Part I

Wisdom creeps up on you.  Or, more likely, it’s apparent to everyone but me.  We (Troy, Jason, James and me) are heading back to the station in Engine 33 from a nighttime Med Flight LZ.  Troy’s at the wheel, Jason’s in the officer seat and me and James are in back.  It’s dark and cold and Troy and Jason are talking shop about running the engine’s pump in cold weather when we’re on scene for an extended time to keep the water moving so it does not freeze. 

I am in customary quiet mode, listening in on the thermal chat upfront.  Having been pressed into service to drive 33 a few times, soaking up any knowledge I can about 33 is higher on my list of things to do than talking. 

So, as me and James are silently riding along in the back, Troy announces he has a question for me.  I’m hoping for something within the ridiculously deep but exceptionally narrow bands of things I know.  Mopar paint codes.  1980’s Midwest punk bands. The tenth inning of the only MLB game played November 2, 2016. 

Hope, as they say, is not much of a strategy. 

Troy poses the question something like this, “If a gentleman grew up in Chicago, and then spent some years in Iowa before moving to California a little south of San Francisco, what NFL team would he root for?”  I am not making this up.  I sat there for a few moments following the meanderings of this hypothetical gentleman while trying to think of the answer.  Like, a solid five seconds.  Thinking … ok, grew up in Chicago … Iowa , hmmm no NFL team … then San Francisco.  What team might this guy like?  It’s a word problem, and I’m sorting out context cues trying to get to the right answer when … wait a second (!) … I AM the gentleman in the word problem.

You would think that would make it easier but you’d be wrong.  Because now I have to tell the truth.  The firefighter who does not own a pickup truck or a tattoo, barely fishes and does not hunt, and shaved off his mustache forty-four years ago is going to have to out himself.  Um, I stammer, “some gentlemen prefer baseball”.  I go on to recount how I played football in high school but the team was always over-matched and never won a game and I lost interest in the sport based on its existential pointlessness.  And that was before what we all learned about CTE.  I haven’t seen a whole football game in thirty some years.  Hockey, curling and Badger volleyball (as every screen on a recent DEN to MSN flight demonstrates) are much better winter amusements.   

By the time we get to the station and word of the football shunner begins to circulate, I get my story straight. When Walter Peyton stopped playing, I stopped watching.  That is some iron-clad logic.  No football person (looking at you, Dickerson fans) could argue with that. 

Next day get a IAR message about time to vote on Firefighter of the Quarter at Thursday’s meeting and start to think about drafting a nomination for Troy.  But as I start to carve away all the chaff that isn’t the real reason, I’m left with a fairly esoteric core which is this; Troy is a bit of a character.  As will swiftly become evident, I mean that in the most admirable way.  He’s got all the fine traits of an excellent firefighter, but he also has a cheerful and oblique sensibility.  The only guy who wears a European style helmet for example, he smartly marches to a somewhat different drummer than standard issue fire dudes, and the department is all the better for it.

So I’m thinking through how do I write that while being concerned that I’ll be missing the Thursday meeting while in Seaside and the essence of my nomination is really that when I was a probie I saw some light at the end of the conformity tunnel in Troy.  Without a pickup truck or a sleeve of ink, if I could just make it past the don’t make waves probie part and keep the quirkiness at a reasonable level, after the vote to take me off probation, I’d be in the clear. 

That was the plan.  Keep the goofiness at hand-built wood bicycle level, before I go off the deep end and blurt out how football is sportata non grata at the Malin household.  Or how I’m on Team Mammal so deer hunting ain’t my thing.  I have blasted some ducks out of the sky because while we share a common kingdom and phylum, we’re in different classes (me and birds also have a live-spanning feud).

So while I am pleased to report Operation Semi Normal worked, something else happened along the way.  Something that I just figured out.  Something that seriously complicates authoring Firefighter of the Quarter nominations. As I was working through how to explain that Troy is a righteous and inspiring dude the trap of comparison inherent in such endeavors sprang up.  And because my Poynette-Seaside commute includes two early morning thinking sessions doing double-duty as ninety-minute drives, I stumbled onto something.

I’ve worked at a number of gigs.  Been on a lot of teams.  What I stumbled on passing through Gilroy at something like 3:00 AM Central Time is this; sure, I wanted to be something like free-thinking Troy when I got off probation.  But I also wanted to be something like Sarge, or Zach, or Lexin, or Brandon, or Jason, or Jeremy or the holy grail Cam.  Or Danielle or Lexi, or Amber, or Brittany or Whitney.  Or Jeff or Mike or Mitch or Alan.  Or the other holy grails past Mark (DFD) or present Mary or future Jason or Jason (SFD).  Or every member of PDFD.  I want to be a LOT like some of them.  But the BIG stumbling onto something whilst holding my breath through the garlicky Gilroy haze was I want to be at least a little like ALL of them.

I can count on one hand the number of teams I’ve been on where I was / am inspired by every other member of the team.  Inspired, and humbled, to be more accurate.  Poynette Dekorra Fire Department.  Prairie Crossing Charter School.  Seaside during the pandemic.  Small correction – three fingers.  I can count on three fingers the teams where every other person was / is a humbling inspiration. 

What the three teams have in common is a commitment to public service that is so complete as to go enthusiastically into harm’s way, physically and / or mentally and / or reputationally.  And to do so with common spirit and a depth of caring for each other than is akin to family.  Happiest alongside compatriots in real fights for things that matters, football is hardly a substitute.  

Though, to be fair, Jim McMahon was a way cool dude.

Epilogue - Alan is PDFD Firefighter of the Quarter, which is well-deserved.