Siftings
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...
Jun
22
Sockless In Wisconsin
Socks will slow me down, so no socks. I’ll bring them with, but I don’t have time to put them on. Just out of the shower after a day of ropes training, the pager goes off for a vehicle fire on the Interstate. Back to the station.
Engine 33 is spun up as I arrive, red lights flashing and...
Jun
05
Fido
My index finger is in some sort of medical device. Some spring clamp thing on my finger is connected by one of those twirly phone cords that used to be a thing to some screen and tickertape thing counting down my fabulous life. Sitting in an ambulance at the fire station, with Group 4 wondering...
May
28
New Jokes, Old Songs
The five million pound Kenilworth thunders past in the rain at two hundred and eighty miles an hour, just six inches from the one pound heart and two ounce brain that keeps me going. Ok, maybe a little farther away, a little smaller, and slower. My brain, that is.
Car crashes on the...
May
21
Cohorts
“Can probies go on this call?”, Quentin asks. “Sure”, I reply, whilst scattering some of the non-fire flotsam attached to my jacket across the rear compartment of Engine 33. It’s a car fire and Quentin is second in, so there’s no point in kicking him out. Not that I would anyway. A good young...
Apr
12
Chances
“Where is your office again?” Colin texts. He is in Village Hall, trying to find me. Not exactly a sprawling municipal complex, it’s easier to just walk out the door to the hall than text him back. So I do, we go into my office and he tells me some news.
Offspring visiting me at work is a...
Mar
27
Bailey
In a perfectly cinematic world, Captain Brandon would have addressed the crew at twilight as foreboding music softly played. He would set the stage, "Firefighters, I need a volunteer." “Someone tall”, he would ask. “Not afraid of heights”, he would hope. “Maybe … just spitballing here …...
Mar
20
I’ve Got A Question For You
There are some basic questions in life (and one excellent song about them). Who am I? What is my purpose? Is ketchup on a hot dog a sin, or a mortal sin? Are night games at Wrigley Field an abomination, or just a bar with a baseball game going on? Would you go into a burning building with this...
Mar
03
Probie XIII
In Madison, the pager tones. Flip open the phone and pull up the IAmResponding app. It’s a fire. Rats, I am going to miss a fire. Scroll down. It’s a forest fire, with structures in danger. Forest fires take a while. Do the math in my head of Madison to Portage drive time. The math might...
Feb
13
Probie XII
“Gentlemen!”, I ask Zach and Cpt. Brandon, “do you think at my advanced age it is too late to go to med school?”. Zach and the Captain look momentarily perplexed, as if I am seriously contemplating a career change. I explain, “because those helmets are cooler than ours”. They smile. “Go for...
