A Family Tradition

I called my dad today to wish him a happy Father's Day, and we talked for an hour or so. Among other things, we talked about my recent fire service training, and it turns out that as a teenager, he had been a volunteer firefighter as well, as had his father.

Dad spent part of his growing up years in Rexford, NY, where, according to him, "everybody was a volunteer. The siren went off, and you knew from the sound what part of town the fire was in, and everybody went to help. The gear was kept on one of the trucks, and you put it on when you got there, depending on what the situation was." His dad served at the same time period, often on the same calls, depending on whether he had the car with him, or whether it was at home with dad's mom.

He said training back then was light compared to what it sounds like I'm going through (especially considering the almost-1000-page Essentials manual I told him about).

He told me of a couple of incidents: one at a grocery store, where the #10 cans were exploding from the heat and shooting out into the crowd of onlookers, and where the barber next door had moved his chairs out into the parking lot, and it looked like he was offering haircuts to the bystanders. Another one involved a lumber yard, where they arrived to find it too far gone to do anything, and let it burn.

This was something I never knew about my dad, but then again, mom didn't know either, so I don't feel too bad :).

So whaddya know, it's a family tradition!