Young California Boy Meets His Hero: The Garbage Man
Allen James, or Bubbalou as he’s called by his family, goes to the window and waits.
And at exactly 7:20 each Tuesday morning, something amazing happens.
The garbage men come.
“His love of the garbage truck started with his love of noises,” Cassandra Sales, Bubba’s mom, says. “We were sitting on the couch one morning, and he heard then stop and go and so he looked behind the blinds and he saw that someone came and we talked a little about who that was.”
Sales says his love of the garbage man isn’t just on Tuesdays but the whole rest of the week, too.
“He definitely enjoys looking out the window and we talk about it every day,” Sales says. “And we have a little countdown. If it’s Wednesday, we say there’s six days until the trash man comes and then when its one day left he gets all excited and goes to the window. So it’s definitely something we talk about every day.”
He even knows when he picks up, that means there’s garbage for them to pick up.
“And now he knows with things like that we can take the trash out. He carries his little dust pan and broom around to fill up the trash.”
There’s a saying you should never meet your hero, but several weeks ago Bubbalou got that chance…and he wasn’t disappointed.
“He was definitely in shock. Because we went outside and we say him get out of his truck so we went outside to say hi and he had a big red bag,” Sales says.
Inside the big red bag the garbage man pulled out a toy garbage truck for Bubba, so he had one of his very own. Now, it’s his favorite toy in the whole world.
“He came inside and immediately started playing with it,” Sales says. “Pressing all the buttons, had me take it apart. He played with it pretty much the rest of that day. He went all around the floor and stopped every couple of inches. Picked up the trash, just like he sees the neighbors trash and stuff like that. He was just really excited he finally got to meet his hero.”
Now that Bubba’s dreams have come true, he isn’t the only happy person inside the household. Yreka Transfer has made one mother very happy too.
“I love Siskiyou County so much,” Sales says. “There’s so many people and small businesses. Especially Yreka transfer who goes out of their way to make everyone’s day. They do so much of the community, behind the scenes and he really didn’t have to do that but it was very exciting that he did.”
Since Bubba is too young to work as a trash man, he’ll continue reading his books and studying and remembering that one man’s trash… is another boys dream come true.