Meet Desmond, The Poulsbo Garbage Boy

My son Desmond is 3 1/2 now, but has been watching our local garbage and recycling guys here in Poulsbo, Washington, dump since he was 1 1/2. It started out as watching from the front window, then as he got braver, he made his way to the porch, then eventually to the curb in the Spring of 2018, when his friendship with Matt Duerr and JD Riches began.

With every garbage day, Desmond’s passion grew, and the guys started inviting him to do special things, like visiting them at work and having lunch, where he met all of the other local garbage and recycling guys, including Dave Bledsoe, Justin Hood, Jon Kirk, and Adrian Underwood. Desmond loves the trucks of course, but it was too cute to watch his love for these kind men grow, so I tried to find ways to encourage him. One thing we did was visit a few of the local libraries in search of books about garbage trucks. As we read the books, Desmond was always instantly bored and disappointed because his buddies weren’t in the garbage books. Over the months, as I compiled tons of pictures of their garbage adventures, I thought maybe I could write Desmond his own garbage book, telling the story of their growing friendship. Since Desmond’s birthday is just before Christmas, I thought it would be fun to print a couple extra copies and gift them to Matt and JD as their Christmas presents from Desmond. I ended up finishing the book just in time for Christmas, closing it with Desmond’s 3rd birthday party, which was obviously garbage themed, and Matt and JD were the special guests of honor. The local newspaper found out about the book, and wrote an article about it. His love of garbage and his garbage buddies has nothing but grown even since I wrote the book, and all of these guys are now family friends. Desmond calls all of these guys his best friends, and we continue to visit them on route at least once a week between our garbage days, so he can get his “garbage buddy fix” and give them hugs and fist bumps.

This year for National Garbage Man Day, we went all out, visiting the guys at work and delivering special custom garbage man shirts for the garbage guys at the City of Poulsbo and the recycling guys at Bainbridge Disposal. It has been so fun to watch, and I continue to wonder what new adventure he will have with them.