WEBVTT

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Disclaimer. We'd like to know before
the start of this interview that the opinions

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about to be expressed by the guest
of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that

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of the guest and do not directly
or necessarily reflect the views of the host

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of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.

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Hello, I didn't do the believe
back. Hello Joe from Rochester.

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I got him the bottom there,
I gotta get it from the bottom.

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Hello Joe from Rochester. We'll do
that ever again. Only sorry, table

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to you and everything involved in the
firehouse. Get your table, including really

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fresh crispy haircuts. We bring that
to you thanks to Gonzo, not me.

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Thanks to Gonzo. Let me say, what do you want to say?

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That is risty crispy? Gods if
they ever asked what your best side

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is, that's the right side.
That's the right Did you get a free

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bowl of soup with that head?
Probably? But looks good on you though

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you wait, it's the parking lot
charge you down there in Florida for something

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like that. That's got to be
thirty bucks twenty five. You give me

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a tip. That's what the stock. That's the tip. That's with the

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tip. It's like twenty four ninety
nine, only a shekel like Jewish.

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You know, I gotta watch my
Benjamins or my pennies. I don't have

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any hair, but I gotta watch
this girl. Has she been cutting my

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hair for twenty five years now,
she's just she's just retiring. She's retiring.

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Now's gonna cut your head? In
The Girl next Door? Oh right,

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the girl she moose. The girls
use Moose a lot. When they

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do that, they don't use the
use. They put it on their hands

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and they got like one of these, like I would like. That's what

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I remember anyway, from if you
remember the moose, we used to use

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moose like in the eighties, right
yeah, bro, before that was gel

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like s diippity do whatever you put
in it on it went moose for a

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while. We definitely use moose.
I don't care who you are. In

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the eighties, you had movie some
kind of product in man, what do

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you just straight up jail man?
You're going with the gel? Yeah,

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I've been using it for a while. It's good. It looks good,

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that's clean, looks really good on
you. Yeah, I appreciate that.

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Okay, can we change subjects of
hockey play? Because we got a guy

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who's pot five fire pot hockey play
basically, so to the come on,

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No, we're gonna gi him a
little bit of there. It's gonna be

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all about this tonight. The other
one. Nobody cares about hockey. Idiot.

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I don't even know what commercial we
have. It's all together now.

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Sorry, I think we gotta make
up for a commercial last week we didn't

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have. Yeah, I was gonna
ask you, should we run all three

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tonight? Do it? Man?
What have you got to do? All

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right, let's get to it so
we can get the rico swab swab.

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Here we go. Armor to firehouse
flooring was recently installed in Station number seven,

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the newest of the Dacab County fire
stations in Decatur, Georgia. Meeting

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Deputy Chief Smith of Support Services,
Vince explained that armourtuugh interlocking flooring is the

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only floor that is tough enough to
withstand the abuse of fire apparatus along with

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fire personnel at a very busy station. Chief Smith explained the flooring in all

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of our stations over the years gave
us multiple problems. We need a floor

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that can last as long as the
walls and the roof. That's why we

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chose Armour Tough. The installation team
came from New Jersey and in three days

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they had completed their work without any
disruption to our daily operations. We were

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very impressed with not only the product, but with the workmanship as well.

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I highly recommend Armour Tough for your
station's floor. Call Vince today for a

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no obligation quote at nine oh eight
nine one seven seven six nine seven.

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You crazy, fantastic, It's crazy. So what were we We only usually

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have one commercial today, right we
supposed to but later on okay, you

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just let me know what. We
got a couple of new guys watching the

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show live for the first time,
John, I said, Johnny and John

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in Guardia like them apples. I
was scrolling through they I'll have to get

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back to that. Well, welcome
guys. But I gotta tell you,

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man, in the pre show,
like I was looking for Rod Serling from

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what do you call it? What
show? Did he used to do?

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Uh? Spot show? No,
he used to do this what do you

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call it? Show? I just
got a brain fun somebody is gonna know

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in the chat what's the name his
name is Rod Serling. Back in the

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sixties, they used to do the
show, Come on, somebody in the

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chat twilight Zone. I got it. I got it before you did.

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I I was in the twilight zone
before we had Roofie and two black dudes

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talking about hockey. I said that
Mike, Mike, Mike was coaches trying

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to talk about basketball, and they
were like, bring back out of the

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hockey, brother. I'm like,
he is talking about about Hockey's talking about

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eyes of man and everything. Well, you know what this guy should have

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really been and a jersey should be
hanging in the rafters. Somehow. It

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was kind of like the that's what
I was saying was going on. Man,

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nobody got time for that. Nobody
got Let's pring him in here.

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Roough, you get it. This
is your day. This is mikey man,

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here's the kidd from the second I
talked to him. So we both

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did twenty seven years. We both
gone on in nineteen ninety three. We

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both retired in nineteen ninety and he
place hockey and he and he's a rough

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for now. I mean when he
first talked to this is gonna be cool,

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this is gonna be lou like that
you know when back in the day

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where you're in your twenty do that's
just chick last night, bro, dude,

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hockey bro. I think I might
have to give him money gun for

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you. You know something. He's
over there dying in the background. He's

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your guy. You coming all the
way from Flint, Flint, and they

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can have water now. And it's
my fighter Phillips. What an entrol?

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Hey? First of all, you
guys say this gonzo. I think I'm

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getting short change here. I pay
twenty twenty bucks from my haircut every two

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weeks, whether I come on maybe
maybe tomorrow that'd be that'll be eight nas.

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Yeah we go, yeah, get
picture out before we start making fools

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of ourselves. Yet here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

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the United States of America and to
the Republic, for which it stands,

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one nation under God, indivisible with
liberty and justice for all. As listen,

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I see my girls Susie in the
chat. We haven't seen it all.

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That's you missed your Susie. You
and Lee all love Louis over.

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We's got love spewing out all over
them, all over the place. I

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don't know. This guy's a little
upset. I hed red Red? Where

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is gone from? John? What
do you think he's from? Roofy?

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He's a Jersey guys, you think
I don't know Detroit. Actually, well,

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we'll see he turns in. Let's
see if he turns in. All

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right, all right, let's do. What do you want to start?

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You want to start hockey? You
want to talk about the fire department?

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Way back, let's go start early
days. You know what, Let's go

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back to when there was a young
Rico running around playing, playing the army

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or whatever. You were playing a
hockey. Where did you grow up?

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What was family life Rico in the
early days? Yeah, for sure,

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I was born here in Flint,
Michigo. Really raised here, but interesting

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lifestyle. My mom was German,
and uh so I grew up at the

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German When I went in side the
house, I was in Germany. Outside

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good us. But anyways, not
just that eat eat eat anything. I

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freag It scarred me, to be
honest with But anyways, I grew up

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not far from downtown Flint. And
when as a little boys, like a

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lot of the viewers here today,
they watched Emergency. My I'm fifty four

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years old. I watched emergency.
It was the first time any of us

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got a chance to see what firefighters
actually do. Actually, what I got

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that it's a ring tone I got. But anyway, turn out man,

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turn out vehicle, and the dolls
too. Bro. Yeah, so those

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are all my toys or fire trucks. Ship. I was pretty fanatic guy.

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He honestly, I'm serious, man. So so I was way before

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hockey. I didn't even get in
the hockey because in high school. So

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it's kind of crazy, but I've
been drinking a lot, so uh you

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know, and uh, in fact, I remember asked my mom for a

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yellow raincoat and I had a red
plastic fire helmet. And on Sundays,

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man, my dad would barbecue every
Sunday, and we had one of those

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those nice grills. Uh, there's
a lot of brick mortar and with a

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chimney. Then he said he pulled
that last slab off. He's there.

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You go, Rico, You're gonna
have it. He knew exactly what the

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fuck I was getting ready to do. And I was pretending I had a

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fire and I go over there and
put that ship out. You know,

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this hardcore man I thought I was. And so that's where I kind of

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got the whole idea that I really
wanted to do this type of work and

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uh family in the business. You
had no family, family in the business.

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It was just that television show man
and I uh so. But when

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I got a little bit older,
I was trying to decide, well,

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how the hell do I prepare to
do this? And I took a first

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DAID and CPR course over at the
Red Cross. Seemed like a novel idea,

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except when I got there, I
realized as the only kid in the

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whole fucking class, these off people, I had to get this certification so

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they can, you know, for
their jobs or whatever. Hear this eighth

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grader is going I want to learn
And I was so scared, man,

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and I was about to leave.
I remember thinking my mom dropped me off

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was the only reason I couldn't leave. So I had to stay in the

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course that day. And when I
was leaving, the one of the people,

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or one of the adults in the
class asked me if I was coming

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back next time or they'll see me
next time, and I was like,

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damn. They put me under their
wing guys, and they actually helped me,

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and I helped them because I gave
them inspiration. This kid can do

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it. I can do it.
And I got certified man, and then

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I had these cards. Oh yay, What the fuck am I gonna do

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with those? Right? I was
waiting for somebody to go down, man,

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stay away from the light, little
buddies. I think I got into

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high school and I got this rare
opportunity. Our athletic trainer in the school

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was looking for somebody to be the
water boy. It's a better term to

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call a student athletic trainer. But
that's where I got my start because I

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thought I was. I literally was
so listen, Rico, what say something

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up. I got my start dealing
with patients and injuries and ship. So

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that's what I was kind of trying
to mold myself into what the future would

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be. And uh, my sophomore
year is when I got an opportunity to

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work with the hockey team. And
I was assigned to the hockey team,

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and I knew a little bit about
the sport, but as when I was

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on the bench and I seen it
actually happen, I said, holy ship.

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Like that, I had to learn
how to ice skate, and so

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I learned how to skate with the
team, which was crazy because we had

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a really good team. Are we
talking here? Is this high school years

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old? Fifteen years old old?
Yeah? And so fifteen years old,

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I decided I wanted to join the
sport and I started playing when I definitely

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should not have been yet. Guys
were I was getting I had so much

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not on the chin, I just
wiped my chin off, not my nose

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and shit, and some guys hit
me so hard. Man. I'm telling

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you, it was crazy times back
then. Somehow I done my ass,

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stayed in the sport, but I
found my passion. But I got to

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tell you, in the meantime of
that, I still kept course. I

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wanted to be a firefighter. And
I had this this mind blowing experience while

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in high school as a student trainer. I was assigned to the baseball team

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and our star pitcher collapsed and went
to a full arrest. And I had

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never seen anything like that in my
life. And I tell young people this

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when I tell the story, I
said, remember them cards. I I

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told you, I don't know what
to do with fuck. I had to

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do something with those cards. And
his parents were there, the whole team

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was there, and I'm doing chest
compressions and so it kicked in like that,

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bro, did you kicked in?
It took me half a second because

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I was thinking he was just hit
his head. He was in seizures and

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I'd never seen a seizure before.
So I'm going and I'm trying to grab

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smelling thoughts, which was the cure
for shit like that back then. And

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the coach said, Grieco, get
your ass over here, and it kind

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of snapped me too, And then
when I got there, just started doing

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the ABC's and knows he wasn't breathing, And I started doing chest compressions at

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fifteen years old on this kid that
I go to school with, and his

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mom was helping me, and as
I'm doing chest compressions, she's she's all

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shook up and she's just blowing air
in his belly. I can't do chest

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compressions. He's puke and all.
It turned into a mess. Long story

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shorter. They whisked him to the
hospital and I'm in. I watched him

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shock him two or three times there
on the Unseen and what loulu I knew

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from the show emergency, I said, we did everything we could. We

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started right away. They shocked him
he's going to be Okay's eighteen and he

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died. You guys, that day
was a day that I thought I would

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I wanted to walk away from this
idea of helping people this way because I

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failed. I felt like I failed
right, Like we were there and it

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wasn't fucking emergency emergency. Everybody lived. So for me, it was not

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only that he was a guy I
go to school with. There was a

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pressure, but it was his mom
and the rest of the team who gathered

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around me. About four days after
this happened at the school, they caught

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me down the office. I was
kicking rocks all the way there because I

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was like, what the fuck did
I do? I just don't want to

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talk to anybody, leave me alone. And his mom put her arms around

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me and she said thank you,
and she said thank you for giving me

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hope and giving all of us hope. Wow. And that's the day,

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my friends, when I realized what
my destiny is. Like, I tell

208
00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.679
this story all the time to young
people that we don't we can't, we

209
00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:56.039
can't stop the crisis from happening in
most occasions, right, But all we

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00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:00.000
do is that we're that fucking hope
man. When you pick up that bar

211
00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:03.639
the hope begins, or when the
idea comes. I got a call and

212
00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:07.200
when we get there were the most
important thing in their hope field is getting

213
00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:11.359
these things. And so I got
an early lesson in that and helped kind

214
00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:18.200
of prepare me for what the future
would hold for me. So anyways,

215
00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.799
moving into my career, Uh,
I got it. I'd be a dumb

216
00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:26.119
ass to not admit this. That
how fanatic I was. I was fanatic

217
00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:29.759
to a point that it was stupid. I used to visit the fire station

218
00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:33.279
when I was a teenager, when
I was thirteen years old. I'd go

219
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:34.880
down the station one, our main
station, and I'd get to know the

220
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:38.000
guys. In fact, i'd come
in on shift three all the time,

221
00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:42.599
like as if it was my shift
and shit and say the guys and uh,

222
00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.200
one time I was coming through the
basement of the station. It was

223
00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:51.240
always wide open down the guy's parked
in the basement station And I was coming

224
00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:52.799
by this door and it was cracked
open. I said, the fox's in

225
00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.039
there. And I opened it up
and it was a quartermaster's room and I

226
00:17:56.079 --> 00:18:02.279
was, holy shit, this is
where ill there's shit is. And I

227
00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:10.279
got the man I tell my own
story. Yeah, on an hour,

228
00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:15.519
and then finally my dumb ass puts
sh it in a bag and I fucking

229
00:18:15.559 --> 00:18:18.039
throw it on my shoulder like I'm
Santa Claus hickschhike on my bike up the

230
00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:22.640
road and I take the ship home
to pretend I'm a firefighter. Right,

231
00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:27.880
I'm thirteen years old. I got
the I'm buddies with all the firefighters.

232
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My mom, I love my mom. She said, wait a minute,

233
00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:37.440
Rico, but did you get this
stuff from just threw it out? And

234
00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:42.400
she says, oh, they threw
it out the fire department man and the

235
00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:47.519
fucking battalion comes to my house.
And this is a battalion I knew.

236
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I'm like under the sheets. He's
like, thank you, ma'am, and

237
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I'm thinking, oh fuck, I'm
in trouble. So a few weeks go

238
00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.880
by and I show back. I
had the balls to show back up to

239
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the firehouse and the officer said,
preme here. First time at ever went

240
00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:03.000
upstairs where the dorms are, because
that day officers called me and said,

241
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:07.000
you disappointed us man. You can't
allow you to come back. Man.

242
00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:08.720
We know you're a good guy,
but you you cross the line and I

243
00:19:08.839 --> 00:19:14.319
was heartbroken. Oh my god,
really believe this shit right? So I

244
00:19:14.359 --> 00:19:17.359
still didn't lose my scope. That
is what I wanted to do. I

245
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:21.359
just didn't know where if I end
up in Flint or not. But as

246
00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:26.519
chance would have it, I followed
my quest and I started going to school,

247
00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:30.759
and after high school, I didn't
know what I wanted to do exactly

248
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.440
by knowing when to be a firefighter, so I started the journey from there.

249
00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:40.759
Man, it's kind of I'm very
vulnerable telling that type of story,

250
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:45.799
because let me tell you a quick
story, a little of that. One

251
00:19:45.799 --> 00:19:48.960
of the veteran firefighters. I may
talk about it more than once. George

252
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.759
Woods. Those are listening, no, Georgia, cracking up right now.

253
00:19:51.799 --> 00:19:56.079
They know he's going to say some
silly shit. But the assistant chief was

254
00:19:56.119 --> 00:19:57.759
having lunch with us. He was
drinking soup, and I was a young

255
00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:02.359
firefighter, and he says, hey, Chief, I know why you hired

256
00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:11.759
Rico. Why is that he came
fully equipped. Some of the guys knew

257
00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:14.319
the Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, he's one of the first ones.

258
00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:21.079
When I first got the job.
He says, hey, I remember out

259
00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:22.599
in front of my and when I'm
in the academy, So I had to

260
00:20:22.599 --> 00:20:26.160
go tell everybody in the academy so
I can tell my story. You stole

261
00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:33.200
that that radio and equipment. I'm
like, oh fuck weeks now and I'm

262
00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.720
like, oh, fuck this dude. And he ends up winds out being

263
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:40.960
like my best friend in the whole
world. Day he passed away, he

264
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:44.119
got rest of his soul, but
he's he's one of the best guys I

265
00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:47.119
ever got to know in the department. So do you do? You take

266
00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:52.839
a test? So yeah, we
took a civil service exam. It was

267
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:56.799
like two thousand people applying for eighteen
jobs. And uh, this was my

268
00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:02.759
second time taking eighteen jobs. Yeah, first time I took it, I

269
00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:08.119
didn't get the job. I made
it as far as the oral interview,

270
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:12.039
but there was a hiring freeze that
happened, so I didn't get the job.

271
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:15.720
So I had to go through the
whole thing all over again. And

272
00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:19.119
that's when there was twenty eighteen.
And by then I had become a Flint

273
00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:22.839
Township firefighter though, so I had
some credentials that were working in my favor

274
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:29.480
now, so I moved volunteer.
We call them on call firefighters because they're

275
00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:33.440
paid when they're on the call.
Yeah, so not fully volunteer, but

276
00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:37.799
paid while they're working. And so
that's when I when I went to Flint

277
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:42.039
Township and got my my my start
and all this. It was a real

278
00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:48.160
learning curve. We did things differently, Like the chauffeur was the was the

279
00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:52.480
only firefighter at the station. He
was the officer, the driver, the

280
00:21:52.519 --> 00:22:00.319
firefighters. Everything's still do to the
day, the mayor, to the call,

281
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.920
and then they take it right in
the next All right, I'll take

282
00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:19.480
around so water the water. The
chive guys show up because they're they're full

283
00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:23.079
timers. Then the call guys show
up, and then they're the crew.

284
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:26.480
Imagine going to a huddle and go
all right, who we got here?

285
00:22:27.079 --> 00:22:32.319
You got to know everybody's capabilities right
now based on who you got right now.

286
00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:36.160
Right. So it was kind of
crazy times for me, uh get

287
00:22:36.200 --> 00:22:41.039
my teeth dirty. But I remember
my first fire there. It was uh,

288
00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:45.359
it was at a at a grocery
s towards my wife and we had

289
00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:52.200
the pager and the pager went off, cool in the line, what do

290
00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:57.279
I do? And man, and
I'm like, get get our groceries,

291
00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.759
let me you up front, and
so I drive like a fool out of

292
00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:04.319
hell to go to this chimney fire
who wasn't the big fire, but it

293
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:10.559
was my first, right and I'm
shaking and trying to get my nerves straight

294
00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:14.599
and I'm okay, But I gotta
tell you, guys, my first month

295
00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:18.799
as a firefighter in Flant Township,
I found out what was really, uh,

296
00:23:18.039 --> 00:23:22.920
some of the worst parts of our
jobs. And one weekend, I

297
00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:27.079
uh, we pulled a grandmother and
two two small kids out of house and

298
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:30.680
we didn't pull them out in time. They had burned significantly by the time

299
00:23:30.680 --> 00:23:36.000
we got to them, and so
it was afterwards of recovery and I just

300
00:23:36.039 --> 00:23:38.200
never forget. The one thing that
stuck on my mind is when we got

301
00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:41.440
inside to get to the kids,
they were actually in bed still, and

302
00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:45.839
they were hugging each other and they
looked like little guys and all You're like,

303
00:23:45.039 --> 00:23:49.519
fuck, And then I turned around
and I seen the smoke detector hatch

304
00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:53.319
was open and dripping down and there
was no battery, and fucking stuck in

305
00:23:53.359 --> 00:23:56.559
my mind, fucking stuck in my
mind, like, holy shit, if

306
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:00.359
they could have just known, they
could have got out of here. And

307
00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:04.240
so that was And then two days
later Like I said, we respond to

308
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:07.160
the emergencies, and the idea was
to meet the truck there. Well,

309
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:11.319
this is a fucking fire happened.
There is a car accident actually actually happened

310
00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:17.039
right around the block from me on
the expressway. This van jumped over all

311
00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:19.599
of the road and crashed down,
and then the motor smashed back on this

312
00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:23.880
guy's leg and had him trapped.
And as I'm coming across, there's no

313
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:27.920
truck, no nobody on sen yet, just me and I watched this van

314
00:24:29.039 --> 00:24:30.880
take off and then I see this
guy scream to death. Man, there's

315
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:36.480
nothing I can do. Base fall. It was fucked up. Oh my

316
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:41.559
god, rude awakening to the to
the job. And I remember we didn't

317
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:44.920
have critical incident stress management then yet, you know, and so this is

318
00:24:45.079 --> 00:24:51.440
ninety one actually, and I remember
kind of uh saying I'm okay, I'm

319
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:55.640
okay, I'm okay, and she
said get your ass to the station now.

320
00:24:55.960 --> 00:24:59.039
And and then I talked to other
guys. They said, man,

321
00:24:59.079 --> 00:25:02.039
none of us have ever seen anything
close to anything like that. Dude.

322
00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:06.759
So I share those two stories because
it really helps set my career up in

323
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:10.559
a sense, like anything I was
gonna have to overcome. Now, if

324
00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:12.759
I'm still here, it hasn't killed
me, So I'm gonna be all right.

325
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:15.279
You know, it's it's not gonna
be easy. But the one thing

326
00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:19.000
I was able to gather is empathy
for others that were going through similar situations.

327
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:22.559
They were well, they say,
what doesn't kill you makes you strong?

328
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:27.480
Right man? Wow? Right before
we get to the paid career,

329
00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:34.079
you had a short career, uh
as a singer. Right, as a

330
00:25:34.119 --> 00:25:42.039
singer. I think he does video
of them, Yeah, just a little

331
00:25:42.119 --> 00:26:11.119
check it out? Pretty good that
ship Swabby. I'm sure some guys are

332
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:17.119
cracking quite a few years of my
life. Oh yeah, yeah I was.

333
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:21.279
That was like the middle nineties,
right ninety Bro, Guys that are

334
00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:26.319
on listening right now, young guys
are going, what the fun was doing

335
00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:37.720
the Rico Swab guy recently? Never
mind? I mean, I mean,

336
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:41.640
if you ever hear Rico, the
name Rico, I mean, if it's

337
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.559
Swaby doesn't pop, I don't know
what the heck is going on that time,

338
00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:51.000
right? I think it was the
one hit. Wonder to what it

339
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.920
looks like? Yeah, yeah,
to put did you see did you see

340
00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:02.400
Rico space? When you're like,
ye, it was like this I put

341
00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:07.759
that on. That probably probably get
copyrighted for that little thing, hopefully not

342
00:27:07.799 --> 00:27:14.519
with what we have video recorders.
Yea, yeah, I got Yeah,

343
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:18.880
you can use all the money you
can get. I'm sure. Yeah,

344
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:22.559
probably right. You probably needs a
few bucks. That guy getting Fox game,

345
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:32.200
that too. CAVALRICI remember only jacket
broh Yeah, man, I face

346
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:38.519
Cavalricis and parachute pants, little as
I had little abness ship, the battery,

347
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:48.680
the s bro. If you had
Jordan ash Hey, listen, if

348
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:52.960
you if you're a hockey guy,
what's what was uh? You remember Ronnie

349
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:56.640
du Gay in his commercial? What
what pants did he have on? Cool?

350
00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:06.799
Do you remember soon? Him?
Phil Esposito? They all have lost

351
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:12.720
soon. That was like the seventies. Oh ship all right exactly, Brian

352
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:18.519
Webber, Thanks, that's gonna be
playing for the whole show like this all

353
00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:33.039
night. Wow. That was right
before he went pro. If you will

354
00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:40.519
played hockey, he had a ship
shirt going hold on, we got we

355
00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:45.000
got a couple of pictures of him
and probably uh yeah, yeah, my

356
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:51.359
first turn up gear we have we
have a little skin on my bones.

357
00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:55.319
Then right, he's got he's got
the porn mustache. The eighties poorn mustache.

358
00:28:56.039 --> 00:28:59.839
Wow, wow, bro, we
had must everybody had a mustache back.

359
00:29:00.039 --> 00:29:04.720
It's like cologne. Yeah, man, there it goes with the fog

360
00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:15.400
novel for sure. She got that's
the probably pictures. Yeah, guys,

361
00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:21.119
I hired in with on the sheet
next to it. The uh. I

362
00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:22.599
don't know if how it is where
you guys are, but we all had

363
00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.519
to buy ice cream for the crew
after that ship. So it was a

364
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:33.039
running joke ice cream or a square
big Hey, I'm just saying ice cream.

365
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:37.640
I'm just that's the I. Uh, you know, you didn't.

366
00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:42.160
I didn't see you do this.
I had to buy ice cream before it

367
00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:49.759
was over. I bought many gallons
and gallons around there. That's crazy.

368
00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:56.200
You're doing the on cold painting and
then it's not too long after you get

369
00:29:56.279 --> 00:30:00.720
high. Right. Yeah. Within
a year I was with the city where

370
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:03.160
I always intended to be. That's
where I visited as a kid and got

371
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:08.079
my inspiration for guys like Sam Stewart
and Jack Smyth, who who I had

372
00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:11.400
noticed. Like I said, I
used to visit, so I already had

373
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:17.799
my inspiration there. And then when
I started, there was eighteen of us

374
00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:21.720
and we went through the probably the
first academy where we had to do pet

375
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.200
and all these other shit, you
know, and so it was new.

376
00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:29.000
We had a chief from Detroit who
who left Detroit to come up there to

377
00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:33.599
be our chief. He impressed we
had to be runners, and I was

378
00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:37.039
never a runner, man. I
hated that part of this shit. Man.

379
00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:41.000
But I tell you what, we
bonded together because there was a new

380
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:42.559
challenge by all of us and shit
like that. You know how it goes

381
00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:47.640
when you're in the academy. It's
good stuff, man. And most of

382
00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:49.599
those guys we you know, we
ended up having a great career out of

383
00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:52.960
it. Some of them left earlier
than others, but you know how that

384
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.680
goes. Yep. How was it
when you first got into the firehouse?

385
00:30:57.079 --> 00:31:00.880
You know? I was uh when
my first group. What they did with

386
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:07.279
us is they you had to write. There was a engine, pumper and

387
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:10.960
then a squad which responded to every
fire. We only had two squads in

388
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:14.359
the city. They were our air
supply as well as all the equipment and

389
00:31:14.440 --> 00:31:19.799
manpower. It's the role and the
the UH, the engine would be also

390
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:26.039
medical emergencies as well as UH running
on first runs on fires or all the

391
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:29.359
other emergencies. And then we did
have a ladder truck back in the day.

392
00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:30.519
It was it was at the time
that I was there. It was

393
00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:36.440
only manned by one person. Yeah, one guy is still that way.

394
00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:38.680
In fact, they may even swing
the guy over there. Now I'm not

395
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:42.000
sure swing the whole crew over if
they need a ladder. So yeah,

396
00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:47.279
it was really one ladder company in
Flint. Only one ladder company in Flint.

397
00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:52.519
What right, I mean going,
well, they were going that ladder

398
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:57.960
company though it was only responding to
commercial structures and high rise of course so

399
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:07.160
BA and the the energy companies.
H yeah, for the squad squad Squad

400
00:32:07.160 --> 00:32:09.880
company did the Lewis Squad I was
going to work, Yeah, keep the

401
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:14.240
squad right right, So we had
to do and they went to every fire

402
00:32:14.359 --> 00:32:17.240
no matter what. So when I
first started, you were signed either station

403
00:32:17.359 --> 00:32:21.920
one or three because they had both
squad all the trucks, or you had

404
00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:24.200
to rotate maybe, but you spent
one month on the on the ambulance,

405
00:32:24.200 --> 00:32:27.480
one month on the squad, one
month on the pumper. And so my

406
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:30.319
first month was then them boys wanted
were just looking for fresh meet. I

407
00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:37.000
got on that fucking box ambulance man
for thirty days man, or you know,

408
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:39.720
nine ships, And I was like, because we do twenty four hours

409
00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:44.559
on forty eight is off with forty
eight hours off with Kelly Day. So

410
00:32:44.599 --> 00:32:49.920
it's nine ships and paid fifty point
four, you know. And so my

411
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.440
first month, man, I got
dogged out in an ambulance. But it

412
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:57.160
was crazy because I was with a
driver, Dave Berlinsky, and he was

413
00:32:57.200 --> 00:32:59.799
assigned to it. That was his
job, used to drive the ambulance at

414
00:32:59.799 --> 00:33:01.920
the time, and we had first
drivers on the ambulits. That was like

415
00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:05.599
the worst thing he could do to
a guy. Man. He was tortured

416
00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:07.480
by that work all day, every
day. So here I am a rookie

417
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:12.119
proby hell, I can't wait to
go on the next freaking call. Man,

418
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:19.759
And he's a man, but bring
the spirit down. So by the

419
00:33:19.799 --> 00:33:22.519
time I got there, it was
almost like, what's wrong, you know,

420
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:24.559
it's just barely just one barely wanted
to talk to anybody. But it's

421
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:27.920
just because he's burned down on that
type of work, you know. And

422
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:30.319
they ended up changing the system around, so it wasn't quite like that.

423
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:37.200
But so my first what kind of
did the squad have? Rica? So

424
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:39.680
it was uh so you see may
have seen, uh, you'll see a

425
00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:45.720
picture later of our first it was
basically a milk truck. It was a

426
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:51.480
panel truck and I had uh,
maybe ten or twelve bottles on it to

427
00:33:51.880 --> 00:33:53.759
change over and then the jaws of
life are on it, the fans are

428
00:33:53.799 --> 00:34:00.480
on its. Yeah, some truck
tools. You know. We all basically

429
00:34:00.519 --> 00:34:05.400
had the acts in our department.
You were a truckie, you're engine guy,

430
00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:07.760
you were everything. Man trying to
get a picture of it. But

431
00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:10.679
is that what looks like it's similar
to that. Yeah, yeah, there's

432
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:15.239
one that's from Flint Township, actually
Flint Township's squad back in the day.

433
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:22.480
So basically the way it worked is
around about the eighties mid eighties, all

434
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:24.440
of a sudden, the city started
taking a bit of a downturn. So

435
00:34:24.519 --> 00:34:28.400
we started cutting back, as it
happens, you know, and so I

436
00:34:28.440 --> 00:34:30.559
had to do things a little bit
more like on demand. So there'd be

437
00:34:30.679 --> 00:34:35.440
days we'd have four guys on a
pump and four guys on a squad and

438
00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:37.000
two guys on a ladder. But
those were rare days. In the winter,

439
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:42.079
like all summer, you're running three
man pumps, two man squads,

440
00:34:42.199 --> 00:34:45.039
or one man you know, and
so it started to get worse and worse

441
00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:49.199
as time started to progress. Because
when I say worse, I mean worse

442
00:34:49.239 --> 00:34:52.719
than the numbers on the trucks before
two win two out rules came into play,

443
00:34:53.320 --> 00:35:00.159
in particular, because you know,
part of the story of Flint is

444
00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:06.400
that we went through been through tough
times because we had all of our eggs

445
00:35:06.400 --> 00:35:09.079
in one basket here as a government, as a community, and that's with

446
00:35:09.159 --> 00:35:15.679
General Motors. So like nineteen ninety
eight General Motors, there's a UAW strike

447
00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:19.840
and right after that, General Motors
decides they're going to pull the world headquarters

448
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:23.000
and stakes right the hell out of
Flint, and it left us just hanging.

449
00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:29.519
So what happens when that happens is
low tax rates. The citizens that

450
00:35:29.559 --> 00:35:32.920
are left, they're not necessarily the
workers, they're older. And so now

451
00:35:32.960 --> 00:35:37.199
you've got vacant houses everywhere, and
it becomes I mean, we already had

452
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:40.159
a problem with bacon house fires.
Now it's just off the charts. And

453
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:44.000
on top of that, they couldn't
afford us anymore. So then they cut

454
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:47.280
the staffing down so to bear bare
bones man bare bone, so low with

455
00:35:47.360 --> 00:35:52.559
all those people who are working in
General motors, all the you know,

456
00:35:52.679 --> 00:35:55.360
the diners and old people supply food
for them, they're all going to go

457
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:00.320
out of business because they don't have
that clientele anymore. Right, So where

458
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:02.760
the work went, the workers went, and that followed the mom and pop

459
00:36:02.760 --> 00:36:07.880
shops too. And if you look
at malls aren't a big thing anymore,

460
00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:13.000
but our malls, everything around our
our city started to suffer starting like two

461
00:36:13.039 --> 00:36:16.239
thousand and one after and that's what
kind of created some of the other debacles

462
00:36:16.239 --> 00:36:21.679
we've had in Flint. That's well
known. How many firehouses are in Flint.

463
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:28.039
In the peak, there were ten. I started with eight, right,

464
00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:32.559
good question. I think there's five
now somebody, if you're on there

465
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:37.000
right now, correct me if I'm
wrong. You know that you're from Flint.

466
00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:39.280
But yes, it's a it's a
very small number. Now. When

467
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:44.360
I started, there was one hundred
and fifty residents, fifty thousand residen one

468
00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:49.760
hundred and fifty thousand residents. Now
there's probably hovering around eighty eighty five thousand

469
00:36:49.800 --> 00:36:54.000
residents said twenty twenty is eighty one
thousand, yeah, eighty one. In

470
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:59.519
nineteen eighty it was one hundred and
five stations, half half of the residents

471
00:36:59.599 --> 00:37:02.480
left right Freako, How was it
like you guys were going to fires back

472
00:37:02.519 --> 00:37:07.440
then? Like, oh my god, yeah, like like so the problem

473
00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:09.920
with having a splinter crew like that
is you're all the whole city's going on

474
00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:14.239
all the same fires, so nobody's
getting a break. You don't matter if

475
00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:16.039
you're north, then south, and
the east or west. Everybody's going right,

476
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:21.000
everybody's going so the same fifteen to
seventeen firefighters. At one point when

477
00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:24.599
I in my career, we're fighting
every fire that came along everybody all the

478
00:37:24.639 --> 00:37:28.079
time. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, definitely, there's not

479
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:30.599
when I was even when we had
two hundred firefighters, we pretty much knew

480
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:35.559
everyone. That's all two hundred guys
knew that you stole that equipment back in

481
00:37:35.559 --> 00:37:40.039
the day. The goddamn If they
don't know they know now, then then

482
00:37:46.239 --> 00:37:52.719
where is it you're really a firefighter? We had we had some pictures of

483
00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:57.360
fires there, right, we have
a couple, Yes, you have the

484
00:37:58.079 --> 00:37:59.880
actually we have the good well we
pull up, do you want to?

485
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:06.480
So this is an average got her
uh you know. At one point another

486
00:38:06.559 --> 00:38:09.360
we had a lot of fire photographers, uh follow us around because we were

487
00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:14.440
catching fires all the time, and
this one just happened to be rock and

488
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:16.719
we actually had a crew inside during
this part when that firefights going on,

489
00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:22.639
and as uh, the guy that
was found himself uh in some near danger

490
00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:27.000
was Corey Palmer and him and another
guy. They got themselves out of their

491
00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:29.960
thank goodness, but they got Harry's
as you can see by that smoke condition

492
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:37.159
there, that's not looking good.
Yeah, sure, velvet, this is

493
00:38:37.159 --> 00:38:42.039
gonna taste like ship. Yeah.
That's I was driving at the time.

494
00:38:42.599 --> 00:38:46.400
And that's the type of building.
It's like a one yeah, yeah,

495
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:51.199
that was That's a typical house in
Flint, a single story. Uh.

496
00:38:51.679 --> 00:38:54.599
Sometimes we have some two stories in
the older sections of the community, but

497
00:38:54.639 --> 00:38:59.239
most of them are single story.
Wouldn't wouldn't frame don't have a whole lot

498
00:38:59.239 --> 00:39:07.239
of brick buildings here like that house
structures. Yeah, this Uh so this

499
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:14.440
is a piece of what's an average. We had to change our tactics and

500
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:16.880
I'm sure we'll share if we get
time to share one of the pictures of

501
00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:22.639
the guy, the battalion chief who
created a policy on our behalf. When

502
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:27.159
we started losing all our manpower,
we started to have to fight fires differently

503
00:39:27.159 --> 00:39:29.480
because guys were getting hurt. Man, and then when they're hurt, then

504
00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:31.840
we're running on real thin. You
know, it's getting worse and worse and

505
00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:36.400
worse. And and so we decided
that we had to do something about these

506
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:39.239
arson fires because in the past it
was just like any other structured fire.

507
00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:43.519
If it's one room and contents or
whatever, the ship's burning on the first

508
00:39:43.519 --> 00:39:45.679
floor, we're going in that fucker
and we're putting it out. But it

509
00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:49.119
started to be where we had to
wait for two and two outs, so

510
00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:52.119
that delays the actual fire fight itself
in a lot of ways. And so

511
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:59.039
we started to recognize that this was
a habitual vacant house or abandoned house,

512
00:39:59.079 --> 00:40:02.679
and we could termined off the front
that no one was trapped, and we'd

513
00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:06.679
let it burn to the ground.
And so what we would do is we'd

514
00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:09.280
set up a two and a half
with the water curtain in between the houses

515
00:40:09.280 --> 00:40:14.360
and the and the adjoining structures or
whatever else is around it, so we

516
00:40:14.360 --> 00:40:16.719
could contain it to just that one
building. And by the time we were

517
00:40:16.719 --> 00:40:20.480
done, when we started getting good
at it, there's there's nothing left but

518
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:23.400
a foundation, and it's like urban
renewal. But we don't like to call

519
00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:27.800
it that, of course, but
we you know say but I will say

520
00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:30.679
this, it's it was hard at
times. We're sitting on the fucking bumper

521
00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:35.280
watching the house burn to the ground. Everybody said what the right, bad

522
00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:38.679
PR, bad PR, But we
had to do what was best for our

523
00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:43.400
group. Everybody go home, man, Yeah, yeah, especially on some

524
00:40:43.400 --> 00:40:46.079
some bullshit vacers. I mean we
had arsonist running all throughout our community at

525
00:40:46.119 --> 00:40:50.480
one point, especially in the same
house, like five times already. Yeah,

526
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:53.880
yeah, exactly was one that was
this one. This is my my

527
00:40:53.960 --> 00:40:59.679
first Devil's night. Uh. The
firefighter partment. His officer, he was

528
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:02.599
a a newer sergeant, Rob Mada, and I used to call him the

529
00:41:02.679 --> 00:41:15.320
machuman Rob Mada. He was just
macho man. He was his Hispanic and

530
00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:19.840
he had a beautiful smile. He
always looked like talking about suave man,

531
00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:23.880
he actually was suavey. They always
had the ladies on his man. You

532
00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:30.199
know, he's that guy. He's
just so such a cool guy. And

533
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:34.920
sorry, I'll bring some of the
music back I got. Yeah, I'm

534
00:41:34.960 --> 00:41:39.639
sorry, robbed and I on that
structure. Man, it's the first time

535
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:44.119
that I was actually next to one
of those burning the hell down like that.

536
00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:50.119
And I'm behind him and and and
I am just fucking cooking, man,

537
00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:52.760
I mean cooking like I want to. I want to get out of

538
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:55.159
there, but he's standing here,
and he's in front of me, and

539
00:41:55.159 --> 00:42:05.800
he's in front of me. Man, it's sucking hot. We man says

540
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:12.239
it. I'm back. Did you
say he was the officer? Yeah,

541
00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:15.960
he was my officer. The pipe
you should have to pipe. So our

542
00:42:16.039 --> 00:42:20.480
sergeants on our squads in particular,
and a lot of our sergeants if their

543
00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:23.800
second on the second truck in yeah, they may have a pipe and the

544
00:42:23.880 --> 00:42:29.039
end of their hands. Really.
Yeah, it's one thing about our department.

545
00:42:29.079 --> 00:42:31.280
And I could probably say that we're
jack of all trades. We do

546
00:42:31.360 --> 00:42:35.880
every every job that there is,
and it's sad that it has to be

547
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.039
that way, but we've adapted.
So that's our style. So when we

548
00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:40.800
see others do it a different way, we're almost like, what are they

549
00:42:40.840 --> 00:42:45.760
doing the same thing? We know
what you're doing, but why are you

550
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:49.400
doing it that way? On the
show, a lot like yeah, Dan,

551
00:42:49.480 --> 00:42:52.639
why we show up with like fifty
guys for for one bill? We

552
00:42:52.800 --> 00:42:54.239
kill it with man, but we
can't get another guy in the room,

553
00:42:54.800 --> 00:43:00.800
eat it out. We beat it
out with another guy. For me,

554
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:07.639
I'm in they're poking a whole one
ak and somebody anybody, how is it?

555
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:13.119
Uh? What is Devil's Night?
Like? Yeah, so Devil's Night.

556
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:15.920
For those of you that don't understand
the phenomenon, it was really originated

557
00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:21.840
back in the mid eighties in Detroit. Detroit was going through their own spell

558
00:43:21.880 --> 00:43:23.599
like we're a baby Detroit, Mini
Detroit. How do you want to put

559
00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:28.840
it? Basically, whatever happens to
that big city is a reflection what happens

560
00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:31.480
here all the way back to the
Detroit riots from sixty seven. We had

561
00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:36.639
riots here in Flint shortly thereafter,
so we kind of follow them in trends

562
00:43:36.679 --> 00:43:40.280
like that for whatever reason. But
anyways, when the what they would do

563
00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:45.280
is it would it'd be Originally,
from what I understand, it was gang

564
00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:51.079
members that were jumping into their gangs
by setting arsen showing that they're brave to

565
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:53.920
set an arson fire, and so
then it's just started getting out of control

566
00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:58.000
and the whole city's on fire and
Detroit well up in Flint we said whoa,

567
00:43:58.039 --> 00:44:00.840
whoa, whoa, whoa. So
the following year, like eighty six

568
00:44:00.960 --> 00:44:05.280
or seven. It became a phenomenon
here and by the time I got a

569
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:09.440
job in ninety two ninety three,
it was a big deal. And like

570
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:15.519
that particular fire that you showed,
I was on a squad truck that night.

571
00:44:16.039 --> 00:44:21.159
The squad was going to every fire. Well, you can only go

572
00:44:21.199 --> 00:44:23.599
to so many fires in one night. There was actually two hundred calls for

573
00:44:23.599 --> 00:44:27.599
the fires that night, whether it
be a car fire, grass fire,

574
00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:31.039
or certainly structure fires. Well over
sixty structure fires that night. So I

575
00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:36.239
was on a squad that in twelve
hours, we were eleven separate fires and

576
00:44:36.280 --> 00:44:38.800
we're doing everything from squad work to
I mean, it was crazy. I

577
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:44.199
remember when I overtime. It come
in that night and I said, hey,

578
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:45.440
Cap, I said, you might
if I ride the squad so I

579
00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:47.840
can see some action to night.
He said, yeah, go ahead,

580
00:44:47.920 --> 00:44:52.840
ree. The guy comes in about
twenty minutes early, the call goes out

581
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:54.760
for the first structure fire, and
I didn't see the firehouse for like seven

582
00:44:54.840 --> 00:44:59.360
hours. When we were completely out
of air, completely out of everything,

583
00:44:59.360 --> 00:45:00.800
we had to go back can I
was with some old guys, Ah,

584
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:02.880
no, we can't go to no
more. And I was like, oh,

585
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:06.880
but and by the time it was
over, I was so grateful those

586
00:45:06.880 --> 00:45:09.480
old guys skin got it a break, because I said, what in the

587
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:15.239
fuck did I do? We were
crazy ructure fires. To go to structure

588
00:45:15.239 --> 00:45:19.119
fires, we had to pass them
because we weren't you know, that wasn't

589
00:45:19.119 --> 00:45:23.320
our assignment. So it was crazy
as hell in the beginning of Devil's Night.

590
00:45:23.360 --> 00:45:28.599
And slowly but surely the department started
to say, we we just can't

591
00:45:28.639 --> 00:45:32.119
do this on our own, and
we decided to have task forces on Devil's

592
00:45:32.199 --> 00:45:36.760
Night, so we brought an on
call or volunteer fire departments from throughout the

593
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.559
county and they actually worked alongside of
us. So they come to our firehouse

594
00:45:39.599 --> 00:45:45.159
and so if there's a fire in
this station's territory, that whole crew had

595
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:47.199
a whole working crew of firefighters to
go to that. I'm probably happy to

596
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:52.159
do that. Oh hell yeah,
man, you talk about going hang out

597
00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:59.440
in the turnout room, Yes,
coming off of that gear and trying to

598
00:45:59.440 --> 00:46:04.039
share a store. But they got
some great experience from us. Sometimes we

599
00:46:04.079 --> 00:46:07.719
didn't like the atmosphere because it's almost
like a festive atmosphere, and really it's

600
00:46:07.800 --> 00:46:10.679
like, what the fuck, you
know, because tomorrow morning. We're gonna

601
00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:14.480
be right back at it after you
guys are gone kind of thing, you

602
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.440
know, because you use the last
about three day span where you're just constantly

603
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:20.679
fighting fire. It only actually stopped
right when people used to stop walking the

604
00:46:20.719 --> 00:46:23.679
streets right the community. Yeah,
yeah, right, for sure. That's

605
00:46:24.239 --> 00:46:30.039
between the abandonment of the city and
the lack of the people actually walking and

606
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:32.039
taking care of their neighborhood. I
mean, you go down some streets and

607
00:46:32.079 --> 00:46:35.760
flint right now, you don't know
where the sidewalk is because it's so over

608
00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:38.000
grown, So people have to walk
in the streets, you know. And

609
00:46:38.039 --> 00:46:44.440
this is all a byproduct of like
I said, general motors putting a flint,

610
00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:47.119
putting General motors in their only baskets. So we didn't diversify our industry,

611
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:50.880
which means you know, you know
what that means. I don't have

612
00:46:50.880 --> 00:46:52.840
to explain. Maybe I do because
you come from a big conglomerate, but

613
00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:57.559
in a small city like this,
it defines a city like ours, and

614
00:46:57.599 --> 00:47:02.480
so fucking also define what happens they
leave. What I wanted to ask you

615
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:07.400
how was when you got there?
What was the makeup of the fight upontment?

616
00:47:07.559 --> 00:47:10.000
Was it? Is? It mostly
white? Is it mostly black?

617
00:47:10.320 --> 00:47:14.000
You know? How was that?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, that's by

618
00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:16.840
the time I got there was pretty
diverse. Like. So, one thing

619
00:47:16.840 --> 00:47:21.280
that happened in my career is I
actually became a historian of the fire department.

620
00:47:21.320 --> 00:47:24.519
And I could date back to nineteen
sixty one when Joe Davis became Flint's

621
00:47:24.519 --> 00:47:30.480
first black firefighter, and it was
another twelve or thirteen years before a group

622
00:47:30.519 --> 00:47:35.559
of black firefighters came in. So
he's he went through the whole sixties and

623
00:47:35.599 --> 00:47:39.400
through all that strife that was going
through sixties somewhat alone. Wow in that

624
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:44.159
sense. Yeah, And so the
first black firefighters came along in seventy three

625
00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:50.599
as a group. It started to
change the complexity complexions for lack of a

626
00:47:50.599 --> 00:47:53.719
better term, of the department.
But so we had it. I would

627
00:47:53.760 --> 00:47:57.920
say it was around fifty to fifty
give or take, you know, as

628
00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:01.920
far as racist were concerned. And
we also had LATINX you know, Mexican,

629
00:48:02.239 --> 00:48:08.519
Hispanic. Also we had women.
So our first women came on the

630
00:48:08.599 --> 00:48:13.840
job in nineteen eighty five and the
chief at the time was a different chief

631
00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:16.599
that came from Detroit, and it
was his mission to to bring women on

632
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:22.719
the department. So when they came
aboard, you know, they were certainly

633
00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:27.280
met with what a lot of women
met in early years of firefighting. You

634
00:48:27.320 --> 00:48:30.800
know, they were they kind of
banded together and always have stuck together.

635
00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:32.480
Though I don't know if you have
known of any groups of women that hired

636
00:48:32.519 --> 00:48:38.079
in early on. Oh yeah,
And they kept that way the entire career.

637
00:48:38.119 --> 00:48:43.079
And I don't blame them, and
I sometimes admired that. Sometimes I

638
00:48:43.079 --> 00:48:45.840
didn't, of course, but most
times I admired that because I wish that

639
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:50.679
I could have the same type of
bond with with a group of people that

640
00:48:50.679 --> 00:48:54.440
I hired in like that. But
so I got into the union early on,

641
00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.960
right, I've gotten a flip.
Firefighters Local three fifty two National Association

642
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.599
of Firefighters, proud union member.
My dad was a union member of the

643
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:07.920
UAW. He worked for the shop. That's how we got up. Our

644
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:12.159
family got up to Flint, Michigan, and so I had I had big

645
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:15.679
dreams of Brander because I remembered when
I was a kid, I went to

646
00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:22.360
this big event called the Firefighters field
Day Festival or Firefighters Festival, excuse me,

647
00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:27.199
Firefighters Festival. And when I was
a kid, with all the fire

648
00:49:27.199 --> 00:49:30.559
trucks in town were there and they
had water ball going on one of those

649
00:49:30.599 --> 00:49:34.000
types of events, and I remember
sitting on the fire truck and pulling that

650
00:49:34.079 --> 00:49:37.760
damn American le France bell, right, that's name. I want to do

651
00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:40.119
this. So when I got on
the job, we had a little bit.

652
00:49:40.199 --> 00:49:44.119
It was a bit of a softball
tournament. There was a few activities,

653
00:49:44.119 --> 00:49:45.480
and I said, you know what, I think we can do this

654
00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:50.320
even better, bring it back to
old school. So I put together with

655
00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:52.320
a committee of people. Was certainly
wasn't me by myself. That's back when

656
00:49:53.119 --> 00:49:57.280
young people would say what do you
need, and you'd have old people like

657
00:49:57.400 --> 00:50:00.199
everybody, what do you need?
And you'd have a committee of people and

658
00:50:00.239 --> 00:50:04.039
we'd all disseminate duties and then all
get done. It wasn't just solely on

659
00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:08.199
one person's back, right, And
so we create recreated the firefighters Stiel Day

660
00:50:08.239 --> 00:50:13.239
Festival. And that's what really launched
my opportunity to become vice president of our

661
00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:15.239
union because they said, oh,
this guy, you went that far became

662
00:50:15.239 --> 00:50:19.400
a vice president of the union.
Yeah. So when I say vice president

663
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:24.679
of community relations as basically the second
vice president, and my job was creating

664
00:50:24.679 --> 00:50:30.920
opportunities for our department to be seen
in the positive public light, defend them

665
00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:37.039
if things weren't so positive, and
certainly create opportunities for our firefighters to have

666
00:50:37.199 --> 00:50:43.199
activities within the community and you know, give us something worthwhile to live for

667
00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:46.079
and be a part of. Show
God show some of those pictures of the

668
00:50:46.119 --> 00:50:53.960
pr pictures there, right, Okay, yeah, So now one of the

669
00:50:54.239 --> 00:50:59.679
people that intrigued me when I was
a young firefighter. I was in the

670
00:50:59.679 --> 00:51:05.760
fire Junior Fire Department program in my
school in Flint, and these firefighters will

671
00:51:05.800 --> 00:51:08.800
come out and you guys, you
could probably believe it is now that you

672
00:51:08.800 --> 00:51:12.960
know how fanatic I was. But
he had to take a test and basically

673
00:51:13.440 --> 00:51:16.440
each week you brought home this little
diagram to go over hazards in your house

674
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:20.239
with your parents and then take a
little test over what they talked about.

675
00:51:20.440 --> 00:51:22.599
So each week I aced the test, had everything, and I get promoted.

676
00:51:22.760 --> 00:51:27.800
So I got promoted all the way
to fire marshal, right, which

677
00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:30.440
didn't surprise many people that watched me
actually do it, talking about it ten

678
00:51:30.559 --> 00:51:36.480
years old as a fire marshal this
little group. So when I got into

679
00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:38.079
the department, I had an opportunity
to teach fire safety, and I was

680
00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:40.440
nervous as hell. Man, I
didn't have kids or anything. I didn't

681
00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:45.679
know what the sight of kids.
And this firefighter actually taught me fire safety

682
00:51:45.199 --> 00:51:49.440
in that class, pulled me in
his office and he gave me some tips

683
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:53.159
and he said, this is going
to be the most important part of your

684
00:51:53.159 --> 00:51:57.360
career. Yeah, man, how
to do this? And so it actually

685
00:51:57.400 --> 00:52:00.400
became a niche anybody that knows me
personally, he knows that I didn't just

686
00:52:00.480 --> 00:52:06.280
teach fire safety. I taught fire
safety. Is my the biggest probably part

687
00:52:06.280 --> 00:52:09.679
of my career is being able to
connect with our community and kids and adults

688
00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:15.920
everybody. But it all came because
because of uh, you know, those

689
00:52:15.960 --> 00:52:20.039
guys inspired me. And I gotta
I gotta tell you guys this because it's

690
00:52:20.039 --> 00:52:22.880
important for those that are listening right
now, young firefighters in particular. You

691
00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:28.199
know, I'm gonna leave some some
things, uh, some words of wisdom

692
00:52:28.239 --> 00:52:30.519
in the past or at the end
rather excuse me, but I think now

693
00:52:30.519 --> 00:52:37.039
that we're talking about fire prevention.
So I was a young firefighter and I

694
00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:39.159
was, uh, you know,
as you young firefighters do, you're ready

695
00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:42.719
for the next one. Man,
you can't wait to prove how how tough

696
00:52:42.760 --> 00:52:45.760
you are and how you can do
this job, and me as a skinny

697
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:49.400
fucker, you know, that's all
I was worried about. One of these

698
00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:51.960
guys I could actually do it,
improve in it. And so one night

699
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:53.159
I said to a senior guy,
said, man, I hope we catch

700
00:52:53.159 --> 00:52:57.079
a hot one tonight. Man,
I'm ready. He said what I said,

701
00:52:57.079 --> 00:52:58.960
Man, I'm ready. I hope
we catch a hot one to night.

702
00:52:59.039 --> 00:53:02.360
I'm ready. And he said,
what did you just say? And

703
00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:06.159
I told him again, and I'm
like, what the fuck is I start?

704
00:53:06.280 --> 00:53:07.920
You know? He said, So
let me get this right, Rico.

705
00:53:09.079 --> 00:53:14.079
You're hoping and wishing for someone to
have the worst night of they're fucking

706
00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:17.280
time, so you can prove to
us how tough you are. Said you're

707
00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:22.920
not fucking tough. And I was
like, damn. So between that and

708
00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:27.280
the opportunity to teach fire safety and
the fact that I seen that that smoke

709
00:53:27.320 --> 00:53:30.960
contector hanging with the those streets,
packers said, this has got to be

710
00:53:30.960 --> 00:53:35.920
part of my career. This is
more important than me responding to the emergencies.

711
00:53:35.920 --> 00:53:37.000
And so that's why the way I
looked at it. We used to

712
00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:39.480
say that old time. I hope
we go to work tonight. But you

713
00:53:39.519 --> 00:53:43.840
don't realize what people lose. I
mean, if they don't lose a life,

714
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:46.440
they don't lose a loved one,
they lose all their personal belongings.

715
00:53:46.440 --> 00:53:51.320
Probably it's from the fire, the
smoke damage. We're not talking about couches.

716
00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:58.840
We're talking about grandmall these pictures,
you know, irre right. And

717
00:53:59.239 --> 00:54:01.159
I figured it out not long after
that when I would leave fires, you

718
00:54:01.239 --> 00:54:05.199
guys, I still didn't feel good. It's not like I felt better about

719
00:54:05.199 --> 00:54:08.760
putting the fire out, especially at
not I mean, had occupied Bacon,

720
00:54:08.800 --> 00:54:12.320
I could give a fuck less,
but occupied I always felt like, damn,

721
00:54:12.880 --> 00:54:15.559
that sucks. Man. It never
felt right, no matter if the

722
00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:19.920
loss of life or not. It's
how it goes. But we'll get back

723
00:54:19.960 --> 00:54:22.079
to what you said, right.
You can't stop like you can't change any

724
00:54:22.119 --> 00:54:24.280
of that stuff, you know,
I mean, you hope to change it,

725
00:54:24.320 --> 00:54:28.320
but it's going to happen. And
you do the best you can do

726
00:54:28.440 --> 00:54:30.320
at those things. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not so good, you

727
00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:34.519
know for sure. That's what I
tell the young guys. Go to work,

728
00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:37.440
Timeland. How about we hope if
we do get cold to work.

729
00:54:37.480 --> 00:54:38.960
We just do a good job and
go home, all right, you know,

730
00:54:39.079 --> 00:54:42.519
right, Hey, that's probably a
better way, young guys. I

731
00:54:42.599 --> 00:54:45.920
hope we do a good job tonight
if we get called. Yeah, yeah,

732
00:54:45.039 --> 00:54:50.760
you don't have to wish on the
fire. It's gonna happen either way,

733
00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:53.760
right, yeah, right right,
yep. So two thousand and one,

734
00:54:53.880 --> 00:54:59.519
you're promoted to apparatus operator, which
it supposed to be like your chauffeur

735
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:02.960
calls first drivers. But we got
a little promotion. So that's how they

736
00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:07.760
gave us a promotion. Mccallins,
the apparatus operator. But yeah, that's

737
00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:09.519
kind of young in a firefighter's career. To be honest with you, I

738
00:55:09.519 --> 00:55:15.559
had about ten years on and because
everything had changed so quickly, it put

739
00:55:15.599 --> 00:55:19.599
people like myself out of the the
back seat into the front seat. I

740
00:55:19.679 --> 00:55:22.159
really wanted to be a driver my
whole career, to be honest with you,

741
00:55:22.199 --> 00:55:23.800
I used to watch the guys going
on the street. I ended up

742
00:55:23.800 --> 00:55:27.599
buying my own fire truck that she'll
see here a little bit. Wow,

743
00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:30.760
I got my own fucking fire truck. You talk about it. Yeah,

744
00:55:30.800 --> 00:55:40.559
he's probably look like this guy is
a geek firefighter. We've i bought that

745
00:55:40.599 --> 00:55:45.519
from the City of Flint. Man, Uh, well, I don't own

746
00:55:45.559 --> 00:55:49.000
it anymore, but uh I when
I was a kid that used to work

747
00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:51.920
in my neighborhood, they had a
different number on It was Areial fifteen at

748
00:55:51.960 --> 00:55:53.639
the time, and so I used
to see it go by, and I

749
00:55:53.679 --> 00:55:58.079
knew the sound of the American of
Francis when they come down. Don't you

750
00:55:58.159 --> 00:56:00.679
know those distinct So yeah, i'd
always know if you and my friends at

751
00:56:00.719 --> 00:56:02.639
the back of the time, he
said, well, are you crazy?

752
00:56:02.679 --> 00:56:05.880
Man? There was no fire truck
coming, and then there one of them

753
00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:07.880
will go by. So when I
got a chance to buy this, I

754
00:56:07.920 --> 00:56:12.960
actually bought it from auction from the
city for one thousand dollars. You guys,

755
00:56:13.559 --> 00:56:16.119
wow, I couldn't believe I owned
it. And so when I said,

756
00:56:16.119 --> 00:56:20.039
what am I going to do with
this truck? And so that fire

757
00:56:20.079 --> 00:56:23.719
station you see it leaned up against
there, this old station too. It

758
00:56:23.800 --> 00:56:29.960
had been a decommissioned station and a
private owner owned it. He was a

759
00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:32.440
police officer. And I'm I'm looking
for this guy, and I didn't know

760
00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:36.000
he was looking for me. I
was looking for him because I needed a

761
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:38.079
place to park your truck. He's
looking for me because he needs someone to

762
00:56:38.079 --> 00:56:45.360
help put those storms up on that
window, right me. And I said,

763
00:56:46.119 --> 00:56:49.599
how about storage in the station for
the winner? And he said,

764
00:56:49.679 --> 00:56:53.480
all right, so quick story about
that particular fire truck. When it was

765
00:56:53.519 --> 00:56:59.920
first commissioned, it was commissioned in
that old firehouse right there. Wow,

766
00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:04.400
it's a nineteen sixty eight America of
France, and so that's where it actually

767
00:57:04.440 --> 00:57:07.840
got its birth with the City of
Flint, back when we had yellow yellow

768
00:57:07.920 --> 00:57:09.920
rigs, of course, and so
it was so cool to back it in

769
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:14.159
that old firehouse. Man. You
know, it's kind of creepy too because

770
00:57:14.199 --> 00:57:20.679
it's it's an old firehouse. But
that building wec's it still sits there.

771
00:57:20.800 --> 00:57:22.679
He sold it to a family member
and they're sitting. I know, we

772
00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:28.280
talked. He had talked about putting
a restaurant in it. But ultimately when

773
00:57:28.320 --> 00:57:31.559
I walked in that building, you
guys, and I seen the wooden ceiling

774
00:57:31.599 --> 00:57:37.960
in that building, all the woodworking
from the nineteen twenty six structure that is

775
00:57:37.519 --> 00:57:43.960
or twenty seven, no twenty six, anyways, all woodworking. I holy

776
00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:46.119
sh I could feel history in the
building. And so I said, hey,

777
00:57:46.639 --> 00:57:50.760
what do you think about if I
started a museum here, and he

778
00:57:50.920 --> 00:57:54.760
liked the idea. So I launched
a Flint Firefighters Historical Society in two thousand

779
00:57:54.800 --> 00:57:59.119
and three, two thousand and four
something like that, with being that I

780
00:57:59.159 --> 00:58:01.360
had that truck, and I really
went hard for it. I got a

781
00:58:01.400 --> 00:58:10.079
nonprofit Organization's just that's the firehouse right
there. Amazing. So the thing of

782
00:58:10.119 --> 00:58:14.960
it was, though, is I
had way more interest than time, and

783
00:58:15.039 --> 00:58:16.800
I had way more interest than other
people had interest. So I had to

784
00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:21.719
actually squash the whole plan. Man. I had to come to terms with

785
00:58:21.800 --> 00:58:23.559
that I wasn't gonna be able to
do it, and and I ended up

786
00:58:23.599 --> 00:58:27.840
squashing the whole thing. And it
was sad in the one sense. But

787
00:58:28.400 --> 00:58:30.159
I got so involved with hockey that
I was like, I can't do everything

788
00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:34.239
in this world, man, And
my son started playing hockey, so I

789
00:58:34.280 --> 00:58:37.480
started switching gears and shit like that. That's an amazing building, bro,

790
00:58:38.079 --> 00:58:42.280
what you do to end up doing
with the rig? So I sold at

791
00:58:42.320 --> 00:58:45.800
you guys, And I say it
like that because I didn't want to sell

792
00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:47.840
it, because there it is.
Yeah, I did not want to sell

793
00:58:47.880 --> 00:58:52.519
that truck because it had so much
sentimental value, not only to me,

794
00:58:52.199 --> 00:58:55.719
but so many retirees that when I
see them and i'd had the truck,

795
00:58:55.760 --> 00:58:59.559
they'd be just giving me a hug
and wanting to sit in a rig and

796
00:58:59.559 --> 00:59:06.719
ship because I used to take it
to uh to us oh shows and for

797
00:59:06.840 --> 00:59:08.519
lack of a better term, I
can't think of what they call it all

798
00:59:08.519 --> 00:59:13.119
of a sudden, but for for
fire trucks, right musters, thank you,

799
00:59:13.159 --> 00:59:15.719
I used to take to them.
We have a big muster here north

800
00:59:15.719 --> 00:59:19.159
of us, and so so I
bring it up there, and of course

801
00:59:19.320 --> 00:59:22.119
having a flint rig up there was
special within itself because they know it like

802
00:59:22.159 --> 00:59:23.840
I had. A guy. I
said, man, I need to really

803
00:59:23.840 --> 00:59:25.960
do some work on it, and
they said, man, them bumps and

804
00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:30.960
bruises means it actually did some work
in Flint. Fuck yeah. Yeah.

805
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.519
So I left it and and so
when I sold it, I didn't.

806
00:59:34.559 --> 00:59:37.880
I was like, man, I'm
gonna put it on eBay and hopefully some

807
00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:42.599
fuck in Ohio buys it and I
never have to see it here about it

808
00:59:42.599 --> 00:59:45.239
again. And so it sold and
I started looking the guy up and he's

809
00:59:45.239 --> 00:59:47.280
from Clio, and I said,
ah, ship. Clia is just the

810
00:59:47.320 --> 00:59:52.320
community north of me here, I
said, ship. So when we got

811
00:59:52.360 --> 00:59:54.079
together, and I talked to him. He's a firefighter and for a Clio

812
00:59:54.159 --> 01:00:00.000
Fire department and nicest guy. Him
and his wife came in and we talked

813
01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:02.800
and I told him the value of
this truck was way more than any bottom

814
01:00:02.800 --> 01:00:06.920
money. That's him right there.
Wow, he with the money that uh

815
01:00:07.559 --> 01:00:10.639
uh that that that's the day I
sold it to him too. He said,

816
01:00:10.679 --> 01:00:13.800
I'll take good care of it.
I promised you, Rico, and

817
01:00:13.840 --> 01:00:16.000
he continues. His wife sends me
pictures all the time with his kids on

818
01:00:16.039 --> 01:00:19.119
it, like my kids used to
sit on it and ship like that.

819
01:00:19.559 --> 01:00:22.760
I used to take it to parades
and just do fun stuff. My kids

820
01:00:22.760 --> 01:00:25.800
were getting older so their friends ride
with me on parades and it was just

821
01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:29.880
fun to have. And I also
take the schools when I was teaching fire

822
01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:31.559
safety and you passed it. You're
passing it on right, it could have

823
01:00:31.599 --> 01:00:36.440
been. Yeah, for sure.
I felt good about where it's at.

824
01:00:36.519 --> 01:00:38.840
I really do look at the flashlight
and then you're on the top of it.

825
01:00:39.199 --> 01:00:42.320
Yeah. Yeah, I had a
lot of original stuff. Of course,

826
01:00:42.360 --> 01:00:52.320
being a quartermaster didn't hurt. But
anyways, yeah for sure allegedly allegedly

827
01:00:52.360 --> 01:00:58.000
could have yeah nothing writing anyways,
Uh yeah, So my role in the

828
01:00:58.119 --> 01:01:02.239
in with the union though that it's
really what took me to a whole different

829
01:01:02.320 --> 01:01:07.280
level in my career. Like I
didn't really foresee it, but I knew

830
01:01:07.280 --> 01:01:10.000
that what was important to me was
that nobody realized what us firefighters did other

831
01:01:10.039 --> 01:01:14.400
than put fires out, so they've
seen this a crisis only. And I

832
01:01:14.480 --> 01:01:16.360
knew about fill the boot, and
I could go down to all the lists

833
01:01:16.360 --> 01:01:20.760
of pleasor of things that we do
outside of our job to help our community.

834
01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:23.840
And so I began to make it
my point to when I got the

835
01:01:23.920 --> 01:01:29.840
role with the union, to put
us in front of our local news media.

836
01:01:30.239 --> 01:01:32.679
And we have three stations here locally, which is not that typical for

837
01:01:32.760 --> 01:01:37.920
our city, our size, and
our area, so we basically have their

838
01:01:37.920 --> 01:01:42.719
attention and almost anything we were doing. And I just started saying, hey,

839
01:01:42.760 --> 01:01:45.760
we're doing this, and I'd be
there. Hi, I'm Rico filling

840
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:52.440
flying firefighters. I'm like, I'm
not sure if you've talked that, you

841
01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:55.360
know, And you know, He's
like, dude, that's all I did.

842
01:01:57.280 --> 01:02:00.760
You know, I'm sure people and
this is going, oh this fuck,

843
01:02:00.800 --> 01:02:06.039
you're here, But anyway, Yeah, so I started off that way.

844
01:02:06.079 --> 01:02:08.960
It wasn't something I actually planned.
I had a communications class in high

845
01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:13.760
school and that's really my only experience
with it. But I had this passion

846
01:02:13.800 --> 01:02:15.960
for what we do, and then
it just started to sing through. And

847
01:02:16.360 --> 01:02:24.239
what I did seems probably egotistical,
but I would I would videotape every interview,

848
01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:27.320
and not to say, oh,
look at me on TV, but

849
01:02:27.360 --> 01:02:34.119
to actually study my mannerisms, how
is and how news worked. I study

850
01:02:34.239 --> 01:02:37.599
news so that when it is my
turn, I wouldn't feel so nervous and

851
01:02:37.599 --> 01:02:39.159
anxious. I would select my words. I actually read books about it.

852
01:02:39.440 --> 01:02:44.480
And then I became friends with the
local Beat reporters and we go to lunch,

853
01:02:44.559 --> 01:02:46.320
and so when I interviewed with them, they were like interview with my

854
01:02:46.360 --> 01:02:54.960
friends. So it wasn't so so
yeah, that's my first dude, you

855
01:02:55.000 --> 01:03:06.719
know, it's the nineties. Hey
listen, I'm I'm I showed up late

856
01:03:06.800 --> 01:03:13.679
for the fucking interview. So I
show up and the uh, the journalists

857
01:03:13.719 --> 01:03:15.840
that I'm working with, she she
knows I'm nervous as hell because I asked

858
01:03:15.840 --> 01:03:20.679
for something to drink before I sat
down. So they're like, whoa,

859
01:03:20.719 --> 01:03:22.559
Okay, this guy needs to So
anyway, she starts interviewing me. She

860
01:03:22.599 --> 01:03:27.039
knows I'm nervous, so instead of
just let me like I'm doing now telling

861
01:03:27.079 --> 01:03:30.440
you stories, She's like, so
at the firefighters field day, you're gonna

862
01:03:30.480 --> 01:03:34.239
have softball and you're gonna do this, and now you say exactly, exactly

863
01:03:34.599 --> 01:03:37.079
exactly. Well, I got back
from vacation after this aired. I didn't

864
01:03:37.079 --> 01:03:40.280
see it live, and on an
answer machine, that's all I go.

865
01:03:40.360 --> 01:03:44.199
It was one of the battalions on
it. Hey, exactly what do you

866
01:03:44.239 --> 01:03:46.480
know exactly about it? Saying all
these exactly what the fuck's wrong with him?

867
01:03:46.960 --> 01:03:50.239
So I'm nervous. I pop the
tape in, I watch it.

868
01:03:51.199 --> 01:03:58.360
I said the word exactly nineteen times
in twelve minutes, exactly exactly. The

869
01:03:58.519 --> 01:04:05.559
other of this day, I won't
say exactly. He's been analyzing our skills

870
01:04:05.639 --> 01:04:11.079
the whole time. Bro, It's
like, these two fucking guys. We

871
01:04:11.519 --> 01:04:16.480
haven't read a book ever. I
got to tell you, guys, you

872
01:04:16.519 --> 01:04:20.920
know, I had an incredible career
speaking to all those folks and and really

873
01:04:20.960 --> 01:04:25.480
haven't making the most of my career. But whether it be going to the

874
01:04:25.480 --> 01:04:29.079
scenes or whatever, but one of
the things that was a byproduct of being

875
01:04:29.119 --> 01:04:31.760
out in front, like that and
kind of before you know what, I

876
01:04:31.800 --> 01:04:34.519
started getting to this ground swell of
you know, hey, I got to

877
01:04:34.519 --> 01:04:40.119
get a song all the time it's
I'm representing our department, but in the

878
01:04:40.119 --> 01:04:44.039
same token, it's me being in
front. And so slowly but surely I

879
01:04:44.079 --> 01:04:45.840
started getting put up on a pedal, so I wasn't really looking for,

880
01:04:46.079 --> 01:04:50.159
asking for and the problem with that
becomes mby and people want to knock you

881
01:04:50.199 --> 01:04:54.159
off the pedalstal. So that's the
reality of it. So at times I

882
01:04:54.760 --> 01:04:59.760
suffered through my career with people not
you know, not understanding me. You

883
01:04:59.800 --> 01:05:01.519
know, understand where I was coming
from, thinking it was all about my

884
01:05:01.559 --> 01:05:04.719
ego, which you have to have
some ego in order to step up in

885
01:05:04.719 --> 01:05:08.679
front of people. But it was
never about that, and it was hard

886
01:05:08.679 --> 01:05:11.840
to explain to some. But I
didn't have a bad career because of that.

887
01:05:11.880 --> 01:05:14.039
It's just one of those challenges,
like you say, you had to

888
01:05:14.039 --> 01:05:16.159
put in listen. Once you do
that, when you're you know, listen,

889
01:05:16.199 --> 01:05:18.639
people are going to agree with you. Even what we're doing. People

890
01:05:18.679 --> 01:05:20.480
agree with us. People didn't,
you know, we go to shows,

891
01:05:20.519 --> 01:05:24.159
people disagree, you know, like, yeah, listen, you have you

892
01:05:24.159 --> 01:05:27.079
could do whatever you want. You
know what I mean, doesn't change what

893
01:05:27.119 --> 01:05:29.760
we're doing, doesn't change what you
did. You know, how you felt,

894
01:05:29.800 --> 01:05:32.079
what your drive was, and you
know that's why your life you know

895
01:05:32.119 --> 01:05:34.880
what I mean? Yeah, sure
you said that, right, Absolutely,

896
01:05:35.079 --> 01:05:40.400
that's it. Yeah, but before
you guys go off, can we can

897
01:05:40.400 --> 01:05:45.119
we talk about this? Where's coops? Coops has got to be in there

898
01:05:45.840 --> 01:05:53.559
now? Uh so, Yeah.
For one of my roles and the fire

899
01:05:53.760 --> 01:05:58.039
department was to uh uh we produced
a calendar as a fundraiser, as a

900
01:05:58.039 --> 01:06:03.639
beefcake calendar, clearly and uh these
are these are our specimens at the time.

901
01:06:03.679 --> 01:06:09.480
I think this is ninety three or
four five, I can't remember,

902
01:06:10.760 --> 01:06:15.480
but I can remember had uh,
you know, fire for we had to

903
01:06:15.519 --> 01:06:17.480
get the hole all the guys in
the on the calendar that were in this

904
01:06:17.559 --> 01:06:21.519
calendar we had everybody had to get
new helmets. Their fucking heads swallow up

905
01:06:21.559 --> 01:06:27.639
so big their helmets were split.
Was that one guy got the held over

906
01:06:27.800 --> 01:06:33.639
his junk watching right now, cologna
geewe. You're watching this man and why

907
01:06:34.400 --> 01:06:39.880
held it over your drunk? He's
watching the night. One of the guys

908
01:06:39.880 --> 01:06:45.880
I love just make it look like
it's his hands. It's always the pike

909
01:06:45.119 --> 01:06:51.639
X to the guys are holding right. I never really looked at it that

910
01:06:51.960 --> 01:06:56.400
now I'm even how they hold it. It's like so like fake. You

911
01:06:56.400 --> 01:07:09.599
know that's not fake. You gotta
live us down now. So the one

912
01:07:09.639 --> 01:07:19.480
on the left has got a really
unique story to it. So somewhere put

913
01:07:19.480 --> 01:07:21.840
these things on. You got to
be a part of it, right,

914
01:07:21.880 --> 01:07:27.880
you can't. So we decided that
year we were gonna make authentic pictures.

915
01:07:27.880 --> 01:07:30.679
So we're going to burned out structures
and ship like that. And so we're

916
01:07:30.719 --> 01:07:33.519
at a burned out house there and
it's actually pretty god damn cold out and

917
01:07:33.920 --> 01:07:38.360
I'm not a big guy. As
you can tell. I'm not pretty fond

918
01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:41.519
of my chest, you know.
And so I was trying to make sure

919
01:07:41.519 --> 01:07:45.760
I got a good shot there from
you know, right right. And so

920
01:07:45.840 --> 01:07:49.880
I go up the ladder and photographer
he's actually from New York. He says,

921
01:07:49.880 --> 01:07:53.239
hey, man, he said,
I see your boxers. Come on

922
01:07:53.320 --> 01:07:55.920
down here and take those downs.
So I come down the ladder and I

923
01:07:56.000 --> 01:07:59.679
hike them down and I go back
up the ladder. Well, I forgot

924
01:07:59.679 --> 01:08:01.559
to put my suspenders up. It's
really what happened, man. So I'm

925
01:08:01.599 --> 01:08:05.920
taking a picture. I'm looking off
serious and the guys are fucking They're just

926
01:08:06.039 --> 01:08:13.400
on the I'm like, look at
my face? What you guys laughing about?

927
01:08:14.199 --> 01:08:16.399
And so then I come down and
they're like, hey man, there's

928
01:08:16.399 --> 01:08:18.560
a cold back there. And I
looked, that's all the ship. I

929
01:08:18.600 --> 01:08:21.880
said, you can't shoot them,
And so he's like, man, a

930
01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:28.520
crap. Great girls are gonna love
that ship. Go back up there with

931
01:08:28.560 --> 01:08:30.199
the shoulder with with them up on
my shoulders. And I look at the

932
01:08:30.199 --> 01:08:32.560
proofs. Later my wife said,
no, you gotta go with the ones

933
01:08:32.640 --> 01:08:38.239
you're asking. You want to sell. You want to sell beef cake stuff

934
01:08:39.720 --> 01:08:45.399
a little, the whole beef is. I'm confused about it. Said you

935
01:08:45.439 --> 01:08:56.760
were looking for authentic pictures. I
don't know. Doesn't happen all around the

936
01:08:56.800 --> 01:08:59.800
country, Coop. I know that's
how they roll on Flint. They put

937
01:09:02.640 --> 01:09:11.560
little little to showing you know what
I mean, little tucks listens. It

938
01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:16.439
takes ball to send us that picture. For us, you gotta be laughing

939
01:09:16.479 --> 01:09:21.600
at yourself. You're gonna laugh.
You got some more, give me,

940
01:09:24.279 --> 01:09:32.359
give me something you won't be able
to recall. Ship you love every minute.

941
01:09:32.560 --> 01:09:35.880
Hold on. We got a couple
of group shots to yes, yes,

942
01:09:36.920 --> 01:09:41.560
we all have no shirt on.
No, that was the first one.

943
01:09:41.800 --> 01:09:44.239
All right, we'll go back a
little bit while you're doing the pr

944
01:09:44.279 --> 01:09:45.840
thing. So with the with your
high school. So this is uh,

945
01:09:45.920 --> 01:09:51.079
this is one of our Each year
during fire Prevention Week, we decided to

946
01:09:51.359 --> 01:09:56.680
take it to another level and we
wanted to make sure we introduce are what

947
01:09:56.720 --> 01:10:00.520
we do for a living to kids
that really haven't even We can go into

948
01:10:00.520 --> 01:10:02.319
their classroom tell them what it's like, but we want to give them a

949
01:10:02.359 --> 01:10:05.239
lived experience. So these kids that
are in the turnout gear are actually high

950
01:10:05.239 --> 01:10:09.479
school students and we're on do it
and we put them through a day on

951
01:10:09.520 --> 01:10:13.479
the job and it's one of our
It's just such a cool thing to watch

952
01:10:13.479 --> 01:10:15.880
these young people really get an idea
what we do pulling holes off. And

953
01:10:16.680 --> 01:10:20.520
then you know, we're obviously hoping
that these young people following our footsteps.

954
01:10:20.520 --> 01:10:25.239
So I was going to ask you
we go, do you find that once

955
01:10:25.279 --> 01:10:28.520
you start like the ball rolling a
little bit, like you start getting like

956
01:10:28.560 --> 01:10:31.600
the tradition with the kids following in
the footsteps, is that happening over there

957
01:10:31.600 --> 01:10:35.000
like in the fdm ony that happens
a lot. Well, it doesn't happen

958
01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:38.560
as much as it should, and
I tell you probably one of the biggest

959
01:10:38.560 --> 01:10:44.000
reasons why it is unfortunately, So
it's a the kids here are products of

960
01:10:44.039 --> 01:10:46.560
their environment in a lot of ways. So that what I mean by that,

961
01:10:46.880 --> 01:10:49.439
To give me example, I'll go
out to in my career, have

962
01:10:49.479 --> 01:10:53.439
gone out to schools not just in
the city Flint, but throughout our entire

963
01:10:53.479 --> 01:10:57.159
county. And when I'm out in
the county, it's it's a dual thing.

964
01:10:57.199 --> 01:10:59.760
Obviously, it's to talk about my
career, my role and what we

965
01:10:59.800 --> 01:11:02.800
do and try to introduce people to
it. But it's also to be quite

966
01:11:02.880 --> 01:11:09.199
honest with you, to give a
reflection of a positive black person that they

967
01:11:09.199 --> 01:11:12.199
can look up to and say,
oh, no, you know Flints,

968
01:11:13.279 --> 01:11:16.039
right, yeah, yeah, Flint's
such this spot that they only see on

969
01:11:16.079 --> 01:11:18.880
the news and the negativity and all
this that I want to make sure that

970
01:11:18.880 --> 01:11:23.359
I put Flint's best foot forward when
I went out there. But in those

971
01:11:23.359 --> 01:11:27.600
processes, I'll ask students, you
know, you know what my goals were,

972
01:11:27.680 --> 01:11:30.560
I'd like to know what yours are, do you have any And categorically,

973
01:11:30.640 --> 01:11:34.880
when I'm in the suburbs, ninety
percent of those students could tell me

974
01:11:35.079 --> 01:11:42.479
something. Categorically in the Flint schools, ten percent could tell me something and

975
01:11:42.520 --> 01:11:45.479
it was really a travesty to me. And so when you what you're seeing

976
01:11:45.560 --> 01:11:48.680
is a level of hopelessness. So
they don't when they look out and I

977
01:11:48.720 --> 01:11:50.680
say, they're a product of their
environment. When they look out and they

978
01:11:50.720 --> 01:11:56.760
see vacant structures, they look out
and see decaying city and school Sime,

979
01:11:57.399 --> 01:12:00.760
yeah, all this stuff, that's
all they understan stand and know. It's

980
01:12:00.960 --> 01:12:03.399
only a few of them get plucked
into the situation where they say, hey,

981
01:12:03.439 --> 01:12:06.279
this is your opportunity, this is
a way out. And so we

982
01:12:06.439 --> 01:12:11.640
keep trying to provide those opportunities through
the program like that. But you know,

983
01:12:11.720 --> 01:12:15.800
the reality is is that we we
get a handful that following our footsteps,

984
01:12:15.800 --> 01:12:17.960
but it should be much more and
it's something that you know, we

985
01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:21.720
need to continue to work on.
Obviously, let's go back to that picture.

986
01:12:24.039 --> 01:12:26.079
Two things that I want to point
out. Look at the guy in

987
01:12:26.079 --> 01:12:30.760
the right. Look at the side
of that fucking guy. What is it?

988
01:12:30.880 --> 01:12:34.319
Looks like a violin case? What
is that? And the other thing

989
01:12:34.439 --> 01:12:45.800
is who let that white guy creep
into the picture? Got love? Mike

990
01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:51.279
Crocker and he's still on the department
thirty some years. The big guy there's

991
01:12:51.399 --> 01:12:57.079
fire Marshal's in the Marshalls then realized
he's like, oh, ship, I

992
01:12:57.159 --> 01:13:01.079
must be the wrong picture here.
What the fuck, hey man, we

993
01:13:01.119 --> 01:13:04.720
gotta do you ever have any of
those guys that that you know for sure

994
01:13:04.920 --> 01:13:09.199
got you know, any of those
kids that came through that program that got

995
01:13:09.239 --> 01:13:12.079
on on the job. Not to
my knowledge, not in recent years.

996
01:13:12.880 --> 01:13:15.920
I think there may have been one
or two, and but to my knowledge,

997
01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:18.079
no, it's just so tough,
right because you don't have them any

998
01:13:18.079 --> 01:13:20.760
guys on the job. So it's
right, you know, so we don't

999
01:13:20.760 --> 01:13:24.720
have a lot of what the place
is like after you and now I have

1000
01:13:24.800 --> 01:13:27.920
as nepotism, we don't have virtually
any of that we have. We had

1001
01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:30.520
some back when I hired in.
There was a couple of guys whose dads

1002
01:13:30.520 --> 01:13:33.119
are in the apartment through the next
class or two after. But now that's

1003
01:13:33.159 --> 01:13:36.600
all changed, and I think a
lot of it has to do with how

1004
01:13:36.680 --> 01:13:42.079
our pay has been stripped down to
bare minimum or benefits or so nobody wants

1005
01:13:42.319 --> 01:13:45.840
this is a job now, it's
not a career. It's a fucking job

1006
01:13:45.880 --> 01:13:49.279
and not a career. So young
families, young men aren't gonna leave their

1007
01:13:49.279 --> 01:13:54.399
good paying job to take a pay
cut, to wait five to seven years

1008
01:13:54.399 --> 01:13:57.479
to get full pay, you know. And so as a result of that,

1009
01:13:57.520 --> 01:14:01.359
you're getting huge turnover, you know, getting folks that you know,

1010
01:14:01.520 --> 01:14:04.600
our our kids aren't being said,
hey, you come follow me at Flint

1011
01:14:04.640 --> 01:14:09.199
Fire Department. And the ones that
do, they only stay there for a

1012
01:14:09.239 --> 01:14:11.399
cup of coffee and they say,
oh, I can do better than nice.

1013
01:14:11.800 --> 01:14:15.119
Right, So we hear that up
there, Rico, that you guys

1014
01:14:15.239 --> 01:14:18.720
were making six dollars ninety five cents
an hour, And yes, yes I

1015
01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:24.119
was. I was making six ninety
So what was really crazy up until and

1016
01:14:24.239 --> 01:14:26.760
when I made it to the station, I was, I got a boost

1017
01:14:26.840 --> 01:14:30.520
to eight ninety an hour. And
that's ninety just in ninety three, right

1018
01:14:30.560 --> 01:14:34.319
after the academy. Just a few
years ago, they were making just under

1019
01:14:34.359 --> 01:14:39.439
ten dollars an hour in the Flint
Fire Department. Since I've retired, like

1020
01:14:39.520 --> 01:14:43.680
twenty nineteen twenty. Oh my god, if you're on this call someone please,

1021
01:14:43.760 --> 01:14:48.000
I mean on this uh podwas before
I do it? Yeah, because

1022
01:14:48.039 --> 01:14:55.720
it is, Uh, it was
shocking to me seven eighty seven an hour

1023
01:14:55.800 --> 01:15:00.600
when he started in two thousand seven
McDonald. They're making fifteen dollars an hour

1024
01:15:00.640 --> 01:15:04.199
forgett's sake, right, right,
So so it gives you a good idea

1025
01:15:04.680 --> 01:15:09.720
what the issues are with front fire
departments. Hard to keep a long periods

1026
01:15:09.720 --> 01:15:13.039
of time, and those that stay
get completely burned out by the end of

1027
01:15:13.079 --> 01:15:15.279
their career. There's a few of
us that stay because we love what we

1028
01:15:15.399 --> 01:15:18.560
do and where we do it,
and that's why we're there. But it's

1029
01:15:19.239 --> 01:15:24.279
fifty two I'm sorry to mean interrupted
a quote to what I'm looking at right

1030
01:15:24.279 --> 01:15:27.039
here. As of February twelve,
twenty twenty four, the average annual pay

1031
01:15:27.079 --> 01:15:31.239
for a firefighter in Flint is fifty
two thousand dollars fifty eighty nine a year.

1032
01:15:31.960 --> 01:15:35.479
I will say this cost of living
in the Flint region is lower than

1033
01:15:35.640 --> 01:15:41.680
other areas of the country, so
that's to be relative. Still, it's

1034
01:15:41.680 --> 01:15:45.800
not a work wage. So we
hear that. We hear that not so

1035
01:15:45.880 --> 01:15:46.720
much on the show. I mean, we do a little bit. But

1036
01:15:46.960 --> 01:15:49.840
when we go out to shows like
the fire expos like you were saying,

1037
01:15:49.920 --> 01:15:54.039
Mustard, you know whatever, you
know, guys come up to us from

1038
01:15:54.079 --> 01:15:57.920
Saint Louis. You know places like
you would think have you know, guys

1039
01:15:57.920 --> 01:16:00.199
are making more money. Yeah,
you know, similar to what you know,

1040
01:16:00.199 --> 01:16:03.479
fifty fifty thousand dollars. You know
how you have two three kids?

1041
01:16:03.720 --> 01:16:05.880
Right? You know, I don't
care where you're living. Got that.

1042
01:16:08.359 --> 01:16:10.960
I don't care where you're living.
Hey, guys, And I'm not rubbing

1043
01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:13.279
this any wrong way to the guys
that are working right now. But I

1044
01:16:13.319 --> 01:16:16.039
have a I have a retirement job. I'm making forty five thousand dollars before,

1045
01:16:16.039 --> 01:16:20.119
and I have way less responsibility.
So and you're not running into burning

1046
01:16:20.119 --> 01:16:25.680
buildings. Fuck, No, I
got dumpter fires, different dumps. No,

1047
01:16:25.880 --> 01:16:30.399
that's all that. He's breaking up
fights. Yeah, we're going to

1048
01:16:30.479 --> 01:16:34.600
get there. We're almost there.
We'll get it too. The hot Let's

1049
01:16:34.600 --> 01:16:40.319
get to the quartermaster first, that's
the quartermaster. Yeah. So that that

1050
01:16:40.439 --> 01:16:44.880
opportunity actually saved my career for another
five years because at the time, our

1051
01:16:44.920 --> 01:16:48.560
department took another severe cut, and
those drivers, they are driving the trucks

1052
01:16:48.600 --> 01:16:51.960
the scene instead of setting up and
helping the other the first truck on.

1053
01:16:53.439 --> 01:16:56.920
Now they're suiting up and going in
And I'm like, man, I've been

1054
01:16:56.920 --> 01:17:00.720
doing this too long. I'm almost
fifty at the time, or I was

1055
01:17:00.720 --> 01:17:02.600
about forty five, but I wasn't
feeling it anymore. I didn't I didn't

1056
01:17:02.640 --> 01:17:06.199
trust the structure of the department so
to speak, you know, on another

1057
01:17:06.399 --> 01:17:13.600
number of levels. But so the
opportunity kind of presented itself. This quarter

1058
01:17:13.640 --> 01:17:15.199
master was there, wanted to make
a change, and I was surprised.

1059
01:17:15.239 --> 01:17:19.680
It blew me out of my and
I was in the fire prevention provisionally and

1060
01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:23.399
it opened up as a forty hour
job, which I was like, oh,

1061
01:17:24.079 --> 01:17:27.680
you know that I had to get
used to going the grocery store after

1062
01:17:27.720 --> 01:17:39.199
work, which is there ain't nobody
Yeah, so uh anyways, I uh,

1063
01:17:39.279 --> 01:17:45.439
I got in the fire Quartermaster and
I really found uh foundel an ish.

1064
01:17:45.479 --> 01:17:47.840
I didn't think I would because I've
down the basement. I was like

1065
01:17:47.880 --> 01:17:50.800
a troll under the station right at
first, and I told Chief I did

1066
01:17:50.880 --> 01:17:54.800
not want to be no troll down
there. So don't be mad if I

1067
01:17:54.800 --> 01:17:57.720
show up the fire scenes and ship
and just support. I'm not going to

1068
01:17:57.800 --> 01:18:01.039
go tak up and go on.
Because Quartermaster when his first form was formed

1069
01:18:01.039 --> 01:18:04.880
for a guy that had congestive heart
failure and gave him opportunity we had enough

1070
01:18:04.880 --> 01:18:10.079
manpower. Then the assistant chief was
doing that work at the time, so

1071
01:18:10.600 --> 01:18:14.159
that's how the job started. Then
the next person had asthma and she held

1072
01:18:14.199 --> 01:18:16.640
it for like nineteen years, and
the next person, he didn't have the

1073
01:18:16.640 --> 01:18:19.399
best health at the time, took
the opportunity. For me, I was

1074
01:18:19.439 --> 01:18:24.399
healthy and I was chief. I'm
not here because I'm not healthy, man,

1075
01:18:24.439 --> 01:18:27.319
I just hear because I want to
extend my and plus I got to

1076
01:18:27.319 --> 01:18:30.880
pay raise as a lieutenant's pay,
like the last rung that I could make.

1077
01:18:30.720 --> 01:18:34.479
And so for those five years though, I really took took what I

1078
01:18:34.479 --> 01:18:38.239
did serious, Like I knew I
was there to serve the firefighters and it

1079
01:18:38.279 --> 01:18:41.079
was the first time I was kind
of in that role. But I took

1080
01:18:41.079 --> 01:18:44.039
it to heart, like you know, I want to I'm I know what

1081
01:18:44.039 --> 01:18:46.520
it's like to be them and have
wants and needs and want the best equipment

1082
01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:49.199
even though we can't afford it.
I'm going to do my best, you

1083
01:18:49.239 --> 01:18:53.600
know. And and yeah, I
turned into the jerk once in a while

1084
01:18:53.680 --> 01:18:56.399
too, because quartermasters tend to do
that act like it's their shit. But

1085
01:18:56.439 --> 01:18:58.840
when you see people wasting, you
go with the fight. I did that.

1086
01:18:58.880 --> 01:19:01.840
I was for my last year.
Guys, yeah I want yeah you

1087
01:19:01.840 --> 01:19:09.560
ain't getting those yeah yeah, but
was it? Was it the place that

1088
01:19:09.640 --> 01:19:14.520
you went in and stole a lot
of equipment? Yeah, that's what I

1089
01:19:14.560 --> 01:19:19.039
wanted to tell you, is a
full circle of circle. Been there once

1090
01:19:19.039 --> 01:19:21.399
in a while and just kind of
shake my head and look around at that

1091
01:19:21.479 --> 01:19:30.640
ship because some of it's the same
ship that was there. Then I'm serious,

1092
01:19:30.720 --> 01:19:35.640
aunts and ships still in there for
eighty three. But it was a

1093
01:19:35.680 --> 01:19:40.119
full circle moment for it was kind
of really ironic. I was the quartermaster

1094
01:19:40.119 --> 01:19:46.359
the way I started my spot there. Yeah, like you say allegedly to

1095
01:19:47.600 --> 01:19:50.680
great quarterback, Yeah, he's one
of the guys that when he first started

1096
01:19:50.680 --> 01:19:55.600
in, So I took this role
on responsibility like when guys first come in.

1097
01:19:55.680 --> 01:19:57.800
Now I'm going to play uncle Rico
to you. I'm going to put

1098
01:19:57.800 --> 01:20:00.560
you aside because I'm giving you a
fit test on your mask. But whatever

1099
01:20:00.039 --> 01:20:02.840
I got just you and me and
I get a chance to tell him what

1100
01:20:02.840 --> 01:20:06.199
it's really all about. You know, don't if you're sensitive with el somebody

1101
01:20:06.239 --> 01:20:10.800
screaming at you or cussing at you, you're gonna have to understand that you

1102
01:20:10.840 --> 01:20:14.680
got to adapt that because next time
it may be a fucking ceiling calming down.

1103
01:20:14.760 --> 01:20:17.159
He's fucking calling you, screaming at
you because saying, well, you're

1104
01:20:17.239 --> 01:20:19.520
screaming at me, and then all
of a sudden, the ship's on your

1105
01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:25.760
head. Right, Understand those kinds
of things and just kind of keep your

1106
01:20:25.840 --> 01:20:29.720
mouth shut, keep your nose down, do your job, proved by actions,

1107
01:20:29.760 --> 01:20:31.079
those kind of things. And he
was one of those guys that I

1108
01:20:31.119 --> 01:20:35.239
know. Now he's at another department. He's one of those what I consider

1109
01:20:35.279 --> 01:20:39.880
a casually a department because he's a
good firefighter, a good man, good

1110
01:20:39.880 --> 01:20:43.880
family man. Now and now he's
not there to help keep that fire department

1111
01:20:44.239 --> 01:20:49.199
going in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, it was very bad over

1112
01:20:49.199 --> 01:20:53.720
the last several years. I can't
tell those stories because I left at a

1113
01:20:53.840 --> 01:20:56.600
very critical time, at probably the
best time I could have. It was

1114
01:20:56.720 --> 01:21:01.359
going downhill quick. It's better now, it's better now. They have a

1115
01:21:01.439 --> 01:21:05.000
chief there who who was a chief
before. I mean, and him used

1116
01:21:05.039 --> 01:21:09.239
to battle. When I was a
vice president. Some of the guys didn't

1117
01:21:09.279 --> 01:21:12.239
like me because I'd battle the mayor
and I was a black guy battling a

1118
01:21:12.279 --> 01:21:15.039
black mayor, and they would wonder
about me. But I was battling for

1119
01:21:15.079 --> 01:21:17.439
our guys, you know, residency
rules and ship like that. This chief

1120
01:21:17.439 --> 01:21:23.720
he didn't like me because he said
some disparaging comments once and they all came

1121
01:21:23.760 --> 01:21:26.800
out and it was all it was. It got crazy put that way.

1122
01:21:27.960 --> 01:21:30.439
He's come back and now that it's
he's come back and there's none of those

1123
01:21:30.479 --> 01:21:35.119
old hats. There's novandadas. He's
got a different outlook. He's older.

1124
01:21:35.479 --> 01:21:40.239
He's letting his guys run and gals
run the fire department the way it should

1125
01:21:40.239 --> 01:21:43.720
be ran. And they're getting new
equipment and they're working with our funds and

1126
01:21:43.760 --> 01:21:46.479
things. They have brand new trucks
the whole city. So, yeah,

1127
01:21:46.479 --> 01:21:49.319
it doesn't look like it did one
night I left. It looks better than

1128
01:21:49.359 --> 01:21:53.359
when I left. But a couple
of years after I left, it was

1129
01:21:53.560 --> 01:21:59.000
whoa they can tell you Godzo.
There was a picture of Rico was talking

1130
01:21:59.039 --> 01:22:02.319
about the pre where the chief had
his arms or the guy had his arms

1131
01:22:02.359 --> 01:22:09.640
around the two people there. That
was that one. That's it's old station

1132
01:22:09.760 --> 01:22:13.199
three. It's the old crew there, older crew, should I say.

1133
01:22:13.199 --> 01:22:19.479
And a young rookie, uh Jason, he's he's now he's a veteran and

1134
01:22:19.520 --> 01:22:24.520
he's like you can't even he can't
even believe he's a veteran. There the

1135
01:22:24.600 --> 01:22:30.279
rest of us are Albert and that
picture of retired yeah a driver. You're

1136
01:22:30.279 --> 01:22:31.800
not talking about this one, are
you? No? No, No,

1137
01:22:32.359 --> 01:22:35.880
that's uh, that's your that's your
Red Corse Award. Yeah. The other

1138
01:22:35.920 --> 01:22:38.920
couple of group shots that I have
is this one. Oh, there we

1139
01:22:38.960 --> 01:22:43.640
go, there's uh this after a
work instructure fire. One of my favorite

1140
01:22:43.760 --> 01:22:46.199
crews of all time I worked with
and uh catching poles. You know,

1141
01:22:46.560 --> 01:22:49.720
it was kind of hard to find
fire pictures of fires and ship we don't

1142
01:22:49.800 --> 01:22:53.840
you know, we don't typically stand
around and poles like this for fires man.

1143
01:22:53.880 --> 01:22:58.000
We just it started to become the
era where you catch a you know,

1144
01:22:58.039 --> 01:23:01.119
a camera phone unseen and the guy
in the center there with this holding

1145
01:23:01.119 --> 01:23:04.159
a pipe pole down. I think
that's what it is. His name is

1146
01:23:04.199 --> 01:23:08.520
Andy Graves, and he's a Battalian
chief. I think he may have gotten

1147
01:23:08.600 --> 01:23:14.159
higher than I can't remember, but
regardless, he's the author of the let

1148
01:23:14.199 --> 01:23:17.600
it Burn policy that helped not just
our department, but it also started being

1149
01:23:17.680 --> 01:23:24.119
viewed by other departments in our size
group better ways to combat these fires and

1150
01:23:24.119 --> 01:23:29.000
and not get our firefighters hurt.
So yeah, he's that guy. Okay,

1151
01:23:29.279 --> 01:23:32.000
did you find the one gun?
Because the only other group shot I

1152
01:23:32.000 --> 01:23:36.800
have was this one. So that's
one of the last clues I worked with

1153
01:23:36.840 --> 01:23:41.199
after I got promoted and and God
rest his soul. Ricky Hill is in

1154
01:23:41.239 --> 01:23:44.560
that picture. He's the guy who
was arm around around a couple guys,

1155
01:23:44.560 --> 01:23:46.600
and in fact, every picture I
found with this guy he has his arm

1156
01:23:46.640 --> 01:23:53.600
around somebody else was yeah, and
uh he died unfortunately last year suddenly at

1157
01:23:53.640 --> 01:23:59.079
a fire skin suffered a cardiac episode
of some level. And the guy right

1158
01:23:59.119 --> 01:24:02.880
next to him, that would be
to his left, our right, Brad

1159
01:24:03.000 --> 01:24:06.000
Ortwine, who's probably on this call
and get a little emotional. He was

1160
01:24:06.079 --> 01:24:11.520
actually a person who started giving rescue
breasts and started. He was the first

1161
01:24:11.680 --> 01:24:15.479
found him, opened the door and
Ricky fell out, and uh he had

1162
01:24:15.479 --> 01:24:18.760
to catch him. And uh.
It's very very troubling time for us,

1163
01:24:19.520 --> 01:24:24.159
even me being retired. I mean
it hit me hard and being on the

1164
01:24:24.199 --> 01:24:27.560
outside for the first time looking in
on a situation like that and not being

1165
01:24:27.600 --> 01:24:30.840
able to, you know, give
comfort the way I felt like I always

1166
01:24:30.840 --> 01:24:32.840
had in the past was really tough
on me because I was part of critical

1167
01:24:32.840 --> 01:24:38.159
incidence stress management teams for a majority
of my career as well. Yes,

1168
01:24:38.319 --> 01:24:42.680
it was a year ago. Get
back to the Yeah. Yeah, one

1169
01:24:42.760 --> 01:24:46.760
year anniversary of losing it, Ricky
was yesterday. Yeah, rest in peace,

1170
01:24:46.800 --> 01:24:53.880
brother. Let's talk about the hockey
creative, I rooie, all right,

1171
01:24:53.960 --> 01:25:00.640
let's talk about it. Al'm ready
alight shows over so you guys can,

1172
01:25:01.159 --> 01:25:06.560
yeah, everybody, So I tell
you how I got into hockey.

1173
01:25:08.039 --> 01:25:10.880
You told I told you. Actually
I became a student trainer. Well,

1174
01:25:11.640 --> 01:25:15.239
I followed my love in the sport
as a as a referee. And when

1175
01:25:15.279 --> 01:25:17.399
I yeah, when I had the
referee first though, I hadn't learned how

1176
01:25:17.439 --> 01:25:21.520
to stop yet, you guys,
so it was fucking I was falling down

1177
01:25:21.520 --> 01:25:25.960
more than the players. Man back
in eighty six is when I first saw

1178
01:25:26.319 --> 01:25:34.119
ball whistles and you can there is
again. But it was, Uh,

1179
01:25:34.239 --> 01:25:39.159
it was a couple of things that
I took note of early on. I

1180
01:25:39.279 --> 01:25:42.279
was a unicorn in the sport.
There was no other people called, no

1181
01:25:42.319 --> 01:25:45.479
black people play sport in our area. And the guys that I played hockey

1182
01:25:45.520 --> 01:25:48.000
with in high school, when they
come to the rink, they talk differently,

1183
01:25:48.279 --> 01:25:51.479
right, They used the N word
and they'd used terms like I was

1184
01:25:51.520 --> 01:25:55.680
talking to some silly ship that they
never would at school. That's what I

1185
01:25:55.840 --> 01:25:59.239
was up. Yeah, serious,
why why is that? I don't understand

1186
01:25:59.239 --> 01:26:00.920
it. It was the callulture of
hockey is what it was, right,

1187
01:26:01.319 --> 01:26:06.000
I know, like hockey roofy Yeah
yeah. So at the time too is

1188
01:26:08.680 --> 01:26:11.760
yeah it was eighty six, so
it was it different. But the second

1189
01:26:11.800 --> 01:26:15.000
month in as a referee, uh
uh, I had a coach call me

1190
01:26:15.039 --> 01:26:19.039
over because I do a call and
his assistant called me the inbomb and and

1191
01:26:19.079 --> 01:26:21.239
he told me he's going to kick
my ass in the parking lot. And

1192
01:26:21.279 --> 01:26:25.399
I was like beside myself, like
what the hell did I get myself into?

1193
01:26:25.479 --> 01:26:28.439
And I was I was quitting hockey
that day. It was my last

1194
01:26:28.479 --> 01:26:32.279
day of hockey because I've seen him
hurt enough. And uh, my senior

1195
01:26:32.279 --> 01:26:34.680
partners told me, he said,
Rico, he said, don't don't,

1196
01:26:34.760 --> 01:26:36.680
don't do it. Man, he
knew I was thown my ship in the

1197
01:26:36.720 --> 01:26:40.640
back or the last time. He
says, you're going to run across racist

1198
01:26:40.640 --> 01:26:43.760
peep in your life, and it's
how you deal with those racists and the

1199
01:26:43.800 --> 01:26:45.840
outcome that you want, that's how
you're going to live. He said,

1200
01:26:45.880 --> 01:26:48.640
if you leave right now, he's
doing exactly what he set out to do,

1201
01:26:48.720 --> 01:26:53.119
and that's chased you out of here. So thirty seven seasons later,

1202
01:26:53.159 --> 01:27:00.000
I'm still now. Damn Yeah.
So I've had some incredible, incredible experiences.

1203
01:27:00.000 --> 01:27:02.600
But one of the things I noted
all those years I was referring the

1204
01:27:02.760 --> 01:27:05.520
entire time I was on the department, it was playing the entire time I

1205
01:27:05.520 --> 01:27:12.680
was a department is my is my
you know, get out my anxieties and

1206
01:27:12.720 --> 01:27:15.600
all the other things that it provided
for me. I could. I could

1207
01:27:15.640 --> 01:27:18.159
release there, and I was in
a different environment. I wasn't necessarily with

1208
01:27:18.199 --> 01:27:21.359
my firefighting friends. I was with
this whole different group of folks. But

1209
01:27:21.439 --> 01:27:25.560
one thing I noticed as a referee
in particular, not as a player so

1210
01:27:25.640 --> 01:27:28.640
much, but is that the kids
were all the same. You know,

1211
01:27:28.680 --> 01:27:30.359
they look the same, they come
from the same backgrounds. They're all cookie

1212
01:27:30.399 --> 01:27:34.359
cutter white kids from the suburbs.
And I decided I was going to launch

1213
01:27:34.359 --> 01:27:39.680
a program to introduce kids from our
city to our sport that looked like me,

1214
01:27:39.840 --> 01:27:43.119
came from backgrounds like I'm in and
other kids along our city. So

1215
01:27:43.159 --> 01:27:46.479
we started to Flint Inter City Youth
Hockey Program and we have kids between ages

1216
01:27:46.560 --> 01:27:50.520
seven and twelve that get an opportunity
at it absolutely free. What I never

1217
01:27:50.560 --> 01:27:54.960
realized is that this was actually my
second passion in life that came on the

1218
01:27:55.000 --> 01:28:00.520
hills of wanting to be a firefighter. So through that program we started to

1219
01:28:00.279 --> 01:28:05.760
get some some ground some groundwork,
and and the one thing that we had

1220
01:28:05.800 --> 01:28:13.079
to struggle with is getting kids.
There's such a disconnect between our sport and

1221
01:28:13.079 --> 01:28:15.760
our community. Even though we have
we've had semi pro teams now we have

1222
01:28:15.800 --> 01:28:21.359
an Ontario Hockey League team here.
They don't play the sport whatsoever, and

1223
01:28:21.479 --> 01:28:27.720
so why is that week of what? I really believe that they can't see

1224
01:28:27.760 --> 01:28:30.359
themselves in the sport, right,
So if they don't have anybody to icon,

1225
01:28:30.439 --> 01:28:33.039
to look up to, to say, oh I know that player,

1226
01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:38.159
someone that plays it, there's no
connections. So even when I come in,

1227
01:28:38.199 --> 01:28:40.800
I'm like the pied piper, right, like, what's he got He's

1228
01:28:40.800 --> 01:28:43.399
got a punk? Oh my gosh. I never think it's like I got

1229
01:28:43.399 --> 01:28:46.520
gold. It really is. Do
you ever do you think too that possibly

1230
01:28:46.520 --> 01:28:50.439
could be Like listen, if they
get a basketball, ten of them go

1231
01:28:50.520 --> 01:28:54.279
down to the school yard and play, but to play hockey. You gotta

1232
01:28:54.279 --> 01:28:56.359
get time on the ice, you
got to get skates, you gotta get

1233
01:28:56.359 --> 01:29:00.920
a pop. It's definitely it's definitely
expense, I would think initially more right

1234
01:29:00.000 --> 01:29:05.399
for a kid. So what we're
looking at. So what I've had to

1235
01:29:05.399 --> 01:29:11.079
do is defind hockey differently, like
from this more organic form on our feet.

1236
01:29:11.520 --> 01:29:14.479
First time I ever played hockey was
floor hockey in school at gym and

1237
01:29:14.640 --> 01:29:16.399
gym, right. And so if
we can take them and put them on

1238
01:29:16.960 --> 01:29:20.920
their feet at the same court that
they played basketball with a stick in their

1239
01:29:20.920 --> 01:29:25.399
hand now and in a puck or
a hockey ball, and now they get

1240
01:29:25.399 --> 01:29:28.199
comfortable. Now we can say,
hey, you know what, I bet

1241
01:29:28.199 --> 01:29:30.720
you look good on skates. And
then you teach them on the skate at

1242
01:29:30.720 --> 01:29:34.039
first like shit, and then you
taught them this skill that nobody can ever

1243
01:29:34.159 --> 01:29:36.880
take from them, like riding a
bike. Right. So no matter if

1244
01:29:36.880 --> 01:29:40.760
they stay in the sport or not, they got a recreation in the in

1245
01:29:40.800 --> 01:29:44.239
the winter in Michigan, we're one
of the biggest recreations is ice skating,

1246
01:29:44.319 --> 01:29:46.800
right. So I started that program
for that. Initially I thought, oh,

1247
01:29:46.800 --> 01:29:49.720
I'm going to get more hockey players, but then I realized that's not

1248
01:29:49.800 --> 01:29:54.119
going to happen in Flint, Michigan. I'm going to give them an experience.

1249
01:29:55.479 --> 01:29:59.560
A handful may stay with the sport
because they have the structure, the

1250
01:29:59.640 --> 01:30:01.840
parent structure. Right, They've got
to be driven around. Think about you

1251
01:30:01.920 --> 01:30:08.359
got to be driven to the games, right. Figure five siblings. One

1252
01:30:08.399 --> 01:30:11.319
of them is not playing hockey.
It's not going to work, right,

1253
01:30:11.359 --> 01:30:14.520
It's just not going to work.
And then again the representation, so they

1254
01:30:14.560 --> 01:30:18.640
don't see themselves. That's fun.
But we have over the last nine years

1255
01:30:18.680 --> 01:30:23.479
straight, we have sixteen kids that
have gone on to play organized hockey.

1256
01:30:23.520 --> 01:30:27.079
I have one in college, one
it's about to attend college. So we're

1257
01:30:27.119 --> 01:30:30.319
being okay with our numbers. I'm
so proud of it. Back in twenty

1258
01:30:30.439 --> 01:30:33.720
nineteen, this is how I got
into a whole different realm of the world.

1259
01:30:33.800 --> 01:30:40.439
Dude, this is a This is
incredible. So I was trying to

1260
01:30:40.439 --> 01:30:43.920
figure out how can I get attention
to our story. And I don't mean

1261
01:30:43.960 --> 01:30:45.520
just running a media story that we
have this program. I wanted to get

1262
01:30:45.560 --> 01:30:48.720
the tention of the black people in
our community, and one way to do

1263
01:30:48.800 --> 01:30:56.680
that is through history. So I
decided that I would Willie O'Ree as credit

1264
01:30:56.720 --> 01:31:00.640
as being the first black hockey player
in the national high tea when he suited

1265
01:31:00.760 --> 01:31:03.960
up for the Boston Bruins in nineteen
fifty eight. Everyone fifty eight in Boston,

1266
01:31:04.560 --> 01:31:09.600
only black guy in all of hockey, right, professional hockey. And

1267
01:31:09.640 --> 01:31:13.039
he has incredible stories. I won't
go into his stories, but I wanted

1268
01:31:13.079 --> 01:31:15.560
to see if Willio Ree would come
to Flint. We're on the heels of

1269
01:31:15.600 --> 01:31:17.760
the water crisis, which we may
not get to tonight, but on the

1270
01:31:17.760 --> 01:31:27.119
heels of the water crisis, and
wow, I wonder what I wonder what

1271
01:31:27.119 --> 01:31:31.119
the ice would look like. It
was harder than normal, I put it

1272
01:31:31.159 --> 01:31:38.880
that any ways, So so I
invited Willio Read to Flint. He was

1273
01:31:38.960 --> 01:31:42.399
interested come to Flint because it was
Flint. That's what I'm talking about.

1274
01:31:42.439 --> 01:31:45.520
There was like a silver lining to
the fact that this had happened to our

1275
01:31:45.520 --> 01:31:48.720
community. It took others were taking
notice of us. He comes to Flint,

1276
01:31:49.159 --> 01:31:54.720
he witnesses our program. He's the
ambassador for National Hockey League's Hockey Is

1277
01:31:54.760 --> 01:31:58.159
for Everyone program. So there's programs
like ours. There's a big one in

1278
01:31:58.239 --> 01:32:00.640
New York. Ice Hockey and Harlem
is a big program in New York.

1279
01:32:00.840 --> 01:32:05.119
New Jersey has one New Jersey ice
hockey. They're very similar in the way

1280
01:32:05.199 --> 01:32:11.279
the structure of what they're trying to
promote and give two kids that don't typically

1281
01:32:11.279 --> 01:32:14.359
play our sport, and so it
comes to flat I can't believe it.

1282
01:32:14.479 --> 01:32:17.319
Before he leaves, he claims with
my wife, there's an award that is

1283
01:32:17.399 --> 01:32:20.199
named after me. I want you
to nominate him. And she's like,

1284
01:32:20.239 --> 01:32:24.239
well what, So she looks it
up the next day on the computer.

1285
01:32:25.039 --> 01:32:28.279
Oh my gosh, this does sound
like Rico and she's like, I got

1286
01:32:28.319 --> 01:32:30.479
get to get somebody to nominate him. And then she realizes that the nomination

1287
01:32:30.600 --> 01:32:32.640
is closed in three hours, Like, who the hell am I going to

1288
01:32:32.640 --> 01:32:35.680
get to write something? So she
goes on a whim. She doesn't consider

1289
01:32:35.680 --> 01:32:40.920
herself a writer, and she writes
this nomination, I get nominated, become

1290
01:32:40.960 --> 01:32:45.159
a finalist. When I became a
finalist, I along with two other people

1291
01:32:45.199 --> 01:32:49.520
in our country that do something very
similar. Creating opportunities through the sport of

1292
01:32:49.520 --> 01:32:56.399
hockey to better our communities is what
the award is about. We became finalists,

1293
01:32:56.399 --> 01:33:00.279
and the way that you became the
winner is to fan voting. So

1294
01:33:01.640 --> 01:33:05.199
they did a little piece and then
the fan voting went through the Internet,

1295
01:33:05.279 --> 01:33:12.920
of course, and I pushed send
once on that and it blew up.

1296
01:33:13.520 --> 01:33:16.199
And I'm going to tell you,
guys, it wasn't just the hockey community.

1297
01:33:16.640 --> 01:33:21.520
It was my firefighting community and to
my community at large. Because all

1298
01:33:21.680 --> 01:33:27.199
the things that I was able to
present in the best of life on behalf

1299
01:33:27.239 --> 01:33:33.000
of our department and myself, that
paid off dividends. So quick side note.

1300
01:33:33.039 --> 01:33:36.840
When I had won the award,
one of the I was fortunate enough

1301
01:33:36.840 --> 01:33:41.159
to win the award, I was
invited to Las Vegas, everybody to the

1302
01:33:41.279 --> 01:33:45.199
NHL Awards. So I'm there with
ten thousand people in the audience, the

1303
01:33:45.239 --> 01:33:47.960
top players in the NHL, and
my little lame ass from Flint, Michigan

1304
01:33:48.359 --> 01:33:51.520
who was a student trainer, and
I'm like, what did How the hell

1305
01:33:51.560 --> 01:33:56.359
did I get here? You guys? So I'm there. Yeah, it's

1306
01:33:56.359 --> 01:34:00.319
a dream. It was nuts.
It was nuts, you guys. And

1307
01:34:00.319 --> 01:34:02.880
I'm nervous the whole night. In
fact, at one point in the night,

1308
01:34:03.319 --> 01:34:06.560
Keenan Thompson was the MC of the
night and they do a little skit

1309
01:34:06.600 --> 01:34:11.439
and they say we need ten thousand
Hamburgers for his you know that skin of

1310
01:34:11.479 --> 01:34:14.720
the show they used to do back
in the day and like ten thousand hamburgers.

1311
01:34:14.720 --> 01:34:15.479
He says, yeah, there's ten
thousand people. And I said,

1312
01:34:15.600 --> 01:34:20.279
holy shit, man, people.
I told my wife, I said,

1313
01:34:20.279 --> 01:34:24.239
I don't even want to win.
And she says, recall, I said,

1314
01:34:24.279 --> 01:34:26.800
I know there's people going to be
disappointed. I mean, there was

1315
01:34:26.920 --> 01:34:30.680
watch parties in Flint. There was
all the guys at the firehouse were watching,

1316
01:34:30.840 --> 01:34:34.279
all people all across our country,
millions of people watching the show itself.

1317
01:34:34.880 --> 01:34:40.800
And I'm sitting here and it's the
last award of the night. You're

1318
01:34:41.039 --> 01:34:44.520
watching this show. Everyone look up
Rico Phillips NHL Awards and you'll get a

1319
01:34:44.600 --> 01:34:48.039
chance to watch this unfold. And
so we waited all night. And after

1320
01:34:48.079 --> 01:34:51.680
I seen so this story that they
ran. They ran a different story for

1321
01:34:51.720 --> 01:34:56.720
each of us and tell our story, and the story I gave him like

1322
01:34:56.760 --> 01:35:00.880
three or four different angles, and
then one they pulled up the water tower.

1323
01:35:00.880 --> 01:35:05.520
I said, oh shit, because
I'm really nervous about portraying our community

1324
01:35:05.520 --> 01:35:10.119
in a proper light. We're not
a bunch of poor people from Flint,

1325
01:35:10.159 --> 01:35:13.640
and uh, you know, we're
resilient here, and I get nervous that

1326
01:35:13.760 --> 01:35:15.640
people don't look us that way,
and so I don't want to portray that.

1327
01:35:15.720 --> 01:35:19.119
So anyways, there it comes.
I'm shit and it turned out to

1328
01:35:19.159 --> 01:35:24.560
be this incredibly cool story. So
then I'm like, oh shit, I

1329
01:35:24.640 --> 01:35:34.399
might have won this. I had
to take a piss so bad, you

1330
01:35:34.439 --> 01:35:41.039
guys, I can't get up commercial
cane and I'm like a ship and uh,

1331
01:35:41.239 --> 01:35:44.199
I started chewing gum and then I
was like, my wife, just

1332
01:35:44.239 --> 01:35:45.880
relax, I said, okay,
okay, And then the moment truth come,

1333
01:35:45.920 --> 01:35:48.640
which is what you'll see, and
my name was called and I had

1334
01:35:48.640 --> 01:35:53.199
an auto body experience and I went
up there, you guys, and I

1335
01:35:53.239 --> 01:35:55.600
got to tell you this so make
you want to watch it, right,

1336
01:35:56.520 --> 01:35:59.880
So as I as, I hug
my wife and and she says, you

1337
01:36:00.079 --> 01:36:03.800
got this recoess, thank you,
and uh I I shake the other guy's

1338
01:36:03.800 --> 01:36:08.640
hand from Detroit and who was also
a finalist, and the other lady was

1339
01:36:08.640 --> 01:36:11.640
a finalist from Baltimore. And then
that's when I realized, holy shit,

1340
01:36:11.720 --> 01:36:15.000
I gotta go up here now.
Right the reality was sinking and quick because

1341
01:36:15.039 --> 01:36:25.760
this guy on this remote camera was
right here, like, gotta look cool

1342
01:36:25.800 --> 01:36:27.760
now, I got look cool,
like you've been here before. So I'm

1343
01:36:27.800 --> 01:36:30.560
walking and I won't look at the
front roll, because front row there's gotta

1344
01:36:30.600 --> 01:36:34.760
be some I ended up going if
you're hockey David was on the front courn.

1345
01:36:34.840 --> 01:36:38.359
Oh my god, did not see
him because I didn't look at him

1346
01:36:38.880 --> 01:36:43.239
right. So I turned the corner. And earlier in that day they kind

1347
01:36:43.239 --> 01:36:46.000
of gave us a little run through
how it would work. And but when

1348
01:36:46.000 --> 01:36:49.600
that night came, all the award
winners are going up this main staircase to

1349
01:36:49.640 --> 01:36:53.640
get the award. Well, the
staircase that I was supposed to go on

1350
01:36:53.720 --> 01:36:56.720
that they told us about was way
over there. I'm thinking that they must

1351
01:36:56.720 --> 01:37:00.079
have sucked that up. I'm going
up this big staircase. You're left like

1352
01:37:00.119 --> 01:37:08.239
I'm somebody you got going up the
case and step Man says, oh no,

1353
01:37:08.279 --> 01:37:11.520
this ain't gonna just be easy like
that. Rico drag my toe and

1354
01:37:11.640 --> 01:37:21.319
I bout bid it. Man,
I was going down god man motion.

1355
01:37:23.079 --> 01:37:25.279
Then I get up there and I'm
like, oh my gosh, can you

1356
01:37:25.359 --> 01:37:28.319
guys believe I just almost bit I
caught myself, Thank God, I caught

1357
01:37:28.359 --> 01:37:32.560
myself. Everybody in the world's going, oh ship, the camera, the

1358
01:37:32.600 --> 01:37:38.079
camera. I knew everybody's seeing the
ship. And I get up there,

1359
01:37:38.119 --> 01:37:41.520
and I tell the presenters. Willie
Orie is one of the presenters. I

1360
01:37:41.560 --> 01:37:43.960
said, can you guys believe I
must just bid it? And they were

1361
01:37:44.039 --> 01:37:45.319
laughing. Then I'm like, oh, ship Live TV. I don't want

1362
01:37:45.319 --> 01:37:48.520
to get the playoff. I gotta
turn around. I got these words I

1363
01:37:48.520 --> 01:37:53.479
gotta say. So when I turn
around, you guys. When of the

1364
01:37:53.520 --> 01:37:56.880
presenter says, Rico, this is
yours, and she's handing me the award

1365
01:37:57.840 --> 01:38:02.880
and hold that for me, and
I went right into like I've done this

1366
01:38:02.920 --> 01:38:08.159
before. Look at my hands.
I'm like this, I'd like to thank

1367
01:38:08.239 --> 01:38:14.000
first of all, thanks, and
I'm just and then and then uh,

1368
01:38:14.199 --> 01:38:17.880
then I go on. I decide
I'm gonna add lift my fucking now,

1369
01:38:17.920 --> 01:38:24.880
and I'm gonna add pull pull with
your remarks. And the only way I

1370
01:38:24.920 --> 01:38:28.439
had an inkling I might want is
because they said my remarks were too long.

1371
01:38:28.439 --> 01:38:30.119
I'm like, if I didn't win, why do they care? So

1372
01:38:30.159 --> 01:38:32.359
that's the only the idea that I
had coming into this. I may have

1373
01:38:32.399 --> 01:38:35.600
won, And so my remarks so
often I'm reading them. Then I thought

1374
01:38:35.600 --> 01:38:40.279
to myself, we call ourselves flint
stones here in Flint for obvious reasons.

1375
01:38:40.359 --> 01:38:45.359
Right, So I decide I acknowledge
my friends and family and my hometown of

1376
01:38:45.479 --> 01:38:49.720
Flint, Michigan and abroad. Uh. And then I said something like out

1377
01:38:49.760 --> 01:39:00.079
of way flint Stones. But it
came up flip flap, like get through

1378
01:39:00.079 --> 01:39:05.600
it, and my wife and I
looked over there at her, and she

1379
01:39:05.720 --> 01:39:08.520
was crying. I was going to
lose it. I know I would have

1380
01:39:08.520 --> 01:39:12.159
started crying. I was holding off
right. And then just as I was

1381
01:39:12.199 --> 01:39:15.279
finishing my last statement, you won't
see this, and likely in any of

1382
01:39:15.319 --> 01:39:19.039
the views that you see, but
there's a black hockey player by name of

1383
01:39:19.079 --> 01:39:24.399
p K Sue Band who's now an
analyst. He's bigger than life hockey player,

1384
01:39:24.439 --> 01:39:28.800
and he's in the stand. And
keep in mind Alex Trebek was there

1385
01:39:28.840 --> 01:39:30.119
that year. I mean this,
this place was loaded with who's who,

1386
01:39:30.199 --> 01:39:33.680
Who's who. Then I was careful
not to look down, and as I'm

1387
01:39:33.720 --> 01:39:36.680
finished out my statement, my eyes
drifted down and there was p K and

1388
01:39:36.720 --> 01:39:40.359
he's looking up at me. And
the way I knew is he smiled and

1389
01:39:40.359 --> 01:39:45.319
did one of these, and I
said, I got starstruck and I did

1390
01:39:45.319 --> 01:39:47.520
it. I said, thank you
very much. I did half a black

1391
01:39:47.560 --> 01:40:01.079
power sign. It was going on
tomorrow morning when I get my call feet

1392
01:40:01.560 --> 01:40:06.319
five thirty in the morning, I'm
watching that thing. I go off stage.

1393
01:40:06.319 --> 01:40:11.840
You guys in the I'm walking and
then I realized, holy shit,

1394
01:40:11.880 --> 01:40:14.600
I don't even know where I'm going. There's nobody with me, and I

1395
01:40:14.640 --> 01:40:17.720
look over the band and they're like
do we play? Looking at me?

1396
01:40:17.760 --> 01:40:21.760
And then all of a sudden,
he who the hell's calling me up around

1397
01:40:21.960 --> 01:40:29.840
because Catherine tappened. She's fucking awards. She's like, you want the award

1398
01:40:33.800 --> 01:40:38.439
trophy? Man, Yeah, I'll
take it. And but it was a

1399
01:40:38.560 --> 01:40:43.520
day that changed my life, not
for just that moment. When I got

1400
01:40:43.560 --> 01:40:49.159
back to Flint and I seen billboards
electrying to billboards where congratulations Reco, five

1401
01:40:49.239 --> 01:40:54.159
of them throughout our town, in
our downtown, there was something about that.

1402
01:40:54.239 --> 01:40:57.880
I realized I had something bigger for
Rico, something different for Reco.

1403
01:40:57.920 --> 01:41:00.199
Not necessarily bigger, but different.
Like all those years of wanting to be

1404
01:41:00.199 --> 01:41:03.239
a firefighter. I tell this story
about wearing that badge, that fire marshal

1405
01:41:03.279 --> 01:41:06.239
badge when I was a kid.
How am I going to take my badge

1406
01:41:06.279 --> 01:41:11.359
off and just be Rico like I
was firefighter Phillips in our community And it

1407
01:41:11.399 --> 01:41:13.760
was a big deal to me and
lots of other people, and I was

1408
01:41:13.800 --> 01:41:16.319
like, I can't go work at
Walmart because I'll get fired for being a

1409
01:41:16.359 --> 01:41:19.760
people greeter. People fucking forget what
they're shopping for by time I'm done talking,

1410
01:41:20.039 --> 01:41:25.760
right, So that's not going to
work. But after winning the award,

1411
01:41:27.039 --> 01:41:30.479
I decided to retire. A lot
of a lot of influences happened.

1412
01:41:30.479 --> 01:41:33.680
The department ha changed quite a bit. Leadership was in my opinion, not

1413
01:41:33.800 --> 01:41:38.560
the best at the time, and
so it kind of drove me to a

1414
01:41:38.560 --> 01:41:41.920
point where I had to find something
different, and I took I'm going to

1415
01:41:42.000 --> 01:41:45.399
take the high road out and not
tell dirty stories about our department because it

1416
01:41:45.399 --> 01:41:48.319
doesn't matter now. I choose to
be better, not bitter. But I

1417
01:41:48.359 --> 01:41:51.680
will say that I kind of left
on the side on a side not side

1418
01:41:51.680 --> 01:41:56.760
door, almost just by what I
talked about. What I believe is when

1419
01:41:56.840 --> 01:42:00.600
you get put in pedal stales,
I mean the governor she to Flanning,

1420
01:42:00.640 --> 01:42:02.159
gives me a proclamation at the fire
station. All of a sudden, the

1421
01:42:02.239 --> 01:42:05.680
Detroit Red Wings and come to the
fire station. It was like overload of

1422
01:42:05.760 --> 01:42:10.840
Rico fucking Phillips, right, and
it was getting under people's skin, and

1423
01:42:10.840 --> 01:42:14.079
and it just I fell unwelcome anymore, and so it was time to step

1424
01:42:14.119 --> 01:42:16.640
out. And thank goodness it all
happened the way it did because it gave

1425
01:42:16.640 --> 01:42:20.159
me a chance to slow down and
reflect. I started doing some really cool

1426
01:42:20.159 --> 01:42:25.000
stuff and hockey all of a sudden, and Detroit Red Wings had me down

1427
01:42:25.000 --> 01:42:28.680
there you go for a ceremonial puck
drop. That same day, on my

1428
01:42:28.760 --> 01:42:30.600
way to do that puck drop,
which I'm a I'm a referee, you

1429
01:42:30.640 --> 01:42:36.359
know me fucking puck drops had done. That was the most my first time,

1430
01:42:36.760 --> 01:42:40.960
and I dropped it about the same
that's the bad part. But anyways,

1431
01:42:42.439 --> 01:42:45.239
Uh, on my way to the
locker room or excuse me, to

1432
01:42:45.279 --> 01:42:48.079
the to do the ceremony puck drop, Uh, the guy said, Hey,

1433
01:42:48.600 --> 01:42:51.119
the coach wants you to come in
and say a few words to the

1434
01:42:51.159 --> 01:42:56.079
players and read out to starting lineup. I mean, life changing for me.

1435
01:42:56.159 --> 01:42:59.840
I mean this was my opening statement
was I'm just a kid from Flinn.

1436
01:42:59.840 --> 01:43:02.840
I'm not sure how exactly all I
got here, but and anyways,

1437
01:43:02.880 --> 01:43:10.359
long story shorter, what it Then
the pandemic hit and I think that's and

1438
01:43:10.560 --> 01:43:13.840
something occurred during that pandemic that happened
to a lot of people do my type

1439
01:43:13.840 --> 01:43:18.640
of work that I do now George
Floyd was murdered, and so it created

1440
01:43:18.640 --> 01:43:23.319
this call to action, and me
personally, I'm not a Black Lives Matter

1441
01:43:23.439 --> 01:43:27.520
movement type action because I the way
I looked at it at the time is

1442
01:43:27.520 --> 01:43:30.720
that it was pretty noisy. But
I wanted to do something that sustainable.

1443
01:43:30.720 --> 01:43:32.720
I wanted to make sure that whatever
I did was sustainable, not just raise

1444
01:43:32.760 --> 01:43:35.640
hell and let everybody know I was
raising hell about it because everyone knew it

1445
01:43:35.680 --> 01:43:39.880
was unjust, or most majority of
people knew it was unjust. How do

1446
01:43:39.920 --> 01:43:43.680
we change our environment around us?
Is the way I internalize it. So

1447
01:43:44.319 --> 01:43:46.119
I reached out to Willie o Ree
to see how he's doing, because we're

1448
01:43:46.159 --> 01:43:49.880
during the pandemic, and I told
him I was struggling and with what was

1449
01:43:49.920 --> 01:43:51.840
going on in the world. And
he said, Rego, I'm gonna tell

1450
01:43:51.840 --> 01:43:57.600
you something right now. He said, people are listening to you in hockey

1451
01:43:57.680 --> 01:44:00.800
right now and they want to know
what you have to say, so you'd

1452
01:44:00.800 --> 01:44:02.960
better keep on speaking. And the
hair stood up on the back of my

1453
01:44:03.039 --> 01:44:04.800
neck. I didn't know what it
meant. I hung up, and the

1454
01:44:04.840 --> 01:44:09.760
next day I sent a letter off
to the Ontario Hockey League commissioner and he

1455
01:44:09.800 --> 01:44:12.880
said, ironically, we're looking for
someone. I wasn't looking for a job.

1456
01:44:12.920 --> 01:44:15.039
I was just looking to support whoever's
doing that work because I had a

1457
01:44:15.039 --> 01:44:18.159
team here in Flint, and I
want to do something bigger than just what

1458
01:44:18.279 --> 01:44:21.600
I could just local. I wanted
to get bigger with my attempt, and

1459
01:44:23.000 --> 01:44:26.680
there was nobody who does this work
in major junior hockey. So after six

1460
01:44:26.760 --> 01:44:31.439
phone calls that summer is twenty twenty, we created. The commissioner says,

1461
01:44:31.439 --> 01:44:34.800
well, what should we call you? After we created a position for me?

1462
01:44:34.880 --> 01:44:36.359
I said, I don't know.
He said, well, I like

1463
01:44:36.399 --> 01:44:40.159
this director of cultural diversity and Inclusion. What do you think? And I

1464
01:44:40.159 --> 01:44:44.119
said, sounds good to me.
And so I started working for the Ontario

1465
01:44:44.159 --> 01:44:46.840
Hockey League, which is one of
the most prominent major junior hockey leagues sixteen

1466
01:44:46.880 --> 01:44:53.079
to twenty year old players in the
whole world. The majority of draft picks

1467
01:44:53.359 --> 01:44:57.399
in the NHL each year comes through
the OHL. So I got a great

1468
01:44:57.439 --> 01:45:01.560
track record and my role as diversity
inclusion director is interesting. Some folks on

1469
01:45:01.600 --> 01:45:06.880
here probably be kind of like,
how the hell, because even my hockey

1470
01:45:06.880 --> 01:45:12.439
buddies are like you're the church police
now, because I'm like all of us,

1471
01:45:12.840 --> 01:45:15.159
I'm woody as hell. I try
to be and try to have fun.

1472
01:45:15.520 --> 01:45:17.720
And I know for a fact,
over my career I've said things and

1473
01:45:17.760 --> 01:45:23.439
I've heard things that are totally today's
standards so to speak appropriate. Right.

1474
01:45:23.479 --> 01:45:27.439
I'm not going to say I apologize, because that's how we hope. But

1475
01:45:27.520 --> 01:45:30.920
I've had because of that experience,
it helped me do the work that I'm

1476
01:45:30.920 --> 01:45:33.840
doing now. Have to take my
own reflection of life and like realize,

1477
01:45:34.000 --> 01:45:39.039
hey, it doesn't make me a
bad person. I'm not a at fault.

1478
01:45:40.479 --> 01:45:43.520
I'm gonna make mistakes just like everyone
else, and just trying to get

1479
01:45:43.600 --> 01:45:46.880
help hockey players do that and help
diversify the sport because, as you likely

1480
01:45:46.920 --> 01:45:50.000
know, it's not as diverse as
it could be. And I think that

1481
01:45:50.039 --> 01:45:57.640
goes beyond players. That's the support
staff, like the trainers and equipment managers

1482
01:45:57.680 --> 01:46:02.439
and the coaching staff and those folks. That's where we're missing the boat.

1483
01:46:02.960 --> 01:46:09.119
Our sport could be much stronger.
I guess that's what I'm saying. I

1484
01:46:09.159 --> 01:46:15.720
know we're supposed to be talking about
firefighting, but entertained, no, I

1485
01:46:15.520 --> 01:46:18.680
wouldn't be where I'm at without my
firefighting career, I mean as far as

1486
01:46:18.760 --> 01:46:23.399
what I do. Now. Give
you an example by that, I mean

1487
01:46:23.840 --> 01:46:27.600
in nineteen ninety five, when I
was in the Union ninety six, the

1488
01:46:28.720 --> 01:46:31.640
females in our fire department didn't have
policies that help protect their rights. Right,

1489
01:46:31.680 --> 01:46:36.119
So there was no separate dorms,
no separate washrooms or bathrooms we call

1490
01:46:36.119 --> 01:46:40.520
them here in until I've been in
Canada a bit, call them washrooms.

1491
01:46:40.560 --> 01:46:44.680
But anyways, we didn't have a
separate facilities. We didn't have a pregnancy

1492
01:46:44.760 --> 01:46:47.680
policy, which was really something that
was important. So I was on one

1493
01:46:47.720 --> 01:46:51.359
of the first negotiating teams to help
bring that to light. And through that

1494
01:46:51.439 --> 01:46:56.800
process I got a chance to didn't
know what the term meant at the time,

1495
01:46:56.800 --> 01:47:00.800
but just have empathy for others and
recognize that that moment in time,

1496
01:47:00.880 --> 01:47:04.600
as well as many others, helped
me prepare me for today and understanding my

1497
01:47:04.680 --> 01:47:11.199
role today for others. Right,
isn't that really key for anything in life?

1498
01:47:11.319 --> 01:47:15.520
Right? Yeah? For sure?
Takes you outside yourself. How tough

1499
01:47:15.560 --> 01:47:16.680
is it? We were talking,
you know, we talked a couple of

1500
01:47:16.720 --> 01:47:19.479
times before, you know, the
last few weeks, and we were talking

1501
01:47:19.520 --> 01:47:24.479
I think to this morning, and
I was saying that, and we were

1502
01:47:24.479 --> 01:47:28.159
saying, like the way you grew
up right, you handled stuff right?

1503
01:47:28.279 --> 01:47:31.680
I handled stuff right. So you
know I was Italian and mostly you know

1504
01:47:31.720 --> 01:47:33.960
Irish thing right. It was just
that's how it was. You had to

1505
01:47:33.960 --> 01:47:38.079
handle your business. You didn't want
it to go outside of that. Yeah,

1506
01:47:38.119 --> 01:47:41.079
you know again we talk about that
on the show. That might be

1507
01:47:41.199 --> 01:47:44.039
like an old school thought, you
know what I mean. I think it's

1508
01:47:44.079 --> 01:47:47.159
a combination of you don't want to
run out the first chance you get because

1509
01:47:47.199 --> 01:47:50.520
somebody called you a name or whatever. It is, right, but how

1510
01:47:50.880 --> 01:47:54.520
do you balance? How do they
balance that? Now? Is it so

1511
01:47:54.640 --> 01:47:59.960
easy? No? What I try
to exemplify is first thing is I don't

1512
01:48:00.079 --> 01:48:01.359
just say here's how, here's a
book, read it. I go and

1513
01:48:01.399 --> 01:48:04.199
do presentations all the time with them. And what I try to do is

1514
01:48:04.239 --> 01:48:09.760
get them. One of the things
I do is a cultural experiment or exercise,

1515
01:48:09.840 --> 01:48:15.680
cause experiment, cultural exercise with uh. And I reintroduced myself after they've

1516
01:48:15.680 --> 01:48:18.159
already gotten to know me a bit
from a cultural stadmad like I told you

1517
01:48:18.159 --> 01:48:21.520
what my parents are like something I
didn't tell you about my grandparents. I

1518
01:48:21.520 --> 01:48:28.760
don't believe that my grandfather on my
father's side is direct descendant of slavery automobile

1519
01:48:28.800 --> 01:48:33.079
Alabama. I can trace it right
to when they were imported into this country.

1520
01:48:33.840 --> 01:48:38.159
Uh. And then my grandfather on
my mother's side is a World War

1521
01:48:38.199 --> 01:48:41.880
II veteran from the Nazi regime,
fought on the front lines of Russian and

1522
01:48:41.880 --> 01:48:45.319
Poland. So if you think my
family team Tree would have ever fucking collide

1523
01:48:47.239 --> 01:48:51.760
so genetically to be diverse in the
way, I think is no damn way

1524
01:48:51.800 --> 01:48:57.239
that can't be right. But with
that said, what I try to do

1525
01:48:57.439 --> 01:49:01.159
is allow each player in this case, we're tking about players to be proud

1526
01:49:01.199 --> 01:49:04.920
of who they are as a person, because I think sometimes what happens now

1527
01:49:04.920 --> 01:49:09.840
with the way the world's turn changing, I'm going to be frank because I'm

1528
01:49:09.840 --> 01:49:13.199
in a sport full of white people
that white people almost feel almost a fist,

1529
01:49:13.279 --> 01:49:16.439
like I can't be myself. When
before you could be yourself, but

1530
01:49:17.159 --> 01:49:20.119
then it was like it was in
the essence, as if you were keeping

1531
01:49:20.159 --> 01:49:24.359
someone else down. That isn't necessarily
way it is. So now the things

1532
01:49:24.359 --> 01:49:30.720
are changing, sometimes people find themselves
on a defense about who they are and

1533
01:49:30.720 --> 01:49:33.600
who they can be, and so
I'm giving that back to players. But

1534
01:49:33.720 --> 01:49:38.560
the idea behind it is so that
they have respect first of all for their

1535
01:49:38.600 --> 01:49:42.600
self and their culture, but more
importantly for everyone else around them, whether

1536
01:49:42.600 --> 01:49:45.039
it be in the team or their
opponents. All have a different walk of

1537
01:49:45.039 --> 01:49:48.920
life, so is I'm starting to
try to create ways so that it's easier

1538
01:49:49.439 --> 01:49:51.760
for them not to have it.
In the forefront, I'm not going to

1539
01:49:51.800 --> 01:49:55.560
say it to begin with, so
I don't have to worry about the scrutiny

1540
01:49:55.560 --> 01:49:59.920
of how I came up and on
this other stuff. So in the fire

1541
01:50:00.119 --> 01:50:05.479
service, it's different. We're all
grown men and women. And the most

1542
01:50:05.520 --> 01:50:11.079
important thing I can tell you anybody
is if someone has crossed the line with

1543
01:50:11.119 --> 01:50:14.880
you, it doesn't mean it's time
to go off and and fucking snap on

1544
01:50:14.960 --> 01:50:17.279
them unless it's something that's deep.
See obviously, that's that's human nature.

1545
01:50:17.640 --> 01:50:21.239
It certainly isn't time to necessarily go
run off and tell somebody what happened.

1546
01:50:21.399 --> 01:50:26.359
It's time for them to understand what
empathy is and understand how you feel,

1547
01:50:27.000 --> 01:50:30.000
right and then through that process you'll
probably feel how they feel because you'll understand

1548
01:50:30.000 --> 01:50:33.319
that you said some dumb shit before
too right, and so it's a way

1549
01:50:33.319 --> 01:50:36.399
to connect better now and the past
is just blow it off, right.

1550
01:50:36.439 --> 01:50:40.880
I was my first several years of
life, I was Oreo, half read

1551
01:50:41.000 --> 01:50:44.079
zebra that my name wasn't Rico.
When I got in the department. It

1552
01:50:44.119 --> 01:50:46.159
was some of the same thing.
My black firefighter friends thought I was white.

1553
01:50:46.199 --> 01:50:49.880
My white firefire friends that was black. And so for me being mixed,

1554
01:50:49.920 --> 01:50:54.039
I was like, dance the line
and I had to stop all that,

1555
01:50:54.720 --> 01:50:57.239
say, Rico, do what you
enjoy doing, soul yep. I

1556
01:50:57.279 --> 01:51:00.000
was the black guy that played hockey
and they loved it and they know it

1557
01:50:59.800 --> 01:51:03.880
and embraced it. The black guy
that snowmobiles. You sure he's black.

1558
01:51:08.279 --> 01:51:11.760
Across the barriers, man, I
love going across the other line and see

1559
01:51:11.760 --> 01:51:15.800
what happens. Man, I guess, but it's it's uh, it's it's

1560
01:51:15.840 --> 01:51:16.720
part of who I am. I
think. Like I said, my mom

1561
01:51:16.720 --> 01:51:20.239
had always taught me that you judge, you know, the whole Judge book

1562
01:51:20.239 --> 01:51:24.039
by a cover thing. But she's
always told me, you know, people's

1563
01:51:24.079 --> 01:51:26.840
characters get revealed, and that's the
one you really need to worry about your

1564
01:51:26.920 --> 01:51:30.479
character. I got to tell my
kids the same thing. Brocas the half

1565
01:51:30.479 --> 01:51:33.840
Spanish Asian half one. So yeah, yeah, tell them the same thing

1566
01:51:33.880 --> 01:51:38.119
all the time. And I try
to express everybody, be proud of who

1567
01:51:38.119 --> 01:51:41.840
you are. There's no reason you
shouldn't be, but just be be accepting

1568
01:51:41.840 --> 01:51:45.399
of other's difference from you. And
that's that's where we all can kind of

1569
01:51:45.439 --> 01:51:48.960
like so before before we get too
deep. And it's like I teach empathy

1570
01:51:49.000 --> 01:51:53.399
now, like I talk about it, but what we do in many cases

1571
01:51:53.439 --> 01:51:55.840
empathy is back here in the back
of our head. We understand what it

1572
01:51:55.840 --> 01:51:59.680
means for ourselves in other people's shoes, but most of us only think about

1573
01:51:59.680 --> 01:52:01.840
empathy when we need it. We
don't think about when we have to give

1574
01:52:01.880 --> 01:52:08.119
it. And so that when we
start reversing that we're always your feelings a

1575
01:52:08.239 --> 01:52:12.159
first all the time. It's very
hard to somebody else feelings first and say,

1576
01:52:12.239 --> 01:52:14.479
wait a minute, wait a minute, what am I saying to doing

1577
01:52:14.560 --> 01:52:16.439
right now that's making this How is
this person feeling for what I'm doing right

1578
01:52:16.479 --> 01:52:20.359
now? You know? And some
of it comes from blind spots. I

1579
01:52:20.399 --> 01:52:24.199
was raised, like probably everybody in
this call, in an era where we

1580
01:52:24.359 --> 01:52:29.119
use homophobic slurs like there were nothing
recognized. Now I recognize I'm different.

1581
01:52:29.359 --> 01:52:31.079
I had to learn that in this
job. I said, some stupid ship

1582
01:52:31.439 --> 01:52:35.000
just since I've been on this job. So it doesn't escape. We still

1583
01:52:35.039 --> 01:52:39.800
do that, you know, Oh
my god. U My brother was the

1584
01:52:39.800 --> 01:52:42.319
biggest offender of that old time.
What do you yay? What do you?

1585
01:52:42.680 --> 01:52:46.279
What do you? What do you? But it winds up his son

1586
01:52:46.359 --> 01:52:49.199
is funny. Now all of a
sudden, you know, God forbid you

1587
01:52:49.239 --> 01:52:51.640
slip and say, what's about with
you? What are you? Girls?

1588
01:52:57.039 --> 01:53:00.279
You're like what? Wait? You
were the worst? Were the world first,

1589
01:53:00.279 --> 01:53:03.359
one out of everything? One?
Right? Right? Oh, here's

1590
01:53:03.399 --> 01:53:06.960
what for me? I give you
this? So so I am skinny fucker.

1591
01:53:08.000 --> 01:53:11.359
I was always chastised for being skinny. But I cracked on a guy

1592
01:53:11.359 --> 01:53:14.039
too. For I remember this guy. He's letting hi better than I say.

1593
01:53:14.239 --> 01:53:16.840
He walked by one morning and home, we're about to roll call,

1594
01:53:16.880 --> 01:53:19.960
about to change, and I said, hey, everybody stop you hear that

1595
01:53:20.000 --> 01:53:25.960
screaming? Like what I said,
I can't hear screaming, Listen, listen.

1596
01:53:26.000 --> 01:53:28.479
And I got everybody close, and
all of a sudden, I lay

1597
01:53:28.560 --> 01:53:30.920
my ear next to my mass belt. I said, it's fucking belt,

1598
01:53:30.119 --> 01:53:35.279
it's screaming. To let him loose
lost it because I'm a skinny fucker,

1599
01:53:35.359 --> 01:53:40.920
right. But so my point is
I probably wouldn't say that joke anymore because

1600
01:53:40.920 --> 01:53:48.359
I'm sensitive bub being skinny. Right, Listen, when you get your balls

1601
01:53:48.359 --> 01:53:50.680
broken enough, Like, what are
you gonna say to me that somebody has

1602
01:53:50.840 --> 01:53:55.239
said to me a million times?
I was just gonna say that. I

1603
01:53:55.279 --> 01:53:58.079
mean, it really is very similar
to the firehouse. I mean, I

1604
01:53:58.119 --> 01:54:00.640
played hockey my whole life. Any
team that you've played on, if you

1605
01:54:00.119 --> 01:54:03.680
played with those guys all the time, it's very similar. Can you imagine

1606
01:54:03.680 --> 01:54:06.640
what the NHL guys, you know, all those guys the OHL, they

1607
01:54:06.640 --> 01:54:10.319
were with each other all the time, right, And what it's the same

1608
01:54:10.359 --> 01:54:14.560
as the fire department. You go
outside the doors or you go play another

1609
01:54:14.600 --> 01:54:17.199
team. Right, Your team's the
best, right, if that guy's fighting,

1610
01:54:17.319 --> 01:54:20.800
you're fighting, right, it didn't
matter everybody's fighting. We're I mean,

1611
01:54:20.800 --> 01:54:25.560
you see it all the time,
there's five guys fighting five guys because

1612
01:54:26.159 --> 01:54:28.680
that's your fighting. My guys were
fighting, right, And there's the same

1613
01:54:28.680 --> 01:54:31.199
thing in the fire department. Our
firehouse is the best, and you're gonna

1614
01:54:31.680 --> 01:54:33.960
have pride and you're going to try
and beat the people in and do whatever

1615
01:54:34.000 --> 01:54:36.560
you have to do, and that's
it. So I kind of always felt

1616
01:54:36.560 --> 01:54:40.520
there was a similarity, you know
there in any group that you're in.

1617
01:54:40.520 --> 01:54:45.720
I guess the military, you know
all that stuff. Just like my career.

1618
01:54:45.760 --> 01:54:51.399
I had to give up fighting.
I fucking hurt myself throwing the my

1619
01:54:53.039 --> 01:55:02.439
shoulder, I didn't hit the guy
hardy, and oh oh, all right,

1620
01:55:02.439 --> 01:55:04.399
we got to get back to firefighter. I think we got to get

1621
01:55:04.399 --> 01:55:09.279
to the old school. Is there
anything else that you had before we get

1622
01:55:09.279 --> 01:55:12.399
to the old school? Else you
want to make my face hurt? Face

1623
01:55:12.520 --> 01:55:16.920
hurts? Brother, my face?
Is it that time? Can I get

1624
01:55:16.920 --> 01:55:21.159
it? Ready? It's that time? You got it? You got it?

1625
01:55:20.720 --> 01:55:35.079
All right, It's time for there
we go the oloyay. I think

1626
01:55:35.119 --> 01:55:39.279
the biggest tip that I can take
is that each day that you show up

1627
01:55:39.319 --> 01:55:41.960
to work, bring passion with you, even on those days you don't want

1628
01:55:41.960 --> 01:55:45.720
to you don't have that passion,
learn that passion. And if you have

1629
01:55:45.800 --> 01:55:47.720
that passion, you got to share
with others so they follow on your footsteps.

1630
01:55:47.760 --> 01:55:51.920
Because all of us have firefighters that
never like me, grew up and

1631
01:55:53.000 --> 01:55:57.319
want to be a firefighter, and
so they need to figure out what it's

1632
01:55:57.319 --> 01:56:00.000
about from where our passion lives.
You know, it isn't it isn't just

1633
01:56:00.840 --> 01:56:04.000
looking cool in the uniform. It
takes much more of that, as you

1634
01:56:04.039 --> 01:56:08.880
all know, so share your passion. And you know, one of the

1635
01:56:08.880 --> 01:56:14.159
firefighting things that I can say is
that I think I said earlier, like

1636
01:56:14.399 --> 01:56:16.640
keep your mouth shut. Your actions
speaks so much louder than your words.

1637
01:56:17.800 --> 01:56:23.199
And when your time comes to speak, speak up and be an advocate and

1638
01:56:23.279 --> 01:56:26.880
ally for yourself and and for others
around you. You know, it's really

1639
01:56:26.880 --> 01:56:30.119
important because we're losing out the team
in this, in this whole firefighting thing,

1640
01:56:30.159 --> 01:56:33.239
and it's become a bunch of individuals. And I'm hoping that those of

1641
01:56:33.239 --> 01:56:35.600
you that are listening to think to
yourself, you know, I'm going to

1642
01:56:35.640 --> 01:56:40.319
be the one that helps pull our
team together and makes it so whether it's

1643
01:56:40.319 --> 01:56:43.680
just your crew or you know,
however many folks you can pull together,

1644
01:56:43.760 --> 01:56:46.199
pull them together. It's what makes
your career your career. It's not a

1645
01:56:46.319 --> 01:56:50.439
job. It's a career, especially
this special career that we've we were so

1646
01:56:50.560 --> 01:56:55.359
lucky to have. And for the
old guys, there's you know, like

1647
01:56:55.439 --> 01:56:59.239
me, like trying to figure out
what's next. Like you know, it's

1648
01:56:59.279 --> 01:57:02.399
hard is hired to make that decision. Like all the things, all the

1649
01:57:02.479 --> 01:57:05.479
variables that comes into play when you're
trying to decide what to do next,

1650
01:57:05.840 --> 01:57:09.279
just realize one thing. If you
can look at Rico. No, you

1651
01:57:09.319 --> 01:57:12.359
might not win a WILLI o'real ward, but there is something for you out

1652
01:57:12.359 --> 01:57:15.880
there. This is my second calling. Find your second calling. At fifty

1653
01:57:15.960 --> 01:57:19.279
years old, I was able to
totally redefine myself as far as what my

1654
01:57:19.319 --> 01:57:24.279
importance would be. Nope, I'm
not saving lives, I'm not preventing fires,

1655
01:57:24.720 --> 01:57:28.119
but I'm hopefully saving a bit of
humanity. And and you know,

1656
01:57:28.159 --> 01:57:31.079
I'm taking my experiences that I've got
as a firefighter with me wherever I go.

1657
01:57:31.359 --> 01:57:35.640
In fact, I was looking through
my looking through my stuff today and

1658
01:57:35.640 --> 01:57:39.159
I couldn't find a flint fire hat. So I will put a flint fire

1659
01:57:39.199 --> 01:57:41.600
scully on. I can't believe model, but I will or them all the

1660
01:57:41.600 --> 01:57:45.560
time. So I got that right, You got it. I like a

1661
01:57:45.600 --> 01:57:51.560
little bit I wear the time.
Yeah, awesome. You know what the

1662
01:57:53.000 --> 01:57:57.279
gods you can put you all going
to say? When Louis called me like

1663
01:57:57.279 --> 01:58:00.359
a smitten little a thirteen year old
said, this guy from Flint, Bro.

1664
01:58:00.640 --> 01:58:03.560
You know what we go. He
was right, Man, you will

1665
01:58:03.560 --> 01:58:06.720
want to better guess we've ever had
on your Thank you man, that means

1666
01:58:06.720 --> 01:58:11.479
a lot to me. I was
nervous. I was nervous because I heard

1667
01:58:11.479 --> 01:58:14.920
some of the other guys and I
don't have some of the fantastic stories about

1668
01:58:14.960 --> 01:58:18.119
fires. But my career was a
fantastic career and I take nothing back from

1669
01:58:18.159 --> 01:58:21.800
it. Everybody's career is unique and
everybody's got something to offer. Like you

1670
01:58:21.840 --> 01:58:26.760
said, man, just listen,
and I mean the lines too. I

1671
01:58:26.800 --> 01:58:30.000
mean you did a lot of oh
yeah, yeah. Don't get me wrong,

1672
01:58:30.039 --> 01:58:31.800
man, I was. I was
in the in the midst of the

1673
01:58:31.800 --> 01:58:35.319
ship, especially in those nineties and
early two thousands, and I had my

1674
01:58:35.399 --> 01:58:40.439
fair share of trauma. After that
initial trauma, like I said, it

1675
01:58:40.520 --> 01:58:43.800
kind of set me up for what
I was about to see. And I

1676
01:58:43.800 --> 01:58:45.520
got to be honest with me at
the end, I was like, uh

1677
01:58:45.279 --> 01:58:47.760
so, as a quartermaster, you
know, I was going to calls the

1678
01:58:47.800 --> 01:58:50.000
first couple of years and even some
of the older guys, man, what

1679
01:58:50.039 --> 01:58:53.359
are you doing here, quartermaster?
You're messing up the job. I'm man.

1680
01:58:54.079 --> 01:58:56.239
So I started taking pictures of the
guys so I could be a part

1681
01:58:56.279 --> 01:58:59.399
of it. Then about the last
year, I started showing up and I

1682
01:58:59.399 --> 01:59:02.479
feel so bad had for the residents
that I could tell my walls were we're

1683
01:59:02.520 --> 01:59:05.399
breaking down. You know those barriers
that we put up so we can go

1684
01:59:05.439 --> 01:59:09.920
do our jobs, those are breaking
down our starting. Oh man, it's

1685
01:59:09.920 --> 01:59:12.119
just feeling bad for people. The
rest of the night, I said,

1686
01:59:12.119 --> 01:59:15.760
I gotta stop going to fire calls. And my last one, my last

1687
01:59:15.760 --> 01:59:19.920
call. We've done some boat training
you guys, and a bunch of guys

1688
01:59:19.920 --> 01:59:21.920
are scared to drive a boat.
Never been in a boat. We're on

1689
01:59:21.960 --> 01:59:25.880
the lake and I got him doing
training even though in the quartermaster. And

1690
01:59:25.920 --> 01:59:29.000
we get a call for a boat
call. Right as I'm about to leave

1691
01:59:29.079 --> 01:59:30.239
five o'clock. I said, ship, I gotta go. I've been doing

1692
01:59:30.279 --> 01:59:33.399
this all day. Get over there. I get there early. They flipped

1693
01:59:33.399 --> 01:59:36.920
the damn door over and there's two
people tied together floating in the liver.

1694
01:59:40.359 --> 01:59:44.039
This man, I'm almost out of
here, and I gotta get out of

1695
01:59:44.039 --> 01:59:51.600
here. Every time I get out, exactly, give them one more for

1696
01:59:51.640 --> 01:59:55.800
the road. Can't give them one
more? What do you want? Which

1697
01:59:55.800 --> 01:59:57.840
one do you want? You know
you know which one. Come on,

1698
01:59:57.960 --> 02:00:06.039
nobody cares abound time. I want
to make sure well. Thanks for coming

1699
02:00:06.079 --> 02:00:09.720
on, brother, It is my
pleasure. Thanks for having me. It

1700
02:00:09.760 --> 02:00:11.840
really means a lot to me.
Thank you all the time. You get

1701
02:00:11.880 --> 02:00:15.399
all those guys in Flint, Michigan
to subscribe and like, brother, you've

1702
02:00:15.439 --> 02:00:18.720
done well. You really got proud
of it. Thank you on the on

1703
02:00:18.800 --> 02:00:24.520
the award everything. Thank you very
much. I always like Willie's hat too.

1704
02:00:24.520 --> 02:00:27.000
He's got a good hat. Yeah
yeah, I was trying it for

1705
02:00:27.079 --> 02:00:33.479
door out and yeah I got a
narrow had yeah around. Let let's get

1706
02:00:33.880 --> 02:00:36.920
Can we play his music one more
time? Guns? His video was awesome,

1707
02:00:36.920 --> 02:00:41.399
Bro, I can't believe it was
great. We'll do it again.

1708
02:00:41.399 --> 02:00:54.239
And don't forget those other two commercials. Oh forgot? Go ahead, sa

1709
02:00:57.199 --> 02:01:03.520
here was something back in the days. Guys, play those two commercials really

1710
02:01:03.600 --> 02:01:08.359
quick. We have responsibilities here,
you know, human games. All right,

1711
02:01:08.359 --> 02:01:11.960
we'll rocket and then dig up a
health and safety tip. Oh shit.

1712
02:01:12.560 --> 02:01:17.199
Yeah. Established in nineteen thirty and
under the current ownership since nineteen eighty

1713
02:01:17.239 --> 02:01:23.399
seven, the New Jersey Fire Equipment
Company handles a complete line of fire department

1714
02:01:23.439 --> 02:01:28.720
equipment and supplies. Headquartered in green
Brook. The company operates full three M

1715
02:01:28.840 --> 02:01:34.399
Scott service facilities in Richfield Park and
Tom's River staff by ten fully authorized Scott's

1716
02:01:34.439 --> 02:01:40.960
certified technicians with a fleet of six
fully equipped service fans. All New Jersey

1717
02:01:40.960 --> 02:01:46.159
Fire technicians and sales representatives are active
or retired firefighters, officers or chief officers,

1718
02:01:46.479 --> 02:01:51.560
career and volunteer. They understand the
business and the importance of their work.

1719
02:01:51.920 --> 02:01:58.000
New Jersey Fire has represented Scott since
Earl Scott entered the SCBA business at

1720
02:01:58.039 --> 02:02:01.520
the end of World War Two.
Among other leading manufacturers represented by New Jersey

1721
02:02:01.600 --> 02:02:08.640
Fire are Globe and Firedex turnout gear, Mercedes Hose, task Force Tips and

1722
02:02:08.680 --> 02:02:14.880
Acron Brass, hi Genol, firehooks, Arcticompressors, MSA, Carn's Helmets,

1723
02:02:15.319 --> 02:02:19.800
Keemguard, Phone, Alkoholite and Duo
safety ladders, BA Face shield Protectors,

1724
02:02:20.359 --> 02:02:27.039
Truckman's Choice saws, Groves, gear
racks and washer driders, Supervac Fans,

1725
02:02:27.760 --> 02:02:32.239
RPI Streamlight, and many others.
A New Jersey incorporated and based company,

1726
02:02:32.439 --> 02:02:36.079
sales and service are limited to the
state of New Jersey. Find us now

1727
02:02:36.159 --> 02:02:48.199
at www dot NJFE dot com.
That's www. Dot NJFE dot com.

1728
02:02:48.279 --> 02:02:51.720
Beautiful, get the health of safety, because I got one. There we

1729
02:02:51.760 --> 02:02:57.880
go. The First Responder Center for
Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated

1730
02:02:57.880 --> 02:03:01.960
to protecting their lives and livelihoods of
first responders. Their education and research initiatives

1731
02:03:02.000 --> 02:03:06.760
aim to bring greater awareness and understanding
the challenges to the health, safety,

1732
02:03:06.800 --> 02:03:11.760
and well being of firefighters, EMS, personnel, and other first responders too.

1733
02:03:12.199 --> 02:03:16.760
They are an affiliate of the National
Fallen Firefighter Foundation. Do me.

1734
02:03:16.800 --> 02:03:26.319
I'm telling Tony, I'll read yourself. I'm telling Tony to subscribe on the

1735
02:03:26.359 --> 02:03:30.760
side over here. So all right, listen, this is a very personal

1736
02:03:30.840 --> 02:03:31.920
When I say it all the time, you roof, you say it all

1737
02:03:31.920 --> 02:03:36.319
the time. But there's another guy
that Rob Brown saved by getting doing the

1738
02:03:36.399 --> 02:03:43.319
full mock up the WTC Advanced Medical
Uh did you know that? What's his

1739
02:03:43.399 --> 02:03:46.039
name? We grew up with him
Rob. He's in the fourteenth Division.

1740
02:03:46.319 --> 02:03:51.560
M Robbie McBride just got picked up. He needed a stent. He thought

1741
02:03:51.560 --> 02:04:00.720
everything was good. Rob sent before
us cardio skin and turns out he needs

1742
02:04:00.720 --> 02:04:03.960
a stent. So what I'm saying
to you guys is, if you retire

1743
02:04:04.000 --> 02:04:09.760
it, don't go. Twenty twenty
five twenty seven, thirty years of doing

1744
02:04:09.800 --> 02:04:13.920
this job that's very difficult, and
then not live long enough to enjoy your

1745
02:04:13.920 --> 02:04:17.439
retirement. Get the tests, leave
it, you know, eat sensible,

1746
02:04:17.600 --> 02:04:23.479
exercise, and go get yourself checked
out, because early detection is the key,

1747
02:04:24.039 --> 02:04:27.199
and if you pick it up,
you can get it fixed and you

1748
02:04:27.239 --> 02:04:30.960
can live another thirty forty years and
you could be like we go and bang

1749
02:04:30.079 --> 02:04:32.479
guys in the boards in his early
sixties. You know what I mean,

1750
02:04:33.720 --> 02:04:40.560
that's what we looked. I don't
know what I did to the chat.

1751
02:04:41.880 --> 02:04:44.079
I don't know what I did.
What do you do? You could you

1752
02:04:44.119 --> 02:04:47.039
minimized it, but I'll just piggyback
that. Every six months I go and

1753
02:04:47.079 --> 02:04:50.640
get checked man, you do every
six months? Man? All right,

1754
02:04:51.359 --> 02:04:54.920
excellent, all right? So who
do we got on Thursday night? RUFFI

1755
02:04:54.960 --> 02:04:57.960
potamus? I don't know. I
had two. I got the guy from

1756
02:04:58.000 --> 02:05:00.680
Baltimore, but he can't do I
don't think he's gonna Thursday. Oh maybe

1757
02:05:00.720 --> 02:05:03.479
I'll call a guy from Chicago.
I got two hot charges from Chicago.

1758
02:05:03.560 --> 02:05:09.600
I'm like a couple of Jagos.
All right, well we'll let you know

1759
02:05:09.720 --> 02:05:13.279
anyway, all right, guys,
rico, great time. Thank you for

1760
02:05:13.319 --> 02:05:15.760
being such a good sport. Thank
you. Oh yeah, I appreciate it

1761
02:05:15.800 --> 02:05:21.600
and I will see you guys.
I wanted to just put up uh Rico's

1762
02:05:23.039 --> 02:05:25.359
Inner City Club for you guys.
If you want to see it for the

1763
02:05:25.920 --> 02:05:30.840
check a description to we'll put a
description is Flint for you guys that are

1764
02:05:30.880 --> 02:05:34.920
just listening. Flint Inner City Youth
Hockey dot org. For you guys who

1765
02:05:34.920 --> 02:05:40.359
are just listening, get over to
our Facebook. We're definitely on Facebook under

1766
02:05:40.359 --> 02:05:44.560
Flint Inner City Youth Hockey on Facebook
too. Excellent and you can see pictures

1767
02:05:44.600 --> 02:05:47.319
of us actually doing what we do
each week. Awesome, and remember nobody

1768
02:05:47.319 --> 02:05:56.359
cares about hockey. All right,
guys, and all right everybody. Rico,

1769
02:05:56.439 --> 02:06:00.479
thanks again, brother, everybody.
All right, Dude, I didn't

1770
02:06:00.479 --> 02:06:01.399
see the top floor, baby,
Go right