Siftings
Oct
31
Leeward
Why is everything so orange and warm? Whilst most of Poynette is pondering breakfast choices, I have a new and more immediate interest. Well, I should say me and Lexi have a new and more immediate interest.
Probie Lexi is behind me, helping with pre-dawn hose management at a fuly involved...
Sep
29
Beds Made
The alarm goes off at the LZ at 2:30 AM. Time to head back to Wisconsin. Out the door into the nighttime chill, as the marine layer slithers into Carmel Valley. Up and down the Laureles Grade, through Salinas and north on the 101 to SJC. I’ve taken to parking the cars in the same general area...
Sep
25
Learning Not to fly
Shorts are on backwards. But at least I have shoes. Pager goes off at four something AM and the day alarmingly begins. It is (ever glorious) early Fall in the Midwest. The perfect time of year, with shorts and a light jacket the ideal garb. The day will end in Seaside twenty-threeish hours...
Sep
14
Times Like This
Slim took over for Bob. “Slim” Dunlap, that is, took over guitar duties for Bob Stinson when Bob got fired as the founding guitarist of The Replacements. Bit of a bummer getting fired by your younger brother, and Bob never recovered. Slim did good work, but the band was never the same. The end...
Sep
01
EDC
Everything starts with something. These Siftings tend to start with an auditory, visual or tactile spark. Rarely olfactory, which is probably for the best. There’s a flicker, and sometimes the neurons catch fire, only extinguished when the words get typed onto the screen in just the right (?)...
Aug
12
Resetting The Clock
Eastbound on I-90 in south Chicago, Marcia notices a man urinating on the side of the highway. She registers her disgust, to which I agree by saying the guy should have waited to pull over in Gary, Indiana, where that sort of thing is expected. Chicagoan to the core, it is the despoiling of my...
Aug
02
CMx2 v.2
They say you can never step into the same river, twice. The idea being rivers are constantly changing. Rising and falling with source water, while meandering within valleys they carve over eons. Every second of every day, every river is a new river. Fair enough, but I don’t know the official...
Jul
24
Poynette Calling
I had no idea they were keeping track until Chief 2 Jeremy pointed it out. I just thought you showed up when you could, did your best, and that was that.
Remember the “permanent records” they used to threaten us about? Like most of school, I thought that was nonsense, wrapped in bureaucratic...
Jun
28
Last Call
Pager tones during dinner. Truck versus motorcycle. Been there, done that. Don’t know any of the details, but the scene looks familiar upon arrival. Driver’s side front corner of the truck damaged, motorcycle down, rider down and bleeding. Our EMTs are treating him, doing excellent work. He...
Jun
23
Newtoning
Day two of ropes training and the fun stuff begins. We’re doing firefighter pickoffs. Firefighter pickoffs are like baseball pickoffs except nobody dies (because, if you got picked off while I was coaching first or third base, you were dead to me).
The training exercise is there’s a victim...
