Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions
about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that
of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host
of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
A low Dog Doyle Welcome about to get in Salty Experience podcast. It's
the only one in the whole world. Room brings the fire House Gets You
table to you. What do we say about there? Let's kind of close
up with what you have going on. I don't know, fell on my
head before it came off my border and fell off my head. Is this
what better makes my head look smaller? Better? Let's let's bring a little
close Chief Steve. Huh, that's the Chief Steve one. Yeah. Anyway,
fire out kitchen table. You know it holds the weight of a thousand
stories problem. You could then the figure out all the problems in the world
at the kitchen house, at the fire house table, right right, everything,
Yeah, we solve them. We solve them more. Sometimes we're talking
about the fires, you know. Sometimes we talked to Mike about fires.
When the dropped the fire and we went mutual a to the basement. The
windows like there was a two bagger floor was walling out the windows. So
the Charlie exposure whatever corner the brothers pushed in did a search for nobody work
in the rock well, working the rock well. That's my anyway. We
wish fight the best. He's he's volley right. First's gonna be a volley
and then he's taking the paid last week. Yeah, he's gonna be a
He's gonna be a medical guy for a little while. There's some blood pressures
and that's about boy. That's my boy. My Yeah. I told him
I can't have any ms stories. No, no, there he was.
So I got the cuff on the guy right and he's flailing all. I
don't know, he was flaring all. I wanted to hit him with some
kenemy, you know, knock him down. He's like, what forty five
of a one hundred was way up there. I said, this is what
I gotta do, Bro, I gotta jump run into action. Bro loved
up, loved up, loved up. Start giving the breast. I'm begging,
I'm begging, I'm and I told him he can only say one thing.
That's the thing I want to hear from his MS days. That's it
with me. From that little buddy. Oh my god, that's too fun.
His face is colmic right doing this mostly, you know, his faces
like that, and he's just doing this when he gets a little like,
oh my god. I can see him right now, he's like, oh
my gosh. He's smirking too. He's got a big smile. You know.
You can see him going on there on today. That was in the
Krobe class before Chief Steve. So he's achieve is actually Steve. Chief is
actually his bop. That's what I'm saying. Nice, oh man, that's
what I'm doing. Wicked chicken pom. Yeah, well you know what he
did. It has to be a healthy chicken pong because his book started out
being uh, healthy Cooking in the fire House, which is almost like an
actually octy moron right, like like a jumbo shrimp like healthy probably a couple
of years ago. Uh up your veins, you know what I mean.
If Joe is finding to college, he's probably bacon the number one. So
you know what I mean, maybe you wouldn't have to get this stent I
did that in the firehouse, right, how did we do that? What?
This much oil in the pot? Right right? Yeah? Yeah,
I'm going to bacon. The oil was boiling. So they just sat in
the cold oil for a while. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, y
soaking up like a sponge healthy with bacon. The cutlets and the colts that
we weren't this small. They're like this big, you know, yeah,
monster exactly, yeah, pound them out so it's bigger than the police,
like this thick. So it's like like that. All right, So look,
commercials on so we can get mister Joe in here. Bro, commercials.
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And if I'm not mistaken, I believe the owner of the original owner of
that company just passed two weeks ago, So our deepest condolence is out the
New Jersey Fire could be I'm almost sure that's correct, Kevin. We just
said right here. Actually George passing away. I think I think Pe is
the one who told me originally, so our condolence is mister Fosdick's family.
All right, ruf what else we got? That's it we got? Bring
him in. I want to bring Joey Banana in. Bro, I asked
him he was a member of crime family, the Banano crime family, said
I wish. I don't know, I just uh would it would have went
really good tonight with a nice plate of unhealthy chicken palm for Demo. I
would have been like to like, let's like chicken palm. Your wife is
Jewish? Ship maybe develop the fish or something. I don't know. What
are you having? Filter? Amazing, amazing skulls? Are you ready?
Guns? I'm ready. I don't have Yeah, out of the water coming
to the stage, fire fighter Joe Banano, Yeah you got a hold of
No looks good, Rob, huh, yes, look at him. Bro.
When we see the old pictures, wait, you see the pipe sticking
out of them? Bro, it was turty tree. How much How much
was you mentioned back in the I don't know, but I think that's one
of the reasons your brother didn't like me, because I when I went to
one thirty eight, I was working out. I think I was a little
good beefier jack than he was, and he didn't a little more swall a
little bit, says the word. Alright, before we get out in front,
though, let's uh, let's get patriotic, because again, this is
the greatest country in the history of the world. So yes, all right,
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty
and justice for all. Isn't the associate of a certain family, I believe
so with that head of hair and that named me like that? All right?
So uh, jo, let's go back to the early days. Your
dad was refinement to already know how you got into it. But tell us
you would tell us a little bit how you will Bronx guy originally tell us
a little about the early days of grown up in the Banano family. H.
Yeah, born and raised in the Bronx. My father went to eighty
eight Engine in nineteen fifty seven. And yes, I was born and raised
in the Bronx. Went to Catholic Catholic elementary school. My father was eighty
eight engine we lived in the Uh yeah he was good looking. Yeah,
he was good looking. Joe drew that, by the way, Yeah,
and I drew Yeah, yeah, I do that. Yep, that goes
what we were just saying, and appreciate. You never know what talents guys
have before you start ripping the soil, you rip him to shreds, they'll
have something too awful. But yeah, no, and then again, I
can't say he talked all that much about the fire department growing up. Yes,
it was a big part of his life, but he didn't bring it
home to him that much. And you know, eighty eight engine in the
late sixties and seventies was nuts in this. I do remember him coming home
distinctly, remember him coming home smelling like smoke, probably all the time,
all the time. I mean he would come home. Yeah that's a pitched
nineteen fifty seven I think when he was a proby carrying an old Scott bottle.
But uh yeah, I do. As a kid, I do remember
him smelling like smoke, seriously smelling like smoke. And I was like,
you know, and I never said to myself, Wow, my dad's a
farm man and dangerous, Like you're a kid, you don't really kind of
know any and he didn't. But I do remember him doing a drill once
with you know, if the house goes on fire, all the kids get
on your knees, crawl on your knees to get on the meeting place out
on the front yard. Yeah he did. He didn't do that with us.
He didn't do that with us a few times. I do remember that.
And then I definitely remember the parties, like the beach parties in the
summer with all the guys an eighty eight engine and they would just you know,
that's the part to me that was so I guess it was amazing to
me, Like the first time he took me to eighty eight engine, I
mean a whole and there's a couple of guys that like yourselves, that do
podcast and stuff, and the one guy, the way he said it,
he was the whole firehouse. That smell is so unique and it's sweat leather
and smoke, but more wet leather. They should bottle it, because when
I never forget the first time we went to a communion, uh whole communion
breakfast with the UFA or something, and he took me to the firehouse and
I mean, when I walked in. To me, every guy in that
place looked like they were sasquatched. They were so big to me, to
a seven or eight year old kid, Yeah, I just looked around and
and and just awe the size of these guys and the you know, the
deep voices they all had, and it just was like, wow, I'm
like, look at the heady company that I'm in with these men of men,
you know. And but again that was just then and then, and
they were all so just something about fireing. They just seemed to always take
a liking to children and they were just like, it's just a kid joke.
Me let me know this. It was so endearing to me that they
were just so nice to me and so pleasant and the only the only thing
I do remember is I think once he got there, he forgot that you
have an eight year old kid, we do. And none of the firemen
held back on dropping the F bomb. And you know, I went to
I went to Catholic school, so we never heard any of that. So
the minute I walked, the minute I crossed the apron of eighty eight,
we got in the kitchen, they were like F this and F that.
I'm like Oh my god. Listen to the eighties. Guys are talking,
Oh my god, it's horrible. So I didn't remember them like we were
unloading on each other with the curse words. But I guess that was part
of the environment. That's one of the nicest looking firehouses. Inside. I
trying to find some Let me see if I can get the they buff the
who they are with thirty eight thirty eight I worked a few times. You
know the brass it's legit like you know that was in two thousand and two
three, you know, something like that, bouncing around like I worked there
a few times. And uh, it definitely is one of the cleaner up
the firehouses on the job, there's no doubt. I'll tell you a story
about Christiano. I might have said the story on the show before this,
but I remember my mother told me to go because the firehouse wasn't where he
was in the last part of his career, wasn't too far from the house.
He said, go to the fire house and get some ice for me.
So we get dad the ice making it. The father was working that
day. Now, my father right a little tested this never it was like
never a curse and as long as he was in the house around us,
never said ship, never said damn. You know, he would say what
the deuce. That's the worst thing. He would say, what the deuce?
You know. I walked into the firehouse. Now he's in the kitchen,
but he's got his back to the app right his floor. And I
walk in and I hate my father. Same thing the guys. I see
the guys in the kitchen, like, I don't know how they held it
back when they went home, because he never cursed at home. Never same
here. I was in shock that he was unloading those words out of his
mouth, you know, But I guess that's just the way it was.
And yeah, he just accepted and so yeah, he never he never really
took the job home with him. He didn't talk about it that much.
So yeah, then he grew up in the Bronx and around nineteen sixty eight,
sixty nine, you know, I get the got the bug to move
out to Long Island. So we moved out to Lindenhurst, Long Island,
which I hated because I was a city kid and regularly, you know,
like nobody on Long Island knew what a spoil Dean was. Oh hang out,
we're talking about stickball, three seas stickbull played football Sue and Sue's city
kids, right, yeah, said on the cross stick, like what is
that lacrosse stick? Exactly? So I would say, like, you know,
what do you guys guys go to get a school dean? He like,
what's a school dean? I go in to paints up on the one?
Would it would? It would be like the out of bounds like left
or right? Fair ball like along the street, you know what. We
used to throw sneakers up on. Yeah, but all city kids stuff.
But eventually I had to get used to it and and get used to being
in in a school in Long Island, and I grew up there, and
then then I went to the military. Uh yeah, I was in Yeah,
I was in the Air Force. Which is another funny story with my
father, because you know, unfortunately I was an arrogant, snotty teenager.
I wasn't your boy next door. And you know, he was really pretty
strict, and me and him had our share of battles. He was a
golden gloves boxer. Me and him, I mean we used to just god
verbally, you know, and I fought him tooth and nails, and I
like to relate this story, especially for younger people listening, because I think
everybody should get a chance to go in the military to straighten out. So
I just remember I had so fed up with him. I go, you
know what, I'm gonna fix his ass. I don't need this ship.
I don't need you get me up at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning to
rake Leaves. I'm going in the military. I don't need this shit.
So next thing, I want to recruit and him watch this. You think
you're gonna get me up on a Saturday morning at nine o'clock to rake Leaves.
What an hour? Hell no, Hell no, I'll go in the
military. And I went down to the recruiting office and he never said a
word. I thought he was gonna say, you know, i'd like to
see you going in the name he was in the Navy. I like to
see going to the Navy like me, or like your uncle or your uncle
was in the army. He just let me make my cause I think in
the back of this morning, he goes, day, are just gonna fix
him and he's gonna get his big payback. And I'll you will never And
I want to honor the man to this day. I'll never forget getting on
the plane. He drove me six o'clock in the morning to Fort Hamilton and
processed me. And then that if I go on a plane to Biloxi Air
Force Base for basic training, by the time you get there, it's three
thirty in the morning, and the drill sergeants greet you on the bus screaming
at you. And I'll never forget it was four thirty in the morning.
I'm standing at attention with a guy twice my father's saw he screaming at me
at the top of his lungs, and he's like, you got a half
an hour to sleep, because you're getting up at five. At five thirty
is a roll call and five thirty I had like an hour's sleep, and
I wake up and from five thirty in the morning till ten thirty at night,
you're just doing something, jumping around, getting yelled at screen, got
watching. At that point, you said yourself, maybe this wasn't a good
idea. I don't know I what I what I did know what I did
say to myself, I'm standing at attention. My sergeant was Sergeant West.
Guy was as big as a refrigerator. Screaming two inches from my f and
when he got out of my face that somebody else was when he got away
from me, I go, boy, I really showed my father fixed.
He wanted me to rake leave. He wanted me to rake leaves for an
hour. And now I'm making leaves all day every day at four thirty in
the morning, getting yelled at. So he must have been when he shut
up an eight een engine. He must have got in the kitchen and said,
my knit wit son thought he was going to kill me, and went
the air was I am? He must have been smiling for me, probably
ripping him up and down. And they were so and how old hellow you
in for two years? Uh? Yeah, I was in for two years
different, oh, and completely entirely different. I came back completely focused,
and I went right to college. I started college right away. And then
it was getting near the time the fire deponent test was coming up, and
again I had to be a belligerent idiot, and again I regret it to
this day, saying I'm not going to be a voument like you, you
know, almost saying I'm better than that, which I regret to this day
because it was the best decision I ever made that he and he didn't force
me. He goes, listen, you don't have to take the job,
but take the test. I want you to take the test. You don't
have to take the job. Take the test. Just the same thing Joe
last week. You don't you don't want to be fine with it. You
don't have to take the job, but take the test. You might change
your mind. But if you don't take the test, you can't turn the
test. Everybody says that the same thing. Right, They take the test,
and by the time it comes around four or five years later, Right,
they're in a different line, right, different part of their life,
and all of a sudden they're looking forward, you know, to getting on
the job. You know what I mean, just like you're saying. Right.
So I was in good shape. I trained for the test, and
then I took it, and then I I'll never forget. I was at
the Jamaica Armory training for it, and I met this fellow, Tom Pellegrino,
who was in two ninety end up but being in Provy school with me.
I met him at the drills for the training, and I was one
of the few guys that could whip the dummy over my shoulder, up and
down the stairs. And he was really a skinny guy, and he wanted
to be a fireman since he was born. And he goes, I can't
do the dummy thing. You gotta help me, you know. And I
didn't know him from all in the wall, but I was meeting all great
guys my own age at the Jamaica Armory training and I'm like, Wow,
these guys are funny. They're fun looked like they'd be fun to work with.
So I helped him and and he knew all about the fire he knew
about pensions, he knew about medical benefits, he knew about promotions, he
knew about everything. And so he was kind of a little bit of a
mentor. And so then we both got called. I think my list number
was eleven oh two. He was eleven twenty four, and they said,
Tom, we're gonna be in the same class together. And I met,
I'm sure you familiar Craig but Cherry. Yeah, we're trying to get him
on too. Yeah, he was at that time. He was taking the
same test I was, and they were going to have an eligibles association,
and he was like the president of the Eligibles Association. So at one of
the meetings, I was with friend Tom and a couple other nice guys.
At the meeting, I said, why, these are pretty great guys,
just like the firefighters my father that I admired when I was a boy.
I said, these guys are all my age now now, and there were
a lot of laughs and fun. One character worse than that crazy insanity.
It attracts the insane, it really does. Somebody just said that. One
of the chiefs said that. Somebody said that firemen are insane. You gotta
be a little insane, right, Well, we're a different breed if you
weren't to start with it reads, Yeah, you start to get like that,
and then you get the humor and you get the It's just something about
it attracts that type of an individual. You know. It's not the corporate
world. So he I'll never forget the way he stressed it to me,
because he said to me, Joe, listen, we're probably gonna get on
seventy eight, seventy nine by the time our list numbers come up. He
goes, you gotta take it, and I go, Tom, Why I
go, I was in the military. I don't want this, yes,
sir, No, sir, Polisher shoes inspections and goes, Joe, it's
not like that. He goes the training. Oh yeah, after that,
it's a frat house and I go, how could that be? And he
wasn't lying. And you know, my father actually never alluded to any of
that craziness or frat house type stuff, so I thought it was a serious
job. He never talked about it that much, so I had no inkling.
This guy Tom. He knew everything about it. The pension. Then
the key thing that he stressed to me. He says, Joe, listen,
you have to take it even if you hate it. And we get
on in nineteen seventy nine. You only have to hate it till the spring
of ninety nine. And then I go, well, then what happens He
goes, then you're eligible for your pension. And I said, what's a
pension? Well, he said, Joe, they give you a half pay
for the rest of your life. I go, but by the time you're
forty something years old. First of all, that's Star Trek. To me,
nineteen ninety nine doesn't even exist. It's Star Trek. We'll be using
phasers and yeah, that is true. That is very true in nineteen seventy
nine. You think nineteen ninety nine is like Star Trek. And the proof
of that is you know the TV show Lost in Space, Yep, the
Jupiter two that took off. Do you know when that was? Nineteen ninety
nine? If you watch that show and they say the Jupiter two is now
launching and T minus whatever on July twenty third, nineteen ninety nine. So
for me, that's what nineteen ninety nine was going to be. Like,
I'm not gonna it's tom I'm I'm gonna be in my forties. Are you
crazy? It's not gonna happen. And he said, Joe, I'm telling
you just we're gonna be in the same class. Just show up. And
so I said, all right, at least they're calling me. I showed
up. And I mean, once I got to the training academy and I
saw the the I guess, the type of individuals, and the bosses were
all alive. The instructors were all strict, but funny. I mean,
they had that same humor that I saw with my father's firefighters that he worked
with, plus more of it was the individual fireman that I was actually working
and going to the training academy with I mean, you definitely bond up with
four or five guys, six guys and something, stayed friends with them for
the rest of your life. And it just was And then they had the
in between the training, there was time for laughters and humor. Yeah,
and it just started. It started getting better and better, and I all
right, I did military. I can do this for eight weeks. I
think that was the training academy at the time was eight weeks. Let's what's
that guy holy wowing this thing in? Yeah, I was. I was
pretty jacked in in prov school. And would you have you had a couple
of mods back then? What'd you have going on over there? He had?
Oh yeah, Well no I didn't. Oh yeah, yeah. I
didn't discover that world as I got in the firehouse either, because I told
you I went to Catholic school. I was an alder boy once I got
to Proby School. And those were once we we're going out weeks ago,
we're gonna talk about this is gonna be fun. You know, you're gonna
have a ball. And I started meeting a whole bunch of crazy one crazier
than the next ball. But is that other picture gun which one with the
three the three of them, the three Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
okay, let get to that. We're just fixing that. Yeah, that's
the guy in the middle. In the middle is Tom Peller. Well,
let's that they called us the Italian Battalion because on the left is Kenny g
and Ellie Engine two thirty six, Engine two ninety and me Engine and eventually
Engine three nineteen. But the guy in the middle of two ninety, he's
the guy that really pushed the job on me and said, hey, Joe,
forget him about it, forget about Tom Pellagreeno the Italian. You guys
are Italian Battalion, well with Jane and pelgrinal So that's awesome. But yeah,
he talked me into it. And then and then you know, once
you get out of the academy. Being that my father didn't talk about it
all that much, I was almost in complete culture shock. Now I went
to Engine three nineteen, which is a super slow house on a side street
in Metropolitan Village, Middle Village, metrop in between regular residential houses. But
they had fantastic senior guys there that it did their time. In all the
busy companies, same thing it was the same. I don't like to use
the word charming, ingratiating, welcoming, friendly, funny, one guy funnier
then the next. And because they had the downtime, they were good on
the meals. I had no. I brought my lunch. I brought my
dinner with me because my father never said to me that they prepare a meal.
So I had a bag with me. I figured it's like a job,
you'd show up with punch clock. I'm a bagging it and they're like,
hey, in on the meal. I'm like, what meal? I
brought dinner with me? And of course that's humorous, Like, what do
you mean they brought a meal with you? Not in on the meal?
You gotta be in on the meal. You have a chicken colored parmejean.
Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm in on the meal. I mean I
remember to this day that first night. So my impression of the fire service
was that when you punch the clock out, you go to fire to fire
to fire device, and then they would let you go it the next day
and you go. I didn't know you could have bunks and couches and TV
and and a meal. So next thing I know, like I said three
nineteen was a dead slow company. They're like, okay, the guy's making
chicken color palm. Joh. I'm sitting in the kitchen twiddling my thumbs on
like any probe, on the edge of your seat, waiting for the big
one. And next thing you know, they're putting the meal out. And
you know, there was some guys they had had some time on putting the
meal out. Let me sit where your bunk is, kid like bunk,
all right? They take me upstairs like this that pell Aino is right,
Joe. You know, it's just not to through up that. That's like
a common thing we get with a lot of guests that had their fathers on
the job obviously before them, that most of the guys back in that time
frame, they didn't talk about the job. The guys get on the job
and they almost really are like you, like they don't have any inkling of
what the hell's going on, which is like strange to us, you know
what I mean, for the most part, like you would think that,
I mean, you had a taste of the firehouse, but like little things
like that, you don't know about the meal and you don't know about like
all these other little things is kind of strange, but it's a common theme.
Yeah, that's my very first night tour. I go, I go
to a family party and my sisters and my mother, Well, how was
it last night? That was pretty good man. You know, we had
this really good meal. We had like two runs and I just soundly couch
it. I could see my brother's eyes like, bring the next room,
they go. Three night is the busiest night you ever had. You don't
sleep in the firehouse, you don't watch the firehouse, and you don't eat
meals in the firehouse. Ye. What goes on here stays here. So
apparently that was the thinking. So I can fast forward. Another story about
that revolves my brother when his first assignment, when he went to three fifteen.
Because I didn't talk, I guess I did the same thing. I
didn't talk about it that much. I said, let him find out on
his own. So, but what with me? So then I finished chicken
colored pomege on dinner Delicious. Then I'm sitting around watching TV. I guess
for them, it's a regular night. Okay, so you got a new
probeat. I guess the lieutenant showed me this, that and the other thing.
Polish the pole and make sure your mask is up to blah blah blah.
But eventually they wanted to get the night's sleep. So I'm sitting in
the kitchen and one by one the guy's disappearing up to the bunk room and
I'm in the kitchen by myself, watching TV. And I go, Now,
what am I supposed to do? And I'm sitting there. I go,
I guess I'm supposed to go upstairs. They showed me where my bunk
was, so I took my flashlight. I went up to the bunk oo
and like I said, three nineteen, it was a slow company. Go
upstairs. Well you catch your first five Joe. Well, the twist to
that story is they're like, don't worry about this place being quiet, kid,
because every third night we're going to three thirty two. Ahange change and
he goes, you're gonna get it. You're gonna get plenty of work,
kid, don't worry about it. But that night, I said, okay,
I s wintered up to bed. I felt so guilty, like do
I take my pants off or do I need them on? That is so
true. I didn't know I always slept with my pants for like the first
couple of years because I didn't know what to do. It's the truth.
Well maybe I should have my boots on ready to go, And I said,
I don't know what to do, so I yeah, so I think
I just took my shoes off late on top of the blankets. Am I
ready to go? And I guess eventually I fell asleep, and next thing
I know, I had one guy rustling in the bathroom. And you know,
next time, I look at the clock and I'm like, oh my
god, it's like eight o'clock. We didn't go out the whole night,
and I got a chicken cutar palm in my stomach rolling around. So I
get up, I go to the bathroom. I go downstairs. The next
crew is coming in for breakfast, all the kidding around. Who brought wolves
and jelly donuts? And haven't day kid, you haven't coffee. I've drink
coffee in my life, Like I'm not really a coffee You gotta drink coffee.
It brob, you gotta make the corfie, you gotta make the coffee.
So I made the and I sat down and I go and I guess
one of the guys said, I didn't know what getting relieved meant on dates.
I knew what it meant, but I didn't know what it was how
a. But yeah, so they go, uh, you know, Malcolm's
in. He goes, Joe, you want to you want to get relieved?
I go, what do you mean get relieved? And he goes,
yeah, I'll take You know, you can leave early if you want.
I go on if I'm allowed, and we'll chat. Joe, don't worry,
that's part of it, you know, get up. It's not early
relief. He'd say, thirty just you know, I got it, and
I get my car and I drive home and and my you know, my
friends are all I thought. It was like my father thought I was gonna
go home smelling like smoke every night. Yeah. I went home, and
I'm like everybody from eight engine fellow, but I know eighty eight engine in
nineteen sixty nine. And I was gonna say you too to your friends,
but to two thirty six and two nineties, so they were like that,
yeah, oh yeah at that time. So yeah, and three thirty two
was right in the same battalion as them. Sure. Yeah. So then
they said, don't worry about a kid, you're working Friday night. Your
next shift. You know, I'm looking at the calendar. My next shift
is blah blah blah, and I'm like, okay, Friday night. He
goes Friday night. It's the summer, and you're going to You're going to
three thirty two that night. That's okay, what's you know? I guess
Okay, So I go. What happens? We get on the rig,
they call us, we call them, We passed them on the end of
our parkway, and then we park in the quarters and we become Engine three
thirty two for the night. Okay. So I'm like, all right,
and the minute we I mean the minute they put us in service, Engine
three thirty two respon in ten seventy five by blah blah blah. And then
the best way I could describe it to people is the scene where Martin Sheen
is coming down the river in Apocalypse Now. And that's what it was like.
Riding at two o'clock in the morning in Engine three thirty two. I
thought I was in I thought I was Martin Sheen going down the river in
Apocalypse Now. I'm like, we're passing the car. Yeah, what no,
No, I was talking to Cooves man. That's a that's a great
analogy, Yeah, because that's there was smoke all over the place, the
whole the whole area, smoke like smoke. And you know, we we'd
be passing a car fire and I'm like, why are we passing this call
boy? Because we were responding to a ten seventy five. We can't stop
for a call boy. But yeah, but but you know, and then
house fire, house fire, call, fire, house fire, abandoned building
call, fire, house fire. I'm like, oh my god, they're
like the kid, you're not going up to bed. It's not like back
in Metropolitan Avenue. Don't even go. It's not even worth it going up
the stairs. Yeah, that's the look he had too, That's exactly the
look. That was great. And some of the members in the background,
Yeah, that was some of them. That's freaking awesome, man. And
just like riding through that neighborhood at that time of night in the summer,
especially because it was you know, hot summer, and I was like,
oh my god, this guy's doing this every night. And then yeah,
it wasn't like, yeah, I was glad to learn the job and and
get catch work and all that stuff, but you know, and I it
was new, so I didn't want to back in the quiet, and a
lot of the older guys like, hey, if you like it that much,
why don't you make money with me? Yeah, it worked for me
mutual. And again, what's a mutual Friday night? I pay you back
next Tuesday. You can do that. Yeah, Okay, so you pick
it up better and better and better. So yeah, and then let's see,
let's fast forward that a little bit. Well, I just relat a
quick story. We'll talk about it later on with my brother. But again
I didn't talk about it that much with him. You know, it's a
job that works better with attraction and promotion. I mean, he saw my
father, he saw me enjoying it. He met all the firemen I work
with. They were characters, and there was no other choice of him but
to take the test for the fire depart But I'll never forget him saying same
thing. I'd never broke him in. I never told him about the meals.
I never told him about I don't find that as out. But the
one thing I remember him saying, he goes, Joey, I can't grasp
this concept. You know, all the jobs I had grown up, you
have a boss and you have to treat the boss with respect. And I
go, why what happened? He goes, well, I got to three
fifteen and just like me, you know, you don't know what's going on,
and you're sitting there and you're wide eyed and you're wonder what's going on.
And he goes, and all the guys are in the kitchen, and
this lieutenant comes into the kitchen ready to start the roll call at the beginning,
and some guy goes, I can't believe I have to work with you.
You buck tooth, blah blah, black filling the expletives. He goes,
Joe the way he was talking, and this is his boss, and
you don't get fired. I go, no, you don't. I don't
know why. But it's one of those jobs that I guess you're allowed to
do that, which totally doesn't exist in corporate I mean, you can't probably
exist on anymore either. Probably world's changed drastically. Yeah, but back then,
and I'm not saying it was all the time, but you could you
could buy especially if the guys very close to each other, you know,
and you could say anything at any time. Yeah, you could bust a
guy. You could bust chops on a boss in a friendly way, I
mean, not me. Yeah, but you're allowed to. But you can't
in cooperate regular world. You can't even bust your brses chops, even kindly.
It's you know, the level of power that he has that kind of
didn't exist in the fire. So that was the one thing he related to
me about being on the farre And then he said, is it always like
this? And I go, no, there's going to be busy place and
slow places guys. You like working with guys, you know, But the
rest of it, yeah, it's you know, it was amazing to me.
So then, you know, and I had quite a few tragedies in
my life. Nineteen eighty one, I was working in engine. Three nineteen,
you know, we had a fire at my house and my mother was
burned fifty five third degree bone and I just I just left somebody relieved.
I didn't even hear about it. I just got relieved from three nineteen.
I was driving home and I come down my block and I see them pulling
furniture out of my parents' house where I was at the time, And the
neighbors came over and they said they just took him all by helicopter to NASA
County Burn Center, and she lived for about five days and then she and
she passed away, yep. And then after that there was you know,
like falling out with my father and stuff like that. So that was tragedy
number one, you know, in my life to go on with. So
then that's why I said I was in one fifty one for a while.
Because the captain of Engine three nineteen was so gracious and he said, Joe,
under normal circumstances, death leaves about a week, but this is beyond
normal, So take as long as you want, you know, take off
as long as you want. We'll come with you. And so I was
off for about two to three weeks, trying to deal with the grief my
brothers and sisters and and I just said, you know what, I can't
just sit home anymore. I called up and I went back to her,
and he said, Joe, you know, this is a quiet fi I
had everybody like, but you know what, it might be better if you
go to a double house a lot more got funny guys, and it'll just
be better for you to be around that many people. So it says we
got a detail to one fifty one UFO until further words. So I took
the detail and those firefighters in three or five one fifty one were unbelievable.
It was like they adopted me. They were the nicest, funniest, greatest
guys I probably in my whole career that I worked. One twenty nine was
pretty great too, But those guys, and they knew what happened, so
they were real gentle with me, with you know, dealing with it and
it just they were just fantastic and it helped me. But it was a
slower house. I wanted a little bit more work. I still didn't want
to commute to the Bronx. So this assignment to one twenty nine came up,
and I took it and transferred to one twenty nine, which from the
day I got there, I mean, it was what a collection of my
lieutenant. My lieutenant used to say, he goes, it's like I'm a
what was the movie, uh, the Dirty He goes, It's like I'm
working with a dirty dozen, you know, he goes, I one one
character worse than the next, and they were. And we got it,
and we got a slew of Proby's in from Proby School and one was one
more unique character than another. Matter of fact, the other firehouses around they
used to call it PS one twenty nine. He was like a bunch of
school kids. And I left. And the characters at this job, including
officers at tracks, it's so funny. So I'll never forget. His name
is Captain A todd h He was my captain, and he used to call
him a TODs retards instead instead of a dirty dozen, they used to call
him a TODs retards. And that was my shift of guys that I worked
with. So I again, I was fairly new. I was only on
the job three years, so I it was still with the yes sir.
And also so I never forget I walked in to the firehouse and it was
really a cast of characters old and young and then recently young that you couldn't
even he led them all eight TODs retards. So I'll never forget. I
go up to the office to meet, you know, to he's Joe.
The Captain's upstairs. Go upstairs and you know, meet him and stuff like
that. So I'll never forget. I walk in, he's got his boots
on, and on his boots it says right and left, So you knew
which put the boot in, And just as I opened the door, a
golf ball rolls between my legs and I, you know, I saluted,
and he said, hey kid, it's not that kind of place, you
know, Come on in. I'm Captain A Todd. How do you do
blah blah blah. Did they get your bunk? You know you're gonna be
in the truck company. You know these are blah blah blah. Go downstairs,
have Corfee, meet the guys. Stuff like that. So and another
funny thing. I'll never forget it because I wanted to be in a crazy
place three nineteen. It was kind of calm. The guys they were funny,
but not that real busy firehouse funny tracks, those kind of characters.
And I'll never forget as long as I live. I go to go in
the bunk room. He goes, yeah, okay, you're on for the
night to it tonight. They'll show you a bunk before. So I go
to the and I want to get the lay of the place, so I'll
never forget. I walked to the bunker room and on the door of the
bunker there's a poster and it says alone in the dark with a bunch of
half half dressed men. Oh yes, there is a god. And I
remember between the golf ball going through my legs him have been right and left
on his boots, and seeing that, I go, I've arrived on my
plate. I found my happy place. And it turned out to be everything
but everything, including that great Fineman. Well, we all got about eight
to nine probe's out of the next class, one guy greater than the next
personality wise, the older five fifes could have been kind to a gentler and
characters and knew the job and just everything. It was just great. I
would have paid them to be there. Yeah. Now that place is We
were talking about this the pre show a little bit. It was mostly a
blue collar area, right, and then it got really occupied by Asians,
like uh, that is occupied every every crevice, every room, every everywhere.
It wasn't like that when you got there, though, right, it
was more no, no, But it very quickly started to turn over.
And it's so populated that it's ridiculous. How populated. It's like Chinatown,
and they used to call it. They change then they call it yeah,
yeah, roof. He made the capital mistake when it comes to Asians,
you know, yeah, bring that up. What do you call them oriental?
Called them oriental? No, I had no idea. I've been saying
oriental for like only fifty five. Was like, dude, you can't say
oriental. I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no idea?
Like, man, give me, Yeah, but I get those guys
were running around over that like they were. They were doing a lot of
work there, right, like running wise and occupied, structural work, busy
as fire aus for call fires because they had the junk yards over there.
Jay Stadium. Yeah, it was. It was great. It was a
great place to work. It was busy, not too many false alarms.
Usually everything we got called out on was something seen. You guys there,
you remember that really stuck out that you have any names or anybody really?
Yeah, well, somebody once told me there's really only ten New York City
firemen, and all clones of each other. You know. There's a there's
a black guy, there's a German guy that's really cheap. There's a weird
single guy, and they go, Joe, that's you, and then we're
all clones of each other, you know. So yeah, there was a
guy, Bob Cook. He was a plumber, great fireman. Great uh,
because he was a plumber. He knew everything about taking locks apart and
hinges, and I mean he was one of the great guys, uh to
work with their But it just he was piping. He was because I guess
he knew the trade so well. He knew everything about it. Well,
yeah, you talked about the fires kitchen be able to solve everything, and
that was one of the other things about it. When you sat around,
if you had a plumbing problem or a sighting problem, or there was somebody
that knew how to do it. Yeah, was what's the guy's name that
Freddy? Was Freddy? If he get his last name, probably when you
were on your way out, he was probably he probably got Schluick. He
was the officer there. No, No, he wasn't an office. He
was a tall guy, really tall guy next to you. So well,
we had we had a guy, Gary Moroses. He was another great guy.
He used to call him Sasquatch. No, no, he was he
was like six eight. Oh my god. Yeah, they used to they
they used to make fun of him because they said he the skot pack looked
like a vitamin pill on his back. That's how that's how big he was.
Yeah, And they used to they used to terrorize him something awful because
one guy would wait behind the shower because it's funny, I could be a
little risk. You can't I without cursing. They used to kid him because
they go, you know, he's not exactly a porn star in that department,
even though he's six even though he's six eight, So a lot of
guys would say, well, if you're six eight, no matter how big
you are, there proportionately it's gonna look. So what they used to do.
They used to wait for him to come out of the shower, and
a guy would like hide behind the door and then pull the towel away from
him and run away. And he'd be covering himself up, and they'd say,
well, they go, Joe, his hand covers everything. I go,
yeah, but his hands as big as a baseball man. Right,
he's probably a porn star in reality. But when you and and maybe he
would be right, guy's long dipping, you know what I mean. He's
going from uh yeah, So then the comedy would the comedy would ensue and
another guy would say, yeah, well that's why I don't exercise my legs.
Because I try to keep my legs as and as possible, you know,
and you know how that comedy goes, that just keeps going and going
and better than the next, better than the next. Yeah, but you
did a pretty decent amount of time. He did what eight years in the
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a great time
that I loved it. Yeah. And then the whole book thing started to
happen, and again I was no, I'll be the person. If anybody
for one two on Ali is listening, they're probably throwing stuff at the screen
right now because they're like, I didn't even cook all that much. And
when he take a color bombas John blah blah blah and this whole bomb.
You know. But I just got certified as a fitness trainer and NUTRITIONUS.
I went to n y U. I was starting to do a little personal
fitness training on the side. I just a whim. I took a class
at the New School call how to write a cookbook and get it published.
Now. I didn't go with the idea, oh I'm hell bent on publishing
a cookbook, finding cookbook. I wasn't. I just cooked once in a
while in the fires. And when I did because I didn't want to end
up overweight and out of shape and unfit. I knew it was part of
the job. So I said, you know what, I'm going to try
to clean up the meals a little bit. If you guys don't mind,
I'll jump in tonight. I had some time on then. Yeah, I
got Joe, you got the wheel tonight make whatever. You know, we
don't have to have cheese doesn't have to be eight inches thick on the armagan
but yeah, so I said, it didn't have to, you know,
so that kind of thing. Just tone it down a little bit. And
then I took this course. So Johnsonino, who was in fifty eight engine
he wrote the Firefighter's Cookbook back in eighty four, wound up being on a
New York Times best sellerst for nine weeks in a row. And I did.
I met on, you know, and I was telling them that this
thing kind of happened to me. We actually did a couple of radio show
things together. And but he ended up having a triple bypass, I mean,
due to his eating. Dudeh his fitness. I don't know. I'm
not a doctor, I can't say that. But again, I don't know
that fitness was all that big in the sixties and seventies, especially busy firehouses.
They're like, hey, you know, I can't be bothered. I'm
a busy fire house. I can't be bothered watching what I eat. Yeah,
right, right, Well, Well, I at one twenty nine and
at one of the firefighters at work, and I remember he was making mashed
potatoes for ten people. He had five sticks of butter. He was peeling
him like bananas and dropping him in there and dropping him in the in the
thing, which is fine once in a while, but a steady died of
it, you know, career wise. So that's kind of what I was
looking out for. So I took this course. The teachers went around the
room try to get everybody's ideas for cool. I didn't even have a rough
I had a rough idea. Yeah, if I was going to do a
book, because I have some background and fitness and nutrition and and there was
a successful book, maybe I'll do a healthy one. And that basically that's
how I said it. And the teacher said, wow, that's when he
went around and read that's a pretty good idea. We have an editor coming
in from Herst Publishing to say afternoon. They they're the guns. Look he's
got the gun. Please, you know they would the chop busting I got
because of his picture. Yeah, like that is in the wrong. That's
a sweet potato. That the airbrush, and they go, look at your
crotch, Joe. They blew up the crowd. There's nothing there, you
women, you got off that picture far out weighs the ball bus and you
got worry about it. They go take the sweet potato out of your arm,
put it in your pants with safe you know, you know, all
too well, all too well. And it went, you know, with
the chop busting. But yeah, so the teacher said. An editor came
in that afternoon from Herst Publishing. She gave her a synopsis on what it's
like to publish a book, and she was so strict about it, and
I like, I don't even have recipes ready. These There had seventy five
people in the class who went to ten times the training I did, and
background worked in restaurants, and so I got don't really. So the teacher
ended the client, thank you very much for coming. She opened the floor
for a few minutes and everybody was shooting their ideas to her, and she
was shooting people down left and right. So I'm not even gonna mention it
because I'm not even that ready. And the teacher said, don't be shy
if you have a great idea mentioned you and he goes like, I'll fireman
for instance, Joe, would you stand up and say your idea. I
said it the same way. I said, listen, I've been a firefighter
for fourteen years. Now try to put healthy meals in the fires. It
was a successful book and I was on the best seller list, but I
would probably do a healthy version of that healthy Firehouse cookbook. And then he
the editor, said, oh my god, what a great idea you know.
And she says, come up after the class, I want to talk
to you. And everybody, everybody in the class is ready to kill me.
They're sitting there with three hundred recipes ready to go, and here's this
clown comes in with like a notepad and a pencil, and they did they't
want to publish a book. So then, of course I went back to
the fire house to tell them and they were like, you gotta be kidding
me. What book you wor aaddy? I'm telling you. I took this
class that the hall adding, and then they put it in. I put
in. They didn't want it to be New York fireming cookbook. They wanted
to that national appeal. So I put it in at a firehouse magazine and
he asked for recipes from across the country. I got about sixty to eighty.
I used about thirty or forty in my own. And then guys I
work with guys I went to Proby School with around the job and also around
the country. Put the thing together, put the proposal together, put it
and they said, Okay, it's a go. It's gonna happen, And
they put it together. You shoot the cover and next thing you know,
it was crazy. It was It was crazy. It was off to the
races. And that's the second book. Yeah, that was the second book.
Yeah, back to the first one. Let me see the first that's
the one. I happened to just find that one on the well. I
aged progressively as the books go on. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Junior, how did how did it sell? Joe? How did it do?
The first one actually did really well. And then you know, I
got a funny story about that. They put me on QBC to sell the
book, and the uh it was right at the time of the Oklahoma City
bombing. So and you know, you're on for like ten minutes. It's
completely business with them. So I could see the clicker on the side.
It was like, you know, one hundred books, one hundred and fifty
two hundred eight. Oh Joseph fireman in New York. And he's a cookbook
guy, and he didn't doing this healthy Firehouse cookbook. He's a nutritionist and
the fitness trainer and and the books and so a woman we're going to take
a call from the audience. This woman couldn't have been better. She says,
Oh, my grandson's a uh fireman the Oklahoma City bombing, and I'm
buying this book to give to him an honor, and I hope he makes
some of the recipes out of it. She couldn't have been better. I
looked at the clicker was going like a Roulette wheel. I'm like, wow,
holy catch. It was three thousand. We were selling three hundred books
a minute. Wow. Well I'm not I'm not shorry about that part of
it either, because everybody thought, like, because you're going good Morning America,
read first of all those shows, don't pay you. You're promoting a
book. And the other thing is the money that you make as a first
time author. Is it what like up? Not a lot? And then
they start cutting up. The agent gets fifteen percent. You're not a professional
recipe writer. You should get him in here. He's getting someone. Someone's
calling them all. Yeah, so uh yeah, my girlfriend does recipe writing.
She's got to look over all the recipes. She gets eight thousand dollars,
this one gets this, this one gets that. And by the time
they chop it up, and I'm not complaining about it at all, but
you don't get the guys a thought like, oh, Joe's gonna be at
a millionaire And I'm saying, listen, got eight thousand dollars she charged you
eight grand? I mean sheet no. But you know you got to keep
your head because you can't say to them, no, I'll do it myself.
Because then said, okay, well we'll see in a couple of years.
You bounce around the recipes. So you got to be gracious and say,
okay, if that's what you be done, and you do that,
I think we have you on Good Morning America, right guns, which one
is that's the first one you want to do? Yeah, I think,
all right, yes, let me see what we have here for you.
This could be bad, this could be good. No, no, no,
no, not at all. Sorry. I had to get to the
right one. It's gonna be bad, Joe, it's gonna be television.
There's people. That's the wrong. You sent me go to the next one.
I mean, you gotta go to the second one. What's the second
one? Later a minute? The second one was the twenty second clip you
wanted me to play? Which was that the one? He does this to
me all the time to worry Asian guy? Which guy? Let me see
the white people are Asian guy? Look at his face. I can't help
it myself. He's screwed me up. Sorry, you only got three of
them. Christ So here we go, Here we go. This is which
one? Is this him? Here? Is this the one? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, you know you don't need to have a point weather or
even the garden. One I ever had was in the remember that guy Winter
minus thirty ring in a tiny apartment with barbecue on the fire escape and then
ate it on the blanket on the you're really today really started talking like you
know where you work? This is the one, right, God? I
didn't like it too spicy because you walk out such a nice party. Hello,
how you doing chicken rice? Yeah, we can do chicken rice,
but no spicy, no spicy. It's why you still doing White people hate
flavor. To cut it off? Why you be with him so pussy?
Can't even have food festival must be planned food festival only. Okay, okay,
to get you one. Where do you find these things? You guys?
You guys were a trip. Man, You guys were a trip before
before doing guys in the firehouse that were about it or jealous or any of
that stuff. Did you ever have any bad? Not too bad, because
I didn't. I was totally not arrogant about it. Every time I did
anything on TV, I brought them in, you know, I said,
listen, this is a team effort, and you know, and for us
to go get Chaufford into them by limousine into the Regis filming show with ten
of us in the audience. Yeah, so I tried to share whatever.
I'm sure there were a few that it was always Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't all that bad. I mean towards the end it started to get
because then they did a second book, and then you know, they wanted
to come to the firehouse a lot and do a story. And again i'd
be the first one to say I was pretty average in the cooking department.
Eventually I got it better and better, and then I said, I need
some chops in this department. So I anted a few contests and I won
them. So I go, can you leave me alone? I want to
you guys enter a contest then and see how you do. So I want
a couple of contests. But yeah, and I'd like to think I was
a good fireman and generally liked. And I wasn't like, hey, you
guys are low leaf fireman, I'm a cookbook author or anything like, you
know, so I was not in the least And I tried to share it
with everybody as much in as often as possible. And I would be the
first one to say I was a little lucky. The right place at the
right time could happen to anybody who's happened to happen to me, So share
it what you can, whether it was a news article or in person or
whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of how I treated it. What
was your best meal? What was your favorite meal? Yeah, you're gonna
say the go to or my favorite, my fable. My favorite was,
and especially if you had to work, was Thanksgiving dinner and everything from soup
to nuts, from the salad to the dessert, to the turkey, to
the stuffing, to the homemade cranberry sauce, to make a dessert. No,
that was agna, make the dessert. Just everything about the Thanksgiving and
then the fact that you're actually working on Thanksgiving, you know, and you
you were saying before Gonzo that you're saying, how the don't tell anybody how
the about the meal and the what you know? So I would always laugh.
I would always say it was funny. I wasn't married. Most of
the firefighters are married. So then they would get a phone call that working
with me on Thanksgiving and we're putting out a beautiful Thanksgiving spread, and then
the phone call comes for the wife, Oh, we wish you were here.
Aunt Connie misses you, and uncle Bill and Connie, we wish you
were And he'd be like, oh, you don't know how old it is
for me to be here. And then you hang thee up, give me
the goddamn remote control. I'm so don't exactly they were so like, but
to the wife, they're like, yeah, you know, honey, I
miss you too, and I just wish I was there because you know how
much I love your aunt Connie and uncle Bill. And they're like, I
can't stay. I'm so glad I'm here. So it's kind of like we
do when we go to the trade shows. The wife said, we go
out and din. Yeah, probably mac Donalds or something. Meanwhile, is
that Louis like, yeah, give me a sixteen ounce pil a. Yeah,
need a wedge, valid wedge it right. But they caught onto that.
She's like, oh, you going out to McDonalds again tonight. So
Thanksgiving meal in general, I did like to mess around with desserts, which
isn't really a big deal in the firehouse, but if we had the time
later on, Like I make a pretty good carrot cake. Again, it's
a healthy carrot cake that was in my first so I would make a carry
cake and sometimes Johnsonino was very famous for his rice pudding. Yeah, but
I'm certain if there's a lieutenant listening right now, he worked in one twenty
nine one night. He said, I make a better rice pudding than anybody
on the job, including Johnsonino, and I said, well, I'd like
to get the recipe from you, and he wouldn't let me. He wouldn't
give it to me, wouldn't let me watch him. And if you're listening,
lieutenant, get hold of the show and get hold of me. Sometimes
i'd like to get that wrestling. I'm sure he's retired, but I don't
recall his name, but man, and he was the only thing I caught
him doing was he was putting like eight or nine egg yolks in the milk,
which really thickens it up. So but he wouldn't tell me anything else.
He was real secretive about it. I forget his name, but it
was a good, real good handful of easy things that guys can do can
go from batty to semi healthy. Well, a perfect example is what you
said before bakeing chicken cutlets instead of deep flying them. I had a guy
from Latter one thirty one night work with me, and he goes, oh,
that's interesting. We made meat loaf and instead of you know, use
a leaner cut of beef, of course, but I would make it on
a rack so that the fat drippings would all drain off. So that's the
way to make meat loaf without it swimming in the junk of the bottom of
it. So it's like a little this little perfectly. Like I said about
mash potatoes, Yeah, of course you put four sticks of butter in for
eight people. Yeah, of course butter. It tastes great. But what
I would do is I would roast garlic like six or seven heads. Roast
the gallic in the oven and tinfoil, squeeze the garlic out, and then
mix that out. Mix that out with the mashed potatoes. Taste and fine,
you know, one of the taste and fine. So what you know,
Like I said, there's so many little things you can do in general.
Like I said, the chicken color palmejeon in and of itself is really
not all that bad. And most of the Flyhouse meals are protein and carbohydrate
based. You know, chicken color parmejan what is its pasta? No,
you have to have a three h piece of sheet rock cheese on the top
of You don't have to sheat rock the chicken colored parmesan with a sheet rock
sized piece of cheese on it, you can just shred it and put and
probably reduce the fat and cholesterol in it by two thirds at least, right,
you know, And again I'm not I was never so about it,
because there's always time for as long as you're fit already this time, there
is a time to just go all out and eat whatever you want. You
know. I think I may have even made that mistake in the urge to
be jacked, swollen or whatever you called it, you know, and not
taken into consideration that you went to some all hands from twelve midnight to four
point thirty in the morning, which is warmly supposed to be sleeping. And
then I would come back and say, oh, well, yeah, I
guess that'll help burn off some fat. No that I went back into the
chicken color palmejan and dove into it at three o'clock in the morning, four
o'clock in the morning, you earned an extra meal, you know, working
extra right after that. But yeah, so you know, I was never
a strict one hundred percent advocate. Nobody could live like that for long,
you know. I'm even competitive athletes and bodybuilders. I mean they you know,
yeah, they trained for a contest or whatever they're doing, but then
they have times when they go off. I mean that a woman, and
that's again that we talked about the tradition of eating in and around the fires.
I mean, that's part of our tradition, is having a meal together.
And that was the other thing I was missing too, is if you're
out on the meal because you're dieting, Uh, you don't get the camaraderie.
You don't get to sue it everybody. And also and also the good
food and then a gun. If you'll all appreciate this, I'm sure we
used to always say this short universal is they would say, free food has
no calories. So I go, what do you need? So, you
know, a guy would you know exactly where I'm going with this. So
a guy would say, Bill, you know dinner tonight. Oh no,
no, I'm on a little bit of a diet. Well, liutense going
on vacation. The meals free, all right. I mean I said free
food has no calories. You guys would do that all the time. Yea,
yeah, yeah, no, I'm not a little bit of a diet.
Watch what I eat a little bit of weight? Well, vacation,
yeah yeah, vacation. So the meals are on the arm. Oh yeah,
I'm in. And of course the universal, the universal firefighter out on
the meal but sneaking it at three o'clock in the morning, making a chicken
colored sandwich for himself. The seagull I forgot that expression, right, A
seagull out on the meal. But he's in when everybody goes to bed.
The guys in one o three they used to take like the dirtiest sponge when
they knew that one of those guys was working. They would egg it and
bread it and put the cheese on it and sauce and lay it like right
on the top. I tell everybody except that person, And I've seen the
guy eat it one time. I've seen it one day. You'll eat the
ice cream too. Maybe they're not going to eat, but you'll see him
in eating the ice cream. Bro. Yeah, because you know, listen,
you're gonna be there for fifteen hours, you know. And because I
had a background of fitness and nutrition, I was the first one to help
if they asked for it, or listen, Joe, I need to lose
weight. Can you figure out nutrition? De it for me something that I
could live with. But you know, I guess they would go with all
of these crazy uh the Captain of was it two ninety nine? And you
know it was a little overweight. He was asking me. He goes,
Joe, you eat like a like a linebacker and you never gain any weight.
I go, yeah, because I'm eating regularly. I'm eating right mix
of protein, fat and carbohydrate calories. There's exercises, and he goes,
I think I got to go in this cabbage soup diet. So I'm like,
cabbage soup. Oh yeah, I sort on one of these talk shows.
You eat cabbage soup, like just cabbage soup three times a day for
ten days, and you can lose ten pounds of ugly fat instant, almost
instantly. I get you could do that by cutting your head off, less
painful probably, but I still let Joe. But anyway, but the problem
with the cabbage soup diet personally. He was a big man, naturally big
anyway, very strong too in the gym. Uh yeah, I said,
you have good muscles under there. You just get carrying too much body fat.
You gotta be a cool cardio. Clean up your diet a little bit.
I go, cabbage soup is not going to jump started. Plus you
have a big appetite. That's how come you do. You're a big man,
and for you to be roaming around the fire house sipping on cabbage soup
while everybody's eating chicken culor parmesan. It's driving me crazy. So I go.
You can eat chicken cutlored palmejan You don't have to load up on the
passet. Maybe you have a salad beforehand, eat a little bit better during
the day, not to mention if all you're eating is cabbage. Shoot,
you can imagine what the fire I smell like. Oh my god, I
go, you're killing us. You're killing us and you're not even losing exactly.
Look, did you have a roof? Did you ever work the guy
eight Burmeister? Yeah, I know the name. He used to have like
an egg sandwich I don't have many yolks and bacon, And then he used
to put the bacon fat oil in his cup and he would drink the bacon
oil with his egg sandwich. I'm like, holy shit, it's a sight
to be seen, it really is. My mother used to cook eggs in
the morning with the bacon fat. Yeah a bacon Germany. Yeah yeah.
They would splash the hot bacon fat over the egg. Yeah yeah yeah.
I shied away from that years ago. I just used a regular nonstick ship
but yeah, that's heart attack waiting to happen. Obviously she passed away early
because he didn't habits. But thank god didn't yet Louis, thank god,
a little buddy. They they stayed away from the light, stayed away from
the away from the light, little buddy. See hereditary some of it,
Joe right, because we had to get two stints just recently. Yeah,
there's a genetic factor to it too, But more of it I saw it
was not genetic. More of it. I saw it was kind of lifestyle
related. And again it's a funny place if as kitchen, that's hard to
push information. You really can't push information. You kind of get it,
let it, let it go by attraction. I always said, by attraction,
not promotion. So not listen. If you're a fit, you go
to a job to lieutenants on the second floor landing with his mask off,
he can't catch his breath, he's out of completely out of breath. He
knows. I don't have to say anything. Even a fellow fireman, I
don't have to say anything. He knows, and he's like, you know,
I got to do something about this. So then you're like, okay,
well it's fixable. Let's let's let's do something about it because it makes
for better job performance, longevity, you know. I mean I always hear
guys, screw the city, screw the city. I go. The best
way you could screw the city is enough, live, live forever, live
long enough to collect until you're one hundred. Yeah, you know, and
I like you ought to be doing like when they're traveling back in time.
Bro, that's half all you want to go, man, not just star
trek. Yeah. I have a few fitness related funny stories like that,
like that that captain, That's what he said to me. He said,
Uh, well, they always have funny witticisms, which amazing. They should
be in a comic book. I'll never forget the one guy I was.
I wasn't promoning. I was eating. Ah, not the bad gentleman.
You know, it's healthy things. Goes had an uncle. It was just
like you. Guy got a great build on to me had He had a
great build on him. And he was walking across the street one day he
was killed. He was hit by a vitamin truck and killed. I love
those, right, I don't know it just like you. He was buried
in a V shaped coffin you know, so they always had like a comeback.
I'll never I always use the mistake. It's harder as you get alda
mentally to go through hard workouts. Lieutenant Wilfred the Wolf smellsing from engine three
nineteen and that's how they got their name the Lone Wolf from him. Legendary
officer character like no other. And I'll never forget. At the height of
like getting into three nineteen, I was in great Shair and worked out in
the base and I come upstairs. I'm all sweaty, pumped up from working
out, and he's laying on the couch and he goes, Joe, I
tell you what, when I see you come up those stairs, it's like
an inspiration to me. And he sits up from laying down on the couch
at the milk on he sits up and he goes, it's it's like an
inspiration to me. And he goes, I just like I feel like I
should work out. And then he says, he says, I think I'll
lay down to the feeling pantses and and the other thing I remember him saying,
which is true for a firefighters listening young and old about throwing the fitness
and nutrition out the window completely, he says. Most he wound up saying
if I knew, if I knew I was going to live this long,
I would have taken better care of myself. That's the one that kind of
that's the one that kind of really thinks. So you want to be sticking
around, and it's how does a guarantee longevity, like you said before,
accused of had genetics and stuff. Maybe not, but your quality of life
is going to be better. And that goes with also being a firefighter.
Listen, I never wanted they said, let no man's ghosts return to say
his training let him down. Well, I don't want to be hanging out
of a window not being able to pull somebody up because I can't do a
pull up or I can't do a push up, or I can't you know,
it's a job that requires physical strength and stamming it, you know,
and it's part of the responsibility. You lose the I mean, you lose
the ability the concept of being out of shape the minute you take the job.
It's part of the responsibility of being a firefighter. Now you don't have
to be mister America. You don't have to be a powerlifted but be it
reasonably fit. Reasonably fit means you should be able to I say, at
least ten push ups, five pull ups, twenty three hand squats, and
maybe comfortably jog you know, two or three laps around high school track.
I mean that's the low end of the spectrum. You want to be an
elite athlete, that's a whole other story, but at the bare minimum,
you know. So, yeah, it worked. It worked by attraction.
You know. Listen, if the older firefighters aren't getting it, and they
they started to wander into the gym after a while and they're like, you
know, what should I do? I say, you know, I want
to just try twenty minutes on the treadmill. Good for your hot Well,
let that firefighter I told you, Bob Cook, he was a plumber,
old school, real old school firement and you know, the whole fitness thing.
And then the way I explained it to him on a level that he
could understand. I go, Bob, you're a plumber. How many how
many cast iron pipes? Did you take a part that were caked with grease
on the inside? And I go, how do you clean it? Either
mechanically clean it or you run what hot water or through hot water through it.
So I go, So, when you go on a treadmill for twenty
minutes, your veins and arteries are pipes and they could get clogged up with
what fat. Last I got that you eat plaque, which turned fat,
which turns into plaque. So by exercising for twenty minutes, increasing your blood
pressure, increasing your blood temperature by a few degrees, which heats up the
fat, and then you're coursing it through your veins at one hundred and twenty
bats a minute, which isn't out of line for anybody to be able to
do that twenty minutes on a treadmill. And he goes, wow, now
do you explain it that way? I get it. It's like old pipes.
So if I do three days a week, I go, yeah,
that's fight. Eventually started being on the treadmill three days a week just because
it made sense to him that way, right, So there's a way to
to you know, not force it down. So you're never gonna force it
down. Somebody's throw it anyway. It was just like the fat offs in
the firehouse, Like you know, there'd be like fifteen guys that put in
like forty fifty bucks a guy and whoever loses the most weight right when it's
not dangerous bro guys, No, no, I know guys were doing crazy
wearing the suits and trying to sweat fucking water out right, they weren't.
They weren't losing weight. They were losing it because if they five hundred dollars,
they're trying to kill all right. I think you had to do it
in like two months. And what I used to say all the time about
Freddy and and Baizel all the time they were nice and when they were fat,
you like that. Nobody likes ther skinny buyzel. Nobody likes skinny boyzel.
Where I need the roly poly fat buyzel. You know what it was?
Well, because because under eating to calorie restriction to lose weight, it
it affects your mood too. Like I said, the Captain walking around the
firehouse on cabbage soup for ten days was a miserable sob right, especially if
he's he's eating cabbage soup and right next to him you're piling down a sheet
rocked chicken colored parmesan sandwich and he's looking at it with literally with lust in
his heart. Yeah, and I'm like cap let's get the cabbage soup.
Let me write yep, let me let me write you up something that you
can live with with the appetite level that you have, and I go with
the with the frame and muscle that you have, that fat will go away
pretty quickly, yeah, you know, and you'll be left with a you
know, pleasing physique. I mean that's another boy product of it. You
can't hate that. Don't get me into the wife stories. With the pleasing
physique, I'll go off on a whole nother tangent with that. With and
he goes. You know, you know what they would say, It doesn't
matter what my pleasing my physique is, it ain't happening. Yeah, yourself,
how about that? Do it for yourself right for pride? Yeah,
you know, uh, for your own personal pride jaw performance. You know,
listen, you'll you'll you'll also get a kick out of this, because
that's the other thing with If you're fig and the other firefighter isn't unfit,
you know, and he's I can get just as many chicks as you Banano
because you know, you reach around his stomach and grab his crutch and goes.
Because this is all that matters you know, and he's I go,
that's not all that matters. I go. Do you think when you step
out of the shower and you drop your towel and you have to stand on
a mirror to see if you're even ready for it? You think that your
wife likes looking at that? I go, you don't have to do not
to mention you haven't seen it in about five year bro right, you have
to stand on a mirror to let you know that you're ready. Yeah?
Yeah, whoa, all right, where are we? COOVII? You don't
have any good time. That's where I'm at. We went to Uh,
let's just quick talk about your You made a where was it? Oh?
Kid's book? All right? Yeah, I did that. Uh. You
know that I always had this sinkling to write a children's book about fitness.
It's not really about It's a story, children's story book about an overweight elephant
that you know he's getting made fun of. I kind of incorporated the whole
fire house life thing into it. And then how another Fireman season and you
know there's a twist to the story where you know, I won't reveal it,
but there's a twist to the story. It's basically a fun children's story
book I wanted to do, and that one I made. You know,
it's completely dedicated to the nine to eleven people. We lost on nine to
eleven, So you got the seven on the elephant. Yeah, yeah,
my brother was in seven. Later in the book there's two seventy three and
one twenty nine on the other firefighters, so it's yeah, it's just a
cute little story book about being the best that you can be. And you
know, and that's why I used an elephant because and I think back to
my captain too, because they said to my cat, and you know,
you'll have a big muscular physique, that's who you are. You're never going
to be skinny, but work with what you got. So I said,
I used the elephant. You know, an elephant's never going to be skinny,
but just be the best elephant that you can. Which doesn't mean you
able to be grossly obese. That's why then the picture looks obese. Beyond
obese. Just be a big, proud elephant if that's what your body type
is. Where can you guys find the books on Amazon? Yeah, you
can find it on Amazon. If they go to my website, they can
get a hold of me personal your website Americanfirehouse Cuisine dot com beautiful. Yeah,
uh okay, so we uh but when were we was the job you
went h went back to the latter one ninety six. Huh. Yeah.
When I transferred out of one twenty nine right when the book happened, because
I wanted to be in a brand new place when the book happened, because
you know, when you're brand new in a place, there's a little bit
of a grace period. And I knew that the book was coming out,
and I didn't want to be in one twenty nine because it was It was
crazy. Everybody was there was crazy, and they actually got in a lot
of trouble because they were taking Apron runs right after the My timing to leave
was perfect because they got in that whole thing with what's his name Van Essen
and taking Apron runs, and the whole place got into a lot of trouble.
But there was such a bunch of characters. I almost saw it coming,
and I said, listen, I got a you know, a transfer.
I want to be in a brand new place when the book hits.
This way, the fire flies all lay off a little bit brandw place and
you know, and that's kind of the way I went. And nothing disrespectful
to one twenty nine. It was a great place to work. But I
don't know, I don't know that right after that, they had a bunch
of crazy things happened there. I mean, one was those apron run things,
and they got all kinds of trouble for that with the union and with
von Essen. You know, a fella they had pulled in a false alarm
from the pay phone and got hooked up for that and fire remember that,
And you know what a shame story that was because he was a great guy
and I have no idea what he was thinking when that happened. Sometimes people
do stupid things, that's all they do. And that was one that you
couldn't even have a cover story for. And they would have loved to have
helped him out, but that there was no helping him out, and he
run up fighting. It's terribly He was a really great guy and he just
did something really stupid. I mean, just not thinking, you know,
and we've seen that over the years, what the guy do personally in their
home life for and you know, I think you alluded to before fighting in
the fires also physically fighting. I mean, I've had to restrained guys sometimes.
I'm like, listen, you're on duty that mfile and you know,
you know, you lose it and you know you hurt this guy, you
know, and it happens. I mean, it's so I was always kind
of sensitive to that, you know. And that's even where the chop busting
and all the other stuff comes in. And then there's a side to it
that's part of the nature of the job. I get it, but you
gotta know where And again you said it before I can cut. It's the
senior guys responsorbated to say, listen, layoff right. You know, he's
starting to take this a little too personal and you're pushing the envelope a little
bit too far. I mean, there's a good story about that that they
should learn a lesson, because I can't stand bullies. David c Is you
know who that is, right, the boxer David c Is the boxer.
Yeah, he had some big mouth typical I used to say, remember the
movie Back to the Future, mm hmm. Remember the Bully Biff. Yeah,
but remember the Bully Biff. I go Clone Biff about eight thousand times,
and that's every new York City. Find a lot of them have that
type of gruff bully personality. So anyway, David sees this guy just like
the guy Biff Big, you know that big day. You're a box He
wait, what do you weigh on undred and seventy eight pounds? I throw
you around a room like a d doll, but doing it in a way
that was mean to the guy. And David sees he was a nice guy,
but he had to you know, he was he was a professional fighter.
And he goes, I could He goes, listen, lay off,
and they told him to layoff, and he wouldn't lay off. But now
it started to get personal and he goes, well, so you think you
could take me? He goes, and he wouldn't last around with me.
You know I could bench press five hundred pounds, And he goes, okay,
he set it up. So they set it up and they I wish
I would have went to the thing. They said it was a right because
a really good boxer and a Biff and a person that doesn't have a box
this night and day, and he went in to ring with him, and
now they didn't really like each other. On top of it, and the
other guy was really trying to hurt him, and he says, listen,
I'm paying with him. But he goes, he's trying to hurt me.
And I don't like the guy anyway, and the guy in the corner said,
knock him out. So the next round he completely tore the guy apart
to the point of being embarrassing, and to the guy apart leveled them.
Which those are the kind of stories I like, they need their come up
and you know, yep, but so yeah, So I finished out my
career in one fifty two. Then because of the cookbook stuff, I was
getting a lot of calls to do like, uh, like, if you
go on the Regis Philbin show, if you use Ronzoni pasta a fee And
I said, really, I didn't know that, And so then they started.
I started to be like a not an A list celebrity, more like
a WS the zealous celebrity wasn't quite Emerald, Rachel Ray or Bobby Flay,
but there was a call for less celebrities, cheap date celebrity, let's call
it, to do appearances. And you know, you're also in New York
City, fine, which holds a little public public in the public eye.
So I started doing appearance that's here and there for so so run Zonie was
having a yead there I am with dark hair, how about that? And
Martha Stewart, she was a trip, very nice though, Oh funny.
I got a funny story about her too. We were doing we were up
in her uh West Point, Connecticut is where our studio is. And and
again I told you, I shared it. I brought about six or seven
five with me from one twenty nine up there to her office. So they
had like a waiting room with all glass doors, glass windows on it.
So my six or seven fire fighters from one twenty nine were there, and
I said, only these guys alone for too long, you know, because
they you know, they're just rife for trouble. So the women's, the
women's she had like seventy five women were looking for her, and the women's
restroom was right where this glass, big glass window was where all these guys
were in this room and they're just milling around having coffee, waiting for her
to put us all on the air. So while I'm rehearsing with her,
they come and get her, and mate, they go, Joe, I'm
out here for a second, and Martha, come with us. You got
to see this. So one of the guys must have rifled through the drawers
because there was all women going into women's bathroom. Rifle through the drawers,
found a magic marker and he put fight Apartment Petting Zoo and he put it
up on the glass FDNY Fighted Apartment Petting Zoo. Women All women Welcome.
And She's like, oh my god. Only these guys alone for too long,
They're just going to get in trouble. So yeah, So the summer
of tooths, I had just my papers who were in early late two thousand
and early two thousand and one, and I was still getting calls to do
cooking stuff. So ron Zoni called me up and said, Joe, we're
sponsoring the New York Firefighters cooking contest and we'd like you to be one of
the judges and also go on TV and promoted. And so they said,
you know, you're gonna do a few appearances over the summer. So I
did want to, like, maybe Good Morning America Today show, Right,
there's gonna be a big New York Firefighters cooking contests. Get your recipes in
blah blah blah, and the winning recipes will be served at the New York
City Marathon, and so did a couple of the TV shows. So they
on the end of August they called me up and they say, Joe,
we got a live WB eleven episode. It's going to be live and they're
gonna do it at one fifty two at your fireouse. Okay, no problem.
And they go we're booking the date September eighth, two thousand and one.
Okay, yeah, I'm free, no problem. So a couple of
weeks went by, It's about the week before they called me up and they
said, Joe, the thing is still on for sure, but we don't
really get a good signal out in Queens, and you know, plus we
have to take all our equipment and people out to Queens. You know,
would you be okay if we did it in Manhattan? And I said,
yeah, my brother used to work in lat of seven, not a problem.
He goes, no, No, we're not going to be at lat
of seven. We're going to be We're using Ladda three on thirteenth and broad
Away And I said, yeah, no, you know firefighters that work there,
and he said, uh, it's not down not too far from away.
My brother's fire houses. I said, yeah, no problem. He
said, yeah, we'll send the cost service for you. It'll put you
up at five in the morning. The only thing is they can't do it
on the eighth. Are you available on the morning of the eleventh? I
said yeah. Never knowing God, who could ever have imagined anything on that
scale of any of us? And I said, yeah, I'm available on
the eleventh. And they said, okay, Well, the court service,
this guy will pick up at like five in the morning, drive you into
Ladder three and it's gonna be live. The host of the TV show is
gonna be there. He's gonna meet you and the kid around with him a
little bit. And so I arrived at Ladder three at like five thirty in
the morning, met everybody. We started talking what's going Oh, yeah,
it's gonna do this TV segment. It's gonna be live. Then the host
pulls up at about I don't know, six thirty something like that. Now
they were live WB eleven at the studio, and what they would do is
we're gonna cut live to Ladder three, Ary Hoff at Ladda three and they're
gonna be Larry's making his recipe Joe's making one of the Ronzoni winn winning recipes
or entered recipes and they're gonna bring it out on the street and let people
taste it and all live. So that was like, yeah, like six
thirty. So we did that segment, and then after that segment was over,
you're off the air. The next one is gonna be at like seven
forty five. Okay, yeah herd before oh yeah, yeah, We're cut
live at seven fourth and then they cut back live again and by that time,
Captain Patty Brown came in. I never met him. He's like,
oh, are you from the photo unit or I go, no, I'm
not from the photo unit. That's the first time I haven't met him.
You know, how do you do? So nice to meet you. And
he says, what's going on? Soh yeah, they're doing this. Oh
you heard about this blah blah blah, you know e eatining And I said,
yeah, I'm just I'm recently retired. They asked me to come and
do this thing to promote this content. Money's going to the widow and Children's
Fun from Ronzoni and yeah, he says, all right, yeah, make
yourself at home coming to kids. So you know, we're kidding around.
Next thing, you know, the next segments at like seven forty five,
well live, So me and the host go to the street and people passing
by walking word taste this taste that. What do you think? Getting around
with them? Behind me is Joe Maloney and another guy both got killed unfortunately,
waiting for their family. Yeah, they got their cell phones out and
they're calling their kids before they go to school, saying, you know you
could I have a picture of it. They're right behind me with the cellphones
talking to their kids like hey, it's daddy on TV. And they're waving
in the background. And then they cut again and they go the next segment's
going to be at I think it was eight fifteen or eight twenty. The
last segment. I was just gonna be the last segment. Eight. The
plane hit it by eight forty six. Right they finished the segment, the
firefighters are all like goofing around and the camera guy leaves. To this day,
it was it's so vivid to me. The girl is there that worked
for Ronzoni and she said, Joe, unfortunately the cost server this guy is
in the Bronx and he can't get here for at least an hour. I
said, no problem, and they were all kidding around me. They're like,
hey, bring food and kitchen, hang out with us. I go,
okay, no problem. So I start walking back to the kitchen and
they said, besides, I look at you're gonna be stuck in traffic.
So it's almost nine o'clock. You know what you rush wanted to wait till
like ten o'clock. So I said, oh yeah, all right. So
I started walking back to the kitchen. Her phone rings. She looks at
me, she says, Joe, good news. There's another person from the
cost service right around the block. You can go now if you want.
I looked at the firefights. They looked at me. I said, you
know what, I don't want to hold a guy up if he's here.
What the heck can on? It's a difference in the car car getting a
ride home. I looked at them all, took my turnout coat, hung
it up. You know. They wanted me to do this segment, and
you know, and they're like, hey, you got to watch the last
few seconds of this segment. The chicks on the TV you're talking about you.
And I watched it at the house, watch with them and then I
said, all right, fellows, listen, the guy's here. I'm gonna
take off all right, and I said, way, I said, I
have a safe tour, and I got in cost service pulled out. By
the time I come to sixth Avenue, they were turning out for the World
Trade Center. And now I hear fire trucks like crazy. But it's Manhattan,
you know. I'm like, so I said to the cow service guy,
go, do we fair to put the radio on for a second.
He puts the radio on and I hear we interrupt this program. Apparently a
small plane. We're getting reports to a small plane is hit the World Trade
Center. And as I go up the Blox, I could look over my
joulder and looked out the window and it's a small plane. The amount of
smoke that's coming out that And they're like, well, we're hearing mixed stories
that it might be a commercial plane. We'll get back to you on it.
But it was it would had just happened. And by the time I
got to the Queen's Midtown Tunnel, we watched the what do you call it?
The radio and by the time I pulled out of the tunnel and got
past the toll. I look over my right shoulder. You could see the
World Trade Center. I see the second plane, next explosion. I'm like,
was that the part of the first explosion? And then the radio's on
and now he's like, no, apparently a second plane. It's beautiful out.
There's no way a guy got lost there is He is h a bionics
weren't working properly. Something's not and he goes, this is apparently isn't an
attack of an attack of some sort? Uh, close the tunnels. The
bridge is gonna be closed, the tunnel and I said that. I turned
his car around, and he turned the car around right at the booth,
and they said I had my badge out, as you know, because it
doesn't matter tunnels closed. Nobod's getting trouble. Police want to have we gotta
order to close the tunnel. And then I drove out to Long Island.
By the time I got to Long Island, walked in the door, the
first tower was collapsing, and I just I go on watching thousands of people
and hundreds of fine killed right before my eyes, and I go, if
anybody's there, A lot of three is there? There's no doubt about it.
Now my brother Michael, who was out on a disability pension at that
point, but happened to be in New York visiting at the time. Sister
lived out in West Iceland, and I had actually asked him to come into
the segment and he didn't want to get up at five in the morning.
And good thing, because he knew so many guys in lat of three that
we would have been hanging out there talking to him and probably hanging out and
probably would have took the run, no doubt about it. So he said,
Joey, I can't watch this on TV anymore. And I sayid either
can I? And he says, do you have extra gear? And I
said, yeah, I do, and he says, come pick me up.
They went to my sister's house. I picked him up, gave him
some gear. We hopped on the Long Island Railroad. You know, it's
a crazy story. While we're on the Long Island Railroad if a woman comes
up to us and she says, my husband works with cant Fitzgerald. And
they were on the one hundred and tenth floor. I see who guys are
going into the World Trade Center. Can you do me a favor? Here's
this picture? Would you look for him for me, and if you do,
here's my telephone, please contact me. So he took the number,
and so we got to Penn Station. The next day, I walked out
of Penn Station with my brother. Of course we had to argue with us,
and by then every emergency service in the world is responding. A couple
of New York State troopers and a Humma pulled over. Fellas jump in,
jumped in and got us as close as we could get. We walked the
rest of the distance. When I turned the corner and God saw that pile
of I mean I really I dropped on my knees crying. My brother was
actually kinna have to console me, because I knew what we were walking into
and what we were going to hear. There's no way that that was going
to be a minor event in any way, shape or form. And then
just the insanity of like this was done. What in the name of some
kind of statement. Thousands of people are going to be grieving, hundreds of
thousands of people grieving over want some religious craziness, I need to come on
already. And then by the time we got there, you know, then
you get busy doing what you were doing, which I saw early on there
wasn't going to be many people to even saved, which was a terrible part
for the pointment that survived it. If you could save people, but there
wasn't too many people to say that's and then just to see the level of
destruction and I mean, you know, steal as thick as your leg,
bent like spaghetti, and and just all of it just was so overwhelming.
Guys. You gotta pitch from the three truck, right, yeah. Yeah.
So we started walking around and Michael said to me, goes, Joe,
isn't that three truck? And I said yeah, and I saw it,
and I go, there's no chance that you know, if they were
in the truck, forget it. So then, uh, this friend of
ourz that was a Captain Steve Treco, he was in one O eight.
Uh, he came over to us with a he goes, Joe, it's
not one hundred percent, but we have a missing list. And I knew
what missing men. I mean, they didn't find him yet, but in
that pilot was missing. And then you start going down the list, and
I said, anything on the guys in lat of three? And he goes,
nobody in lat of three made it and yes, I heard later on
Patty Brown's transmissions from the forty fourth floor and all of that stuff. And
then guys jumped on the rig too. There what's that They rode heavy,
So they lost almost double the amount of guys that they would have lost regularly,
like just you know, six guys going out they lost, and I
think they lost ten or twelve or something if I remember right, Yeah,
twelve. And that's because a lot of fire has had that because it was
the change of toys and not everybody just leaves, you know. But yeah,
so and that was just I mean, and then I because I we
went back to Lat of seven where he worked and found out five five fights
from Lat of seven, Yeah, passed away and it was his. It
was his group he worked with. So had he wasn't he had on disability
pension, it might have been him to it and all the might haves and
should have. And I'm sure you guys got your ton of stories too,
But yeah, I was. I couldn't believe it when I and then I
knew when I saw the truck and I yeah, and I believe out of
the twelve that passed away, they only found two. I don't think they
even found any remnants of anybody from a lot of people. So what I
did is after that, I because I had a tape of them alive.
That morning, I went and had tapes made, delivered it to all the
families, and I go, this is the last moments. You know,
if you have any questions, have any questions you want to ask me about
it, you know, it's just it was just. The grief was just.
And plus I knew other people. I work with Stan Smagala, he's
another friend of mine that it is provy time in latter one fifty two,
another one and you have them all, and the stories went on. I
mean, the grief that was just, it was just overwhelming for the entire
world. And again I don't like to say positive spin on it, but
and when people say, don't ever forget, and I'm like, you don't
have to say that to anybody. That event was unforgettable in anybody's mind.
What I think people forgot is the outpouring of love and honor and respect and
care and concern that went on, not only just for firefighters, for everybody.
Yeah, considering what's going on in the world now, the bringing together
of people on a world shattering event. And I mean every time I went
into the fire haves to get cleaned up, they'd be more and more pictures
of it. And the one that it still brings me to to me is
to this day is I remember going to lat Of five because I worked there
too with Captain Drenn and know the crazy story, but you know, going
to shower at Lata five or at Lata seven. And when I went to
lad of five, I knew a couple of firefighters there. Uh, and
that's a real local community. They were bringing food into us, the neighbors
who couldn't have been kinder and nicer. And I mean it was amazing the
amount of care and concern that the world brought to that. It brought the
world together on such a level. And I remember it brought me to teas.
I remember looking at the bulletin board, excuse me, and there was
a bunch of German German firefighters standing on the apron of their fire house someplace
in Germany with their helmets under their arms, salute, salute, saluting,
you know, and they were saluting us from Germany. That's the extent of
this. And then every day you'd see Russia and Poland and Czechoslovakia, or
and Cheyenne, Wyoming and for you we all experienced. So that's what people
say, don't forget. I'm like, listen, I don't need to remind
you. A horrible event. We'll never forget that. It's not don't forget
that. Why don't you just instead of the word forget, why don't you
remember how much care, concerned, love, respect he showed for the fire
service and for other people in general. It was a nicer It was a
weird thing, like everybody was pulling in the same direction. It seemed as
a country, right, I mean as even global, Like you said,
the planet, the planet you know, uh, fireman dies in in all
hands in Brooklyn, no disrespect to his laws. But you're not going to
hear about it in Germany. Yeah, and you're not going to have guys
standing on the apron saluted. So what it did to the world is brought
the world to a better place, I think, especially considering what's going on
in the world now, you know. Yeah, So that's what I look
at. So when some people say forget is a negative word, remember as
a positive words, I go, no, you will never forget where anybody
civilians included. You were, if you were at an office, or you
were at the gym, or you were a chiropractice, wherever you are in
the world when that was going on, you're gonna remember it. You're not
going to forget it. That you can. But how about remembering what you
felt after that, whether it was contributing money or time or personal help.
Uh uh, A sympathetic ear to somebody that was going through that. That's
that's what I want people to use. That word remember, not forget.
I didn't know that story. Joey. Yeah, Yeah, I remember stories
on this podcast broke because there are so many stories that are never told that
we need to get him down. Yeah. I got to meet Patrick Brown.
Yeah, under the worst of the best of circumstances early and the worst
of you know. But so yeah, between Loose and my mother like that
nine to eleven, and then a little fast forward with my brother Michael with
his disability, pension, back pain. He was having some personal struggles with
his marriage and you know, and and like I said, we had a
falling out with my father years before, and he was trying to make amends
and he really was struggling a lot and then but I never knew to the
extent that you know. I spoke with him in July of twenty twelve.
July thirty first, twenty twelve, dropped his daughter off at school. He
walked to the Valley View Bridge and he lived in Cleveland with his wife.
Walked to the Valley View Bridge, had his phone with him, walked eight
minutes to the highest part of the bridge, and jumped off onto hard ground.
Wow, yep. And you look at his pictures, handsome, well
liked, great fireman, great sense of humor, you know. But me
as a brother, and I was close with him. I mean, I
had no idea that this was on the table as a consideration. So earlier
on you were talking about mental health, and I hope we get to do
a show just based on that alone, just from my experiences with it.
Also trying to heal emotionally from that kind of a loss and my mother and
nine to eleven. And I'm not making that a poor me situation, but
and then to lose somebody to suicide, you know, a disease, an
accident, or even god for being killed in the line of duty. I
don't know if honor is the right word there's some honor in that. And
this is and I say this gingerly because I don't mean to disrespect your brother
I got it, or anybody that's taken their life, because at the moment
that that arrived, they had their struggles, but then they had a complete
and utter mental breakdown to act on it. So I don't mean it in
a way that it's disrespectful, but I think you can empathize with me.
Listen, if he died at nine to eleven, I would have been grief
stricken to the end. But you could find some solace. You can find
some you know, closure, right love. He didn't he loved. If
it was me, I would have been in it. I would have did
it willingly any event. Searching for the why, Yeah, And the why
is like, there's never a why, because you know, I've I've talked
to plenty of people and I did a few podcasts on this already. You
know, you can't say, well, he was in the middle of a
divorce or a financial crisis, or he screwed up on the job. Well,
that would mean everybody that gets divorced takes their life. Everybody that gets
foreclosed on the house takes their life. Everybody that has financial issues takes their
life. They don't, but some it's and that's where the bullying and then
the drawing the line of the senior meant to stop the ball breaking, because
you don't know where this guy's lying in the sands where he goes home and
says to himself, I've had it. Nobody likes me at work. I'm
a lousy fireman, a lousy father, I'm a lousy husband. Now I'm
getting full closed. I'm better off dead and and listen. After my mother
passed away, and it kicked around in my head a little bit too,
I go, how am I ever going to be happy? I'm a fireman
in New York City and I wasn't even able to save my mother and she
died in a burn center. Now I got to live with this the rest
of my life. But friends, help. I didn't get help right away.
I waited ten years to get help, you know. And I finally
said, listen. And that's the hardest thing for a firefighter to admit,
you know, I can't. We're never willing to. I don't know why
that is such a block for people, because it's again, yes, you
can get in trouble with the job, and you worry about your career and
stuff like that, But I don't know. When you're that screwed up,
you're going to take help wherever you can get it. But the can do
attitude of a firefighter is like, I can figure this out. You know,
all right. My wife left me, she's taken my kids. She
will let me tell you whatever the issue winds up being, I'll figure it
out. And sometimes you can't figure you're out, and sometimes you can.
And that's why we talk about the firears kitchen, which should be a ball
breaking place, good natured ball breaking place, but it also should be a
place for support. So any firefighter in the world, you know when they
say I got you back, Yeah, of course. You run into a
job and you know you got the I got the nozzle. You're my back
up. You ain't bailing out on me, no matter what, no matter
what shit goes down, You're not bailing on you. I know that.
But this is that's a given to me. I need your back when I'm
struggling with a divorce, I'm struggling with relationship issues. I'm struggling with this
guy breaking my balls day and night, every time I come to work,
I got a dread coming to work. And again, we don't know what
the line in the sand is for anybody, and all it takes is one
more thing. Now for my brother, I don't know what that one thing
was. I don't know that he planned it. I don't know that he
mentioned one thing to you ever, like what but truthfully, what f And
is gonna say to you? Yeah? No, I got you. You
know listen, if I and I hope I do get to do a seminar
someday, I'm getting back to doing that. And if I do a seminar,
listen, if there's a room of six hundred firemen, I'm sure they
got this struggles divorce, relationship, ball busting, financial Maybe one out of
the six hundred actually is toyed with the idea like things don't turn around.
I can always take my life. But if I announced it to the crowd,
I said, balance, listen, I'm on your side. I got
get back. I'm a firefighter just like you. I went through a loss
like this. Is anybody in the room ever contemplated taking their life? I
would bet not one of the six hundred, even if they were doing it,
would ever raise their hand because all the other five hundred and ninety nine
look at them like, what are you kidding me? We're in a suicide
prevention thing. You're raising your hand, You're talking about suicide. They're not
gonna until it's too late, until it's too late. So I again,
I don't know what I think. Joe, we talk about it, Joel.
You know we've had some conversations, a lot of conversations about this groom.
You know, I think that you know, even for me, that
maybe that was an older time, right, you know, even though it's
twenty twelve, your brother grew up later. Right now, the kids,
it's there. Right when you saw somebody dead in nineteen eighty five, you
know, when decapitated of the car accident, you went back and had chicken
palm. Right that, nobody talked about it. You didn't feel anything,
you didn't have to talk to anybody. You went home, you had to
be here. Whatever it was, you dealt with it right over and over
and over and over again. The kids today they know that there's a possibility
and there's a lot of options for them to talk to somebody and see somebody.
So it is changing. I think the persona or whatever, however you
want to word it, that the help is out there, not maybe you
know, like back in the day, you know, you know, talking
about your brother or you know that time, because when he grew up,
it was different, right, it was just I think that's changed a little
bit. That's at least what we're hoping that that's the case. Well,
we work on changing in ourselves by bringing this kind of awareness that this could
actually physically happen. You know, when I put a picture of him up
and if you ever know in his personality, he would say, no way,
no way, no way, how could you? And I have to
tell you my first reaction was, how could he do this to me?
Right? How could he do this to me? We went through the worst
thing in the world, going to ground zero together, and listen, I
could use his name. Tony Perella out of one twenty nine took his life
when I got the call, and he was a good friend of mine when
I got and he got in trouble with the job. He was working a
side job. Great guy, great guy, well built, handsome, well
liked, funny, no sign of depression at all. He got divorced,
cost him thirty eight thousand dollars. He was complaining about it but not finding
a way in the corner. And then he would work in a second job
as an X ray tech and they were on strike and he went into work
anyway side job. So one of the x ray techs didn't like the idea,
like this guy's got a full time job. This is off full time
job. We're on strike. He's coursing the picket line. They turned him
in and he got trouble. So the job got him down there and they
wanted to make an example of him. They sat him down and said,
we're gonna fiore you. You're gonna be in the daily news. You're gonna
be oh my. We took it so personal. But like my brother,
I never thought this was a possibility. He called me the night before,
the night that he did it. He called me his Joe. Come on,
I can't take this, not at wits end, because I would have
been there in a second. He's like, I can't believe this shit.
Now we're you know, we're working tomorrow and then Monday, I gotta go
down to the legal office and they're talking about Tony. You're not gonna lose
your job. I mean they might give you a thirty day rip, maybe
to take your vacation away from you, and something like that. You're not
gonna lose your job, you know, big deal, you worked the second
job. It's not the end of the world, you know. But when
I say the end of the world to somebody else might be the end of
the world. If I knew that night, after I said Tony, we'll
working tomorrow morning, I'll see you in the morning, I go hang in
there, but I know nothing about The phone call was an alert. And
later that night he drank a half a batle of vodka. You know,
the way my brother did it, and the way most of the people do
it. It. It just sickens me to somebody to go to that extent
mechanically, even to He went into his garage, took the time to duct
tape all the scenes of the garage, and started the car and sat in
the cart and and went to sleep. And the next morning we're all smell.
I wars Tony. Somebody stopped by his house on the way home.
I never thought like the and sure enough. So my point is, you
don't know how far along your mental state is. When I at the call,
I was standing in the living room my house, my brother Michael's right
of course from me. He met him and I turned white. He goes,
what's the matter, and I said, Tony Perela killed himself last night
and I collapsed crying in his arms. So he had that information. So
ten years later you do the same thing, knowing what it. Howard personally
affected me, and you know, listen to ed Nieces he had so only
I know what you're saying. It was a little less. Mental health is
a little less not important, but in your face as it is now and
available, it was a little bit even looked down upon, you know,
even people that have alcohol problems. You know, Ah, he's going to
the what did they used to call it, not the rock, the bomb,
the farm? Yeah, right right, So yes, it's a little
more I don't want to use the word accepted, but it's a little more.
Maybe that is the word. It's a little more acceptable right now to
say I'm struggling or but more. There's no doubt about that. Yeah,
there's no doubt the mental health is available. But when somebody says that,
it's almost like the nine to eleven thing to me, where they say remember
not forget, I go listen. He had his phone is in his hand.
He could have called me right, say, Joey, I'm thinking of
walking up this bridge and jumping on. But just like I said, if
you do a presentation, they're not going to tell you what they can tell
you. And this is what they say look for, and just my personal
experience from it is number one I look for is when the sense of humor
goes out the window. Listen, there's divorce, this foreclosure, there's physical
anomalies. There's people with two pays that get made fun of. I mean,
there's all things that go on that you're taking and you kind of let
it roll off your back a little bit. But it's when you personally lose.
And what we've all had is a little bit of what they call Gallows
humor with something rib like nine to eleven. You couldn't make Gallows humor out
of that took years. I don't even think it ever was going to be
Gallows humber about it. But you know, like a guy's getting divorced,
and there's a time and a place for like, hey, listen, I
unders saying you're crazy about or your court a cheating with your best friend and
it's horrible, and you know, we'll get through this, don't worry about
it. And there's other women out there, You'll probably mean, somebody else
he has to come. And but to relentlessly go after the guy to the
point of where now he's like, these guys don't have my back. And
and one thing I say is like, and I think of his situation too,
is that not every situation that happens you can humor your way out of,
get out of whatever. Sometimes and that's where they can do and the
toughness of being a firefighter comes in sometimes. You know what, buddy,
we're gonna have to lay it down and you're gonna have to gut it out.
It might take a day, it might take a week, but you're
gonna have to gut it out. I don't have the solution for it.
You know, if we can help you out financially, physically, emotionally,
but this one, you're gonna have to take the time and gut it out.
It's gonna take time, and you're gonna have to have some patience.
And that patience is going to be a little gut wrenching, so you know,
and that's where you put it to them. As they can do.
Can you do this, because I'm this is where I got you back.
If I have to lay down on a bunk with you and put you in
a headlock until this passes, then that's what we're going to do. And
if you've got to get in a boxing ring with me and beat the shit
out of me to get that anger out of you, because that's really what
they say suicide ideas, it's a little bit of self murder. You're angry,
disappointed, frustrated, and now you turn to self murder. So we
got to get you past the point. And you know't listen, I've seen
it, like you said, when a guy loses his temper in the fireouse.
He's got rage in his eyes. He can kill somebody until you calm
him down. And then all of a sudden, you know, like,
what are you're thinking at that moment in time? You aren't thinking? And
that's really what happens then, not thinking. Because I went to the spot
where my brother took his life. The police officer took me there. I
couldn't even walk me a defence, that's how dizzying the height was. And
I'm like, he willingly walked to this fence and climbed over and just like
get him back to what you said, Joe, Like the method is boggles
the mind, right, I mean like you said, like the guy sat
in the car and went to sleep, you know what I mean, put
some you know whatever, had a scotch and but to go to that length,
right to do that. Or we had a guy in two eighty eight
after nine to eleven who went home, you know, he was coming.
We worked with him that night. He got off in the morning, uh,
Gary Salmtani, Yeah, it was the other way around. He was
getting off in the day and he said he actually said I'm coming in tonight,
I'll pick up the meal, let me know what you want, and
never came in. And then he went home and put a rifle in his
mouth. You know, Like so we you know we again we knew that,
you know, similar thing, you know, and that guy was a
funny guy, like yeah, there was like nothing. He was an anger.
I mean he was having issues with his girlfriend if I remember right,
But it was but to do those methods, just like you said, when
you're saying you're not thinking, like holy not when I see people throw themselves
in front of the train, because we go to a lot of them like
there had to be another way than this. I mean, like, I
know, but you're of sound mind right now, and they're not salmon but
not thinking rationally. It's what it is. Well that's what I said.
I go listen. Yeah, and you had to do it in a demonstrably
horrible way. Why don't you just take a bunch of sleeping pills and go
to sleep. But I'm thinking, I have clarity of thought right now,
So I said, listen, if I was going to take my life,
I don't want to put a bullet in my head. I don't want to
jump off a bridge. I don't want to hang myself. I'll just take
a bunch of sleeping pills. I'll go to sleep easy. But I have
clarity of thought now. When they get like that, like I have to
act on this. I have to act on this right now. They're not
looking to make a statement. They're just like this is the quickest way,
in the fastest way. And they get to a place where they say their
families. I don't think they think who they're going to hurt, or they're
gone. Their mind is completely gone for that brief period of time. I
just watched a PBS special on the Golden gate Bridge, and I think there
was three thousand people that jump from the Golden gate Bridge to take their life.
Thirty nine people lived just miraculously, somehow hit the water and wound up
lived. And they interviewed them, and every one of them, and I'll
say this about my brother or anybody else, every one of them said,
the minute I let go to jump, I said, what did I just
do? I made the stupid Really, the minute they let go, another
guy said, I'm walking. And this is why when I think of my
brother or anybody well him, because I know personally. One of the guys
said, I was walking to the Golden gate Bridge to jump, hell bent
on jumping. Calm, calm, look on my face. I'm ending my
life today. I'm going to jump off the bridge, but if one person
smiles at me on my way, I'm not going to do it. And
he passed people and looked at them. Nobody smiled at him, and he
goes, excuse the language effort, I'm jumping. And he jumped, but
he lived. Miracle by miracle, he lived. But his thinking was all
I need is one person to smile it and and I'm not going to do
it, and he went didn't and nobody smiled at him, and he went
and jumped, but miraculously lived. But almost every one of them. That's
an incredible thing, Joe like to say, Like in that in that one
second after it's they're releasing there, it's crystal clear again, right, like
what the hell did I just do? I can't come back from this.
That's it, you know, like I made a decision and I'm But the
mind is a tricky you know. It can go, it can go to
terrible places, whether it's a relationship. Listen, I've had relationships go south
and been devastated and I feel like it's never gonna get any different. But
again, and the other thing I read that really spooks me about it,
And if I ever give a seminar like this, which I'd love to,
is that they didn't think of it that morning. This has been in their
mind a little bit, sometimes months ahead of time. And the way I
kind of worded it is it Listen, We've all had our struggles in life,
whether it's relationships of financial, getting on the job, getting off the
job, retirement, all the things that life can bring up. Disassociation,
with family, friends, whatever. But what happens, I believe is it
becomes an It becomes an option. It might be option fifty. Like listen,
if my wife divorces me, I'd always bounce back, and you know,
I'll meet somebody else, and if the house forecloses, I could work
a second job and I'll figure out to get another house. You know,
you always have a way of figuring it out. But then they say,
if the divorce goes through and that lose the house, and my kids don't
talk to me anymore, and I'm disrespected at my job and I can't seem
to lose weight and whatever the things are, then they go, you know
what, I could always just end my life. So now it's option fifty.
So the divorce goes through another guy at work terrorizing you. You get
maybe screw up at a job or something, or now all of a sudden,
now it's all of a sudden's option twenty five. And it starts moving
up the ladder. And now all you need is a few other things to
not go right. And that's where we said about the ball breaking, and
no one went to stop. Is all you need to do is get to
work one day and well, this guy. He said, if one person
smiles at me, I'm not going to do this, and he goes to
the world's an evil place. Nobody smiled at me. I'm out at you.
So again, I don't know what. My brother had his phone in
his hand, maybe at the point he was at say listen, if somebody
calls me that morning, I won't do it. Yeah. I've talked to
a bunch of psychologists and psychiatrists, and it is a difference. Like you
had said before, people sometimes say, you know, rashly, I'm gonna
kill myself. I feel like killing myself. The next question if somebody ever
said that to you is have you ever thought about it? You have you
picked away that you're going to do it? And that is the real red
light. When somebody's thought about it and they have already gone over in their
head how they're exactly going to do it, that's when you have to really
step it up, because that's like life and sirens right there. And I've
talked to many doctors who said the same thing, you know, as they
and I alluded to before about the humor part, because that's I distinctly remember
saying to him in the months previous. I go, when did you lose
your fire house sense of humor? You know? Really? And because he
wasn't, you know, sooner or later in the conversation you get around to
saying something funny. Mm hmm. You know what, I got a funny
story about that? His friend Bob Crowe, who worked with him at last
of seven. I know, Bobby Crow topic wrestler or whatever. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, Bob Crow. He was good friends with Bob Crow,
sweetheart. What a great guy, What a great guy. But I remember,
and he's pretty funny too. Uh My brother called him up one time
and he said to him, and you guys will appreciate this from the firehouse
humor and and marriage part of it. He's complaining to Bob Crow and he's
like, Bob, you know, I I can't believe it. I've been
married, like, you know, seven eight years already, and you know,
she doesn't want to do anything, she doesn't want to work, and
since we had the kid, you know, you know, I'm not having
sex anymore. And Bob goes, what makes you special? Why why did
you think none of this was going to happen to you? It makes you
special? So but he but Bob was laughing about it. My brother wasn't.
And I do remember in some of our conversations that's what I was saying
to him or you know, whatever it was, you know, even marriage.
You know, I'm like, yeah, but you're not married, and
uh, you know it's different for you and I listen, I've had disappointments
to it, women, I've had disappointments with finances. I have disappointments are
housing. And but he started to chip away at the humor, which just
would never go right back to Yeah. But you know, and then the
basic attitude of life is to be positive. And that's where we talked about
the fire's kitchen. They either solved the problem, helped you gut it out,
or figure out how you were going to fix it, you know,
and that's that can do. Attitude is very helpful, but not in the
mental health area because that area you got to say what's going on? Like
Bob Crowchrit did laugh it off, like what makes you specially you think it
was going to be different for you? You know, And he's still he
didn't. He didn't almost didn't get the humor of it. Yeah, but
it's happening to me and what it is. Yeah, you got to you
gotta go to I had some relationship issues earlier in my career. At one
twenty nine. I figured they laid off for me. I have to give
him that. And one of the guys said, Joe on the thing is,
you got to put the time in. He'll bounce back from this,
but you gotta put the time. It's gonna suck for a while. Yeah,
got to embrace the suck. Thank you. I was just gonna say
that Maybee guys. So yeah, if you're getting divorced, you're losing your
house, job, whatever it is, it's it's you know, it's gonna
suck. And again things that happened to you in life that are bad,
you know, you lose your perspective. I mean I remember that. You
guys will remember it. You're around long enough. Remember the guy that blew
away the medical doctor because he didn't get three quarters and they gave him half
pay. But when you break that down that situation, I'm just gonna use
round numbers. Let's say medical disability. He was going to get thirty thousand
a year three quarter disability forty So for fifteen thousand dollars a year, you
went to jail for murder for the rest of your life and kill the human
being. That's no different than Tuesday. He lost his mind. Somebody should
have tackled him. What are you doing so you're gonna get fifteen thousand dollars
left every year? Right now, You're gonna get no money and you're gonna
spend the rest of your life in prison, get chased around by you know,
some big man. Exactly, you're gonna be somebody's boys. I just
wanted it before we've tried this up. I just wanted to respond to this
to my body. He's been a lot of good comments for him tonight.
You know, everyone doesn't talk about it everyone, but on the odd chance
sometimes they do. Like Joe was saying, that guy was just waiting for
one person to smile at them. So there might be an instance where this
guy or whoever girl might try at least once to throw it out there.
And if they do, when you happen to be the person, that's when
you ask the next question, which is, well, have you really thought
about this? You know, do you have you planned it out? How
are you going to do it? So I agree with the fact that not
everybody is gonna say it, you know, but there are people who are
looking for that last grasp of somebody to tell them, you know, maybe
they shouldn't do it. Yes, And and even though the characters galore in
the fires, you can find listen, I found guys that were funny.
I found guys that were sensitive. I found guys that were talented. There's
guaranteed any fires, USA, there's a guy that you know that you can
talk to that's on kind of on the same level as you. So go
to that, right, he may maybe the chance, Yeah, go to
that guy, right you know, yeah, maybe the other knit with or
bit from back from the future. That's not the guy that you can go
to. But I'm sure and there were guys know the guy you'll know the
guy that you'll know that you'll know the guy and you say, that's the
guy, say listen, I got to talk to you, and he may.
You know. That's the judgment call on the on the other party is
to know. And we're not professionals at it, so that'd be the first
thing I say, Okay, what's going on? You know, my wife
leave me, she's the kids. I go, this is going to have
a solution. Uh, let's look at all this. One of the solutions
is in suicide. That's the thing you got to get in your head.
I don't care what's going on. I don't care if you lose every time
you have. I don't care if your leg gets blown off. The solution
is never suicide. We'll get a solution to it. We'll get your new
leg, we'll get your new woman. There's a solution, and that's not
one of them. So please tell me that that's not on your list.
And we'll go from there. And there may not be a viable solution to
this, so you know, then we're going to embrace the suck and we're
not going to make it last forever because it won't, and but we'll I
got you back for the entire time. You're going to need this, whether
it's a week, a month, or a year. Good old school tip
there. We got to get to that. It's about it. So you
know what, Joe, we're actually thinking about doing another. We will definitely
tag you in when we're doing next mental health. That's great. I got
what's her name from friends of firefighters calling me Nancy Nancy Carbone, So we're
gonna do something. So we'll get you in it. But before we do,
I think it's that time. Guns. It is time four of the
of the day. You're gonna get better at that. We're like all over
the place. Yeah, my old school tip of the day is I'm gonna
ask all the younger firefighters to listen to a song by Kenny Chesney called Don't
Blink, Oh my favorite. Yeah, And he's talking to an older man
who's like one hundred years old, and he's saying to the like, what's
the secret of life and stuff like that, and he said, yes,
care for the people you care about, especially your mother and father and people
you work with and stuff. But he goes, you know what, one
hundred years goes faster than you think, and don't blink because that's how fast
it goes. So my old school advice is to these younger firefighters when you
walk in the firehouse and you smell that sweat and leather and smoke inhale deeply
because it's a very brief period. You don't see it. When you're twenty
five and you're thirty, you don't see it. You're gonna be like us
now at night, sniffing, sniff in the air, for some yes,
and even the kitchen and the food and all of that. I just say,
you're gonna blink. It doesn't seem like you're gonna blink, and it's
gonna be gone, and you're gonna be wanna be wallowing it and brace you
said, Embrace the suck. Embrace the joy that you have right now,
which is being a firefighter in whatever city you are in the world and the
planet. Greatest job on the world. Embrace the people you work with.
You know, always keep care, love, concern and respect forefront, have
your fun, break balls, no one to end when it and and no
one to have somebody's back when they're going overboard on that. So just embrace
it while it's here. Be here, because it's gonna be. It's gonna
be, it's gonna be gone, and you're gonna be reflecting. Listen,
any one of us, I give my right on to be back in the
kitchen making chicken cut with parmesan with a piece of sheet rock whatzerella on it.
They had so many nuggets in that bro that will fall all over the
place, right, And to just sit there and just I would just my
ears would be ring listening to all the nonsense and the craziness and and for
all of us. You know, if we could do that one with the
in the middle of the a piece of goo witzarella hanging out of my mouth
and say that a one two nine, respond you got a ten seventy five
at Flushing Air you and jump on the rig and out out you go,
any one of us who give all right on to do that one more time.
So you that are still listening, that are involved in it, embrace
it. It goes faster than you think. Nice. That's good. And
you know what, now you have to take the second best thing, which
is Getting Salty Experienced podcast. It's the only one that brings the fire house.
Get your table, do you? Joe got to be an avid listener.
I forget how the line goes in there, Joe, but he says
he's talking about like the you know, like the what's the thing that you
flip over with the sand our glass? He says, you can't flip it
over and start again, That's what he says, Like, as you stand
is running out, you can't flip it over and start again. That's like
the best line. Well, this this is gonna be your no brain to
gon so play the old school health and safety tip. Okay, here we
go. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated
to protecting the lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives
aim to bring greater awareness and unders standing the challenges to help safety and well
being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are
an affiliate of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation. So this is an easy one.
We said it in the show. I don't know how many times.
It doesn't take a lot to modify your diet. Just a little right,
add a little caudio, just a couple of tweaks, and get hit.
And not only to do the job the correct way, but also, like
we were saying before, you want to collect for one hundred years. You
want to be there for your family and your kids and your grandkids and everything
that comes with it. So to me favor, take the sheet rock off
the chicken palm, maybe a couple of sprinkles, you know what I mean.
I was clean in that tray after man, because the bread and spoke
up less with the bread, you don't have to clean it up. This
egos got it. Yeah, so Monday, we're off for the holiday,
right roof. I believe you're back on Thursday. Joe, great stories,
man, I really appreciate it. Talking about doing a little cooking segment.
I mean he might be doing a cooking segment for us, all right,
good man, you know I might come down for that one. Man.
I'm to give him a couple of those, you know what I mean?
Figure it out now, you guys are you? Guys are terrific and thank
you to let me relate the stories and I hopefully we reached somebody in the
mental health department and the hopefully there's an older firefight out there that's opening his
nostrils and leather and what are you dealing with? Sweat? The leather and
the sweat? Yep, so I changed his diet. God fads chopped and
I man, a lot of people saying up the game. Maybe you need
a little rest in Italy or something. I don't know what it was,
but you come back maybe okay, I've been doing okay. You just guys
are losing touch, you know, maybe it was long good And when do
you have a chat line of people that like respond and say stuff you didn't
see him on the side because that's when you when you go back if you
want to watch it again. Yeah, there's a couple ones. I was
trying to a lot of people talking about the mental health. But a great
show it was, Joe so oh good. Want to go back and watch
it. You can see it and check it out. Yeah, excellent.
I was waiting for someone twenty nine guys saying they still got tomaine poisoning.
Have a great stay holiday, you know, don't eat too much and I'll
see you on Thursday. Until then, stayabone, all right, everybody will
see it the big one. Thanks again, Joe, all right, thank
you. All right, guys see the top floor. Maybe have a good
weekend. Yep.