Fire Department: How did I get wrapped up in this?
The fact that I have been in the fire department has framed every single aspect of my adult life. If it were not for the department and my life experiences there, I would not have my wife, my education, my kids, my job or anything that I own. Strange... it all started with a conversation over lunch in November 1986.
In the fall of 1986 I was in 11th grade. I had just turned 16 years old. I had an intentionally bad haircut. I intentionally wore bad clothes. I listened to bad music (which I still listen to today). I would hang out with kids that weren't bad, but who weren't really all that great either. None of us was particularly motivated or showed any obvious potential. This was true of the three guys that I ate lunch with every day. Despite being punked-out, the other thing that the four of us shared was that feeling that we were muddling through school and that a future outside of our fast food jobs seemed impossible. No shit, we were like live-action Beavis and Butt-Head before Beavis and Butt-Head were cool.
My lunch buddies were named Sean, Steve and David. Sean was my my best connection to the lunch pack. We weren't particularly close, but we knew each other from outside school and shared an english class just before lunch. Sean and Steve were tight. Sean was tall and very skinny. Steve was (to be fair), like, robo-fat. When they would travel together, they looked like a big "10" walking down the street. Hanging with Sean meant hanging with Steve and after sharing 30 lunches, we had long since become regular lunch acquaintences, if not friends. David was the mystery guy in the bunch. Steve knew David, who seemed older and more mature than us. He was a senior at the time, but he had this sort of look or presence that made him seem like he was twenty and just out of his element being in high school. My life was changed by these guys one Thursday.
I was the last one to the table. I sat down with my usual tray of nutritious food from the a la carte line (rectangle "cheese" pizza, 2 soft pretzels, 16 packs of ketchup, 2x chocolate milk). Upon my arrival, I find my friends in the middle of a spirted debate. Sean is advocating the merits of something called the "26-A", while David is telling him he is an idiot and that the "32-B" is the obvious choice. Additionally, David added, you could easily lose a finger using the "26-A". It was that comment from David that prompted me to ask "What the fuck are you talking about?" David and Sean say in unison "Cutting up cars". This peaked my interest. "Cool. Where do you get to do that?", I ask. "At the fire department." says Steve. Then, in what seemed to be one collectively shared breath, they tell me: that David's dad has been in the volunteer fire department for years, and that they have a junior program, and that they are all members, and that as a member you get to ride the Rescue Squad on calls, and no, the Rescue Squad is not an ambulance, and when you ride the Rescue Squad you get to cut up cars. "Bullshit", I said. "No shit", they said. And they essentially dared me to come to the firehouse and check it out.
I took them up on the dare. The firehouse turns out to be caddy-corner to the church where my mom took me for years. It is one block off the main road and tucked between some old commercial property and a 25 year-old subdivision of houses. I don't know how I didn't notice that place before. Inside the firehouse are some firetrucks and some ambulances. Nothing you wouldn't expect, but I probably hadn't set foot inside a firehouse in ten years, and it was all new to me.
Among these firetrucks was this thing called the Rescue Squad, a giant toolbox-on-wheels-looking thing with lots of compartments and no hose or ladders. This big toolbox the size of a school bus was what the guys wanted to show me. Great. They show me some helmets. They show me their coats. They show me around the Rescue Squad. They pay particular attention not to the firefighting equipment, but to the auto extrication tools. It turns out that the 26-A and the 32-B are two different versions of the fabled "Jaws of Life" rescue spreaders made by Hurst. The 26-A was a beast. Heavy and ill-balanced, it had no real handles and the operating levers (yes, lever[s]) were located inside of the moving arms right next to the moving hydraulic parts. David was right. You could lose a finger using that thing. The "32-B" looks more modern, has some handles to hold onto, has one operating switch, and will actually balance in your hands. It is a heavy mo-fo. It is explained to me that the 26-A opens to a total width of 26 inches. The 32-B opens to 32 inches. Duh.
All in all, I was a little underwhelmed with the whole situation. I left the house that day thinking that the experience had been cool, but not earth shattering. It took two more weeks of debate over the merits of various tools and the use of equipment that I couldn't conceptualize, plus some goading from my friends, to get me back to the firehouse.
More than anything, I wanted to see if the stuff that they were saying was true. I put in my application with the junior fire department at the December meeting in 1986. The process was that you put in an application, meet the membership, and then wait a month for a "second reading", whereupon you are voted into membership and start with the department. I was handed a list of 160 tools and items and a map describing the location of compartments on the Rescue Squad. I was told to come back to the meeting in January with the list of tool names and locations memorized. They told me that they would work with me from there.
So began my life's great adventure. During the month between my junior application readings, our department ran the fire that is still "the big one". More on that later.
DTXMATT12
In the fall of 1986 I was in 11th grade. I had just turned 16 years old. I had an intentionally bad haircut. I intentionally wore bad clothes. I listened to bad music (which I still listen to today). I would hang out with kids that weren't bad, but who weren't really all that great either. None of us was particularly motivated or showed any obvious potential. This was true of the three guys that I ate lunch with every day. Despite being punked-out, the other thing that the four of us shared was that feeling that we were muddling through school and that a future outside of our fast food jobs seemed impossible. No shit, we were like live-action Beavis and Butt-Head before Beavis and Butt-Head were cool.
My lunch buddies were named Sean, Steve and David. Sean was my my best connection to the lunch pack. We weren't particularly close, but we knew each other from outside school and shared an english class just before lunch. Sean and Steve were tight. Sean was tall and very skinny. Steve was (to be fair), like, robo-fat. When they would travel together, they looked like a big "10" walking down the street. Hanging with Sean meant hanging with Steve and after sharing 30 lunches, we had long since become regular lunch acquaintences, if not friends. David was the mystery guy in the bunch. Steve knew David, who seemed older and more mature than us. He was a senior at the time, but he had this sort of look or presence that made him seem like he was twenty and just out of his element being in high school. My life was changed by these guys one Thursday.
I was the last one to the table. I sat down with my usual tray of nutritious food from the a la carte line (rectangle "cheese" pizza, 2 soft pretzels, 16 packs of ketchup, 2x chocolate milk). Upon my arrival, I find my friends in the middle of a spirted debate. Sean is advocating the merits of something called the "26-A", while David is telling him he is an idiot and that the "32-B" is the obvious choice. Additionally, David added, you could easily lose a finger using the "26-A". It was that comment from David that prompted me to ask "What the fuck are you talking about?" David and Sean say in unison "Cutting up cars". This peaked my interest. "Cool. Where do you get to do that?", I ask. "At the fire department." says Steve. Then, in what seemed to be one collectively shared breath, they tell me: that David's dad has been in the volunteer fire department for years, and that they have a junior program, and that they are all members, and that as a member you get to ride the Rescue Squad on calls, and no, the Rescue Squad is not an ambulance, and when you ride the Rescue Squad you get to cut up cars. "Bullshit", I said. "No shit", they said. And they essentially dared me to come to the firehouse and check it out.
I took them up on the dare. The firehouse turns out to be caddy-corner to the church where my mom took me for years. It is one block off the main road and tucked between some old commercial property and a 25 year-old subdivision of houses. I don't know how I didn't notice that place before. Inside the firehouse are some firetrucks and some ambulances. Nothing you wouldn't expect, but I probably hadn't set foot inside a firehouse in ten years, and it was all new to me.
Among these firetrucks was this thing called the Rescue Squad, a giant toolbox-on-wheels-looking thing with lots of compartments and no hose or ladders. This big toolbox the size of a school bus was what the guys wanted to show me. Great. They show me some helmets. They show me their coats. They show me around the Rescue Squad. They pay particular attention not to the firefighting equipment, but to the auto extrication tools. It turns out that the 26-A and the 32-B are two different versions of the fabled "Jaws of Life" rescue spreaders made by Hurst. The 26-A was a beast. Heavy and ill-balanced, it had no real handles and the operating levers (yes, lever[s]) were located inside of the moving arms right next to the moving hydraulic parts. David was right. You could lose a finger using that thing. The "32-B" looks more modern, has some handles to hold onto, has one operating switch, and will actually balance in your hands. It is a heavy mo-fo. It is explained to me that the 26-A opens to a total width of 26 inches. The 32-B opens to 32 inches. Duh.
All in all, I was a little underwhelmed with the whole situation. I left the house that day thinking that the experience had been cool, but not earth shattering. It took two more weeks of debate over the merits of various tools and the use of equipment that I couldn't conceptualize, plus some goading from my friends, to get me back to the firehouse.
More than anything, I wanted to see if the stuff that they were saying was true. I put in my application with the junior fire department at the December meeting in 1986. The process was that you put in an application, meet the membership, and then wait a month for a "second reading", whereupon you are voted into membership and start with the department. I was handed a list of 160 tools and items and a map describing the location of compartments on the Rescue Squad. I was told to come back to the meeting in January with the list of tool names and locations memorized. They told me that they would work with me from there.
So began my life's great adventure. During the month between my junior application readings, our department ran the fire that is still "the big one". More on that later.
DTXMATT12
posted by DTXMATT12 at 8:25 PM
2 Comments:
Amazing how many of us came to the VFD by 'accident' - By birth, or out of shear curiosity with no previous inclination to do anything like it. I claim to this day I was sucked in by false advertising. Seems like all that still goes on today too. At least now I understand where DJ Matt got his roots.
I got suckered into joining by an attractive little blond girl in my advanced biology course. She got me into the department and ran off and married some guy named after a mobster from New Jersey.
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