Life Imitating Art? Real Life "i Wish I Could Back Up" Stories

[DynoReads]

In my story "I Wish I Could Back Up," https://www.gayauthors.org/story/dynoreads/iwishicouldbackup . I explore the odd friendship between a lonely man who lost his family and a toddler fascinated by his job.

 

Only my beta knew that a couple of the unnamed child's antics were based on my son. Particularly the scene of the mother, still wet from a shower, chasing a diaper clad toddler down the street - that incident prompted a new lock on the door so he couldn't open it.  My son was fascinated by the garbage trucks mechanical arms, and we would follow it around the neighborhood. The regular driver would move to the next house, wait for us to move forward and my son to crouch down to watch, then he'd empty the can. A long walk, about a mile, and an hours free entertainment. Our only other interaction was a wave when he left our neighborhood to continue his route. So in a way, my story was a thank you to an unknown man that p layed a huge role in my son's early life.

 

Here are some similar stories of children and sanitation workers who form relationships without ever speaking:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/24/quincy-kroner-garbage-men_n_6931922.html

https://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/tune-greyson-and-garbage-man

 

[Sasha Distan]

Our neighbour along the street was one of the first people to move onto the new block of houses when they were first being built, so while we lived in a building site with pet builders for a year, they did for 5 years. Their son Logan is now four, and the builders have been gone about 7 months.

 

From pretty much the moment he had opinions, Logan would demand to be held up at the window of their third floor bedroom to watch the diggers. As he got older, he stood on a stool his mum placed there entirely for that purpose. He used to come into the site office (back when Dashi was a little puppy and favourite pet of all our builders) and they would ruffle his hair and give him biscuits. He still is, apparently, totally obsessed with building sites and diggers. And like Dashi, instantly feels that anyone in a high-vis jacket is a potential friend (and in Dashi's case, source of food).

 

Thanks for the post, very very cute.