Those Three Little Words

During my first few months at the College Park fire station in the autumn of 1985, I learned several unique lessons.  Oddly, the most important rule I learned was not one I expected, but have come to truly understand.  It was all about the THREE LITTLE WORDS they never wanted to hear come from your pie hole. 

At first, the use of these three words seemed harmless, and not being allowed to say them felt like a silly, but manageable phase of initiation.  What harm could come from saying them.  They weren’t argumentative, offensive, racist, or harmful words.  They were simple words that would be used to start a sentence, to define a source, to establish validity of a story.  These were words often spoken with pride, yet here, they were poison. 

It soon became apparent that resisting was going to be difficult.  I found myself wanting to use these words … a lot.  As I became more comfortable in my new surroundings, I began to become frustrated by this seemingly ridiculous rule.  I tried and tried, but often had to catch myself as these words escaped my lips.  My frustration led to anger.  How dare these people restrict my language by eliminating these three little words?  I could understand eliminating phrases like, “I don’t think…”, or “I don’t wanna…”, or “Why must I…”, or “I just can’t…”   These negative statements should ALWAYS be avoided by anyone striving to achieve greatness.   In an organization that relies on teamwork, they could be considered rebellious.  Even Jeff Spicoli’s famous line, “I don’t know”, wasn’t restricted.  Thank Goodness Mr. Hand wasn’t a line officer, huh? 

The three words that seemed to get everyone’s panties in a bunch were “Back Home We”.  Nobody cared what you did “back home” at your fire station.  You were here in Prince George’s County, serving as a member of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department.  The only thing that mattered is that you knew how things were done HERE! 

It didn’t take me long to learn why “back home we” was so toxic.  The College Park Station was staffed by students in fire protection curriculums.  We had ALL come from rather progressive departments, and each of us represented the best of the youth from our respective departments.  That’s 12 smart individuals from 12 different departments, most of which did things a little different from the others.  This wasn’t the West Lawn Fire Company, and despite my beliefs at the time, there was always another way to do things.  If the CPVFD allowed the “back home” influence from every one of the probies that walked through their doors, their identity, traditions, reputation and sense of solidarity would be eroded. 

In time, as I progressed through the ranks and I had proven myself to the officers and members of the department, my opinion began to matter.  Once I had firmly implanted myself into the ways of the CPVFD, the knowledge I brought from the WLFC became relevant.  I am proud to say that some ideas that were born in little ‘ol West Lawn Borough were incorporated into programs in the City of College Park.  Eventually I was permitted to say “Back home, we…”, but not before I learned why I couldn’t as the new guy in the house. 

I learned to understand patience, and tolerance for others opinions.  I realized that I was the new guy in town, not the organization.  They had been hosin’ and truckin’ for decades before the mere consideration of my existence.  Despite how smart I thought I was, I thankfully learned that others may be smarter.  The humbling experience of being forced to forget the past and accept the present was a valuable lesson that now, makes all the sense in the world. 

This is a lesson that I have applied numerous times in my life.  As the new guy, I always take the time to get to know the people and the system that is in place, giving them every opportunity to show me what is already in place.  This open-mindedness has helped me learn quite a bit about organizational philosophies as well as individual capabilities.  I only wish others in my recent past would have learned the same lesson of respect that the CPVFD taught me.  THAT story, I will save for another time...

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  Enjoy a safe and wonderful time with your family and friends as we celebrate of the "things" we have in life .

A Memorable Beginning

It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, but it has been over 27 years since I started my second tour of duty as a fire department “probie”.  I was 21 years old, and was certain that I had all the answers.  Up to this point, I had been hanging around my hometown fire company for as long as I could remember, and knew every inch of the apparatus, had polished, painted, or sharpened every tool, knew every knot in the book, and was a sponge for training classes.  I had officially joined the fire service on my 16^th birthday, but already knew the names and locations of all the equipment as well as the current members.  After graduating with honors with my Associates Degree in Fire Technology from my regional community college, I was ready for the big time; I was accepted into the University of Maryland at College Park. 

As the opening semester approached, I was still uncertain where I would be living.  I didn’t want the normal housing arrangements of a transfer student; I wanted to live in a fire station.  As my parents would likely attest, I was pretty much living at my local firehouse already, so It shouldn’t be much of an adjustment.  Other than being responsible for my own laundry and running considerably more calls, how much different could it be?   

 The University placed me at the Hyattsville Station, a few miles south of the campus.  I visited the station, met Chief Moltrup, and a few of the members gave me the tour of the place.  As excited as I was to be in a “big city” station, I was a bit disappointed.  I knew several past alumni of the College Park Station, and my heart was set on living there.  I wanted to be part of the stories that are told by the great achievers in the fire service who rode proudly out of the 12 house.  Most importantly, I wanted to be on campus, and surrounded by students that shared my goals of fire service greatness. 

There was something special about the fire station at 7507 Baltimore Boulevard.  The building wasn’t going to win any beauty contests.  It had been “rode hard and put away wet”.  It lacked many modern amenities, but it had an alluring charm.  From the rub marks on the bay door trim from the apparatus squeaking through, to the personalized cubicles in the student “sackroom”, this old place was calling my name, and I was ready to jump aboard.  Sadly, all the spots for the upcoming semester were spoken for.  It didn’t stop me from visiting, several times that summer, each time telling my saga to another few members I had the opportunity to meet.  I memorized the phone numbers as well; and I am sure the chief was tired of hearing me beg for a spot.  Finally, another visit to the station put me in the company of Fred “Hacksaw” Welsh, the chief in charge of filling the Sackroom.  He informed me that one of the candidates that were to report for the fall semester had not been returning his calls to verify acceptance of his spot.  I am not sure whether he was tired of me pestering him, or if I managed some award-winning puppy-dog eyes and sad-sack pout, but Hacksaw (you know, I never found out exactly why he got that nickname) gave me the best news I had heard in months.  “I’ll tell you what, If I don’t hear from this guy by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, the spot is yours.” 

The next 22 and-a-half hours seemed to crawl by, but as promised, I received the phone call at exactly 6:06 the next evening.  I was IN, and with only 22 days to go before the start of the semester.   It was the beginning of an amazing period of growth and discovery.  The 28 months I spent serving the College Park Volunteer Fire Department met or exceeded every expectation I had, and I have a truckload of friends, stories, memories, and life experiences that have become part of me. 

I am not sure what the best part of the experience was, there were so many.   Was it the college education I earned, the campus life experience, the diversity of people I interacted with, the tradition I was a part of, the friends I met, the life lessons I learned?  Perhaps it was all of it!  For such a brief period of my life, that window of time certainly stands out, and still does to this day.  I am sure I didn’t know it at the time, but it is all very clear to me know.                 

It makes me wonder who is in my life that is going through one of those life defining periods of their lives right now.  If I am a part of their memory 27 years from now, I sure hope the memory is a good one. 

For Whom the Bells Toll

When you run with a fire department that has a college in your first due area, you really need to develop a tolerance for the behavior of students in large groups.  Every now and then, however, that tolerance gets used up, and revenge becomes your only salvation.  This tale is an example of that reversal of fortune.

Every year, on every campus in the country, there is always one resident hall that seems to house the most rowdy, immature, irresponsible students.  Ellicott Hall is a nine story high-rise on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland, packed full of hormone-saturated co-eds that had developed quite a reputation that makes a student boast, and a parent cringe.  It wasn’t quite “animal house”, but more like “animal hotel”.  I am sure this generalization is unfairly associating all 1100 of the dorm dwellers with the handful of trouble-makers.  Guess what, I don’t care!  On this particular night, we felt no regrets for our actions. 

A few college clowns seemed to think hooking the pull-station to activate the fire alarm and evacuate the building was rather hysterical.  While we were generally used to this type of behavior, and accepted our “smells and bells” runs as part of the territory, it didn’t take too much to push us to the edge.  We even had company t-shirts that sported a Simplex “B” key and the slogan, “For Whom the Bells Toll”!  But THIS night would be different. This night, we took a stand!

It was a bone-chilling November evening, with temps in the mid-thirties, and a damp mist that had been falling for two days straight.  The week was particularly challenging, with an extraordinary number of runs that were cutting into the Sackroom sleepy time!  The first false alarm at midnight was annoying, the one at 1:30 a.m. was making us angry, but the third one, at 3:45 in the morning put us over the edge.  Even more agonizing was the fact that less than 30 people evacuated the building.  Apathy had developed dangerous behavior that needed to be corrected.  I had a plan, discussed it with my crew, and decided to execute one of the boldest moves of my career.    

I requested a full box assignment to assist the engine company, and had the campus police request assistance from the Prince George’s county police department.  As luck would have it, it was an unusually slow night for the popo and soon, we had more that 25 cops there to assist.  Our plan was a room by room search and “rescue”.  I can only imagine the thousands of dollars of contraband that went down the sewer as word spread that we were entering every room accompanied by the lawmen! 

After nearly an hour, the crowd of students standing in the cold had grown to capacity.  Most evacuated without incident, despite their anger and frustration, others were literally dragged by the police, bedding and all, down the halls and into the stair towers.  At least four asshats left in the back of a police car for disorderly conduct.  At this point, the shift commander from the police department lectured the shivering crowd for 15 more minutes, basically giving permission for vigilante activity.  Peer pressure was going to be needed to weed out the person or persons responsible for the abuse of the alarm system. 

We left the scene before the students re-entered the building, to avoid being bombarded by projectiles launched from the upper floors, and never returned to that building for the remainder of the academic year.  It worked, and thankfully, we never needed to pull that card out of our deck of tricks ever again.  

Not St. Elmo's Fire, But Close

It was a warm spring night along route 1, and the work shift crew was perched on the picnic bench in front of the station watching the stream of college punks stagger “home” from a night of elbow-titty at the Vous.  It was the highlight of every weekend shift, and one of the best reasons we had the Alarm Unit to run bells calls on the campus; we didn’t want to miss our weekly show.  The steady stream of budding young adults with their pickled brains and overcharged libidos slurred past us toward the dorms as we rated their appearance on a scale from one to ten.  One lad in particular caught our eye.  He was walking alone (although walking may be an exaggeration) and we were convinced he had NO IDEA where he was going to be sleeping in about 20 minutes.  We would likely find out his name when we ran the medic local for the unconscious person laid out in the “M” of flowers in the traffic circle on Campus Drive.

A few minutes after he passed us, he returned, lumbering back toward downtown.  We wondered if he unknowingly spun a 180 or if he was getting a head start on tomorrow’s drunk fest.  Then he started drifting off the sidewalk in our directions…this was going be fun.  We loved taking every advantage of opportunity to taunt these travelers.  There was no way this guy was going to remember any of this anyway.  He struck up a conversation with our Captain, the least tolerant of the local college population:

Hey, are, are, are, are yoos guysh firemen?

            Yeah, you got a problem with that?

Well yous better get on yer firetrucksh, quick, kuz this building back here iz got FAR coming out all over the place.

            Right, pal, how about you move along…

Nooo, doood, im sooo sherious, yous better hurry, cause ders fire and smoke everywhere…

We poked fun at this guy for a while, and finally agreed to humor him with an “investigation”.  The five of us walked up the sidewalk, with this clown leading the way, to check out his hallucination.  The pace quickened a bit when we saw the ominous orange glow reflecting off the trees.

Then as we cleared the back of the station, there it was…14 Fraternity Row, with heavy fire showing from the third floor window!  The sprint back to the apparatus bay seemed like running of the bulls in Pamplona, and as we were donning our gear, the FART van was getting dispatched for the automatic alarm.  Needless to say, we got first water on the fire, and saved NONE for the other units on the box.

We looked for our Good Samaritan to thank him, but he was no where to be found.  We considered thanking him next weekend, but he would likely have no recollection of the event.       

You're Holding WHAT?

It was about 2:30 in the morning when the three alert tones echoed through the fire station; "7600 Mowatt Lane, for a house on fire".  We scrambled a crew of six, all college students saving cash by living in a fire station on campus.  Oh, who am I kidding, we LOVED living in a fire station, and a slew of those stories will likely make their way onto this blog.  This one was a classic...

With the Powercall wailing, and the Mack's tranny banging through the gears, we made our way toward the outer edges of the campus.  The duty chief tapped into his vast knowledge of our first due and while en route, advised "If this is the abandoned house, advise all units that this house is in extremely poor condition".  Now, it was rumored that he had a crystal ball on his nightstand, but how in the world did he know that?  I must admit, he really had this one pegged.  This place was well off!  Not well off like the snobs that drive Italian sports cars in a snowstorm, well off, as in fire belching from every opening.  As we crested the hill in Little Asia (an area known for fire alarms caused by food on the wok), there it was; a ball of fire with a glowing header of smoke soaring straight up into the sky...  It sure was in poor condition, and it was getting poorer by the minute.

The Lieutenant grabbed for the mic, and I grabbed his arm to stop him.  We were both pretty jacked up with adrenaline, and I didn't want him to shriek unprofessionally on the radio like the clowns we always mocked mercilessly.  I looked over from the driver's seat and said, "Take a breath, let's see how cool YOU can be".  He knew exactly what I meant.  He slowly raised the mic to his mouth, "Communications, Engine 122, be advised, we are approaching the scene with heavy fire evident."  It was the deepest, calmest, most emotionless radio transmission I had ever heard.  I was immediately overcome with a wave of relaxed confidence, despite the inferno we were racing toward.  I began by mental checklist of needs: water supply, apparatus positioning, pump operation... these lads were gonna want water, and lots of it. 

The dual supply lines played off the hose bed as I wheeled the wagon back the narrow stone lane toward what looked to be the gates of Hell.  The pumper had gotten out of the station when they heard the magic words, "heavy fire".  Ahh, the joys of 12 action-hungry live-ins in a fire station!  They picked up my split lay and fed me from a near-by hydrant, then the Indians all came looking for another line to pull off my engine. 

In the midst of all the waterworks, Chief 'Crystal Ball' delivered the most cavalier size-up I have ever heard ... "We have a 2 1/2 story, abandoned wood frame dwelling, fully involved, I'm gonna hold Engine Company 12, return the rest of the assignment."  Did I hear him correctly?  We got this entire place to ourselves?  Outstanding!  I have never seen my roommates so happy, I have never seen so many lines pulled off of one engine, and I have never seen so much fire handled with a two-piece engine company.

As for our classes the next day ... well ... lets just say they were something none of us have ever seen either.