Half Past Awesome

March 25, 2011. A date that shall live in obscurity for most. But for me, it marked a new beginning, a transition of sorts. Before you go hauling off and accusing me of undergoing a phase of cross-dressing or jaywalking with reckless abandon, let’s clear it all up. Rather than buying a red sports car or running off as a roadie for a disease-laden traveling punk band, I marked the occasion simply, in a classy fashion, one that will make my mother’s heart break: I got a tattoo.

Now, the constraints of my employment mandate that placement of aforementioned tattoo was of the highest priority. In common terms, no neck tatts or anything on my forearms (unless I want to wear nothing but a neck brace and long sleeves for the rest of my career). And as far as the neck  rules go? I’m good with that. We’ve got a guy on our hockey team with neck ink who, coincidentally enough, takes his fake tooth out before each game, making him even more menacing looking. I’m twice his size yet the neck work and toothless grin say one thing and one thing only: you don’t mess with me. I oblige him. Avoiding the forearms wasn’t too troubling, either, since I have basically spaghetti noodles for arms, a source of middling shame.

So, to the thigh we went. I see this as a form of insurance. Never in my life, ever, do I want to consider Speedo-style, European man bikinis a viable option for bathing in public. It doesn’t matter if I’m on a beach full of Jaques on the Mediterranean coast, I’ll be the guy in regular shorts, sans gold chains, cigarette and most importantly man-kini. Insurance for me, insurance that you need not ever catch me in a pair of plum smugglers in public.

The design? A Maltese Cross, the symbol of fire departments the world over, with a Celtic weave in it and the Gaelic term for “brotherhood” inscribed, as a nod to the traditions and history of the fire service. Also, the year I entered the career as a paid professional, since it was a year of fantastic, and great, change. The artwork took several rough drafts on my desk and many a Guinness for me to finally come to terms with, but I’m glad, since most decisions like that are best left to several rounds with your creative conscience. When the moment finally came to step up and get the work done, I’d done my homework and decided that Ethen at Hearts Of Fire here in Springfield really had a style that I liked and respected. His work graces many of my friends here, and it wasn’t a tough decision at all.

On that fateful night, I finally took the painful plunge. Like all procedures I’ve gotten, we started out with me getting clammy and sweaty and unimpressing the hell out of Ethen. I suspect he had no desire to lug my ass off the ground once I’d passed out completely. I couldn’t blame him, but since it felt like a thousand bees were busy stinging the ever loving shit out of my thigh, I just sat there, bobbed and weaved for a few minutes; after promising that looking like a corpse was my usual modus operandi, he proceeded. We swapped stories, gruesome fire tales for crazy inking situations, his hands working fast and with purpose. I wish I could have detached and appreciated how he’d taken my drawing and was committing it to my body, a weird marriage of organic art and permanence. I was too busy focusing on the wall, on The Wife who’d surprised me by dropping in the studio to witness the crying & carnage. One of my best friends stopped by as well, so as to mock me, silently at first, and then later back at Patton Alley Pub, somewhat more loudly.

Two hours doesn’t normally pass so slowly, but in this case it did. The work he did was incredible, in terms of the accuracy and skill. As the days have passed, I’ve remained very happy, indeed, about my choice in getting my first tattoo. You can’t crash a tattoo into a tree and kill yourself, and yet it serves as a reminder of a moment in time, or in my case, a life in a certain career. It will always be there, and for that I’m grateful. Unfortunately for my bank account and skin, I’ve also succumbed to the addiction. Like coffee, bacon and reckless behavior, I think I’ve just added to my list of great loves.

Thanks, Ethen.

"It was THIS big"

Yesterday was another one in the books at the firehouse. I was working as captain on the Engine Company, which translates roughly into “they had no else qualified”. We made an interesting call or two around our district, visited Lyle and his manager down at Big Momma’s coffee, observed the comings and goings of our regional homeless shopping cart pushers. All in all the day was looking to stay on an upbeat note, outside of the people having emergencies dire enough to merit a call to 911.

As we rolled east on Commercial Street towards the next medical call, I was struck by the wail of the wind-up siren as the sonic assault reverberated off of the tall buildings. Between the air horns and the Federal Q “Meatgrinder” siren, there is no mistaking the cacophony headed your way. Pedestrians cover their ears sometimes, kids pull against their mothers protective restraint towards us, waving like maniacs and grinning from ear to ear. Drivers on cell phones sometimes act oblivious to the lights and sirens, and then swerve wildly upon realizing there’s 30 tons of fire apparatus trying to get their attention. We can’t hear just how loud it gets since we’re wearing headsets, protecting our ears and allowing us to converse in hushed tones as opposed to screaming at one another over the symphony of insanity.

Back to the now, and as we head out, the wailing continuing it’s lilting song of warning, I’m keenly aware that the very howling that alerts everyone else to an emergency brings me a calm, the likes of which I cannot describe. Rather than getting amped into panic, the sirens soothe me, they remind me of why we’re here, away from our loved ones, spending time with people who don’t necessarily want to spend time with us. More importantly, I think I love the Q since it represents the symptom of a bigger issue: I’m addicted to the chaos.

When the tones hit the station, the engine and ladder truck are fired up in the bay and the lights turned on, the whole game is changed. Driving laws alter, if only slightly. Citizens can’t complain to the newspaper that we’re “just sitting around”. We never know what’s on the end of the call, whether it’s going to be pretty boring (usually is) or, like last night, unhinged pandemonium, stabbings and blood and terror. We’re jumping into the fray, be it a house on fire or a multiple car pile-up in an intersection. And it’s a rush.

I’d be lying if I said otherwise. We, too, become junkies, looking for that rush in the form of a busy firehouse. Most guys WANT to be headed to calls, they WANT to help, and soon, too soon, they sort of NEED to make calls to remind themselves why they’re in this gig. No one becomes a firefighter for the high pay. Some people say it’s because the schedule is so open, and I’ll admit, that’s a big draw for me as well; it allows me the time to be a better dad, to spin tall tales such as this. But mostly, I’m hooked.

Hooked on the chaos. Hooked on the unknown. Hooked, addicted, in love, call-it-whatever, to the rush. The surge in the emotional and physical inconsistencies keeps me coming back for more, year after year. Nothing compares to it, not my years as a volunteer fireman, not my work in the oil fields of Alaska’s North Slope nor the freedom afforded me by a ride down the backroads on the motorcycle.

We’re all hopelessly in love with it, somehow. Even when the calls are bad, they’re calls. When the politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths, that’s frustrating, but nothing unusual, and that’s not worth losing the love, either.

Next time you hear the wailing chorus of horns and sirens and lights on a fire engine, take a look up in the cab. Chances are, one of the guys up there is grinning like a goofy bastard, like your dog might as he hangs his head out the window. Someone up there is working the siren, a beautiful song in their ears.  The call may be serious, but the ride? Totally worth it.

And I Shall Be Known As "Runs With Poop"

The dog pissed on me.

In full glory, in front of man and beast, the little shit lifted his leg and marked my shoe.

I’ve always hated dachshunds.

So began the Muddy Paws 5k trail run, nothing between breaking my ankles on wet rocks and victory except some little dog taking a leak on me. I’d entered my rotund 5 year old Boxer, MoJay, after my attempts at convincing a co-worker to don a dog collar and fake tail ran into some resistance. We were a team, Mo & I, even though he had no idea what was coming when I loaded him in the truck.

I’m no runner, this is a fact. I made a pact with myself in November of 2010 to run at least one 5k race a month, and outside of nearly crippling myself and missing February, I’ve held to it. My only goals? To not die and to pull in times under 30 minutes. Nothing wild. Nothing crazy. So far, I’ve been successful in narrowly avoiding the grip of the Grim Reaper, and my times have all been sub -30. The best? 28:20. I might add that I beat several children in blue jeans in one of my races, and I consider that to make me a “winner”, even if their parents didn’t appreciate my hockey-style elbowing of their kids towards the front of the pack. Hey, it’s a vicious world out there.

Meanwhile, as I’m registering at the race table for this run, I hear a woman yell loudly “NO, ROCKY! NO!” I assume any dog named “Rocky” is a tiny ankle biter, the name being bestowed as a form of compensation. Short dog, short dog syndrome.  AND THEN THE SMELL HIT ME. I turned around and, as yellow humiliation was dripping off my shoe, the dog cast me a hairy eyeball, as if to say, “Yeah, that’s right, you belong to me.” I was overcome with the urge to punt the little bastard across the park, but felt that might not be the right way to start the day, making friends like that. However ballsy the dog was feeling, the owner had no such compunctions. She was staring up at the treetops, as though she had no idea I just heard her yelling at Rocky before he soiled me. I looked at her and said “you do realize your dog just pissed on me, right?” She couldn’t deny it, yet she finally said something like “oh, really? Did MY dog do that?” Yeah, lady, he’s practically bragging about it to the other dogs at this point, and I smell like rancid urine. I’m also pretty sure I saw my dog laughing at me over the issue as he spent time inspecting the asses of every dog with which he came into contact.

Fine, pissant hounds. Let’s run this thing. Earbuds in, the start is given, and next thing I know, MoJay is dragging me through the woods, following the trails all on his own. We’re bounding past the marker flags, through the water, back up a hill, annnnnnd wait. Let’s stop and take a dump right here. Really, MoJay? Right here? Yup, right here, so all the pretty she-dogs and their owners can catch a peek at my hound copping a squat in a regal fashion. So grateful they provided us bags to pick it up, because what would make this even better would be to tote a bag of shit for a few miles. Thankfully there was a fireman buddy close by, as the race was put on by his wife’s organization, and he was monitoring the whole thing. He was upstanding about taking the sack of poo from me, and we trucked back down into the woods.

And there he was.

The Pisser.

Getting carried up a hill, a smug look of triumph on his stupid little dachshund face, The Pisser was back. Had it not been for the consequences, I may well have punched the dog in the face just to even the score. His owner/servant had a look of resigned despair on her face, probably realizing it would be hard to cross the stream with a dog 8 inches tall. I would’ve gladly drug him through, but refrained from making the offer. No time, though – MoJay was dragging me back down the trail, furiously intent on catching up to the hind end of some glorious female that was driving him plum loco. For a fat bastard, that dog was moving like a wildfire, slobbbery goo flying back and nailing me in the legs.

And then we rounded one last corner, covered in mud, slobber and and exhaustion, both our tongues hanging out. There was the finish line, right there in front of us. Weird. That didn’t seem that bad. Maybe I’ll do better being drug by a dog for miles through the woods as opposed to just elbowing kids out of the way on the pavement. Best of all, there was no Pisser in sight. Maybe he ran into a tree trying to mark it from his owners arms.

My time?

24:11.

Wow. Nice job, MoJay. Good dog.

A Toast

"When a horse learns to buy martinis, I'll learn to like horses." S. McQueen

To the dawn of the new season

and the awakening of the soul

To the idea that the little things matter

To those we miss

To family

To friends who don’t waver, and to whom we never will

To those serving our country, without politics

To my grandfather who wasn’t afraid to whack me with his cane when the occasion warranted it

To passion

To the perfect pairing of food and spirit

To another day in the books

and the possibilities for tomorrow

To random questions and unorthodox answers

To the echo of  the strings as sweet music is created

To open doors and the hopeful knock of the bold

To a well crafted pint

To all that we have to offer one another

I salute you.

Sláinte!

E-2 By Night

Funny how it’s all intertwined, how it all works.

Two days ago, I was driving my oldest to the doctors office to deal with an ear infection/strep throat. As I looked in the mirror while he was wailing and crying, I found myself fighting back my own tears. Say what you will, when it’s my own child, one of the very few people on this earth that I love unconditionally, and he’s hurting and there’s nothing I can do about it? It claws at my soul. His pain is mine. I can’t make it better, despite the pleading look in his eyes, begging me to make it better for him, tears rolling freely down his cheeks. He wants his Dad to make it stop; I’m hauling ass down the highway furious at no one in particular, holding his hand while my heart is breaking.

One day ago, we had the fire department awards ceremony; at the event, the unfortunate tragedy involving three children perishing in a house fire was mentioned, which triggered another cascade of memories for those involved, directly or otherwise. The issue came up later at a post-ceremony watering hole, and when asked about if I’d ever dealt with that kind of situation, it reminded me of my worst shift in 11 years here, one in which a child died in a house fire; I’d located him and had to bring him downstairs past the grieving family members. The Wife was pregnant at the time, and it hit me in a way that has never left. People die, accidents happen, but when it’s the young, the innocent among us, the tragedy is exponential in its damage emotionally. It never gets better, no matter the years on the job. Kids affect us all, from green rookies to the toughest old grouchy bastards.

So this morning, when we’d already worked one car wreck within minutes of coming on-duty, and the tones rang out for another accident, I shrugged on the gear and told the boys it looked to be another one of those days. Our captain is off-shift, putting me in his seat, which means more paperwork, less shenanigans. The comments came through that it was a vehicle versus bicycle, with the victim being the ten year old cyclist. Instantly, the situation turns far more serious. Less chatter in the cab, more mental focus, as we learn that police are on scene, which does not bode well; unlike hysterical-but-well-intentioned citizens, when the cops are on scene and roads are blocked, it can’t be good.

We arrive to lots of people yelling, chaos, mass pandelerium, as it were. We find our patient, a ten year old boy, in the ditch, the rear of his bike folded up, and he’s screaming and crying, thrashing in pain. An off-duty medic is there giving us her assessment, and the edge in her voice indicates her worry. More people arrive, the ambulance, finally. We’re trying to stabilize this child, who was riding to school when hit by a van. Our emotions are all over the map, but now is not the time. I’m mad at the grandmother in the muumuu, who, while declaring she’s the legal guardian, didn’t force the kid to wear a helmet. I’m mad at the van driver, although I don’t know who’s fault it is. I’m mad at the kid for not wearing a helmet, as the damage to his head is leaving blood on our gloved hands. But most of all, we’re focused. Now is not the time. Later, I keep telling myself. Now, he needs our help. He’s crying, his pain transmitting loud and clear, and radiating through all of us around him.

One of the firemen and I load up in the ambulance to assist the medic for the seemingly endless journey to the hospital. Muffled radio traffic and wailing sirens permeate the background as we focus on our little man. One moment he’s screaming, and when his eyes crack open, as I hold the oxygen to his face, they plead with me. He wants me, us, someone, anyone, to take away the pain. C’mon, kid, scream your lungs out. It’s ok, I’m here. We’re here. I’ll take screaming, because screaming means you’re still with us.

And then he isn’t. His vitals are there, still solid, he’s getting oxygen, but he goes out cold, unresponsive. No tell-tale fogging of the O2 mask. This is terror. I can’t take this. C’mon, kid. We’re almost there. A little pressure here, some steady murmuring, and in an instant, he’s screaming again, clutching my hand, begging me with those eyes. The medic is working her best, my crew-mate is holding his hands to the sides to keep the thrashing to a minimum as the tangled mass of wires, intravenous lines, blood and asphalt envelop his body that is not built to be hit by a van. This kid is only slightly older than my oldest. This could be him on this cot, with God-knows-what happening in the skull at this very moment. C’mon, kid. I need you to pull through this. I don’t know you, I don’t know your family nor your situation. Maybe you’re a bully, maybe you steal from little old ladies. That’s not the point. You’re young. You’re not some strung out tweaker that we’ve run on a thousand times, driven to kill yourself in a meth-fueled frenzy. You’re ten, for fuck’s sake. My heart won’t take this lightly.

And he’s out again. Something’s going on in that head, there’s damage, and I don’t know what it is. I’m shouting his name out now. C’mon kid. Open that eye again, let me see your eyes. A muffled moan, and he cracks it open. He hears me. He screams again. Ok, keep screaming, keep thrashing, I’ve got you. Grab my hand, tear the thing off for all I care at this point. You’re someone’s kid, you’re my kid, you’re our kid, even if for only a couple of minutes. You need to hang on, little man. I need you to.

Eventually, we get to the hospital. Screaming as we wheeled him into a waiting ER room, I finally let go of that hand, let go of the oxygen mask. A team of seemingly 30 people were waiting in there to take over, the true professionals. I gotta let you go here. His eye looks at me one more time, and he doesn’t break contact. We did what we could, kiddo. Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave this firehouse and hurry home, and crush my kids in a hug, never wanting to let go. Emotionally drained and taxed from the adrenaline surge, we head out of the room to wait for a ride back to the station, strangers in dirty bunker gear, intruding on a world of hospital scrubs and salvation. I’ll learn later on that the boys on the Engine worked a heart attack victim who didn’t make it. We’ll fight some fire at a car crushing plant, go to a house fire that doesn’t amount to much. But all day long, I’ll think of you. When I see those eyes in my mind, you’re right there. And I’m right there with you. I hope you pull through kid, cause I’m pulling for you. We all are.

C’mon, kid.

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye

My first cognizant thought about firemen was in Mrs. Jefferson’s kindergarten class, circa 1979. The memories are blurry, but there nonetheless: a huge red truck arrived at Vieja Valley elementary school, two guys riding on the back, mustaches thick, voices deep and gravelly. They laid out their breathing apparatus on the floor of our classroom, sternly lectured us about playing with matches, kindly demonstrated Stop Drop and Roll, and then took us out to their rig – a gleaming, screaming red pumper, complete with 3/4 hip boots rolled down on the tailboard, axes and nozzles and ladders and all. I vaguely remember the captain standing off to the side, having a smoke in the parking lot while his crew gave us the tour.

These guys were mythical figures, even then. My own father wore a coat and tie, headed off to an office and did who knows what all day long. What I was sure of was that there was an abundance of women with an abundance of makeup who worked with him, and collectively, they spent their time smoking cigarettes and answering phones. I had no idea whatsoever what went down in that office. But these men were different. They were big strapping guys who, in my eyes, probably carried their axes at all times, to the grocery store, to their homes, to the movies, ever ready for an emergency to strike whereby an axe might come in handy. They laughed with us, they were loud and boisterous, and Mrs. Jefferson seemed to tolerate their gruff mannerisms with a gleam in her eyes, just delighted to have something hold our wild attention spans if only for a moment. They told us of their lives in the fire station, sleeping near the trucks, eating together, ready night and day for the next big call. They rode on the backs of trucks, they wore cool helmets and they saved lives on a seemingly daily basis. I don’t know if they could see it in our faces, but every last one of us would have traded our souls to be taken by these guys on their truck, under their collective care, immune to the mundane lives we’d led up until that day. To this day, that was the best career recruitment seminar I’d ever attended, and I was five. Those guys knew EXACTLY what they were doing, smooth as silk and laughing the whole time.

God almighty, I wanted to be a fireman.

More than anything in the world, I wanted to be a fireman.

And, as is typical of the things that we want at that age, the burning fury with which I wanted to join their ranks lasted a short while. A couple of years passed, and it was decided in my mind that I should really be an F-14 Tomcat pilot in the Navy, a desire that was inflamed to obsessive proportions by the movie Top Gun. I only loved that movie for the flying scenes as I found it somewhat disconcerting that Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis would spend a good portion of their time licking one another. That was just weird to a twelve year old me. I never realized the dream of flying in the Navy, nor did I have to endure a tongue cleaning by Kelly McGillis, so it all works out in the end, I guess.

My next run-in with the fire department came in high school. My friend Kwame Jackson’s dad was a fireman for Santa Barbara City FD, and he was one bad mother. He was huge and strong, looked as though he took crap off of no one, yet was gruff and funny all at once. He could visit Kwame in the middle of the week (mind you, this was boarding school, so we were essentially in a teen isolation unit), in the middle of the day (who had THOSE kind of hours?) and looked like a genuine man of action. He was usually wearing a standard blue fire department tee shirt, and he wore it well and with what seemed like pride. He gave off the air of a man who worked for a living, one who belonged to an exclusive club that didn’t honor suits and ties and high-minded parlance. The man was a walking bad-ass, and commanded my respect the moment he showed up in our dormitory. My enduring memory? Don’t piss a fireman off, they look like they don’t suffer fools lightly.

And so passed several years. College, mindless employment, all that.  A short stint doing some time as a sub to a sub contractor that worked on wildfires campaigns. One day a co-worker asked, since I loved running heavy equipment on fires, would I be interested in the local volunteer department. They had around 18 members, always happy for more. Their last structure fire had been, like, three years previous, and they were still pretty stoked about it. Mostly, they gathered around the station and smoked cigarettes and joshed one another and belonged to a club, one defined by handlebar mustaches, pagers and blue ball caps.

Immediately, I wanted in.

I went through a local academy, and lost myself in the lingo and lore that is the fire service. I was wearing gear that was painfully ancient, but I didn’t know it at the time. I was so goddamn proud when they gave me my first set of hand-me-down gear that I took it home and wore it around the house like an idiot, just to see how it really felt to really be a fireman. They accepted me on their team, and I was thrilled beyond belief. I think I made about six calls in about six months with them.

I moved to Alaska and immediately sought out a department to join. The Central Matanuska-Susitna Fire Dept., based in Wasilla allowed me to join their ranks, and off I rambled through another volunteer academy. It was a great group, those people, and they were run professionally, even if everyone was only paid-per-call. No one slept in the firehouses, there were no full-time firefighters, so it was always a race to the station when a call came in, hoping against hope that you’d make it onto the rig and arrive there like a REAL fireman, not in my own regular-guy pickup. It wasn’t enough. I needed more. Like the me of 1979, I began to focus like a maniacal 5 year old sociopath on being a career fireman.

The mania paid off.

I joined the Springfield Fire Department in June of 2000, after sweating it out for a year and an initial rejection. Someone didn’t pass muster in the background check, and I was given the call. THE CALL.

Ten years and ten bajillion runs later, there is nothing that compares to working fires if a man has to work for a living. I get tired of all the political bull, but then, who doesn’t? I like to bitch and moan, and like to think I can do that with the best of them. I wonder if I’ve made the right choices in my life, like we all do, and I worry about my kids, like we all do.

But every once in a while, we get the call to go to a school. We slip into our uniforms, and although we can no longer ride the tailboards of the rigs and the captains don’t choke down smokes while we give our presentation, the wonder and exhilaration still lives large in eyes of a kindergartner.  We show them our axes and saws and hoses and ladders, we knowingly slip in inside jokes to get a chuckle out of our colleagues, we flirt with the teachers, who seem to share the universal delight of teachers the world over when someone holds the attention of their charges. We let them grab the gear and watch the lights and hear the tell-tale wail of our siren, we sternly warn them of the dangers of matches. The banter, the trucks, the ability to connect with kids (since we’re obscenely immature as a group), it all adds up to training hours for the bean counters downtown, but more importantly it adds up to connection for us and little kids.

Because somewhere, in that group of wild-eyed youth, there’s gonna be a seed planted. One kid or two will start thinking about the life of a firefighter. Twenty years later, they may stumble back across that notion, and the life-cycle will begin again. They’ll remember the thrill of seeing the guys in their gear, the meaningless swagger and the sense of calm that overtakes people young and old when that truck shows up. These are the people who make it all better. These are the people who’ve turned their backs on the corporate world, the world of suits and ties and financial markets and business development gurus and simply love a job that is chaotic and simple all at once.

I should know. I was one of those kids.

I still am.

The 3rd grade teacher implicated in the prostitution ring looks NOTHING like this. Just thought you should know.

What with everything going on with Charlie Sheen and a one Mr. Muammar Gaddafi, there’s just so much material. SO MUCH MATERIAL. And there’s only one small problem with that: EVERY ONE HAS BEEN THERE. Those two are the village bicycles at this point – everyone’s had a ride. I’m out here busting my hump, trolling the internet for worthwhile mindless fodder, such as John Edwards hiring Obama’s old lawyer, the necessity of fighting in the N.H.L. or the live sex classes going on at Northwestern University. But it turns out we don’t need to go to the dark ends of the intarwebs, or Illinois, even, to find nasty news of the weird. We need go no further than the Queen City of The Ozarks, our very own Springfield, Missouri to find the salacious dirt that is grist for a mindless mill. Really, we are leaders in so many ways here in the Show-Me-State. It’s not enough that we “enjoy” the lowest taxes on smokes in the nation (psst- we could double that tax and still be 49th, haters), that we’re arguably leading the nation in meth lab incidents, and that  our county is first out of 114 in the state in child abuse/neglect cases. No, we have a new slice of gossip pie right here in the city that boasts of being home to the worldwide headquarters of the Assemblies of God: we got us a good old fashioned prostitution ring running wild. By “wild”, of course, I’m talking about “involving 5 people”. But how do we ramp up a scandal involving the world’s oldest profession? We infuse it with potential harm to children; we find out that it involves a local school teacher! The alleged acts of ill-repute took place in a basically derelict old building in our downtown, and I took the opportunity to satirize it in a blurb on Fair City News. (In case this is your first day on the internet, all of the text in blue indicates a link to the issues). But really, there was no need, since this kind of comedy is intrinsically humorous without needing to dress it up. It leaves us, the public, three ways to look at it:

1. Relax, already. Consenting adults, we assume, are exchanging cash for pleasure. I, too engage in this; it’s called “drinking a beer down at the Pub and paying cash for it”. It’s also known as “going to the movie theater, handing them cash, and them pleasuring me by entertaining me with 2 1/2 hours of cinematic delight.” At this point it’s perfectly legal for a single young male to meet a single young female, flirt with her shamelessly and find themselves engaged in the business of freakiness. But as soon as money trades hands - BOOM! – you’re breaking the law, buster. Perhaps instead of outrage, we should spend more time on Craigslist as a method of keeping our panties out of a collective wad.
2. We should be even more outraged. In a section of the country that touts family values, God-fearin’ and all as a selling point, why do we have such high rates of crimes against kids, super cheap cancer sticks and outrageous cases of meth mouth? One way that Springfield tries to draw in businesses and people is to sell its low cost-of-living and affordable housing. The dark side of that reality is shockingly low wages, a relative dearth of cultural attractants and an environment that fosters cyclical trash. Think Winter’s Bone, which is the rural version of what we deal with on the north side of Springfield every day. While it provides for great material for fire department stories and continued employment, it really is a bleak tale.
3. They really just don’t pay teachers what they’re worth. As a way of using mockery to highlight a serious issue, I say this with the tongue out of the cheek. Spend a day in your kids kindergarten, especially you dads out there, and marvel at how those teachers don’t spend their free time shaking babies. While the wonderment of a child learning is awe-inspiring indeed, most of the time they’re shrieking and trying to burn the building down. And when they get to high school and really know all there is to know? How those teachers don’t choke the ever-loving shit out of those kids is a miracle in and of itself. Whatever they are making, it’s not enough, despite how much conservatives will screech about how easy teachers have it. They’re responsible for educating our future leaders, and somehow we feel that middle to lower class wages is “spoiling them”. No wonder they have to resort to offering more lucrative business opportunities. Remember, when in doubt, it’s ALWAYS a union’s fault, as is evidenced currently in Wisconsin, where I hear there is a life size portrait of Bernie Madoff hanging in the governor’s mansion.

I’m sure as the details emerge, we’ll act shocked, as fair citizens should, but it’s not as though this game is new to the world. I’m more shocked that this is still in issue in today’s society. The banner under our local newspaper reads “Tis A Privilege To Live In The Ozarks”. Apparently, those privileges extend beyond the realm of mega-churches and cheap housing; you just need to look in the right section of Craigslist.

Commence With The Invasion Of Hoth! / photo copyright © 2008 sean dreilinger

February is just a few days from being dead now; the epic and annual battle against the winter blues is in its final throes for the season, and there is no shortage of casualties on the battlefield. Speaking of which, when measured against the sentence our military folks are serving in that hell-hole of a desert theatre, it seems more than a little trite to bitch about the weather. I can’t help but notice, though, that right now, it’s not just me. It seems like most people I know are one more cold and cloudy day closer to dragging scissors across their wrists as a method of mundane entertainment.

Complaining about the weather, or, for that matter, fundamentalist religious folks, in the buckle of the Bible Belt is akin to moving to Utah and decrying the abundance of Mormons. Chances are the weather and the spiritually engaged were in their respective locations when we decided to inhabit their locales. They were here first, and if you don’t like it, then why don’t you move back to communist Russia, you son of a…..wait, I got sidetracked there for a moment. Where were we? Oh yeah…

February. Brown and cold, like this stale cup of coffee in front of me. I tell anyone who’ll listen how much I prefer the cold of winter to the Vietnam-like summers we get in Missouri; you can always put on more clothes when it’s cold, but in August, when you’re chewing the air and making body-sweat soup, society will only let you get so naked before they call the cops. It’s a real bummer, I tell you.

Missouri is the Show-Me-State, which sounds deliciously perverse until you realize what that means is that they’re a skeptical lot, prone to demanding evidence before they’ll accept anything, aforementioned spiritual endeavors notwithstanding. But really, the name should be changed to the “I Want Something Else State” or the “Short Attention Span State”. Whatever weather is coming up we get all giddy about, be it the tornadoes of Spring or the 3 inches of snow that may, or may not, hit us whenever. Then, when it gets here, the local news goes predictably apeshit over a serious fog pattern and immediately we’re irritated by it. Facebook and other outlets for us get clogged up with declarations of righteous fury over the climate and our eager anticipation for the NEXT season. We’re worse than spoiled kids on Christmas morning.

I’ve decided to join this particular Complain Train this time, though. This time of year always reminds me of the freezer-burnt section of the fridge. The meat is of indeterminate origin, but it’s brown and cold and icy, and even the dog turns his nose up at the prospect. Like the natives around here, I’m anxious to see the lawn green up, enjoy the mating rituals of the firefly and spend our evenings cowering in the hallway while another tornado rumbles through. We’ll enjoy lazy floats on swollen rivers, cheap beer and impulsive flashing being our entertainment, all while complaining about the heat and anticipating the fall colors and football.

But no one is looking forward to February; of this I am sure.

Springfield Firefighters At Work / (Photo courtesy of The SPRINGFIELD (MO) NEWS-LEADER )

The door had been kicked in and the telltale hose was snaking through the front door. Slushy, gray smoke was lazily belching out of the windows, the eaves, the siding; it was oozing from every orifice and, quite frankly, was scaring the living shit out of me. This was not how I’d pictured it in the academy, or on the half-dozen already-burnt-to-the-ground house fires I’d worked in Alaska. This was the dead of night. This was real. This was now. The muffled voices were screaming at me to get my rookie ass into the house. We weren’t going to be first in, but I was more than ready to soil myself at what lie ahead.

My first shift, my very first shift in the station and we catch a working house fire. What were the odds? Better than I’d banked on, I guess. I figured on easing into firehouse life, following my senior firemen around for a while, picking up on tricks of the trade. The only tricks I picked up that day were how to raise the flag and how to clean the toilets. To get toned out of bed in the middle of the night, slide the pole and head to working house fire was not scheduled in my mind. It’s a chaotic stew of emotions, excitement, fear, secret thrill and total terror as you walk up to the truck. The other four guys on Ladder Truck 1 were less than impressed with having their sleep interrupted and I was bouncing off the station walls.

Back to the front porch, pike pole in my hand and bug-eyed with adrenaline soaked panic.

If you want to ratchet up your panic levels, try having your senses stolen. I admire those who have persevered after losing their sight or their hearing or their minds. When asked by kids what it’s like to enter a house that’s on fire, I often tell them “think less ‘Backdraft’ and more along the lines of putting a black garbage bag over your head and making it several hundred degrees in there”.

We made entry and immediately the assault on order was in full swing; garbled voices shouting incoherently, the loud drone of the positive pressure fan from the porch canceling out any audio comprehension. You’re in a strangers home, the unexpected guest, and you don’t know the layout, the reason for multiple full cat litter boxes that occupy the entryway. Less than gently, you’re being shoved by the guy behind you, everyone eager to get a piece of some unknown action. And so, scrambling over random broken appliances and, oddly enough, a motorcycle in the living room, the inky blackness of the home gives way to amber glow of the fire in the back room. The hose jockeys from Engine 2 are toiling away at choking and drowning the flames, less than happy to see Truckies enter their domain, each feeling possessive of the chaos, unwilling to share in the fight.

Fire has a funny way of behaving like mice and cockroaches do: when you see some, it’s indicative of a much larger, and unseen, problem. Fire thrives in hidden areas, in the walls, up in the attics and behind the siding. So as not to lose any more face, I immediately copy my co-workers from the Truck and viciously begin tearing into the walls with my pike pole, not really sure of my technique, but relieved to have a sense of purpose in this un-orchestrated dance of destruction. Apparently, I was swinging the tool as though I was chopping wood, much to the amusement of the boys, who took great pains to mock me, then to correct the actions; lath & plaster demand short choppy motions, not melodramatic swings that were, as a side note, hitting the milk jugs suspended from the ceiling. Later, it was found out that these gallon jugs were filled with gasoline as a tool in some strange arsonistic behavior.

The entire event of extinguishing the fire took place in a short time, a short time that seemed to take forever in my mind. More than a decade later, I’ve returned to that same district, only now I’m the driver of the former Truck 1 (now re-assigned as Truck 2), my fellow open cab-firemen having all promoted as well to positions as captains and fire marshals and rescue specialists. The captain I had then has since retired, and that house, the scene of my first fire, has long since been abandoned. That entire decade plus, though, has taken less time to pass before my eyes than it did to put out my first fire. I was nervous, young, desperate to make my bones with my new crew. No one wants to be labeled a slack-ass from the get-go; to be a smart-ass is one thing, and will be tolerated, but to be a sandbag on a fire is the most detrimental of reputations you can have in this business.

House fires still abound in our district, they still stink in the same ways and there are occasional times where the adrenaline can still be ratcheted up a few notches, such as when we hear that people are trapped inside the dwelling. But now it’s my turn to watch the rookies stumble to get the right tools off the truck, to be amused by watching their eyes get big as dinner plates through their masks, their gear clean and shiny and new. We’ll badger them about their Truck work and, if they’re pulling their weight, we’ll tease them mercilessly in the most juvenile of ways when they stand on the porch, wild-eyed at the thought of the chaos in front of them. If they’re sandbaggers, we often just ignore them around the station, knowing that all the humiliation in the world won’t mend their lazy bones; that’s something they’ll have to face on their own.

It’s the only business that I really know well. It’s immature interpersonal relationships and the messy science of mitigating emergencies. It’s the strange marriage of governmental bureaucracy and moments of crazy risk. People with whom we have nothing in common, calling us to give them a hand, and, standing among the smoke and meth-head’s meager possessions, it feels like home.

"Looky what I made"

I’m no grammarologist….the evidence is overwhelming. But now that people are communicating more than ever over social media sites and everyone broadcasts their opinions in 140 characters or less, I’m left to wonder if emphasis and emotion triumph over common sense. Of course, the answer is yes, but I have these lingering questions:

• Why do you type in all caps? In the distant past (2002) that was meant as a form of shouting. You did something stupid (broadcast pictures of your boss making out with the entire carpool) and the angry response came in the form of an all capital letter tirade. It usually included the words “YOU’RE FIRED!” Now, I think people are trying to show their excitement, but really, it just comes across as a screeching, desperate plea for Ritalin.

• Along the same lines, I wonder why you feel the need to utilize more than one exclamation point, when maybe even one was too many. I know you’re excited that you’re favorite band is coming to town, or there’s a tweetup going on down at the coffee shop, but using it all the time? Please!!!!!

• Boosters. Back in English 101 you would’ve qualified for a public caning had you not cited sources when you were directly quoting someone else. And I mean a direct boost, not a familiar/common saying (Yeah, you, Copper). So why is it now no big deal to steal the wit of someone on Twitter and make it your Facebook status without even some gratuitous quote marks? To make matters worse, when people comment on “your” funny take, you’re not even saying that you lifted it….you’re silently taking credit. Dirty pool, that’s what that is. And guess what? When we meet up in person, and it’s obvious from the vanilla banter that those status updates were not of your own creation? It totally comes across.

• Why don’t you go see a doctor? You’re clearly almost dead; your past 16 updates have focused on your migraine/flu symptoms/ingrown toenail. I get it, we all get it….you need some sympathy and, in the words of my father “a reeeeeal swift kick in de ass.” Save the details of your hypochondria for a blog post, which is clearly a better medium for laying out all the gory details of your latest sore throat. I should know, I do it all the time.

• When you post pictures of your meal, you’re committing the social media equivalent of saying “I have nothing to say. So here, look at my food, why don’t you?” By now, it’s patently obvious that every single person on the internet is a better cook than I, so for the love of Cap’n Crunch stop showing me your braised ribs in duck reduction sauce, or I’m going to start posting pictures of my various, award winning toast creations.  I realize there’s no question here, but it seemed like the right place to lodge the complaint.

• Why must you lambaste your obnoxious teen publicly? I realize, there’s no shortage of material out there that he/she is providing you to give reason for pulling out your hair/drinking at 9 am./taking up a prescription medication abuse hobby, but give the kid just a little break. Remember when we were teens? When our parents lectured us on the evils of drink with a glass of Chardonnay in hand, which only drove us into the arms of Pabst Blue Ribbon? Yeah, it’s still the same. So cut the kid some slack, because believe me, when you bitch about him/her online, they’ve not only read it, they’re busy ordering your credit rating destroyed by all their way-smarter-than-us-technologically friends. And subscribing to porn in your name.

• And lastly, how does re-posting religious proclamations/love for a nurse/appreciation for your nanny as your status make any sense? In the same manner that using a cartoon character as your profile picture won’t stop child abuse/cattle rustling/mesothelioma, your status update is YOURS, treat it as such, and not as a tool of guilty peer pressure. Trust me, no one thinks you’re FOR a bad cause if you don’t hop on the train, unless, of course, we’re dealing with zombies – that’s a game changer.

ps- I still love you, but I’ll completely understand if you recognize yourself in any of these situations and promptly unfriend, unfollow, or simply send a piece of hate mail in all caps with lots of exclamation points.