Welcome to Macina Island Moments, hosted by lifelong islander Jason saint Onge. Through
conversations and interviews with fellow island locals and residents, Jason will bring you the
real stories and characters that to find life on the island. Whether you're a
seasoned visitor, new to MCAA Island, or even an islander yourself, you'll
be sure to learn firsthand about the island with Jason on MCIN Island Moments and
welcome to another episode of This will be episode five of the Macina Island Moments
podcast, the only podcast brought to you from MCIN Island by a lifelong islander.
My name is Jason saint One and today's episode is sponsored by the Mission
Point Resort, the friendly resort located on the Sunrise side of mcan Island.
You can reach out at www dot Missionpoint dot com. Folks, the weather
here this last week has been just consistent with the lack of winter we've been
experiencing. This has not been my favorite winter. I'm a big fan of
winner and what we've just had as in a extended fall for the last three
months and it's it's not been it's not been great. We did get a
brief return to the snow, and a lot of errands got finished and a
lot of stuff got moved around. But most of the snow in town,
it's it's now all melted, and many folks are back on foot and bicycle.
And let me touch on that for a moment, because many folks wonder,
you know, about the horses, And yes, the dra company runs
year round and they move freight with the horses, and the horse drawn taxi
operates a year round. But you know, oftentimes a lot of questions I
get about living on the island is you know, do you have a car,
and you know, do you have a horse? And that answer is
no, and yes, not many folks have horses, particularly a year round.
I'm not sure anybody has a private horse here year round or that they
use in a practical sense year round. It's kind of cost prohibitive to own
and maintain a horse. Most of the private horses on the island are owned
by summer residents who have a barn and and in some case a full time
stable manager and who kind of you know, takes care of the horse.
And so it's it's just not practical, you know, when I was younger,
there was a few people. You know, Emma mentioned a few episodes
ago that they still had a horse. Now when when my dad was a
little boy, a lot of people had horses and slaves and uh, and
a lot of people use dogs. They'd have they'd own a big dog and
hook it to a sleigh to all their their groceries around or whatever errands they
were getting from town. But that doesn't go on much, you know that
the the the addition of snowmobiles has certainly kind of phased that out. And
it's it's just not it's just cost prohibitive to own a horse here in the
winter. Another question we constantly get when when you're asked if you live on
the island, is do you have a car? And and where do you
keep it? And the answer to that is yes. I've never done a
survey, but I think just as many people portionally on Macin Island that live
here own cars as people who don't live on Macin Island. We keep them
on the mainland. Of course, there's no secret hatch underneath the boardwalk where
all the cars are stored. Folks keep them on the mainland. They either
pay to park in the various ferry lots, or some folks rent private garages
on the mainland so they can park their vehicle inside. You know, the
airport in the winter, the Sintegnas Airport, Macana County Airport. Excuse me,
if you go by there, you'll see that their parking lot is as
proportionally as proportionally way larger than it probably needs to be for a small little
airport. But in the winter that airport parking lot is absolutely inundated and it's
just packed, and it's difficult to find parking out there when we all have
to move our vehicle out there. So, yes, we own the vehicles,
we keep them on the mainland. We have to pay to the storm
wherever we store them. And then you get off the ferry and either catch
a ride or catch a shuttle, or you just walk to where your car
is. So there's another little tidbit. I'm living year round on Macin Island.
Folks. We just finished up what we call the annual Detroit Weekend,
and it's the Detroit Fire Department Weekend. It's a big training weekend that goes
on between mac and Island Fire and Detroit Fire. And I got to tell
you I wasn't going to delve into the subject of the fire department for at
least a couple more weeks, but I just kind of thought this was the
time, you know, Detroit was here and we had a chance to sit
down with Tom Wickman, one of their battalion chiefs, retired battalion chiefs,
and I thought, you know what, this is a good time to go
into it. We get a lot of questions as well about, you know,
how it works here on the island, and you know, do you
have actual fire trucks, are they horse drawn and all that kind of stuff,
and which they're not. I'll give you a little bit of historical background.
The MIFD has a pretty neat history. As you may be aware,
the territorial government granted or recognized the inception of the village of Mackinaw in eighteen
seventeen. Eighteen seventeen, I mean at this point, you know, the
city of Detroit maybe had fifteen hundred people, in Chicago probably had only one
thousand people in eighteen seventeen, and mac And Island was a thriving city or
village due to the fur trade that was going on. The first actual organized
government on the island. It came that early. So local historian Brian dunnagain
was doing some research at I believe the Clark Library on the campus of Central
Michigan University, and he uncovered some archives that had the first inception of that
government. And not long after the city commemorated our two hundredth year of local
government. The modern day city had a little ceremony to commemorate two hundred years
as an incorporated or at least incorporated government. I reached out to Brian and
I said, you know, Brian, I understand the village was platted in
eighteen seventeen and incorporated. When is the Do you have any data on the
first mention of the word fire department? And he got back to me and
he says, very vague, vague. He did have some ordances that were
passed in eighteen nineteen in regards to various fire safety implementation. You know,
chimneys have to be this height, things have to be so far from each
other, and that sort of buckets of water must be kept near a side
door, that sort of stuff. So fire safety was implemented. But he
couldn't find anything specifically citing the department. And then he did email me again
and said, I have uncovered in the archives that the village decided that they
need to pay This was in twenty eighteen twenty one. They needed to pay
for the fire engine that they acquired in eighteen nineteen. And I said,
well, if they had a fire engine in eighteen nineteen, it sounds like
the folks were already organized, at least in the awareness and hopeful defeat of
any fire related emergencies. So that said, we commemorated this department commemorated two
hundred years in twenty nineteen. We had a little celebration in some commdorce of
pins made. So so the MIFD has been around, you know, almost
two hundred and five years now. It's kind of exciting stuff for us,
I guess. The department responds via pager and radios from Central Dispatch. Central
Dispatch is located about twenty five miles north in the Upper Peninsula. The department
runs out of two stations. There's the Market Street station, which is between
City Hall and the police Department, and inside that station is Squad one and
Latter two. Latter two is a seventy eight foot rear mount about a half
a mile to the north is another station, Station two that houses another ladder
truck, a seventy eight foot smeal, our brand new rig and engine one.
We currently have about twenty five firefighters that live year round on the island
and then several part time guys that were members of the department but decided to
move to the mainland but kept their job here. And you know, we
thought it was awful foolish that they're on the island eight to five during the
day. They're trained with us, they know our SOPs there. They're what
we call our part time members. And we currently have seven members in our
in the Mackinac County Fire Academy that's being taught right now, the Firefighter one
and two Academy, and so we'll hopefully welcome on seven more here. On
average, we run about one hundred calls per year, and I should mention
at this point that ems the ambulance is it's a different division completely. Those
folks run around five hundred times a year, with the bulk of them being
in the summer months. Do we have one hundred fires, No, not
even close. But we respond to all the alarms from the hotels and the
commercial properties that you know, they're often found to be inadvertent or false alarms.
In addition to that, we we back up ems, we call in
on special calls with them with they're they're running multiple calls at once, or
they have a really heavy patient. We're trained in high angle rescue. We're
trained in airport situations, wild land fire. A real macromae of sit suations
can arise here on a yearly basis, and so we try to stay up
on all those. The good thing is we don't spend a lot of time
on car extrication training here. We're probably the least trained car extrication fire department,
if not in the state, maybe in the entire country. You know,
we get a lot of this pretty much the same calls as everybody else,
but we do have a busy harbor and the airport's pretty busy as well.
There is a rescue boat that's a separate department called mcinnamarine Rescue and they
handle assortment emergencies throughout the straits. We get an occasional fire in the woods,
and you know, fire protection is taken very seriously on the island for
obvious reasons. Not only is a town primarily made of wood, but it's
old wood. And of course the bigger issue is getting help if we're overpowered
and we need more manpower, getting mutual aid in how does mutual aid work,
Well, it depends. It depends on the time of day, in
the time of year. In the summer, during the day, when mutual
aid is needed, it's not that hard. We can we simply call our
nine on one coordinator, Bryce Tracy, get him on the radio and tell
him what we need. And you know that guy's done this once or twice,
and he has all the boat captain's phone numbers in his phone and starts
moving guys around and moving boats around as needed. At night, it would
be a little more complicated. We'll have to wake up a boat captain and
a crew and get a boat fired up, or the McLam Marine Rescue can
go over, depending on what we need, and so it takes a little
bit more time. In the winter season, if we need mutual aid or
if we're going to give neutral aid, it's either respond on the ice if
the ice is there. If not, it's airplane. And of course the
airplane is at the mercy of the weather. So the scariest thing would be
to have a major fire when they're in the winter, when there's inclement weather
and no help can come. And if that's the case, you're just going
to have to make do with what you have. It's not ideal, but
I hate to say a redundant quote, but it is what it is.
That is the prime t'mary reason our department is so proactive on training and we
train in aggressive interior assault tactics. We try to mitigate any fire growth obviously
as quickly as possible. Thankfully, because of the location of where many of
the firefighters live and work, we generally beat all the national standards for arrival
of an apparatus. The truck's generally getting route really quick. Sometimes in the
summer, you know, it's tough to get the trucks down the street because
a lot of people see a fire truck coming on mack And Island and they're
dumb struck because you know, they were told there's there's no motor vehicles here.
Well, the fire truck, the ambulance, the police car, and
some service cars do. Service vehicles do exist, so they often stop and
just stare and take pictures. And I've had a lot of folks reach out,
reach out and say, you know, why don't you, Why don't
you run your siren or run the air horn. We really can't because that
can spook a horse or scare a horse. And I'm gonna touch on that
for a second. About spooking a horse and scaring a horse. Some people
think or maybe they don't understand what scaring and spooking horse means. It doesn't
mean that the horse is upset and there's going to need to see a horse
psychiatrist and we'll have a hard time sleeping with the lights off. What happens
when a horse gets spooked or frightened is the horse takes off. It leaves,
and it leaves in a hurry, and it doesn't care who is riding
on top of that horse, who's hooked to that horse, who's on the
buggy that hooked to that horse, doesn't care what that buggy runs into or
that dre runs into. So the last thing we want is a horse to
take off and cause yet more trouble. We have a really great relationship with
the folks that operate the different horse fleets and various stables, and they know
when we get a run which way we're gonna go, and they start moving
immediately to move those horses out of the way. It's organized chaos, but
it really works for us. So I'm going to talk about the Brigadoon fire
because only because that fire received more social media attention and more photographs because of
the spectacular nature. Of course, many of you may have seen the article
that was done about the wedding that was disrupted and how the Highland kind of
came together to put that wedding back together. And I just I've never been
part of an incident that was more reported on, and it was probably done
so because it was you know, mo Day memorially weekend rate at six o'clock.
So for the sake of the firefighters out there, who at this point
are probably the only one that's still listening in, I'm going to talk about
that fire and perhaps it'll answer a few questions and enlightened what exactly went on
there. At six oh one pm, re received the box alarm of a
fire at the Stingle residence. They said, smoke coming out of the roof,
And I got to tell you, I kind of thought at first that
maybe Jay was having a fire. Jay Stingle and his wife Chanon owned the
Brigadoon and they're just they're lovely people. They keep that cottage up meticulously.
You know, it's well over one hundred years old, and there's not a
flower pedal out of place in the summer when they're here. But Jay really
likes to have fires in this fireplace, and so it's not uncommon to see
smoke coming out of the chimney in June or July. So when I initially
heard that, I kind of thought, you know what, the dispatcher is
gonna call me back in about ten seconds and say we just talked to the
homeowner and they're having a fire and their fireplace. And the dispatcher did call
me back in about ten seconds and said the people are evacuating the home and
there are flames visible. That is not what I wanted her to say back
to me, But the hand we got dealt. So I jump on my
bicycle. If that doesn't make you laugh, I jump on my bicycle and
leave British Landing immediately. And I know we're going to be overmatched, partly
because this is a large wooden structure. The interior contains a lot of bead
board trim and it's been varnished. And not only that, It's Memorial Day
weekend, so we're gonna have crowd issues, and you just never know if
we few guys that might have gone away for the weekend, and we keep
pretty good contact in that, but you never know. So I immediately radioed
in a second alarm and get the get Saint Agnes fire department moving. And
I looked over towards Saint Agnes and I saw a little bit of smoke trickling
up over there, and I thought, that's not good. And the dispatcher
called back and said, I just sent Saint Agnas on the fire of their
own and I said, well, give me, give me somebody else.
Then she said, well who do you want. I kind of laughed,
who do you got? You know, So they started getting mac City going.
Uh. Saint Agnes fortunately mitigated their issue pretty quick and then still was
coming. So so that was good. When I got to town, I
got there right around the same time all these uh, just crazy pictures of
these thirty foot flames coming out every direction and coming up out of the roof.
And you know, I knew from listening to my radio that latter two
was already unseen, and they were stretching the line into the house. Now,
what a lot of people didn't understand, and I want to give some
credit to the guys who stretched that first line. They had a rapidly growing
fire on the third floor of a one hundred over one hundred year old house,
and instead of grabbing the pre connect off the truck, which is an
inch and three quarter line, they stretched two and a half inch hose off
the back of the truck and grabbed a smooth board nozzle. Now a lot
of guys are going to think, oh, that's old school, why did
you go that route? And what our guys on the scene knew that a
lot of people didn't don't take in consideration is you know, Brigadoon is about
seventy feet from the street, so let's call you know, closer to one
hundred from the truck. And it sits up on an elevated lawn and so
when you and then there's a flight of stairs to get up to just to
the front door. So we're we're already one hundred feet out and we're two
stories up, and we still got to get to the third floor wind through
the staircases. And those guys made a heck of a judgment call to grab
that two and a half. We had a tremendous volume of fire, and
if they would have grabbed the pre connect, we'd had to pump two hundred
pounds of pressure probably to have any sort of effective push. So with the
smooth board nozzle in the two and a half, they knew they were gonna
have big water where they had big fire. And I credit those guys for
what they did. It was a good call. And I'll tell you what
I want to mention those guys' names. It was Ben Moseley's a deputy chief,
Travis Vartanian was a lieutenant, and firefighters Colton Fisher and Johnny Morris or
the first ones up to the third floor with that line. And you know,
I was really happy to know those guys are there. It's kind of
my you know, some of my bread and butter guys, the guys you
want on that job. And they got to the bottom of the stairs of
the third floor, the stairs that lead to the third floor, and they
did an old tactic, a little trick, and they shot some water up
straight up above them to see what happens. And what I meant by see
what happens is see how much water comes down, so they you know,
they flowed that nozzle just a second or two, which a two and a
half of the smooth board. They probably sent fifty sixty gallons skyward and none
of the water came down, none of it. And they knew then they
were they were going into a pretty hot situation. So they made a big
loop in their hose to get ready to push up those stairs. Just about
then is when I'm showing up unseen, and I asked, I thought,
somewhat rhetorically, if we had anybody still in the building, because it was
bailout time, and uh, you know, the guy said, yeah,
Ben, and Ben and his guys are still up in there, and the
first two guys are still in there. And I thought, no, no,
no, we got to get them out of there right now. And
so I radioed up, you know, one o three from one oh one,
need to get out of the building right now. And Ben Ben is
a he's a guy's guy, okay, and he radios me back it us
five more minutes, Jeeve, and I said, no, no, no,
get out right now. I mean there was there was fire blown out
all over the plate. So those guys, they have no idea what I'm
looking at on the outside and uh. Anyway, we got him down and
Sam Barnwell was running the ladder two and he was going to put his master
stream. Now, for you lay people, the master stream is that that
water nozzle on the end of the ladder. It can you know, effectuate
up to a thousand gallons a minute. It's a pretty powerful tool to use,
but it's a lot of water. And what a lot of people don't
know is you can't put that to work. Well, you still have people
in that building, you know, a lot of people, including a local
loudmouth making comments afterwards about you know, why did they wait so long to
put their They called it water cannon, which that's not really what it is,
but why do they take so long? And people don't understand. You've
got to make sure everyone's out because if you start dropping a thousand gallons a
minute on that kind of fire, you're going to create a steam bath that's
going to literally cook everyone like a lobster inside that building, and it's not
going to be good. So, considering the volume of fire and what was
going on, I don't want to just hear yeah, Ben and his guys
are out. I need to see them. So you know, they got
down to the ground floor and they walked out of that building. Okay,
there they are. I've now seen these guys. So they put the master
stream to work. We didn't know there was a brick chimney near the rear
of the building and the master streams started hitting some of the brick and was
spraying bricks around the backyard. And I tell you, I was a little
surprise to get to the backyard to check on that side of the operation,
and I believe it was Joseph Colin Dave Johnson were back there and there was
bricks all around them that the hose had knocked off, and fortunately didn't hit
any of them. Anyway, we put the master stream to work, and
because of the smoke, you know, it was tough to get the right
angle on it, coming from almost a level with it to arc over.
But they started knocking some heavy fire down. Around this time, Saint Agnus
and Max City started to arrive and our guys were able to take a knee
and rest, which was good because they were pretty beat up. Once we
had that fire and check, I looked to my left. I could not
believe the crowd there had to be two thousand people watching from Marquette Park in
the street. I never seen anything like that in my life. I actually
had to joke, I said, who opened for this fire? The rolling
Stones? Look, I mean, look at all these people. So we
started to gain on it, and you know, there was a little touch
and go there for about fifteen minutes that we were gonna start to lose another
building or some of the branding would would go up on the bluff. Anyway,
once we started getting a handle, put guys back on the first floor
and start getting heirlooms and antiques and paintings and anything we could get out of
there before the water damage started to you know, make it make everything worse.
And I saw the stingles. I saw Jay and Janet standing on the
sidewalk, and I went to spoke speak with him briefly, and I got
to tell you, I was struck by how they were coping with watching this
happen. You know, they're not only are these seeing their their house,
you know, their treasured home going up and they're going through just a terrible
time. But imagine going through this terrible time and there's two thousand people watching
you go through this terrible time, and I got to tell you, I
was struck by the grace that both of them displayed. They they were very
stoic and and Jay was immediate and resolute that they will rebuild. And I'm
not sure he wasn't on the phone with an architect before the last fire truck
left that night. And and they did rebuilt. And I'll tell you it
was a little over a year later and the Stingle family invited the members of
the department down for a private reception in their house. They had it catered
and bartender set up. It was. It was unbelievable, and they brought
the department back to kind of be like the first guest of the rebuilt or
repaired Brigadoon cottage, and it was. It was nice. So anyway,
that's the story. It really wasn't that big of a story. It just
was that big of a story on social media. But so I told you
all that to tell you this. About twenty five years ago, I met
a Detroit firefighter by the name of Fabio Muscat. He's he's a legend in
the Detroit Fire Department. We became friends, and I went down and wrote
with them once or twice, and I got to know him and a lot
of the other guys, and you know, we'd always say, hey,
we got to get you guys up to the island for some training. And
finally, a guy by the name of Bernie Storm, another Detroit firefighter.
He had stopped by the mclon firehouse one day and we got a chatting,
and he was a lieutenan on the East side of Detroit at the time,
and he said, yeah, we got to make this happen. We got
to make this happen. And you know, it'd been in the talk for
ten or twelve years. So finally that winter that February, four or five
guys came up from the City Detroit Fire Department to train with us, and
you know, everybody just hit it off instantly. They were just a lot
of guys, guys, and you know, a lot of the same level
of sense of humor or maybe immaturity, however you want to gauge it.
But anyway, we're now in our eighth year. They come up every year
the end of February and you know it's called our training weekend. It's a
great time. The guys come down Friday night. We put on a meal.
This year, you know, Grand Hotels and A Sandwiches down for Friday
night. Arnold Freight transported these guys across for nothing above Macina Condos hosted them
in their luxury condos. And the show stealer every year, Folks is Mission
Point Resort. You know, they have brought their staff and to cook us
lunch between our morning and afternoon sessions. And they don't they don't hold any
they don't pull out, they pull out all the stops. Just a tremendous
lunch. And then and then Liz uh, you know Liz Ware from the
family. Not only was she cooking us lunch, they give us a gift.
Well, then they paired with the Bay View Yacht Club, who you
know is celebrating their one hundredth running of the Baby to mac and A yacht
race this year. And uh, this year they presented us with brand new
lockers, the entire department brand new metal lockers that the two organizations purchased and
presented us. And you know, then we have dinner that night and our
mayor Margaret Dowd, who's who's been the mayor here for a couple of minutes.
She always calls up and says, tell the men and the women were
gonna I'm gonna pay for their primary dinner tonight at the Mustang. So,
I mean, can you beat that when you're when you're mayor is supporting you
like that. You know, it's it's just amazing the folks here. We
have volunteers, We have ten or twelve locals volunteer to play our victims at
the at the scenarios we do. And you know, the Mustang's very Mustang
Lounge is very instrumental and the hospitality end of things, and you know,
the whole town just the hospitality and the outpouring of you know what what can
we do is just it's amazing and it makes it easy to work in a
place like this, you know, to be a part of this department.
By the way we're supported is you know, it's it's tough to beat and
it's certainly appreciated. So to that end, we have Tom Wickman joining us
here in just a second, and we're going to talk about Detroit Weekend and
you know what it entails, and it's it's just been a real good time
for us. So joining us now from the Detroit Fire Department retired Chief retired
Battalion Chief Tom Wickman, Tom, welcome to the show. Thanks for having
me, love and being here. It's great to see you. So,
Tom, we just finished up our annual Detroit mackinaw We call it the Detroit
Weekend around here. We just finished up the Detroit Training Weekend. This is
our eighth year to my knowledge. And do you do you get tired of
having fun with these guys or you know what, everything we do is fun,
the job, the training, everything about it. You make it fun.
It makes learning more enjoyable. It's very true. So you know,
I talked a little bit at the beginning of the show about you know,
the department and then and how we've struck our friendship with the City of Detroit
Fire Department, and uh, you know, folks, we we have a
couple of meals, of course, and we do some training and it's it's
almost invaluable. As I mentioned, you know, these guys are the probably
the busiest structure firefighters in the world, and you know, for them to
come up and hang with this, we don't we don't talk about plane crashes
and boat fires and wild land fires, and that's the sort of stuff we
we certainly don't talk about vehicle extrication. But we we we specifically focus on
struct firefighter training and these guys are are the best at what they do.
I'm sure that's going to cause some complaints and some comments on social media,
of course, for me to say something like that, carte blanche, but
it's it's probably true. And and Tom, I'm sure I don't know how
many thousand stories you have, but you're retired about two years ago, I
think two years ago this month. Okay, do you do you miss Do
you miss it much? I missed the job. I don't miss the politics.
Well, we certainly can understand that. So Tom, tell us a
little bit. You're coming from the city, you know, working in the
city of Detroit, and uh, you're the first weekend here. What did
you think when we did our first drills together and you're with you know,
MC and Island Fire. What was going through your head after the first twenty
minutes. To be honest with you, really had no idea what to expect.
I had never really worked with a volunteer fire department before. I've been
training for years with and with outside agency, with Ford Motor Company and Detroit
Firefighters, but to come up here with people that are volunteer, my first
taste and what to expect. I really had no idea. We were putting
it all out on the line, and let's see how this turns out.
Yeah, it's it's funny and the friendship we've we've forged between our department and
your department. So there's a there's a rumor that that goes around that getting
the Macanon training weekend is a coveted detail in the Detroit Fire Department. Any
truth to that is a very large truth. I didn't realize it the first
couple of years we did this. We grabbed a handful of guys and guys
that had been up here before and visited and you knew them. Jason met
them, and we said, hey, let's get these guys together, bring
them in and let's do some training. And it's not because they were trained
trainers and they were learned, but it's the experience. Jason, you had
mentioned before how Detroit's the busiest fire department. We don't break about it.
We know things because we do it so frequently. Right, So to learn
from somebody you're going to learn from. You want to learn something from somebody,
it does it a lot, right, You know, I'm a fervent
believer, and you know, it's tough to go to a class, and
you know this happens a lot in this part of the state. You might
go to a class and it's being taught by a guy who probably hasn't actually
experienced the subject and what he's training you about. So you know, when
you guys are here, it's it's absolutely great to have you and you talk
real world experience, real world fires, and it's really tough to beat.
So I mean, do you do you look forward to the weekend or is
this on your calendar from starting the way back in March or how's that word.
I always look forward to this weekend. Any time I get a chance
to share the wealth or the knowledge, I love it. Right. Uh.
My biggest thing is I've always always been a very stern believer and very
I back up the volunteers because these guys are coming from a job doing whatever
God knows what, and all of a sudden you're going to a fire.
Right. I have huge respect for that. And there have been people in
the past that are full time firefighters that have just frowned about it. Oh
you're a volley Uh yeah, But you're not really taking this song into consideration.
I have deep respect for volunteers, So chief, when when we uh,
when you know when you're back in the city or back home, I
should say uh. In the and you hear the word mac and Island and
it pops up? Do you do you catch yourself saying, boy, do
I have a We'll have a story for you folks. People ask me about
Macnaw Island and I have friends and family that have never stepped foot on the
island and have lived in Michigan their entire life, which to me, I
find that, Wow, I can't believe that. But then I get to
add additionally to that because I feel that I have a little part of me
on the island. I'm an outsider looking in, I'm an outsider coming in,
but yet I still have I feel I have roots here with your department
because we've shared so much together over the last eight years, developed a great
friendship, a great family perspective. There is no better family or closer family
than the fire department, right and it's worldwide, not just department wide,
citywide, however, you want to say that, so for me, anytime
that anybody mentions Macnaw island. I feel that. Yeah, I'm proud.
I feel a minor part of mcna Island, that a part of me is
there and a part of this island. And a lot of it has to
do with the outreach of you guys as the Islanders, and your hospitality is
incredible. It is by far better than anywhere and anything and anyone has ever
come across you. People have welcomed us in here, total strangers, into
your homes, your lives, and every minute I still remember that, appreciate
it and respect it. God bless you guys. Yeah, you're you're You're
not wrong about the family of the of the fire department, and that's I
would say almost everywhere you go. It's it's a great big family, and
guys are and gals are real accommodating and real friendly for you know, the
folks listening. Tom is he can back up what he's talking about. I
can't tell you the number of times if we've caught a big fire here,
or or if we're experiencing a loss of a member. You know, we've
had a few guys pass away over the few years, and I can tell
you invariably, I almost as soon as it hits you know, it gets
out or it hits social media. Tom reaches out immediately what he needs to
do. What do you need from Detroit? Will be up there in the
next boat. What do you need? And you can't put a price or
an expression of gratitude on something like that. It's a it's a great group
of guys. And I'll tell you what, this is one of my favorite
weekends all year, no question. And we're really happy and really thrilled with
how this is going. We people reach out a little bit and say to
these guys, take their show on the road. Where else do they do
training? And and I don't know yet Tom. Tom hasn't established an LLC
to take this show on the road just yet. But boy, yeah,
what's the old expression? If if you can get them, they're they're worth
it. But Chief, thanks for being here, Thanks for coming this weekend,
and thanks for all the laughs. I couldn't have picked a better place
to be at this given time and to share what we do with you guys.
I appreciate the sentiment. Chief folks. This has been another episode of
the Macin Island Moments podcast. I'm Jason sat and coming to you from Macin
Island. The only podcast that originates right here on mac Island, by a
Macan Islander. We want to once again thank our sponsor, Mission Point Resort,
and not only for sponsoring today's show, but for the profound support and
sponsorship of the Macin Island Fire Department. Liz and Mark and the rest of
the Ware family. We thank you, everybody. Good day,