Siftings
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...
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...
