Iron Firemen Wooden Ladders & Iron Firemen
Ever heard the saying…”today’s NOT the day”? Or how about this is not a good week for that? I know… we all have em but it seems as though mine has carried through since January. Yea, I’m having a bad year. Nothing is going my way and my stress level is through the roof… hell, higher than that
Even the “Cowboy Cadillac” laid down on me today…geesh whats next..the dog?
Needless to say, when I’m in a grumpy mood …. DON’T PUSH IT. And in all fairness, I guess I haven’t been around some of the men out here in “never never land” long enough for them to get a “good read” on me. I would guess that the Melrose Misfits just had me spoiled because they could read me like a book. Hell, Bug knew by my mustache. Apparently I rub or play with my whiskers in certain different ways depending on my mood / thoughts. I’m not sure how he knew but, he did and that’s a good talent for a Lieutenant. You see, Captains can be…ummmm…errrrr…well, we can be difficult. I know because I lived with one of the toughest and meanest coming up as a private at #5. One of the best firefighters I ever worked around. He taught us more by accident than most did on purpose BUT..BUT.. he was a son of a gun to live with. If he was in a bad mood (and we knew when he was) he got the ENTIRE upstairs to himself. We’d find stuff to do and make darn sure it was as far away from him as possible. You see, a Captain in many ways is like a gunney. For 24hrs anyway..we own you and you DONT want us unhappy or mad!
(I was gonna load the video where gunney is telling em all how its gonna be but there was just way too much cursing, racial remarks etc. but you get the point.. if not search “is that you John Wayne” on youtube). Anyway, for whatever reason; I was rubbed wrong today so we WORKED. What’s even worse is that it was “busy work”. You know… a “green station” has a lot of glass. A LOT LOT LOT. So… we washed windows…big and small..we got em ALL.
The sun was shining, the day was beginning to warm up a little….hummmm good day for a hydrant drill. So, we laid a few hundred feet of 5 inch from up the street all the way through the station.
Any hey.. since we laid a line…may as well stretch one too. 200 ft of 1 3/4 hit the ground. You know what? As long as we have the line off and a good hydrant, we may as well “wash out” the bay and front pool. Who cares if it’s not Friday yet. Nice work boys…a hydrant drill and a hose line drill, now I guess we better get all that hose back on the rig huh? Hose loads 101.
All that work and the high pollen levels had the rigs looking a bit dusty so… we washed em. Even the reserve piece. Wiped em all down so they wouldn’t spot but then we had all of those towels to wash and dry. Heck why we were at, we went ahead and shook out, beat and cleaned our fancy smancy rugs…
Eat? Whatda ya mean eat? Who has time to eat…we got work to do. LOL I’m not THAT much of a butt hole… we stopped for a glass of water and a spam sandwich. Actually, the day really wasn’t “that” bad and the work load only lasted for a short while. I think the boys were actually excited about it because I heard em whispering something about a “sock party” for Eugene our hyperactive Lieutenant. I’ve never been to one of these here parties but, if invited; I think I’m gonna wear these…whatda ya think?
Like I said, the day wasn’t near as bad as I made it out to be. This morning we spent most of our time sitting and chatting with an old friend. Retired Deputy Chief Winston Simmons dropped in..
Chief wasn’t carrying the axe today but he did come bearing gifts. One of our local churches has a program call “in the shadow of the steeple” through which they reach out to the community. For some time now the church has been providing us with bottled water and today, Chief made the delivery. Im not 100% sure of his retirement date but, pics of his retirment party (and the one above) can be found on Mikey Overackers site Roanoke Firef
ighters.com. Sitting around listening to Winston spin a few stories had me thinking back to last day when Chief Bobby was in the “hot seat”. He told a story of how he got a nickname that I never even knew he had. Apparently, as a private; Bobby’s shoes were always dirty. REAL dirty. So dirty in fact that the men often accused him of plowing in them the day before (and in those days, you plowed behind a mule…lol). Well, at the time, the Department supplied shoe polish to the stations because the regulation was for your shoes to be polished to a shine. Since they were always dirty, Bobby’s shoes got polished every day. Add in some top notch “fire house detective work”. How could he dirty shoes THAT bad in one day? Could he have more than 1 pair? Heck, mix in a little “firehouse logic” and I think they even accused him of wearing friend’s and family’s shoes to work just to take advantage of the “free” shoe polish. Thus a new name was born… KIWI
LOL you gotta LOVE those old stories! Ok, to wrap up tonight I wanted to talk a little about football. YES…FOOTBALL! Tomorrow night, the Salem Red Sox is having a “Roanoke Rampage” night. Our players are selling tickets to the game. The good thing here is that the money from tickets we sell will go to our charity.. Steps 4 Billy. What’s even better is the fact that tonight’s game was rained out so tomorrow’s is a double header. Scheduled times are 5:30 and7:05 SO .. find a football player and buy a ticket. Get 2 for the price of 1 and help a great cause. Players will be in the parking lot selling tickets or simply contact a firehouse for the nearest player. The main thing here is to ATTEND! Now, next up is our last home game. This Saturday, April 24th we will host the Washington DC Generals for our final home game this season. Kick off is at 3pm but just like at the last game, there will be plenty of tailgating starting early. I will be there around 8am with the “Cowboy Cadillac” and camper
Rumor has it that there will be several more camps set up this weekend so MAKE YOUR PLANS NOW! Rain or shine, we have tents, tarps etc. It’s gonna be a BLAST and all for a GREAT cause. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT and hope to see you there Saturday. OK, that’s it for tonight. See ya tomorrow at the baseball game and again on Saturday. Everyone is invited and welcome at my place so make sure to drop by. Until then, stay safe and in the house.
Captain Wines