Easy Question

Putting out fires is corporate speak for devoting time to problems that need to be dealt with quickly, instead of working in a calm, planned way.  So says Google. 

How much of my life is a metaphor is open to speculation, but I did spend nearly fourteen years at a time bomb factory.  Problem being, the fuses were completely unpredictable, assembled with shoddy parts by not the most craftsman-like folks, in the City's lawyering department, which was beyond my purview.   

Boom!  We had to buy a house a second time because the first time didn’t quite take.  Bam!!  The strip club’s lawyers won.  Kawblueey!!!  Um, you knuckleheads inadvertently fired me, and owe me $600K.  Tell you what, I'll  let that one slide.  Try not to do it again, ok?  Kaw POWW!!!  That thing you said last year is not the thing you said?  It was some OTHER thing?       

And so it went.  Boom!  Bam!!  Ouch!!!  Still have some shrapnel in me. 

Speaking of bombs, not making this up, I went on a Police Department ride-along with Sgt. Law (his real name) in my early days at Seaside.  Sgt. Law was awesome and we just so happened to get a call to a domestic disturbance that became a bomb scene.  Turns out, the unemployed twenty-something domestic disturber who lived in his grandmother’s attic had a thing for DIY explosives.  But not much of a thing, as the bomb squad guys critiqued.

“How the hell is this dipshit still alive?” was a question I’ll always remember in the tactical trailer, as the chain-smoking, dark humor comedian bomb-squaders x-rayed some of his handiwork.  Then came, “move the evacuation zone back another block, this guy’s an idiot”.  In the end, they dug a deep hole in the yard, put all of the doofus’ handiwork in it, and let me do the honors of pushing the button to blow it all up.  Big fun.

Last twenty-four hours, more big fun.  First in the door at a house bomb and nozzle dude at a car fire a few feet from a home.  House bombs are what I call gas leak calls, and I don’t do so jokingly.  Gas leaks at houses are NO joke.  Having seen real bomb squad PPE, what we wear as firefighters ain’t even close.  Jacket, helmet, pants, boots, gloves, mask and air tank.  All cool stuff.  None of it adequate for an explosion.  

Gear up on the way and turn on the gas detector device to get it to calibrate.  Then take stock of who is in back of the rig and decide who is first in the door.  Until such time as it’s Mike or Jeff or Sarge with me in back, I’ll be first in.  I am not saying this is a SOP, but the reality is if it’s me or one of the younger guys, with a whole bunch of life ahead of them and / or young children that has to do something particularly risky, it’ll be me.

It'll be me not just because of the utilitarian reality that my life has fewer trips around the sun left on the dance card (wait a second, did I just admit I may not be immortal?) but because Google’s definition of putting out fires may not be exactly right.  Working in a calm, planned manner and working quickly are not necessarily at opposite ends of the get stuff done continuum.  A life of professional and avocational adventure provides a certain sense of tranquility in high-risk situations.  Time slows as focus and intensity increase while problem solving through whatever peril(s) are present.  Truth told, it is kinda addictive.  

Multiple orphanage escapes, five car vs. body collisions, two avalanches, dozens of summits, innumerable motorcross crashes, thirty some years of front line public service including fourteen at a time bomb factory and one big fun day with Sgt. Law; I’ve forgotten more risks than some of the youngsters I ride with have thought of attempting.  Not everything has worked out exactly as I hoped of course.  Pushpin.  Nepalese restaurant.  Missing that SUV on Highway 1.  The list is pretty small though, and I’m still standing.   And learning as I go.   

The alarm for the car fire happened when I was home at lunch.  Jeep is in the shop so the hellarad go cart MR2 got fired up and promptly arrived at the station.  Me, James, Troy and Mitch got the wet stuff on the red stuff pronto and saved the home.  Two homes saved in one day must clack a bead or two over to the win side on the karma abacus. 

Back at the station to get Engine 33 ready for its next adventure and I have to take my leave before all the work is done.  Feel like a bit of a slacker, but explain I have a 1:00 meeting with the School Supt..  Good guy, young guy, doing excellent work.  Back to Village Hall in Mister Two and Sue and Mara ask if that was me in a little silver dart going round the corner in front of Village Hall about a minute before the fire engine siren.  Um ... yeah.  Mid-engined.  Yamaha-powered.  Dan Gurney suspenion tuning.  Why not celebrate its fortieth birthday with a quick dash to the station?  

Anyway, arrive back at Village Hall for the Supt. meeting, all sweaty and PFAS scented. 

A year or so ago, I pointed out to the Supt. that Wisconsin’s tax increment finance law permits cash grants.  Typically, these go to developers making the investment that generates the new taxes.  Typically, these cash grants pay for public infrastructure or land assembly necessary for a particular project.  They can be (and are) frequently used to fill various financing gaps to backstop a negotiated return on investment. 

Typical this, typical that.  Developers drive away in Bentleys. 

You know what Wisconsin law does not say?  That cash grants have to go to developers.  Poynette just so happens to have a tax increment financing district the school district helped us create last year and that TIF district’s plan includes $5 million going to the school district over twenty years.   The entire TIF district has just shy of $40 million expected and we’ve slated a little over $12 million to pay back the public infrastructure costs on a project that’ll increase our taxbase by (plus or minus) $100 million.  And (not my first time at the TIF rodeo) I just plopped $5 million of the remaining $28 million into a conceptual budget for the school district when that TIF district got created.  $5 million to spend on better futures for Poynette kids.  Performing arts center?  Science and tech lab?  Universal college scholarships?  Your call.  Just give our kids the best chance at the best future we can give them.  

Good guy, young guy, doing excellent work.  A Poynette Promise? 

There shoulda been a blue dot in Davenport.  The question is, should you lessen the risks you take as your number of remaining trips round the sun gets to the “hmmm?” zone on the Life-o-Dial or should you take more consequential risks?   

Easy question.  Big fun.