sensed a person coming up alongside my car.

The person was an elderly gentleman, pure white hair, walking with a cane with metal cleats on the bottom to assure a good grip on the ground.

He had a bag in his hand as I watched his approach in my side-view mirror.

He got up to the mess I’d made beside the car, gently laid down his cane on the asphalt, and with extreme difficulty knelt on one knee and began placing the small cardboard containers I’d thrown out into his empty plastic bag.

He completed the job. He got up with the same degree of considerable difficulty I mentioned earlier, did not look at me at all, then proceeded to walk (with the help of his cane) to a litter container located not 20 feet from my car at the front of the store. He tossed the mess I’d made in.

It was at this point I felt like the first class jerk I really was.  

I haven’t littered since.

I came close this morning when I jumped into the car to come home after my walk and almost pitched a little ‘stick-um’ with a reminder of a few pickups I got at the local grocery store before pounding my beat around the lakeshore.

I remembered the old gentleman.

I picked up some discarded coffee cups on my walk, plus a few candy wrappers, and was rather proud of the strange looks the litterbugs gave me as I continued to pick up the odd piece of trash.

I felt good.