Hunk of a Hero

John is notorious in the fire department for always being at the front of the scene. This includes being the first to arrive at pretty much any fire, the first on the hose to enter the building, and definitely the one who gets interviewed by reporters and always photographed in the paper. Somehow he manages this not only with fires in his jurisdiction, but when he is assisting in other towns as well.

Friday turned out to be a banner day for the small-town, all-volunteer department as they logged six fires (count 'em, six: 4-brush fires, 1- chimney fire, 1-structure fire) and were busy all day. I don't even know what time John rushed out of work to the first one, but he came home at 10pm after fighting one after the other, pretty much all day.

The department was ragging him on Saturday when the Post came, and the picture of Rob, another firefighter buddy was in the newspaper along with Rob's name (somehow John's pic or quotes are always given, but he's never stated by name). They finally felt vindicated that another of their ranks was given the proper due respect by being published. Under the guise of "printing out the picture for Rob", John blew the picture up to gargantuan proportions only to observe that the helmet on the above firefighter was uniquely different than anyone else's. And guess whose it is? It belongs to our one and only favorite hero.

It took John about a millisecond to start making phone calls to have the jesters take a closer look at the picture and admit that indeed, it was him. The self-satisfied look on his face convinced me that he'd had a hard time believing he was going to have to share the glory. I'm guessing closer inspection of the details was the reason for the gigantic size of the blown-up print.

One last tidbit I bet ya didn't know: Fire smoke is a lot like skunk essence. Every time you get wet, the smell comes back. During John's fourth shower since Friday's fires, we both noted that his hair still has the distinct acrid odor. He's stopping by the vet after work to get the skunk bath recipe we used when Max got the full-frontal treatment last summer. So for now, he's just like the dog--he's cute as anything, but he smells bad. Tee hee!