Skip to main content

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!

Comments

Anonymous said…
What a guy! I'm sure he was one of those little boys who wanted to grow up and be a fireman. He not only does his job, but he does it with so much zest. I know you are one proud little lady too, and rightfully so.

No, I did not know that smoke left a stench even after you shower. Guess I thought the shower would just wash it away.

- Debbie
Rochelle said…
We could have used his here in Louisville a couple of weeks ago. There was a 6 alarm fire just about 1 mile from our house. A huge, very old, wooden, abandoned building kept MANY fireman busy for a couple of days! The sight of it from our 3rd story was amazing.
Anonymous said…
Cool picture, a great one to show the grandkids some day.

You mean after his days of "killing" the skunk at Binghamton camp and getting sprayed he didn't keep his de-skunking recipe in his files?

Skunk at Bing. Camp - now there's a story for ya, and it also made him infamous!

Popular posts from this blog

Stickin' It Out

I got married today. Well, not exactly today. It was Friday, June 2. But the year was 1989 - 17 years ago. "Amazing", people say. "Good for you", they comment. "You must have picked the right one", the add. Amazing? Yes. Good for me? I'll admit it. But it has nothing to do with picking the right one, really. It's not because I found the perfect boy, and it's certainly not because he found the perfect girl. It might sound a little unromantic, but there never really is a 'right one' floating around out there waiting in the cosmos for the other 'right one' to crash and connect. There may be 'better ones'; there may be 'more easily compatible' or something or other. But the real story is you start becoming the right one the moment you vow that "you do". When I married, I had been 20 for a whole 33 days, we had just completed a 2-year long-distance realtionship and HE was five years older tha

Too Close For Comfort

Depressing: Def., "Realizing that you and your Dearly Beloved are entirely to close to wearing the same pant size. Case in point - Hero Guy came ' har har-ing' out of the bedroom relating that he had accidentally been wearing a pair of my jeans for the last 15 minutes. He wondered why they felt so weird (translated - TIGHT) until he took them off and inspected the tag. He gloated that at least he knows he can fit into a Ladies Size ___ (you really think I'm going to tell you the number?!). My Observations: 1) He had a MONSTER wedgie, so the jeans were entirely too small for him. 2) They are my "fat" jeans, a size bigger than what I actually wear, but I just like the broken-in feeling of them. Or the roominess or something. 3) They were the stretchy kind of jeans, so an elephant could have painted itself into them. 4) What's he bragging about having a girlish figure for anyway? Not very macho if you ask me. Hmph.

Mixed Feelings

It's been a long time in coming, but as of this morning, I'm no longer a medical transcriptionist. I'm not sure how I feel about that...a little bit relieved, a little bit sad, a lot bit uncertain about whether I'll regret this decision. For the last year or so, I've found that the transcription work isn't fulfilling the need I once had to stay at home with my babies and have an income. I've increasingly felt that I need more interaction and less monotony. I've also felt the pressure of work that constantly needs to be done, with no sense of ever being really "finished." No matter how much work you've done for the day, there's always another note waiting to be transcribed. That goes for sick days, holidays, vacations days or any kind of days. This year, I've dabbled in substituting as a school monitor and office staff, and kind of found my niche in the last few weeks. I'll be working a couple of hours a day in one of the