Lou Weiss: In memory of ‘Freddie’ the garbage collector, the first city worker taken by covid-19
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I lost my garbageman this past Wednesday. While his name hasn’t been officially released from the Pittsburgh Department of Environmental Services, word is that he was the first covid-19 related fatality of a public employee in the city. I’ll call him “Freddie” for now.
Not knowing his last name, I guess you would say that we were more acquaintances than friends, but once a month or so for the past 10 years I would run into Freddie and his truck mates Clarence and Damon — affectionately referred to by his team as Hercules — on our regular Friday pick-up day.
My wife works from home and even though we compost and recycle as a group, we generate a fair amount of trash. So much so that whenever I would see Freddie and his team, I’d give them a twenty to pick up a pizza for lunch. I would always apologize for the volume of our detritus, but Freddie would always good-naturedly say, “Hey man, this is what keeps us in business. Without your garbage, we don’t have a job.”
Freddie was my age and had a number of kids and at least some grandkids out West. He went to Schenley and we would sometimes reminisce about the stars on the 1971 state championship team and where they ended up. When I would catch Freddie and Co. on hot days in the summer, we would go to the backyard for a few minutes to check out the view and drink some pink lemonade.
I never thought of Freddie as a hero — just an easygoing guy with a huge smile, big hello and ready laugh, doing a tough job with dutiful regularity.
With Clarence on desk duty and Hercules in imposed quarantine, it was a whole different crew that came this morning for the pickup. There was a black ribbon on the truck, as there will be all of the other city garbage trucks as the workers honor one of their own — one of our own.
Lou Weiss, a carpet salesman, lives in Squirrel Hill.