Planes are perhaps a bit more accessible. With a little bit of perseverance and the right physical and mental qualities a future in aircraft is not so far out of reach. Our Uncle Sam will provide a training school and the plane if you are willing to subject yourself to the required indoctrination. Who wouldn't want to be flying an F-18 with the Blue Angels? Perhaps the waiting line will go down somewhat when the candidates realize that included in the regimen is the requirement to land this multi-ton plane on a pitching deck of an aircraft carrier in the middle of the night. The line grows even shorter when it is pointed out that the landing may follow a foray over Sadam Insane's private playground.
Fire engines are more accessible yet. If you are diligent and you train and study hard, a firefighter's job is available. Now not too many join the profession for the sole purpose of driving a fire engine. Lofty goals of community service and protection of those in danger are often given as justification for joining. It helps that the typical firefighter shift work is 24 hours on and 48 hours off. This attracts many to a position that will allow them to pursue a second, simultaneous career.
Initially, at least for me, it was the lure of the apparatus itself. I simply love fire trucks. The best ones (red) are aglitter with shining fittings and everything it its place. I learned fairly early that this is not universal. Good departments take care of their rigs, like sports car drivers actually, and everything is put away clean and in order. How else could you be expected to count on your equipment when it really mattered?
My fascination started early. When I was in junior high school, I was a runt. Not usually accepted into typical after school activities, I took to hanging out at the local fire station. I would help shine brass fittings, roll hose, and do whatever errands they could foist upon me. I was aware of the need to stay out of the way as much to not wear out the welcome as from any safety concerns. Occasionally I got the opportunity to ride on the rigs for easy calls, and went with the chief officer a few times to working fires.
By the time I was in high school, we had moved yet again and the opportunity to hang out went dormant. Through school, the military, and school again, not much happened. I would watch fire ground action when I had the opportunity, understanding more than John Q. Public why it was that holes had to be made in the roof and why other tactics were followed. I never did pursue it as a career though. I have often tried to figure out why, and while I can come up with a lot of reasons, they are all in hindsight. So as it happened, once relocated to Oregon with a wife, babies, and all the flotsam and jetsam in tow, I came upon a flyer asking for citizens to sign up as volunteer firefighters. It didn't take long to set the hook.
For eighteen years I worked as a volunteer in my community. This was not the same undertaking that I had imagined. It certainly was not the contribution that Stephanie thought it would be. We were on the drill ground once a week for about three hours. Calls would come in at all hours of the night and usually on holidays. The volunteers in this district run on "box alarms" only. That means house and wildland fires. Rarely did we go on traffic accidents, flue fires, or first aids. The career department of which we were a part handled that. If we were charged with covering a station during that time, we could handle the call, but for the most part it was third or fourth engine in at the house fires. We'd average about three or four calls per week. Fortunately my place of work was supportive of this community participation.
OK, so this is a car (truck) story. I never did save any beautiful women by carrying them down a ladder, or any other means. Unlike Kurt Russell I never walked out of the jaws of the fire monster with a baby on one arm and an axe in the other. Although on the other hand I did resuscitate dogs on three different occasions, the four legged variety. So, back to driving.
At the time of my training as an apparatus operator (we were called Enginemen back then) there were four pre-requisites. First, we had to take a class on pump operations, water supply, and such. Second, we had to take the practical exam where we demonstrated our ability to get water from point A to point B without washing our shoes, and in time to keep the guy on the nozzle from becoming a rice krispie. Third, we had to endure an eight hour class given by the State Police on what the law allows fire engines to do. This would surprise you, but the law allows very little latitude for the fire department. If the light is green in your direction and you are traveling code 3 (lights and siren) to a call, and you enter an intersection and someone RUNS INTO YOU, then you are partially at fault. It wasn't until several years later as an officer riding in the right seat that I worried as much about traffic as I did about the emergency that we were going to. Fourth, and finally, we had to take an on the road driving test.
Understand that for 15 of the 18 years that I was with the volunteers, our rig
was a `64 Ford T-850. It had a 544cu in engine with a 4-barrel carb and a
six speed automatic. It had ten wheels (two axles in back) and took pretty
near a city block to make a u-turn. It carried, in addition to enough
equipment to run a small fire department by itself, 1500 gallons of water on
board. That's six tons of water alone. With the automatic, it took a bit of a
run to get the beast up to speed, but once it was going, you damned well
better know what the heck you were doing because it wasn't going to stop
any more quickly than the Exxon Valdez. If we had ever hit a car with it,
that car would have been stopped for speeding in the next county.
For my driver training I had been paired with a crusty old gentleman who was destined to become my friend for the rest of his life. At the time he was about a year from retiring himself. Later, first as a lieutenant and later as a captain, I was to teach many of the younger generation the fine art of driving fire engines. By the time I was doing this, the county had some pretty well established standards on how it was to be done. They have a driving course set up at a regional training site and there is a specific set of skills (not unlike a gymkhana) that must be demonstrated. These include forward and back on a serpentine, backing to a dock, decreasing clearance alleyways, etc. I never pranged a fire engine and to the best of my knowledge, no student of mine has either.yet. Well, the driver training I had back then consisted of a one hour road course. After no more experience than driving around the drill site, I was released with my instructor to troll the streets of greater Washington County. His first command was to head for the local pizza palace. At about SW184th and TV Highway, there is a pizza parlor in an old grocery storefront. A typical strip mall, it has a driveway at either end and parking rows that run parallel to the street. Ol' Charlie Packer had me turn into that parking lot (90 degree turn in a long wheelbase truck, mind you) and cruise down between the cars and out the other end. The people in the parlor looked out to see what might be the emergency requiring the fire department to be driving through. In the meantime, I was sweating bullets trying to thread my way in between all of their cars. As we pulled back onto the highway, Charlie just looked at me and smiled and said, "Looks like you won't have any trouble with clearances."
He next took me up Cooper Mountain in Aloha. This rig, with all that weight made the crawl to the top at a breathtaking 8 MPH. Now that I live up there, I am glad that they saw fit to build a station at the top in 1980. The real fun was going down. He directed me onto Miller Hill Road for the trip to the bottom. This delightful little road is mostly straight, and probably not more than 15 feet wide all the way. It is a 12% grade. At the bottom is an arterial stop. I learned a lot in that hour. Years later, after taking the new drivers through the regional training center, I would always try to get them into that same parking lot and up onto Miller Hill Road. Over the years it was a heck of a lot less intimidating to me than it must have been to them. We buried Charlie Packer this past September. I can only say that the citizens of the county are a lot safer because his ghost rides with a good many of the volunteers.
Another thing about driving these things. You have to be incredibly careful
about what other drivers on the road are likely to do. Some folks are just
plain oblivious to whatever is around them. The law says that if an
emergency vehicle is approaching with warning devices activated (that'd be
lights and siren), the average motorist is supposed to pull over to the side
and wait until the vehicle is past and then follow no more closely than 300
feet. Well, the less than average motorist is likely to pull left into the center
lane and force you into the oncoming lane to get by. "Why not pass on the
right," you ask? Well, some do. I have, but only with trepidation because
since the law says the motorist must pull to the right, if they suddenly decide
to do exactly that and hit you, the fault is yours! Go figure.
I was driving down a four lane state highway on a call one day. We were gradually gaining on a sedan in the fast lane. I was watching the drivers' head to see if she was looking in the mirror. We were doing about 50 MPH and about 100 yards behind her. The traffic on the right was pretty thick, but pulling over. The officer in the seat to my right was working the air horn pretty hard and the siren was wailing. Sure enough, she finally got a clue, looked up and then dropped anchor! That's right. She stepped on the binders and stopped solid right in the middle of the fast lane. We had time to shift left and pass, but it reminded me of how stupid some drivers really are.
Years later, this time as the officer, we were going down a hill as a part of
the second alarm assignment on a call. The tailboard had four guys aboard
and the driver was aghast to see a fire chiefs car pull out of a driveway in
front of us where he had stopped to turn around. I don't know what was
going through his mind, but here we came in a cloud of blue tire smoke,
brakes locked, only an instant away from making him a martyr. He
somehow got out of the way. He never mentioned a word of it to us, but I'm
sure that he had to change his pants! I halfheartedly "coached" the driver
about safety, but could really find no fault with what we were doing.
These days, the fire engines rarely have a tailboard (rear step) on which firefighters ride. It is just too damn dangerous. Today enclosed cabs are both safer and more comfortable for the firefighter. As a newly minted Lieutenant, I was riding to a call with one of my academy classmates driving. Although I was in charge, and responsible for the safety of not only the citizens but the fire crew also, I was reluctant to tell him that I thought he was going to fast for the upcoming railroad grade crossing. We hit the bump at about 30 MPH and by the time the rear wheels crossed the tracks, the guys on the tailboard were launched a foot into the air. Fortunately they were all holding on tightly and we lost no one. After that day, I never forgot the firefighter adage, "Arrive alive".
I retired this year. I have had many memorable experiences, not the least of which was driving the fire engines. I drove engines (the ones with the hoses), trucks (the ones with ladders), squads, chief cars, and others. I made some wonderful acquaintances and experienced adventures that are not available to me in my chosen profession. Fire engines aren't fast. They don't handle well. Sports cars they're not, but damn, I wish I had room for one in my garage.
