EASTERN PASSAGE, N.S. — A Nova Scotia boy who every week waits wide-eyed for the local garbage truck now has a truck of his own — just on a slightly smaller scale.
Hiro Getson turned three on Wednesday and his favourite two-man crew pulled up to his house with a unique gift — a model of their REgroup sanitation truck.
His mom, Krystle Getson, said Hiro first started noticing the green REgroup trucks last summer and then insisted on waiting at the end of the driveway every Wednesday.
"We try to actually not leave the house on Wednesdays," she told Global News with a laugh. "It’s kind of ridiculous. I don't do errands until the afternoon on Wednesdays."
After he worked up the nerve to talk to them, the crew of Dave Nickerson and his partner, Rudy, started giving Hiro fist bumps and high-fives, even letting the youngster onto the truck to pretend to work the handles to compact garbage.
"He wouldn't say anything for weeks and weeks," she said. "He's shy. But he'll talk about them the entire week they're gone. He plans his weeks around Wednesdays."
Over the months, Hiro baked them cookies, gave them Christmas gifts and even made Valentine's Day cards for the pair.
"It's great. He's a great little kid," said Nickerson, who has been a driver with ReGroup since 2015. "I'm a father of two girls. I now have a grandson. So I've always loved kids."
His mom says that rain or shine, Hiro likes to be outside to wait for his two friends. If the weather is bad or he's sick, she says he will wave to them from the window.
Hiro celebrated his third birthday with an intricate cake that looked like Nickerson's truck, even bearing the crew's Number 81 designation on it.
The two men gave Hiro a toy truck with the REgroup logo and their names on the doors, along with Hiro's name on the back.
Getson says the joy Hiro receives from the friendship is something she treasures.
