My 4-year-old grandson went with me to a local jobsite where the site contractor was installing sanitary sewer lines. Either the operator or someone else in that company had painted “BIG BERTHA” on the backhoe. When I told my grandson about that name he quickly responded, “What’s her baby’s name?” Jokingly I told him that it was Charlie, which pleased him to know that the smaller backhoe was a little boy like him.
It was already getting dark, and the workers turned on their lights and kept digging. As we began to get into my pickup to leave, my grandson was upset and started to cry because they continued working. “Charlie is going to get tired and he needs to sleep. Why don’t you tell them to stop?”