WEBVTT

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

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

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

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

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Hello, Hello, Sammy Peters Peter. I think Steve Steve Locket is

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in the chat too. I saw
before, so let me see. Let

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me go back a little bit and
see if I catch you, man,

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then we get willing Oh yes,
right here, hey all, oh he

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has a beer, sir, just
see even just the whole story. I

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already apologize to your mother when Coop
starts throwing the F bombs already, so

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ut, I'll reserve the F bombs, missus Lockett. We'll throw the red

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flag. I got the the instant
replay flag. So if we needed to

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replace something, yeah, that commercial, the instant replay. Should we get

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the flag? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, yeah, what you want?

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Well, you know, may come
in handy. Interesting week, man,

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tough tough week, interesting week.
The ship Christian into the Francis Key,

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Scott Bridge there. That was insane, wasn't it. Yeah, I told

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her, I have the here's a
map because you guys want to see a

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map where it was in the pre
show, like the ship dwarfs the bridge.

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That's how it's like. And Ray
was saying, yeah, looks like

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an erector set on there. It
looks like a little It's just incredible that

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they let that thing go through there
without uh, well lost control. No,

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no, I understand that, but
I mean you got to realize that

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that how many times have we had
ships do something stupid from you know,

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guys drinking or whatever. They shouldn't
be able to just come in out of

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there. And the look at that. They found the other guys the other

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worker is right, two of them
last I heard, they only found two.

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Yeah, those guys were in the
car where he was saying, yeah,

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the good in the truck or something? Right, Oh, were they

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in the truck? Holy crap,
those guys. Those are the cars that

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were only ones left on the bridge. If you saw it full, there

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was a couple of things. And
I guess said, well they let that.

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They radioed ahead saying that they had
no control of the ship and they

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shut down the bridge. Can you
imagine it was like doing rush out of

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something. Holy shit. He was
saying, seven. You know, he's

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been going over that bridge for a
lot of years. He was saying that

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they get like a ridiculous amount of
cause going at now the traffic that that's

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like one of the main arteries there
too, Like we go all the way

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around now. I don't know.
That's why I pull up the map to

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show you help. But you're one
hundred percent right. It's literally the work

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for that, bro. Right,
everything you have to take take a different

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way to work. I got pains
already, who medicine? Take it?

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Take it easy over here, tough, you got a debilitated ticket it.

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I don't want anything that happened.
He's good, though, everything's rotal rooted,

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bro, He's good. I come
better than I was. There some

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good news, right, guds.
It's finally in the air. It's finally

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on its way. Oh yeah,
ready ready for it? Here we go,

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there it is, It is finally
on its way. He got up.

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Good God help me. Yeah,
looks we're gonna sell out no time.

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Ruby's gonna say. You know what, I should have listened to that

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a whole weeks ago, months ago, what would be great if you could

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pull the rip cord for real.
I didn't even think of that. Gone,

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take it easy, and you know
they could put like little sound effects

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in there too, like when you're
rolling it, how you pushing it and

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you put take it. How funny
is is Mikey Cologne with the with the

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whole getting on the yeah mess over
there problem when he's sleeping stories steps see

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let him get this the empt run
the bus for a while. Yeah,

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there was we had. This was
the job lou that we had and uh,

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you know it was around on the
Charlie side. I'm like, all

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right, take it easy, take
it east. What's not throwing out exposures

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just yet? You're just talking about
it toad shopped. Does he say anything

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in the check because you know he's
listening, just hello, he said,

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little but it easy with the tones
you're dropping and Charlie side and all this,

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I said, imagine what he gets
if he starts riding the bus is

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an emt or did I tell where
I was? When I tell him what

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the lou? I didn't know.
I didn't know what to do with you

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gotta pay and everything was fine,
pal Pa is cool. I'm riding the

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backstep, and uh, we're going
on a cardiac. You know, I'm

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giving. I'm giving the compressions.
I'm compressing, I'm compressing. And Ruff

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he always says, bagging him.
I'm bagging him. Ba boom boom boom

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boom. Love always says love.
What does Ruff? You always say?

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Stay with him? The little body, little buddy. That's what he told

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until you gotta remember, bro,
that's it. He's a good tell.

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He was like my son, young
enough to be myself. I tell you

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what he's talking. You could see
how like exactly is like he's really very

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focused, I guess would be the
word. He's focused on what he wants

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to say, and he'll wait.
We'll we busted his balls and we'll wait

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to be all serious, tie the
whole thing. Yeah, well, listen

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tomorrow we got a quick little video
coming out. I'm stepping my toe into

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the editing realm and I edited a
little piece so tomorrow will be shown up.

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It's only four minutes. Ship it's
one that you can share, so

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share it around, send it around, will you send it this way?

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Yeah, we got to get the
commercials because the only one to show this

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week. So uh, let's get
the commercials out of the way so we

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can get my man mister here.
No, you lock it up, No,

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you lock it up, you you
lock it up. Back there,

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chuckling, Here we go. Armor
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flooring in all of our stations over
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need a floor that can last as
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Vin on me two weeks. I think

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I played a second one? We am

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com. Sweet, don't forget to
tune in Monday me roof you big reveal

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show. You got something big to
announce on Monday. Thank you. Actually

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it is big, big, big
announcement. Tune in, Tell your friends,

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tell your friends, tell your friends. Let's get him in if you

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bring them in. All right,
So we've had a couple of guys from

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Baltimore City, some legends and those
guys about this guy. Is that how

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that worked? Oh? Yeah,
yuh the goat Yeah to my goat work,

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it didn't work. Oh I'm sorry. No, I'm loving that all

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up for you. For God's sake, I got my ship. It's not

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Thursday cleaning people. I tell us
put my laptops down easy, take it

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easy, All right? Coming to
this page to Baltimore City, f D

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Ray locking it up? Ray?
Were you lock it up? We've got

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to have a scary plot behind him. I'm already scared. I'm trying to

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do it. Man. You know
what, before we get up, we

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forgot the pledge last time, so
let's get in there. Let's not forget

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it. We cannot be definitely the
way things are going. Uh as well?

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Yep, alright, here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag

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

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One nation under God, indivisible with
liberty and justice for all. Shalom.

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That's alone from Tom war Welcome to
the show, mister Lockett. Thank

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you good to be here, to
be good. He looks good, that

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guy. Huh twenty three years retired? Coops? How many years? Two?

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Three? O? Man? I
hope I make twenty three years retired?

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Well, I got on, but
not too far after we were born.

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I don't want to give his age
way, but I'm just I think

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Lockett invented the pop and lock a
dance break dancing thing back in today.

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You know when the Coops started with
that. He's like a rolling witholeum around

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with him. I used to carry
a car with a box. But yeah,

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sorry squirrel, a moment, I
already have this answer on my very

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Look at this detail, I tell
you one of the best timelines I got.

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Let's let's dive into the early days
of mister Lockett. Where'd you grow

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up? Give us a little early
history of the days when you were young?

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We were you're into before you got
into the fire service? And how

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did you get into the fire service? Well, I grew up in Baltimore

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City, lived there for forty seven
years. I grew up in a blue

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collar, poor neighborhood. Never had
any intentions of going in the fire department.

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I was in. Seemed to get
in too much trouble and drinking too

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much and fighting too much and just
having having a good time. Never had

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any intentions of going in the fire
department. And my mother in law,

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whose husband was killed in the line
of duty. He was a Borderman City

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firefighter. He got killed in nineteen
sixty one when my wife to be was

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thirteen years old. Oh wow.
And I met him when she was fifteen,

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and we never discussed her father and
I went to the army for three

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years, came home, started dating
again, and got married to her.

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And for four years I went going
from job to job. I was a

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brakeman on a railroad. I hung
sheet rock. I was a security guard.

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I was a truck driver. And
I'm sure Moller was getting tired of

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seeing her only daughter being married to
a guy with no directions listening Ray Ray,

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Ye, hell yeah. So after
we'd been married four years, my

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mother in law got me an application
for the fire department. I looked at

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my wife and I said, I
think your mother's trying to get rid of

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me or tell me something. But
it was the best thing that ever happened

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to me. I took the test. There's thousands of people took the test

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down the Civic Center in Baltimore.
And so this is nineteen What year did

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you take the two at the test? I took the test, and I

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did better than I thought I would. I came out fifty two, and

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they took fifty three in the first
class. Oh, in first class?

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Good for Yeah, I was in
the first class. I took the test

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with my brother in law, who
was a lot smarter than I was,

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and but he came out number two. He never went in the fire apartment,

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Is that right? He passed up. He went up working in the

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government job down in d C.
And uh, yeah, I got in

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the fire department in nineteen seventy two. What was the payback then, raight

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do you remember about Yeah? He
eight or nine thousand a year. I

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guess. Wow. You know it's
funny Rays. We talk about it all

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the time, like how your life
changes by one simple act, right,

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something that is so special to you. Right. All the guys that come

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on the show, they say the
same thing. Everybody has this one little

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you know where the road goes like
this, right, if you were going

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down this path and then you know, somebody intervenes, whether it's a neighbor,

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your you know, family or you
know, in your case, your

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mother in law, and it puts
you on a path to the best you

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know, the thing that ever happened
to you. You know, one of

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the best things that ever happened to
you bespelled your family. Right. Oh

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yeah, but I wouldn't have had
the family if I hadn't had the fart

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aboutm I mean, I always want
a bad path, you know, and

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i'nno it. And so you had
no kids yet when you got on.

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Oh yeah, I had I had
one son. I had my older son.

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Yeah, he was born in nineteen
seventy and I got in fire school.

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I think I was in fire school
about a week. And I thought,

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man, don't screw this up.
You'd like this job. This is

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a good, best job. And
you had no idea about the fire fire

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department at all. Yeah, I
had really no idea. Yeah, crazy.

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I was lucky to get in.
I'll tell you the truth, because

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I passed the test fine. Then
they had to interview and I had a

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police record for fighting and I had
to have a separate interview and I had

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I had fairly long hair. Then
I got into the interview and the guy

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says to me, it's the seventies. Come on, you got a record

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here for fighting. I said yeah. He said, uh, you think

206
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you're a badass. And I said
no, no, no, no,

207
00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:37.159
no no. He said yeah you
do. You think you're a badass.

208
00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:41.960
And I thought this guy's trying to
piss me off. So we talked for

209
00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:44.360
a couple of minutes and he says
he looked at my hair and he says,

210
00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:45.720
well, i'll tell you this.
If you get in the fire department,

211
00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.960
this has got to go. And
he reached over and grabbed my hair,

212
00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:52.679
pull my hair, and I was
like and I calmed myself down and

213
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.480
I said, if I get in
the fire department, I'll cut my hair.

214
00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.919
He said, get out of my
office. I thought, there's a

215
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.200
know a job shot there, and
I went over and when I put my

216
00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:06.519
hand on the door to leave,
he said hey, and I turned around.

217
00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:11.599
He said you're in. Wow.
I changed my entire life that right

218
00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.400
there. I wasn't like the whole
thing was a test. What he pulled

219
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:18.119
you had you knocked him out,
you would have been done. I went

220
00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:26.599
in, Harvey liked you. Nineteen
seventy two. How long was the academy

221
00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:32.200
back then? It was eight weeks
and five days a week. And on

222
00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:37.319
saturdays we rude a company that they
sent us to what either an engine or

223
00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:40.720
a truck? How were you allowed
to operate there? You just rode with

224
00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:44.279
them? Oh? No, we
went. We went right in the fires

225
00:17:44.319 --> 00:17:47.799
with him. Really well, yeah, I think I was in fire school

226
00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:51.319
two weeks and they sent me the
four truck on the west side, which

227
00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:57.240
was an extremely busy place, and
kind of my hold aground, and they

228
00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:02.000
told me they pointed to this guy
he probably had twenty five years and looked

229
00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:04.359
like they could holler the fire that
would go out. He said you stick

230
00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:08.359
with him if we did anything.
And we got to fire down the high

231
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:14.599
rises with nasty, nastiest high rises, and we had fire smoke coming out

232
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the fourth floor. I get off
the truck and I'm trying to remember how

233
00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:22.359
to put a mask when the mask
were in big green boxes in a compartment

234
00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:26.039
on the truck. I'm like,
God, I remember how to put this

235
00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:29.599
one. And that old firefighter John
Frank and he said, we don't need

236
00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:33.920
a mask. Come on, and
we went inside and went up to the

237
00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:37.759
fourth floor and he said grab my
belt, and I grabbed the back of

238
00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:41.720
my buck. We started down the
hallway. It was just a narrow hallway,

239
00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:47.359
apartments on both sides. Smoke's getting
lower lower, he's bending down.

240
00:18:47.559 --> 00:18:52.200
I'm not I got his bolt.
I'm standing up. I'm dying. Sweat

241
00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:56.680
snot running. I can't see that, can't breathe. He's bent down real

242
00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.480
low. He's not out of any
We get to the apartment that smooth was.

243
00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.440
We go in. He took me
right through one room, right to

244
00:19:06.519 --> 00:19:10.400
the balcony outside balcony, shoved me
out, said stay there, closed the

245
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:15.480
door, slowed me down when he
got the fire out and came back and

246
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:19.200
got me. He said, I
wasn't much of mattson box brings. It

247
00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:22.559
wasn't bad. He said, come
on, you can help us overhaul.

248
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:26.160
I was. We We're overhaul and
throwing stuff out, and I'm thinking to

249
00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:30.359
myself, Man, I wonder if
other be able to do this job like

250
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.720
these guys do. I mean,
they knew everything was like clockwork. They

251
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:37.880
were a busy company. It a
knew what they were doing, and everything

252
00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:41.400
went like clockwork. Everything they did, it was it was a learning experience

253
00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:45.000
right there. And with just two
to three weeks in the fire school.

254
00:19:45.599 --> 00:19:48.480
You know, we have the guys
riding on the rate back then, right

255
00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.039
four four four on the engine four
in the truck. We say all the

256
00:19:52.119 --> 00:19:56.240
time rate on the show, like
you don't know how far you can go

257
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:00.960
until somebody shows you where you can
go, right right like that? Like

258
00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:03.200
that, Like that's a perfect example
of you're there a week and you know,

259
00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:07.839
a couple of weeks and this guy's
dragging you through. You know,

260
00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:10.200
you're like, I can't even believe
where the hell we're going, right,

261
00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:11.440
you have no idea about the fire
department. Next thing you know, you're

262
00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:15.319
like ten rooms deep. You know, and uh, you know, you're

263
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:18.960
like, I can't even believe I'm
here with no mask. Forget about that.

264
00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.279
I mean, yeah, we didn't
wear a mask back then if you

265
00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:26.799
were on if you were on the
engine company especially, Uh, you didn't

266
00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:27.920
wear a mask if you were on
the pipe and you were first, and

267
00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:32.400
you were expected to get in there
and do your job until the guy had

268
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:33.920
let off. Put a mask when
it came in and relieved you. And

269
00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:37.720
we heard that before too real full
did guys say that the guy who let

270
00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:41.519
off, they would take the mask
and leave you after you knock most of

271
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:44.839
it down? Right? Yeah,
you learn real quick, Lieutenant taught me

272
00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:48.039
real quick. You opened up my
who's on a half for half a fog?

273
00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:52.599
And you get that little pocket of
error right by the nozzle. You

274
00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:56.480
put your chin down there, and
you got more or less got something to

275
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.400
breathe, you know, enough to
let you keep going. Right. It

276
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:02.960
was a much different, man.
It was so different when I came in

277
00:21:03.079 --> 00:21:07.519
and than when I left, no
doubt. Right, how was the firehouse

278
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:11.000
culture back then? At the kitchen
table? What was it like the same

279
00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:17.759
as it was when I loved everybody
everybody's balls? I mean it was always

280
00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:25.200
fun. It was universally roof anywhere
you go, different hits. The table

281
00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:30.519
was these spots in every firehouse.
Yep, that's the world problems, right,

282
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:33.920
Oh my god, yes, all
the world. That's why this is

283
00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:38.160
the only show that brings the kitchen
table to you. Right. So we

284
00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:42.359
so seventy two, eight weeks of
fire school, you assigned to Engine twenty

285
00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:45.720
five. Now there was slow house, there were middle of the road.

286
00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:49.799
What were they? Extremely busy?
Oh there you go, extremely busy.

287
00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:57.079
Oh the why that woman was chasing
around the house. Who is that young

288
00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:03.160
guy looking good there? Right?
Yeah, because we were taxis. We

289
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:07.359
wore khakis back then, which was
real nice when you crawled in a burning

290
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:14.039
building. They were filthy dirty after
one fire khakis. Yeah, it was

291
00:22:14.039 --> 00:22:17.400
an extremely busy ass. I asked. When I was getting out of fire

292
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:22.000
school, I was playing fast pitched
softball and the picture on our team was

293
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:26.160
high up in our local seven thirty
four, our union, and I went

294
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:29.519
to him and I said, and
I want to go somewhere busy. I

295
00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:30.839
don't want to sit around. He
said, I'll take care of it.

296
00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:34.119
And I got to sign Engine twenty
five on the west side of Baltimore,

297
00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:40.000
a single house or they were single
house built in the early nineteen hundreds.

298
00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:47.400
Still had the spots where the troughs
were for the horses to drink outte cobblestone

299
00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:48.880
floor. I mean, it was, it was old, it was big.

300
00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:52.720
It was you know, you had
the hose tower. You had you

301
00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:56.680
had to change the hose with saturdays. We had a second line engine in

302
00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:59.640
the back. It was not two
hundred feet deep. Had a big back

303
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:03.359
door where you could get the second
line engine out the back door. We

304
00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:07.759
ran out the front door. Is
that fire house still standing today? It

305
00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:11.279
is, but it was closed.
The closed it it's nothing. It's just

306
00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:14.440
sitting there now. I just closed
years and years and years ago. So

307
00:23:14.680 --> 00:23:18.160
you evidently you pot guys were riding
the backstep, right, no doubt.

308
00:23:18.200 --> 00:23:21.599
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Now
when I got to twenty five, they

309
00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:26.400
had just got a new wagon and
we rode inside. But whenever it broke,

310
00:23:26.519 --> 00:23:29.200
when you got a second line,
you rode the backstep, and if

311
00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:30.759
you were detailed to a truck under
you rode the side of the truck.

312
00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:34.519
If it was that back of the
day, riding the back step, like

313
00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:40.240
like Louis and I were on after
that that had to be amazing, right

314
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:42.720
right. In fact, the twenty
five engine I took the place of a

315
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:48.119
guy who got thrown off and killed. Is this it? Yeah? That

316
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.880
looks like kid man. I mean
it's where'd you get that picture? He's

317
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:56.759
quit that gun? So he is
on his game lately, right, ruf

318
00:23:56.079 --> 00:24:00.519
he is? I think to give
him pretty cal that's hard to time.

319
00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:04.079
When I googled Multimore City Fire Department
engine twenty five, this is what came

320
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.279
up I found. I saw a
couple of PEPs. Yeah, it's a

321
00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:11.079
real you can tell it's a real
deep Yeah, that which I'll pull it

322
00:24:11.119 --> 00:24:15.640
back up. Yeah, that on
top of the door that says that's when

323
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.680
the whostsales were maybe Mayfair Hostle and
we were saying with this it was a

324
00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:21.839
vacant fire house now whatever the hell
it was. But I guess they're selling

325
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:23.920
something out of there. I was
at the corner of the Collaring Gold.

326
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:27.440
Yeah, it was how much money
were you doing back then? Ring?

327
00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:32.319
How much? What running? How
many runs you guys go on? You

328
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:40.680
know, probably over three thousand,
which was busy back then. Now since

329
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:45.279
they closed, I think since since
I was in they've closed twenty two companies

330
00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:51.119
and the busy houses now where my
my boat. Both boys were in.

331
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:55.799
They're doing over six thousand yeah,
wow, six thousand runs a year at

332
00:24:56.720 --> 00:25:00.200
the medicine five thousand six, you
know to six down. It's after a

333
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:03.880
while. It's uh, what'd you
say? Ninety was doing that rough?

334
00:25:03.359 --> 00:25:07.599
They're doing over seven thousand runs.
God, you had a medical units.

335
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:11.440
Medical units are doing between eight and
ten the busy medic units, Oh my

336
00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:15.960
god, eight ten. And now
you know when I was in, we

337
00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:19.559
worked four fourteen hour nights and four
ten hour days. Now they work twenty

338
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:23.519
four hours. If you're doing six
thousand runs, working twenty four hours,

339
00:25:25.119 --> 00:25:26.759
My youngest son's had thirty two runs. I was gonna say, it's over

340
00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:33.759
thirty runs. Yeah, thirty runs
was not twenty four hours. The b

341
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.559
boop was going off. I was
afraid to hit the ten eight button.

342
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:40.359
Yeah, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go ten eight

343
00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:42.559
because I knew there was a picked
you up right Yeah, they picked you

344
00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:45.559
right up. Man. And then
my youngest son, he would be coming

345
00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:49.160
home and call me up on his
way home to talk to keep him awake.

346
00:25:51.079 --> 00:25:53.319
He had like an eight or ten
mile drive to get home from the

347
00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:57.039
firehouse. Yeah, he would want
to talk just to keep him awake driving

348
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:00.000
home. Yeah. How did you
bring the boys like? Did they have

349
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:03.400
like upe you have Christmas parties in
the firehouse? You have picnics? Did

350
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:07.079
the boys go with you to all
those things in the firehouse? Not so

351
00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:11.559
much. At the we didn't have
any anything going on at the firehouse.

352
00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:14.880
I would take them there and show
them and to meet everybody. Would they

353
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:18.640
ride fire engine? There was no
room for anything. Would they ride with

354
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:21.759
you ever? Bring them in the
rite with you? Not? When they

355
00:26:21.799 --> 00:26:26.960
were kids? No, No,
we were. They fire your ass if

356
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.240
you did that. I mean they
was. They were pretty strict. They

357
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:32.799
were pretty strict. Did they did? Did you did they? Did you

358
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:36.319
know right away that the boys were
interested? Or did that come up?

359
00:26:36.440 --> 00:26:38.640
They were? They weren't interested.
They saw me come home busted up and

360
00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:44.960
burned, and said, and you
were going down. You might want to

361
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:51.400
be a doctor. Once they got
into the real world and started working other

362
00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:55.559
jobs. And I said, uh, I got your oldest son. He

363
00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:59.039
was he was too much, way
too much like me, way too much

364
00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:02.640
like me. And I said,
I gotta get him an application. And

365
00:27:02.759 --> 00:27:04.200
I said, you go down and
take the test. Him and his best

366
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:07.160
friend. They went down and took
the test, and it was the same

367
00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:11.279
way with him as it was with
me. I think that that really put

368
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:12.119
him on he got in there.
It was like, I don't want to

369
00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:15.240
lose this job. Yeah. Put
him on the path. Yeah. And

370
00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:19.079
my youngest son was the same way. He was the same way he was.

371
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.720
He wasn't like me. He was
more like my wife. He was

372
00:27:22.839 --> 00:27:26.319
more laid back. He had a
lot more sense than me and my oldest

373
00:27:26.359 --> 00:27:30.039
son. And it took him a
while. He went to college for a

374
00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:33.480
year to play football and blew his
knee out. He came home and worked

375
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:37.920
some different jobs and finally, so
I want to try a fire depart And

376
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:40.880
he took the test. He did
well, and he got in five years

377
00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:44.759
after his brother did. Wow,
awesome. Who who are some of the

378
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:47.559
bosses? Who are some of the
guys there when you first got the twenty

379
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:49.839
five that stick out to you that
really took you under that wing type of

380
00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:53.400
thing. I had a guy,
an lieutenant named Lieutenant Baber, and he

381
00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:56.599
was a tough old bird. He
came from another busy firehouse when he made

382
00:27:56.599 --> 00:28:00.319
lieutenant, but he was only there
about a year. When I while I

383
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.559
was there in the UH, he
was burned out. He said, I

384
00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:07.160
got to go somewhere slow and he
transferred out. And the first acting man,

385
00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:11.359
I don't know, you guys have
a first acting somebody takes the lieutenant's

386
00:28:11.400 --> 00:28:15.920
place a firefighter. When the lieutenant's
off or if he goes sick during the

387
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:19.960
tour, you have acting lieutenant would
be the senior guy. Yeah, this

388
00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:23.640
was This was the senior guy in
the house. If the lieutenant was one

389
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:27.160
vacation, he took the lieutenant's place. And it was a black guy named

390
00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:32.079
Willie Gibson, and he was a
great guy man. He taught me a

391
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:34.720
lot what to do, what not
to do, and he was one of

392
00:28:34.759 --> 00:28:37.880
the first, one of the first
blacks to come into the fire departments a

393
00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:41.359
matter of fact, and he would
tell me what it was like when he

394
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:45.200
came in, what he had to
go through with the separate beds and separate

395
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:49.799
eating utensils and separate sangu's all that
stuff. Yeah, but he did it

396
00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.559
wasn't he didn't tell it like he
was bitter. It was just a matter

397
00:28:52.599 --> 00:28:57.240
of fact. And we would stay
up late at night talking about all different

398
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:02.480
subjects. And then we had another
guy who was a gratchy guy. I

399
00:29:02.519 --> 00:29:06.039
didn't like him, he didn't like
me. Let that go. And there

400
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:07.960
was another guy earning, Bobby Simone, and he had two and a half

401
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.599
years in but all the twenty five
engines, so we had a lot,

402
00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:14.759
a lot of service. And he
was another one that was helpful to me.

403
00:29:15.559 --> 00:29:18.319
Yeah, when you're a bookie,
you need the fire school. Don't

404
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:25.000
teach you nothing to compare to the
Do you agree with that? I mean,

405
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:30.039
oh absolutely, on the job learning
nothing like it, especially if you

406
00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:32.640
get guys who never had a job
before in their life. You know,

407
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:37.039
they cause, you know, staring
at the dishwasher sometimes, like you don't

408
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:42.359
know how to turn on the dishwasher. Bro, you you can't have to

409
00:29:42.440 --> 00:29:48.759
make coffee? Yeah that's right,
you had to make coffee. Yeah,

410
00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:52.200
we do that. It's funny you
say that, come on, make coffee

411
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:57.519
for you guys that don't know how
to make coffee. And I send him

412
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:02.160
the chief teaching that is that what
you do? I passed that down to

413
00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:07.279
me. I just like this.
Yeah, I have good I have a

414
00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:10.559
good team. Man. He's guys
a sellid all right, So you're there

415
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:14.319
to how can we leave after two
and a half years. I wasn't there

416
00:30:14.440 --> 00:30:18.880
enough. They detailed you other companies
all the time, and every time I

417
00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:22.160
got DJIL, I rode to medic
and I hated riding to medic and I

418
00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:26.640
just wasn't there enough. And the
captain of the thirteen engine, which was

419
00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:30.559
about six or seven blocks south of
twenty five he was, He asked me

420
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.200
if I wanted to come down there
and just getting outen me, And I

421
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:37.799
thought yeah, because there was a
double house. So if you got detailed,

422
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:42.559
just stayed now perfect you learn the
truck work, right, I sort

423
00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:47.480
of learned truck work. Yeah,
if you don't ride it enough, you

424
00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:51.079
know you're just doing what the guys
are telling you to do. Well.

425
00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:56.599
When I was a twenty five engine, tell this story. Uh, they

426
00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:00.400
were rookie, don't know nothing.
Go to a car accident up and drew

427
00:31:00.440 --> 00:31:03.920
a big park, threw a hill
park, cars upside down. People were

428
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:07.319
out there. They're screaming the guy
lost his leg. Guy lost his leg.

429
00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:11.759
So of course I'm the rookie.
The captain the tennant says to me,

430
00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:15.720
crawl in that car and get the
leg. The car's on its roof,

431
00:31:15.759 --> 00:31:18.039
I'm crawling on the inside of the
roof and I see the I see

432
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:22.480
the leg, and I'm like,
oh Jesus, And I get closer and

433
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:26.640
I reach out and I realize it's
an artificial leg. It's not a real

434
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:30.279
leg. It's a prost theses.
So I crawl out of the car and

435
00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:32.799
I hold the leg up in the
air. I said, I got it.

436
00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:36.400
I got it. And the people
were screaming. They're hiding their eyes

437
00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:40.000
there, turning away. We get
back to the firehouse. Man, we

438
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:44.880
were laughing for an hour over and
the people were freaking out. Everybody thought

439
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.359
it was a real leg. It
was a good time. It's a good

440
00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:52.079
time in that house. I just
wasn't there enough. So there's a story

441
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.799
that says, uh, your first
fire night working at the end of twenty

442
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.079
five, you on the watch in
four am. Oh yeah, the Uh

443
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.480
my lieutenant, we've been running all
night my first night there. And my

444
00:32:05.559 --> 00:32:07.720
lieutenant said, look, I'm not
staying out. They put me on a

445
00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:09.680
four to six watch. He said, I'm not staying up all night with

446
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:13.440
you. He said, see all
these numbers on his desk. It was

447
00:32:13.480 --> 00:32:16.200
like fifty fifty sixty numbers on the
desk. He said, if they call

448
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:19.799
one of those numbers, you throw
that gun. And he went to bed.

449
00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:24.519
I'm sitting there, nerve on Christ. Now what that half hour later

450
00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:29.240
they call box three seven three three
month, Pennsylvania. I know it's here.

451
00:32:29.319 --> 00:32:31.680
I know it's on his desk.
This is a building fire box three

452
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:36.880
seventh three. I'm looking down nerves
like I'm looking at mewhile I can hear

453
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:38.319
the guys. They hear it.
They're getting up. They slide the pole.

454
00:32:38.759 --> 00:32:42.160
The lieutenant slides the pole, looks
at me. I said, I

455
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:49.440
can't find a number. Get on
the wagon. We get, We go

456
00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:52.680
a couple of blocks, like five
six blocks. We got a body and

457
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:57.160
fender shop burned, locked up tight
as a drum. Dad. Chief gets

458
00:32:57.160 --> 00:32:59.680
there. Nobody can get in their
truck. Companies working. They call a

459
00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:04.400
second alarm. Finally they get the
whole big rolling doors up about three feet

460
00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:08.119
and my lieutenant says, come on, let's go. No mask. Crawl

461
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:12.720
underneath three quarter boots. I forget
to pull them up. They're filling up

462
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:16.000
with water. Crawl all the way
in. I can't breathe, I can't

463
00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:20.799
see. Lieutenants. Got my head
shoved down by the pipe, open it

464
00:33:20.920 --> 00:33:23.160
up. We got cars burning,
we got offices burning. I can hear

465
00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:25.799
them working on the roof. I
can hear other companies hitting up with water.

466
00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:30.000
We finally darken it down. The
tennis says file. The who's out

467
00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:35.000
take a break? So I crawled
out few on the hoose, I crawl

468
00:33:35.119 --> 00:33:37.920
under the door. I throw up. I'll look up. There's a battalion

469
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.279
chief stick almost threw up. He
said, all right, son, I

470
00:33:43.359 --> 00:33:51.440
said, grace spitting up black flim
for two days. Beautiful. So what

471
00:33:51.559 --> 00:33:55.039
about the fire we knocked out the
austiness? Oh, we had a fire

472
00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:58.880
up. Were caught up the hill, the great, big three story,

473
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:04.160
big joints of all rowhouses. We
pull up. We're first in. The

474
00:34:04.200 --> 00:34:07.559
truck company gets there. We're taking
our line off. The truck company throws

475
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:09.840
the twenty four foot ladder. The
guy that set the fire runs over and

476
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:14.719
knocks the ladder down. While they're
getting the thirty five off, they throw

477
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:15.760
the thirty five. They're going to
put the twenty four. He throw.

478
00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:21.280
He knocks the thirty five down.
We're going inside, Me and my lieutenant.

479
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:24.199
We're going down the hallway. We
find a guy laying in the hallway.

480
00:34:24.719 --> 00:34:27.840
My lieutenant says, I'm gonna drag
him out. You stay here,

481
00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:30.119
I'll be right back. So he's
dragging him out the hallway. Meanwhile,

482
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:34.360
Bobby Simon had let off. He
comes in with a mask. When I

483
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:36.960
got it, I got it,
So I follow him a lieutenant out and

484
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:39.599
by now he's outside. He's got
the guy on his shoulder. He's walking

485
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:44.159
down the sidewalk. The guy that
set the firewalks up. Boom, hits

486
00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:46.760
the lieutenant in the chest, knocks
him down. He drops the guy on

487
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:52.480
the ground. I grabbed a guy
to hit him, beat his head into

488
00:34:52.519 --> 00:34:55.000
the concrete, knock him out.
Where the old days, a fighting came

489
00:34:55.079 --> 00:35:00.119
in off a fight. The crowd
is going now they want a piece of

490
00:35:00.239 --> 00:35:05.039
me. The crowd's going nuts.
And one guy was the instigator of the

491
00:35:05.079 --> 00:35:15.159
crowd. There's a cop there,
let's get ready. Sorry, he raised

492
00:35:15.480 --> 00:35:22.360
He was like this. Sorry.
He looks like Bama Smith from the Boma

493
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:27.280
Coach. Great big guy and he
had this big longmu in a flashlight and

494
00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.320
he poked it in this guy's chest
that was starting out of trouble. So

495
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:32.599
I'm gonna tell you one time,
shut up. And the guy kept yelling,

496
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:36.119
and he went back handed him in
the mouth with this allo and a

497
00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:39.360
flashlight. They got at the medics
coming to medic comes to take him away.

498
00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:42.679
To come and take away the guy
I knocked out. They come and

499
00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:45.000
take away the guy. All the
tonant dragged out. We get the fire

500
00:35:45.079 --> 00:35:50.159
out, We get back to twenty
five engine. I want to talk about

501
00:35:50.159 --> 00:36:00.480
it. They don't take anything off
this ship. You get the day,

502
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:06.119
not a day Holy Christmas, not
the day to the ghetto. Bro.

503
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:09.039
Yeah, let me see I missed
these stories from there. Nope, nope,

504
00:36:13.239 --> 00:36:17.360
yep, and I seventy four year
transfer the thirteen most were never act

505
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:22.400
twenty five right down the street,
six six seven blocks down the street.

506
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:24.039
Oh so that was a big house. You had an engine, thirteen,

507
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:30.159
truck four, ambulance AMBO four and
the battalion for for you. Wow,

508
00:36:30.519 --> 00:36:31.280
that was a big house, man. How many guys you cook it for?

509
00:36:31.400 --> 00:36:35.480
There? We didn't do a lot
of cooking, to be honest with

510
00:36:35.559 --> 00:36:39.159
your God. Maybe once once a
trick somebody would cook. We didn't do

511
00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:43.199
a lot of cooking, not not
like you see now. We didn't do

512
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:45.920
a lot in that house. But
it was a tight house. In the

513
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.440
firehouse right, huh, that's because
you weren't in the firehouse. You were,

514
00:36:52.280 --> 00:36:57.039
we didn't have microwaves yet, right, I have a microwaves. You

515
00:36:57.079 --> 00:36:59.599
know, I forgot about that roof. What was it like back then?

516
00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:02.920
Because microwave only came out in the
eighties, right, food got food,

517
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:07.599
got cold, cold, warming up, go out warming up every a while.

518
00:37:07.639 --> 00:37:12.320
I think that that was one of
the greatest inventions for the fire service

519
00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:15.440
ever. In the fact, the
first time I saw a microwave, I

520
00:37:15.559 --> 00:37:19.199
was detailed to another firehouse I saw. I say, you got a microwave

521
00:37:19.239 --> 00:37:22.039
on here? I said, how
do I use this thing? I want

522
00:37:22.039 --> 00:37:25.519
to cook a hot though? Yeah, you know I was an easy mark.

523
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:29.920
Say how long a cook a hot
dog? He said, five minutes?

524
00:37:30.440 --> 00:37:34.639
Come out bet that pig. It
was about this pick. I'll shrivel

525
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:42.559
up. You got me on your
But thirteen engine four truck was a really

526
00:37:42.639 --> 00:37:45.480
good house, really tight house.
We had a great captain. He was

527
00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:51.480
real strict, but he was real
fair. I mean, somebody didn't clean

528
00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:52.599
the oven. He took the heating
element out of it for a week,

529
00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:59.559
couldn't use the other nice but eventually
he was in on the card games.

530
00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:04.159
And you know, we bowed.
There was a Fire Department shift bowling league.

531
00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:07.719
We all bowed in that. We
played ball together. I played on

532
00:38:07.800 --> 00:38:13.119
the Fire Department baseball team. I
played different junior colleges and played the played

533
00:38:13.119 --> 00:38:15.679
the Bald in the City Cops at
Memorial Stadium before the Warrior game. That's

534
00:38:15.760 --> 00:38:19.960
cool. That was neat. It
was all. It was a tight shift,

535
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.280
it really was. It was a
lot off duty. We were off

536
00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:24.440
duty. We hung together all the
time. Everything we did was together.

537
00:38:28.039 --> 00:38:30.199
Uh So let's talk about some of
the guys you got there. You got

538
00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:34.320
the Doug Fall, Stan Williams,
you had the nicknames for all of them.

539
00:38:36.039 --> 00:38:38.119
Let's uh, let's talk about some
of these guys. Well, I

540
00:38:38.199 --> 00:38:42.559
told you Captain Geleski he was.
He was the captain, and he was

541
00:38:43.079 --> 00:38:45.000
the captain. I mean, you
knew he was the captain. You knew

542
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.400
he was in charge. But uh, like I said, he was fair

543
00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:52.000
with everybody. If you screwed up
and he got you got in your ass,

544
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:55.480
you knew you deserved it. You
knew you deserve it. Stan Williams

545
00:38:55.599 --> 00:38:59.800
was a big guy, like six
three sixty four. He had a scholarship

546
00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:04.599
for UH as a tight end to
Clemson and uh, it didn't work out.

547
00:39:04.800 --> 00:39:07.320
He got homesick or something. He
quit, came home and joined the

548
00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:08.840
fire department. And he was.
He was a lot of fun. He

549
00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:14.400
was a boisterous kind of guy and
dunk falls. I went through fire school

550
00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:15.760
with. He wasn't there when I
first transferred there, but he came in

551
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:20.960
not after a lot long afterwards,
and he was hysterical. He was a

552
00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:25.880
tunnel right in Vietnam man. He
was. He never never shut up,

553
00:39:28.119 --> 00:39:30.760
even when you played golf. He
talked when you were hitting. He talked

554
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:39.920
when he was hitting. He never
stopped. He was He could say stuff

555
00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:44.920
to Captain Gileskie did nobody else could
get away with. He called him by

556
00:39:44.920 --> 00:39:46.639
his first name one time. We're
playing cards. Come on, Ronnie,

557
00:39:51.599 --> 00:39:54.800
come on right. Yeah, they
were good guys. There were a lot

558
00:39:54.840 --> 00:40:00.639
of a lot of really good guys. That's so funny. And the truck

559
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:02.599
was the same way. The truck
was tight. Guys. You know,

560
00:40:02.679 --> 00:40:08.360
we chuck cushto with big blond haired
guy that he knew his work. You

561
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:12.840
could always depend on him. But
he was he was an easy mark.

562
00:40:13.199 --> 00:40:16.159
He was getting he was getting married, and we met his wife, his

563
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:21.880
wife to be his fiance, and
we told him he couldn't get married,

564
00:40:22.079 --> 00:40:24.199
and to his chief and to his
wife, had an interview with the chief

565
00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:32.400
of the fire department, and he's
so he fell for it a special to

566
00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:37.559
his wife to meet the chief of
the fire And he wrote the special and

567
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:43.800
and uh, our battalion chief was
in quarters, and we told him that

568
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:47.320
you got to hand deliver it to
the battalion chief and he'll he'll sign it

569
00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:51.320
and then he'll send it downtown.
And of course we're all waiting, and

570
00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:53.320
he goes in. We can hear
he goes into the chiefs of the time

571
00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:58.119
and the chief, he was a
no nonsense kind of guy. Man Chuck

572
00:40:58.199 --> 00:41:00.079
goes in there and says, here's
my special. The chief said, what's

573
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:04.480
this for? You said, this
request and permission from my wife to my

574
00:41:04.599 --> 00:41:06.960
fiance to meet the chief of the
fire of him and said we can get

575
00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:10.119
married. And the chief said,
what are you stupid? Don't you know

576
00:41:10.199 --> 00:41:16.719
they're pulling your leg? Get out
of hold laugh. Oh my god,

577
00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:20.280
that's horrible. But he was a
good guy. He was a really good

578
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:22.480
guy. A lot of a lot
of good guys in that house. Man

579
00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:30.320
say, what about huh, pooty
Poody. Poody was a short little black

580
00:41:30.360 --> 00:41:34.519
eye could out work anybody on a
fire ground. And we played pitch every

581
00:41:34.639 --> 00:41:38.239
night when we were night work at
a card table. And uh, I

582
00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:42.320
don't know if you ever played pitch, but if you bid four and make

583
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.400
it in our rules, you went
all the money for that hand, and

584
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:50.280
uh, you had you had to
say you were all in. But he

585
00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:59.039
wouldn't say. He would stand up
and act like you pull guns out and

586
00:41:59.159 --> 00:42:02.280
he was an alma far the hell
of a farm. That's great? Did

587
00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:07.760
you guys, ray, You guys
ran in with twenty five like clothes?

588
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:09.199
Was there? Like? Uh?
Did you try and beat them in?

589
00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:14.960
And stuff like that? The competition
back then was more than it is now,

590
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.840
I believe anyway. And uh oh
yeah, yes, everybody turned out

591
00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:23.119
quick and even. And we had
street boxes then and most of them were

592
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:27.679
false. It didn't make any difference. If there was a twenty five box

593
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:29.840
and they were supposed to be first
in it, we got there first.

594
00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:34.440
I didn't hear the end of it. Man didn't hear the end of eight

595
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:37.800
engine ten truck were our wound up. They were west of us. It

596
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:42.280
was the same way with them.
The competition was fierce. It really was.

597
00:42:42.440 --> 00:42:46.079
It was good nature, but it
was fiercest. I love it.

598
00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:50.760
That's good. Makes everybody better,
right, coots, thanks, everybody better?

599
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:52.599
You're right? Makes the upstick game. You know. When we went

600
00:42:52.679 --> 00:42:57.239
there, when we turned the engine
into a squad, they all hated us.

601
00:42:57.280 --> 00:43:00.239
They hated us because we would steal
the boxes we made them. Yeah,

602
00:43:00.840 --> 00:43:02.559
yeah, yeah, not gonna get
out. We're gonna take your box.

603
00:43:02.840 --> 00:43:07.960
That's right exactly there for the ticket. Yeah. We if we beat

604
00:43:08.039 --> 00:43:10.119
him in, we'd ask them what
happened? Your door's stuck down. You

605
00:43:10.159 --> 00:43:15.679
couldn't get out? Why what happened? Uh? So July seventy five,

606
00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:21.679
July seventeenth, at a dwelling five
five thirty sixth Lauren Street. Yeah,

607
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:27.440
that was three blocks from thirteen Engine, middle of the night, at four

608
00:43:27.480 --> 00:43:31.280
o'clock in the morning, I guess, And it was a worker and Stan

609
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:35.960
Williams had the pipe. I don't
know where my officer, the captain,

610
00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:38.280
wasn't working on it. I wound
up behind stand after I got off,

611
00:43:38.719 --> 00:43:44.760
and this place was rolling and they
were screaming that people were trapped. There's

612
00:43:44.760 --> 00:43:51.400
a three story dwelling row house and
when Stands alarm went off for his bottle.

613
00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:53.920
I took the pipe and I wound
up trying to go up the steps,

614
00:43:54.920 --> 00:44:00.360
and it was hottest fire had ever
been in And I got to the

615
00:44:00.440 --> 00:44:05.239
third floor and my bell went off, and I kept going out of stupidity.

616
00:44:06.159 --> 00:44:07.440
And then when of course, in
your air runs out and the mask

617
00:44:07.480 --> 00:44:13.000
goes that camp. He took the
mask off, went to go down the

618
00:44:13.039 --> 00:44:16.000
steps, fell down of steps and
fell about ten feet and I didn't know

619
00:44:16.079 --> 00:44:19.559
if they told me later. I
crawled right over a two year old baby

620
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:27.159
on a slavery way and we lost
six people dead, eight injured. And

621
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:30.440
the guy that set the fire,
a girl owed him twenty dollars, I'll

622
00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:35.559
burn you out, and he fire
bombed the place twenty bucks. Twenty bucks.

623
00:44:35.840 --> 00:44:40.679
Yeah, that's crazy. Had some
high rise fires and the Murphy Homes.

624
00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:46.400
Of those like the Murphy Homes,
it was four buildings fourteen stories high,

625
00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:52.599
like a fourteenth story ur. I
mean it was. It was terrible.

626
00:44:52.840 --> 00:44:55.599
That's a good one. I like
that one story. I've been in

627
00:44:55.639 --> 00:45:00.119
a couple of others. It was
terrible. Yeah, you had a guy.

628
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:02.559
He wasn't in our wasn't in our
house. It was in another house.

629
00:45:04.360 --> 00:45:06.400
Well, we go down there and
they would throw stuff out of the

630
00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:08.559
high rise, out of some stuff. We went down and uh, he

631
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:12.880
got this guy got hit. We
had the cops with us and this fireman

632
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:15.360
and name Ernie Florentine. The old
tary guy had twenty some years and he

633
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.960
got hit with a bottle and a
helmet that burke cut his face. Cops

634
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:22.159
are staring. He grabs the cop. He's trying to get the gun out

635
00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:25.800
of the cops because we grabbed.
He's rustling around with the cop. Finally

636
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:30.000
we pulled him away and later I
said, Ernie, what are you gonna

637
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:31.400
do if you got that gun out? He said, I was just gonna

638
00:45:31.400 --> 00:45:40.119
start basting away a good thing crazy
so he can shot in front of us

639
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:44.880
while we were down there. I
mean it was It was a bad,

640
00:45:45.079 --> 00:45:46.880
a bad, bad place, man. Wow. He blew him up.

641
00:45:46.960 --> 00:45:49.920
A couple of years before I got
out of the fire department. They blew

642
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:53.400
them all up, the low rises
in there. What was that neighborhood life

643
00:45:53.440 --> 00:45:55.960
back then? Was it like the
South Bronx? Would you say like it

644
00:45:57.079 --> 00:46:00.039
was it? It was never in
the South Bronx, But I can I

645
00:46:00.079 --> 00:46:01.960
can tell you from what I've read
it probably was like the South Pars.

646
00:46:02.360 --> 00:46:06.960
I mean it was. It was
a bad it got worse. It got

647
00:46:07.039 --> 00:46:12.880
worse. When the crack epidemic came, they got it worse. Willie Gibson,

648
00:46:12.920 --> 00:46:15.360
the old guy for twenty five Engines, told me that at one time

649
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:19.599
Pennsylvania Avenue was the main third fair
through Westimo at the time. And he

650
00:46:19.639 --> 00:46:23.599
said there were night clubs in there. All the top black acts, the

651
00:46:27.519 --> 00:46:30.360
where the singers, the top singers, the top proops. They all went

652
00:46:30.360 --> 00:46:35.440
to Pennsylvania Avenue. It was really
big. And when that when everything got

653
00:46:35.519 --> 00:46:38.239
bad and everything got vacant, and
the rats took over and the crack heads

654
00:46:38.280 --> 00:46:44.119
took over. Man, I'm telling
you, I've never said I hadn't been.

655
00:46:44.239 --> 00:46:46.280
Never in my life. I've been
to West Baltimore before I got assigned

656
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:51.920
to twenty five Engine or fourth drawn. I was amazed. A lot of

657
00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:57.280
vacants, a lot of vacant stare
right, oh yeah then and probably less

658
00:46:57.519 --> 00:47:00.360
then. When I got the fire
department, it was nine seventy thousand people

659
00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:05.920
in Baltimore. Now there was five
hundred and fifty thousand. Wow, everybody

660
00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:07.840
moved out that could move out.
I felt sorry. For the people that

661
00:47:08.199 --> 00:47:12.960
couldn't move. They were stuck.
They they couldn't come out at night.

662
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:15.679
When I was an eight entril tumble, they couldn't come out at night around

663
00:47:15.679 --> 00:47:22.119
there. I remember, I think
I told Cobo this. I remember.

664
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:24.920
I think it was ninety three,
ninety four. Uh. We went to

665
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.840
the fire Expo down there at Baltimore, right in the Harbor, and a

666
00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:31.880
friend of mine, he had like
the scanner and everything. He I had

667
00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:35.800
just got on the job, but
he was like a big buff buss And

668
00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:40.199
I remember driving around like in some
of the blocks just outside of the Harbor.

669
00:47:40.199 --> 00:47:43.920
I don't know what part of Baltimore
it was, but you could have

670
00:47:43.960 --> 00:47:47.679
told me I was in Lebanon,
Like yeah, it was absolutely yeah.

671
00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:51.559
I mean it was burned out.
It was. I mean it was just

672
00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:55.360
people just sitting in the streets like
walking around. It looked like I bombed

673
00:47:55.400 --> 00:47:59.320
out, you know what. I
what I would think Lebanon or one of

674
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:01.199
those places what you said, eleven
On, because I was compared to the

675
00:48:01.239 --> 00:48:05.639
Bay Route. Yeah, same thing, same type of thing. I would

676
00:48:05.679 --> 00:48:07.400
tell people if they went to your
harbor, I said, don't wander away.

677
00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:12.760
Yes, there you go. We
used to weft more than five or

678
00:48:12.800 --> 00:48:15.599
six blocks. No, it's I
couldn't even believe I was looking. I

679
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:19.320
was just talking. I don't know
how I was talking to. It amazed

680
00:48:19.360 --> 00:48:22.400
me when I first got on the
job. In the project areas, like

681
00:48:23.119 --> 00:48:27.760
three o'clock in the morning, you
get a run maybe kids playing like hopscotch

682
00:48:27.880 --> 00:48:30.480
and people out talking, and I'm
like, it's three o'clock in the morning.

683
00:48:30.719 --> 00:48:35.159
Yeah, the next ten, eleven, twelve, one o'clock, it's

684
00:48:35.199 --> 00:48:40.119
like a coach. Nobody's sleep,
nobody's awe. I used to going to

685
00:48:40.199 --> 00:48:45.960
sleep the world. Yeah, I
used to. I used to drive a

686
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:50.840
little truck part time, and if
I hadn't deliver in the ghetto, I

687
00:48:50.920 --> 00:48:53.559
made my deliveries. It's between six
and seven in the morning because all the

688
00:48:53.639 --> 00:48:58.800
crackheads were asleep. Yeah, six
and seven in the morning. If you

689
00:48:58.880 --> 00:49:00.280
got there at eleven o'clock, they
were getting up. They were looking for

690
00:49:00.519 --> 00:49:02.800
who they were going to rob.
Yeah, they rob you right. Yeah.

691
00:49:04.440 --> 00:49:06.159
I did the same thing. I
had to trump a canna wrap.

692
00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:13.480
In nineteen seventy six, you get
a new captain named Charlie Immel. Oh.

693
00:49:13.719 --> 00:49:17.119
Yeah, Captain Goloski made chief.
He left Charlie Emo was on four

694
00:49:17.199 --> 00:49:20.599
truck and he wanted to do engine
work and he came over with us.

695
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:23.320
That was a blessing man. This
guy was fun. He was a lot

696
00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:29.440
of fun. He was. It
was a good captain and one hell of

697
00:49:29.519 --> 00:49:32.239
a firefighter. He uh one year
with us. I don't know if it

698
00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:37.119
was seventy six. It might have
been seventy six or seventy seven. He

699
00:49:37.320 --> 00:49:40.480
was firefighter the year for Balma City. He had three rescues. The last

700
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:45.440
one we were with him, he
crawled up the steps and uh, tipped

701
00:49:45.440 --> 00:49:47.719
the crib over. He couldn't stand
up. It was too hot. You

702
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:51.719
didn't have a mask. When he
tipped the crib over and a baby rolled

703
00:49:51.719 --> 00:49:54.199
out. Wow. He picked the
baby up and crawled back down and just

704
00:49:54.280 --> 00:49:58.960
as he got the steps to the
entire hallway in the in the room flashed

705
00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:01.880
over and uh, that was his
third rescue of that year. Wow,

706
00:50:02.760 --> 00:50:07.079
he got Firefighter of the year.
He used to turn he used to turn

707
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:10.360
take the corder on when he turned
out because he wanted to hear him.

708
00:50:10.559 --> 00:50:15.320
He wanted to practice if he was
first in to say, working fire.

709
00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:24.719
He's walking around the firehouse working fire. One day one day, I'm driving

710
00:50:25.840 --> 00:50:30.360
box and uh, we don't see
anything. And he's getting ready to call

711
00:50:30.400 --> 00:50:34.360
on a false alarm. And I
look over and a half a block over

712
00:50:34.440 --> 00:50:37.840
on McCalla Street, flames are going
out the third floor of his row house.

713
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:40.039
I said, Christ, look over
there. He picks up the microphone.

714
00:50:40.079 --> 00:50:47.360
He says, we got one.
I said, been practicing for two

715
00:50:47.480 --> 00:50:52.559
months here, what's going on?
I don't know. I think you'll fold

716
00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:58.199
them the questioning Henry. Yeah,
he was a good guy. He was

717
00:50:58.239 --> 00:51:00.239
a good guy. I liked working
with him. That's funny. Uh,

718
00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:04.599
what about Uh? And I'm up
to seventy seven. A lot of these

719
00:51:04.639 --> 00:51:07.440
guys still haven't been born yet.
Dwelly fire at seventeen hundred Madison Avenue.

720
00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:13.480
Oh yeah, gloves. I was
with mal then and we had we had

721
00:51:13.519 --> 00:51:16.000
been We had a multiple alarm earlier
that day, about five six alarms in

722
00:51:16.039 --> 00:51:21.519
the lumber yard and it was it
was cold and raining, and I'll come

723
00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:24.840
back and I'm on watch from I
think I had four to six or two

724
00:51:24.920 --> 00:51:29.280
to four. I forget which,
but uh, I look out the window

725
00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:34.440
and across the street block away when
the Loon Avenue flames splow out of the

726
00:51:34.480 --> 00:51:37.880
third floor. I turned everybody out. We we go over there to ask

727
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:42.639
for the box and uh. We
get to the top of the steps and

728
00:51:42.760 --> 00:51:45.360
I go to get my gloves.
I left them back in the quarters of

729
00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:49.000
dry already, and I'm we're first. Then I'm laying at the top of

730
00:51:49.039 --> 00:51:51.960
the steps and I looked at him, who was snuggling up behind me.

731
00:51:52.320 --> 00:51:53.960
I said, gryst, I forgot
my gloves. He said, I got

732
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:58.039
a pair. I said good,
and he pulled them out and he said,

733
00:51:58.079 --> 00:51:59.639
but you're the only pair I got, and he put them on.

734
00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:07.960
I like this guy. I'm putting
the pipe on my arm and putting my

735
00:52:07.039 --> 00:52:14.039
hands like that, crawling down the
hall. Yeah, and we found a

736
00:52:14.079 --> 00:52:16.639
guy in there. I should even
told us. We found a guy in

737
00:52:16.719 --> 00:52:21.960
there dead. And when the smoke
cleared, it was blood all over the

738
00:52:22.199 --> 00:52:23.800
bathroom. The guy was laying in
the bathroom. We said, man,

739
00:52:23.800 --> 00:52:28.559
we better leave him there and call
the cops. And there were two cops.

740
00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:30.039
One of my I grew up with, hung in my hung in our

741
00:52:30.079 --> 00:52:34.840
firehouse. And you know their their
sense of humor was just as bad as

742
00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:37.960
ours. And this guy had been
cut his throat, shot him and set

743
00:52:38.039 --> 00:52:40.679
him on fire. And I wanted
to make sure he was dead. The

744
00:52:40.760 --> 00:52:49.760
cops said, there's the worst case
of suicide I've ever seen. So say

745
00:52:49.840 --> 00:53:02.880
that ain't cut himself shaven. Yeah, it was a shop reason. Uh

746
00:53:04.199 --> 00:53:07.000
So nineteen seventies, Doug get burned. Who's Doug gets burned? Falls the

747
00:53:07.079 --> 00:53:10.039
talker, the guy who won't shut
up the talking gets burned. Yeah,

748
00:53:10.800 --> 00:53:14.760
we getta We gonna that shut him
up when he got burned and he was

749
00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:19.039
still talking. Oh I got burned, but he was still talking the whole

750
00:53:19.079 --> 00:53:22.960
time. We were in there,
frawing on behind him. We crawled down

751
00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:27.039
the hallway and just as we started
into the room, it's burned, big

752
00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:30.280
big room burning somebody, some idiot
stuck a hose in the in the window

753
00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:34.840
and blew it right on back on
us, and Dougie threw him. We

754
00:53:35.400 --> 00:53:37.239
wound up out in the hallway again. So I said, come on,

755
00:53:37.320 --> 00:53:39.119
we'll get it. We'll get it
this time. We'll go back in.

756
00:53:39.679 --> 00:53:42.880
And he's like, I got it, I got it. I got He's

757
00:53:42.920 --> 00:53:45.079
talking and talking. We started in. Part of the ceiling comes down.

758
00:53:45.079 --> 00:53:50.400
We got three quarter boots on and
he's he's crawling and it goes right the

759
00:53:50.559 --> 00:53:52.920
embers got right down his boot and
there burns lad. He's like a right

760
00:53:53.599 --> 00:53:57.239
and he's taking the hoose and he's
trying to shoot it down his boot and

761
00:53:57.360 --> 00:54:00.559
every time he takes it off the
fire the fire gets worse. So we

762
00:54:00.719 --> 00:54:05.440
back back out again. So I
said, I'll take the plate about I

763
00:54:05.519 --> 00:54:07.800
stuck the hose in his boot again. I said, I got it,

764
00:54:07.880 --> 00:54:09.960
I'll take it. So I go
in and I work it. We get

765
00:54:10.039 --> 00:54:14.159
I get the fire out, and
my bell's going off. So I go

766
00:54:14.239 --> 00:54:16.360
over the window and I take my
helmet off, and I take my mask

767
00:54:16.440 --> 00:54:20.679
off, and I lean out the
window to get some air. Just as

768
00:54:20.760 --> 00:54:24.119
twenty truck four throwing the twenty four
foot ladder into the window. They can't

769
00:54:24.159 --> 00:54:30.800
see me because of the smooth hit
me right between the eyes for a couple

770
00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:38.480
of seconds, only a couple of
seconds. Take me outside. Don't like

771
00:54:38.559 --> 00:54:49.320
this, not the funk out.
I'm going to Wow, he says,

772
00:54:50.079 --> 00:54:58.840
are you sure see my leg?
That's a great story with that was great

773
00:54:58.920 --> 00:55:00.519
man, He was great. Oh
my god. Cool. Can you imagine

774
00:55:00.559 --> 00:55:04.119
you finally catch your break? You
stick your head out the window and get

775
00:55:04.159 --> 00:55:10.360
a blow and hit you like I
had hurt like a bitch through the ply

776
00:55:10.519 --> 00:55:14.239
without the window, and it came
down like a piece of paper and hit

777
00:55:14.320 --> 00:55:22.079
the captain right in the head.
Oh man, So we got a fire

778
00:55:22.159 --> 00:55:27.679
on Freemont Avenue too, Yeah,
seventy eight. Yeah. Like I said,

779
00:55:27.760 --> 00:55:31.760
the competition was fierce to beat beat
the companies in also eight engine get

780
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:37.400
to this fire dwelling, fire sucker
floor. We get there at the same

781
00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:42.480
time. Into the quarter line inch
the three quarter line. We're going inside.

782
00:55:44.079 --> 00:55:45.559
I'm the pipe man, eight inch
pipe man. We get there,

783
00:55:45.679 --> 00:55:50.519
We're gonna mask off. The mask
is tagging again. Gotta take your gloves

784
00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:52.400
off, take your helmet off,
put the mask on. Pot distrats,

785
00:55:52.440 --> 00:55:55.159
put the helmet on. All I'm
out of the corner of mine. I

786
00:55:55.199 --> 00:55:59.079
can see him. He's keep it. We're both doing the same thing.

787
00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:02.079
He stops to put his gloves on. I said, I ain't put my

788
00:56:02.159 --> 00:56:07.159
clothes. I go up the steps. No clothes I get. I get

789
00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:10.880
up to the top, landing the
fires over to my left, and as

790
00:56:10.960 --> 00:56:14.679
I sco to turn, somebody hollered, look out, look out, it's

791
00:56:14.719 --> 00:56:17.719
over your head. And I turn
and look and it blows out and a

792
00:56:17.800 --> 00:56:22.840
ceiling over my head and I just
curled up into a ball and put the

793
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:25.039
pipe straight up over my head and
open it and everything all the fire is

794
00:56:25.079 --> 00:56:28.639
falling and I can feel it landing
on my hand and nothing I could do

795
00:56:28.719 --> 00:56:30.880
about it. So I hear guys, I'm like you, are you all

796
00:56:30.920 --> 00:56:35.000
right? And I said I'm okay. So I get the fire out and

797
00:56:35.119 --> 00:56:37.960
I asked Chuck cushto from the truck. I said, shine your hand on

798
00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:40.199
my leg. I think I burned
my hand and he's I mean you're light

799
00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:47.039
on my hand. He shines his
leg and all the skin like this said

800
00:56:47.599 --> 00:56:53.400
cheese. I go outside. I'm
in the medicare and this is this is

801
00:56:53.480 --> 00:56:57.920
fire department. This is just like
fireman. I'm into medicure that it's getting

802
00:56:57.920 --> 00:57:00.719
ready to bend my head up,
get ready to pull away on the back

803
00:57:00.800 --> 00:57:05.599
door to medic chief Chuck pushed there. The guy that was in there that

804
00:57:05.679 --> 00:57:09.119
shined his light was the door.
He says, you all right? I

805
00:57:09.159 --> 00:57:12.119
said, yeah, I burn my
hands. So I got to go down

806
00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:15.239
to the hospital. He said,
you're not coming back to work today,

807
00:57:15.280 --> 00:57:16.320
are you? I said hell no? He said, can I have your

808
00:57:16.400 --> 00:57:25.000
lunch? I was off. I
was off part of while I was first

809
00:57:25.039 --> 00:57:30.039
and some second degree, and I
was off for over a month. I

810
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:31.360
guess, holy thought, I thought
you were going to say, he was

811
00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:37.280
going to say, here's your gloves. I doubt even more. Uh,

812
00:57:37.639 --> 00:57:40.079
I was lucky I didn't get in
trouble for that. That's when I went

813
00:57:40.119 --> 00:57:44.280
to ten truck, ten truck,
not eight. I started. You mentioned

814
00:57:44.320 --> 00:57:46.559
eight as well, so I thought
you might have had some correspondence with these

815
00:57:46.559 --> 00:57:50.800
guys for eight engine. Now you
know what happened When I was at twenty

816
00:57:50.880 --> 00:57:54.119
five and thirteen. Nobody was taking
pictures. There were no phone cameras.

817
00:57:54.800 --> 00:57:59.440
You know. When I got to
eight and ten, we had a guy

818
00:57:59.519 --> 00:58:02.800
that room with named Jim Keith.
Great guy. He was a pharmaceutical salesman

819
00:58:02.880 --> 00:58:07.840
for Lily and he was also a
professional photographer. He did weddings and he

820
00:58:07.960 --> 00:58:12.800
was a firebuff and he had permission
to ride with thirteen truck Rick Lego his

821
00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:16.280
company, and he rode with ten
truck where I was, where I had

822
00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:20.599
gone, and that's where all these
pictures are from. Let me see that

823
00:58:20.679 --> 00:58:22.960
picture again, guns, who is
who are some of those guys in there?

824
00:58:23.440 --> 00:58:28.320
Uh? The guy on the far
left, that's Rodney Carter. Hell

825
00:58:28.360 --> 00:58:30.719
of a farmer and the guy in
the middle he was a lieutenant. I

826
00:58:30.719 --> 00:58:35.440
mean the guy next to Rodney that
was We called him Duke. He got

827
00:58:35.480 --> 00:58:38.079
all busted up on a fire and
when a collapse broke, broke eight ribs.

828
00:58:39.159 --> 00:58:42.840
The guy bending down went through fire
school with my son Ray. It's

829
00:58:42.920 --> 00:58:47.239
Moose Moose. He was a moose. He was a big, powerful boy.

830
00:58:47.960 --> 00:58:51.440
And the guy standing up with the
mustache next to him was the pump

831
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:54.119
operator Alex, and then Bob McMillan
next to him, the tall boy.

832
00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:59.880
We rode to work together for years
and years. Carpoo went into ten truck

833
00:59:00.320 --> 00:59:02.239
and then Charlie next to him.
He was with us for a little while.

834
00:59:02.280 --> 00:59:07.079
He came over his first actor man, and then me and then Mike

835
00:59:07.159 --> 00:59:09.440
Proser. He was the other ev
D with me. He recalled him the

836
00:59:09.519 --> 00:59:14.280
energizer bunny. You couldn't wear him
out. I mean he would work I

837
00:59:14.320 --> 00:59:19.159
think until he until he dropped dead, and they were all. I was

838
00:59:19.239 --> 00:59:22.519
so lucky in all the years that
I was in that I've worked with so

839
00:59:22.880 --> 00:59:29.719
many really good, good fireing man. I felt like I was extremely lucky

840
00:59:29.800 --> 00:59:35.400
to have that happen. It's like
Disney World ra Yeah, and here they

841
00:59:35.440 --> 00:59:37.760
were. They were a bunch of
good guys. I don't keep in touch

842
00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:43.320
with many of him anymore. Rodney
died of cancer, Duke died, Moose

843
00:59:43.480 --> 00:59:46.840
just retired. I talked to Alex, I talked to Bobby, and Mike

844
00:59:46.920 --> 00:59:51.159
moved to West Virginia when he retired. Mike Prosier, he moved to West

845
00:59:51.239 --> 00:59:54.599
Virginia when he go far away from
West Baltimore as he could get. Yeah.

846
00:59:54.639 --> 01:00:00.360
Hell yeah. All the rigs in
Baltimore still white. Uh uh yeah

847
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:07.079
now they're yeah, I think except
we had the Gray Ghost was there?

848
01:00:07.119 --> 01:00:10.119
It is. That's the one I
drove until the Great Ghost. That's the

849
01:00:10.199 --> 01:00:13.400
Great Ghost. It was supposed to
be painted, and they never did it.

850
01:00:13.679 --> 01:00:21.760
They left the primer for years.
Nothing no, nothing, nothing generic

851
01:00:21.880 --> 01:00:25.519
fight. That's no frills right there. I gotta tell Potter, Potter Wills,

852
01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:30.079
that was a that truck. When
you would it rode like the wind,

853
01:00:30.159 --> 01:00:34.920
I mean it would five speed and
it could really roll. And the

854
01:00:34.960 --> 01:00:37.199
neighbors they knew it as the Great
Ghost. Cops knew it as the Gray

855
01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:42.559
Ghost. I freaking love it.
Man. That's a great pick. Look

856
01:00:42.599 --> 01:00:45.119
at that thing. Huh that's over
the roof of ten truck, and that

857
01:00:45.239 --> 01:00:50.679
photographer friend of mine, Jim Keith, he took that. You see all

858
01:00:50.840 --> 01:00:54.119
three storage dwellings clock a block after
block. Not a car on the road.

859
01:00:55.559 --> 01:01:00.119
I'm sorry, does a pickup truck
on the other way before you a

860
01:01:00.239 --> 01:01:02.679
to ten? You were at fifteen
right? Yeah? Before Well, I

861
01:01:02.760 --> 01:01:08.719
got promoted to ev D and I
went to twenty five truck. It was

862
01:01:08.800 --> 01:01:15.039
the second slowest truck company in Balmer
City and I almost went out of my

863
01:01:15.119 --> 01:01:20.079
mind there. It was just way, way, way too slow for me.

864
01:01:21.079 --> 01:01:24.000
I was called a floating EVD.
If they needed anywhere in that battalion,

865
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:28.280
if they needed somebody driver, tiller, but all three trucks were slow

866
01:01:28.360 --> 01:01:32.880
in that battalion. I didn't like
it. And then Captain Gileskie called me

867
01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:36.760
up, so I hear you're not
too happy yet. He was the chief

868
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:39.280
and a busy battalion. I said, no, I'm not and he said,

869
01:01:39.440 --> 01:01:45.159
edulate the flat with me. I
said, I'd appreciate it. I

870
01:01:45.239 --> 01:01:47.920
think I floated for less than a
year. And then when he called me

871
01:01:49.039 --> 01:01:52.000
up two weeks later, I was
in his battalion and I wound up at

872
01:01:52.039 --> 01:01:57.079
fifteen truck, which was in the
east side in the ghetto, single house,

873
01:01:57.880 --> 01:02:01.159
real busy and a bunch of good
guys, guys that knew what they

874
01:02:01.199 --> 01:02:06.440
were doing. Had a big,
big barrel Chester lieutenant that I watched him

875
01:02:06.840 --> 01:02:09.519
pick a civilian up that staggered into
the firehouse screaming at us. He picked

876
01:02:09.599 --> 01:02:13.199
him up by the seat of his
passing his collar, threw him out of

877
01:02:13.199 --> 01:02:19.199
the firehouse body. I was like, we need that was there. I

878
01:02:19.280 --> 01:02:21.480
was there for a couple of years. I had some good fires there.

879
01:02:22.599 --> 01:02:24.679
Where is that picture Gouds with the
three guys walking away? Where was that?

880
01:02:25.800 --> 01:02:30.880
Oh? That was that's Bob McMillan
and me and and Mike Brazier on

881
01:02:30.960 --> 01:02:34.400
the right. That was it?
That was it. That's all old ten

882
01:02:34.480 --> 01:02:36.760
truck. That's the gray goose.
That's the back of the gray goose.

883
01:02:37.920 --> 01:02:40.320
That's a great picture. Man.
Yeah, I like that. Jim Keith

884
01:02:40.360 --> 01:02:44.480
took that one too. We had
maybe it was a second alarm on Pennsylvania

885
01:02:44.480 --> 01:02:47.760
Avenue. We were walking back to
the truck in the rain. Oh,

886
01:02:47.840 --> 01:02:52.920
there's the little t tent under there, yeah, truck ten. Yeah,

887
01:02:52.400 --> 01:02:59.239
Yeah, that's the sport Tilla cabs
I've seen after a while until the cab

888
01:02:59.320 --> 01:03:04.960
broke and instead of fixing it,
they just put it off. So you're

889
01:03:05.039 --> 01:03:12.800
driving like Kramer sat like at fifteen
Truck. When I went to fifteen Truck,

890
01:03:12.840 --> 01:03:16.639
their first line truck was was uh, just a windshield in a seer

891
01:03:16.800 --> 01:03:21.679
room, no cab. And I
used to tell there were younger, younger

892
01:03:21.719 --> 01:03:22.880
guys there. I used to tell
them, said, man, make you

893
01:03:23.119 --> 01:03:25.880
put your seatbelt on. I said, if you hit a curb, you'll

894
01:03:25.880 --> 01:03:30.280
go flying out of there. And
there was a guy there named Tony Rose,

895
01:03:30.360 --> 01:03:32.679
good guy man, nice guy,
young guy. He was still didn't

896
01:03:32.679 --> 01:03:38.679
put a seatbelt on, got hit
my car at Fayette and Patterson Park and

897
01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:44.360
somehow by the time they got it
stopped, he was up inside the wheel

898
01:03:44.440 --> 01:03:50.159
well of the tiller and his leg
was almost cut off. And we were

899
01:03:50.239 --> 01:03:53.360
I was at a union meeting and
uh they announced it. Fifteen truck just

900
01:03:53.480 --> 01:03:58.199
racked up in its bed. Sounds
bad. The rescue is going. So

901
01:03:58.360 --> 01:04:00.440
we left him and rode up there. Time we got there, they had

902
01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:04.000
to take the timber wheel off to
get him out. Oh my god,

903
01:04:04.840 --> 01:04:08.679
he was screaming for him to kill
him. He was in so much pain.

904
01:04:09.079 --> 01:04:12.199
And they saved his leg, but
he was never able to come back

905
01:04:12.199 --> 01:04:15.239
to work. Oh my, he
would have had a seatbelt on. Nothing

906
01:04:15.239 --> 01:04:17.360
would happen. I've had a few
guys in the wheel well that they don't

907
01:04:17.440 --> 01:04:23.000
usually do well in there. No
will wind up at the wheel well.

908
01:04:23.079 --> 01:04:26.320
It's not a good place. No
no. And I was there for a

909
01:04:26.360 --> 01:04:30.480
couple of years. Ten were talking
about right, I was fifteen, oh

910
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:32.960
fifteen, But then you go to
ten. You get any good fire stories

911
01:04:33.000 --> 01:04:40.519
from ten? Oh? Yeah,
ten ten. I spent seventeen years at

912
01:04:40.559 --> 01:04:47.320
ten. One or two coobs one
or two, three or four. Yeah.

913
01:04:47.440 --> 01:04:54.559
I worked with Lieutenant Don't who was
probably eight eight. I'd saone who

914
01:04:54.599 --> 01:04:59.000
left with the white hair. I
love it. Uh hard as nails,

915
01:04:59.039 --> 01:05:03.840
this guy man five eight five eight. If I'm stretching it, then Coop

916
01:05:03.880 --> 01:05:11.159
stretches it all the time. And
if you did something and another officer hollered

917
01:05:11.199 --> 01:05:14.679
at you, man, he would
come over and get in that officer's face

918
01:05:14.760 --> 01:05:16.480
and scream out him. If he
needs to be hollered at, I'll holler

919
01:05:16.599 --> 01:05:19.639
at him. Hell. Yeah.
He was in the old school. No

920
01:05:19.840 --> 01:05:23.800
mask or very You saw him with
a mask, he was like, hey,

921
01:05:23.840 --> 01:05:27.400
look look he's got a mask on. Yeah, very very solid.

922
01:05:28.159 --> 01:05:30.119
He used to be five ten,
right, But you know when you get

923
01:05:30.159 --> 01:05:33.159
the gray hair, you start shrinking, you know, shrinking, that's shrinking.

924
01:05:34.199 --> 01:05:36.519
We we're down the high ride.
We're down to Murphy Holmes. And

925
01:05:36.559 --> 01:05:40.760
like I said, Murphy homes were
filthy, filthy, filthy. And we

926
01:05:40.840 --> 01:05:44.719
get a fire on the eighth floor. And the elevators were always out of

927
01:05:44.760 --> 01:05:49.079
service. They were broken. And
so me and and uh Rick through Theberg

928
01:05:49.760 --> 01:05:54.679
and Martin office. We put masks. Thanks one got the mask kind of

929
01:05:54.719 --> 01:05:58.559
down. We got to run to
the eighth floor. Well Doult she was

930
01:05:58.559 --> 01:06:00.320
a lot older than us, but
with no man as going and it was

931
01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:04.599
great shape. He takes off.
He pieces up there. We get up

932
01:06:04.639 --> 01:06:09.199
there, he said. He's kneeling
down. He says, Christ of smoke's

933
01:06:09.239 --> 01:06:13.639
down here. And the door is
closed to the hallway at each end,

934
01:06:14.840 --> 01:06:17.400
so we may ask up. He
opens the door. We go in.

935
01:06:17.519 --> 01:06:20.239
We're calling I go. We dropped
this door open. I go all the

936
01:06:20.239 --> 01:06:24.199
way down, drop the other door
open, try and get some ventilation.

937
01:06:25.079 --> 01:06:29.280
I'm coming back. I'm I'm duck
walking coming back. There's Lieutenant Dots.

938
01:06:29.679 --> 01:06:32.840
His mouth is on the floor and
his fallway and his lips dragging on the

939
01:06:32.960 --> 01:06:40.760
floor. I said, is it
fluid taste? Lieutenant? You knocked it.

940
01:06:45.920 --> 01:06:49.199
He was a good guy man,
he was. He was a hard

941
01:06:49.280 --> 01:06:55.719
guy and uh Rick Sludeberg worked there. He drove and I tiller and uh

942
01:06:56.280 --> 01:07:00.679
and he could drive to he could
make that thing fly and it was and

943
01:07:00.760 --> 01:07:02.480
he was a really really good fuck
That's what I said. I had so

944
01:07:02.599 --> 01:07:08.199
much luck working with these guys that
were such good firefighters. Yeah, have

945
01:07:08.199 --> 01:07:11.119
to worry about your back. These
guys at your back at all. I'm

946
01:07:11.159 --> 01:07:14.599
sure they said the same about you, right, Huh, I'm sure they

947
01:07:14.639 --> 01:07:17.159
said the same thing about you.
Oh yeah, I would hope they did.

948
01:07:17.639 --> 01:07:25.880
Yeah. Uh So November twenty eighty
five, Lieutenant Nelson Taylor, Yeah,

949
01:07:26.280 --> 01:07:30.239
he wasn't on our shift. We
came in on day work and his

950
01:07:30.360 --> 01:07:35.079
shift was still standing. They were
standing a stairing at the door and I

951
01:07:35.199 --> 01:07:40.199
walked in. It's going on and
somebody said, Lieutenant Taylor got killed in

952
01:07:40.199 --> 01:07:43.880
the dwelling last night. Turns out
that they had had a fire in a

953
01:07:43.920 --> 01:07:48.800
basement and he was one eight engine. Lieutenant Taylor was and the pipe man

954
01:07:48.960 --> 01:07:54.760
they stopped to mask up and gloves
and he got done before the pipe man.

955
01:07:54.840 --> 01:07:57.280
He said, I'll take the pipe, and he went in and he

956
01:07:57.360 --> 01:08:00.840
got to the basement steps and he
started down and it blew back, and

957
01:08:00.920 --> 01:08:03.920
he threw himself backwards, and there
was a refrigerator behind him, and he

958
01:08:04.039 --> 01:08:10.960
bounced off of it and rolled down
the steps, and the captain of the

959
01:08:11.119 --> 01:08:15.599
truck tended to Captain Shugate. He
tried to get him, and he wound

960
01:08:15.679 --> 01:08:19.279
up getting it, almost almost died
himself. The tenant, Taylor died down

961
01:08:19.319 --> 01:08:25.119
there in the basement and they left. It pissed me off. They left

962
01:08:25.159 --> 01:08:28.680
the whole shift one due to the
rest of the night running if they got

963
01:08:28.720 --> 01:08:30.640
another fire. Oh my god,
really you do that? Oh man,

964
01:08:31.439 --> 01:08:35.399
Oh, who the fuck made that
cold? I guess the chief. I

965
01:08:35.439 --> 01:08:39.720
don't know, chief of fire department. I guess. Yeah, that was

966
01:08:39.840 --> 01:08:45.039
cold. That was cold. That
pissed everybody off. Taylor I didn't know

967
01:08:45.159 --> 01:08:46.079
that well. He was one of
the other shifts. He worked from the

968
01:08:46.119 --> 01:08:50.199
East Side for most of his career. But everybody that talked about him had

969
01:08:50.279 --> 01:08:53.640
nothing but good things to say.
In twenty six years, it says,

970
01:08:53.760 --> 01:08:59.640
huh, yeah, a shame,
shame. What about the high rise firing

971
01:08:59.680 --> 01:09:03.039
the homes? And that was one
of my dults we're crawling on the floor.

972
01:09:03.239 --> 01:09:11.279
Okay, falling on the floor.
Look back on that one. Mm

973
01:09:11.359 --> 01:09:15.039
hmmm. And I had a fire
on Laurence Street and got Laurence Street was

974
01:09:15.079 --> 01:09:18.760
a business street. And we pull
up and there's a girl. The smoke

975
01:09:18.800 --> 01:09:24.840
coming out the second floor too story
joint and uh, I said, teenage

976
01:09:24.840 --> 01:09:29.399
girl sitting on the steps and me
and Donald Horton got off. So there's

977
01:09:29.399 --> 01:09:31.279
nobody in there? Is that?
She said, Oh yeah, my mother

978
01:09:31.319 --> 01:09:36.000
and father upstairs in the Oh my
god. We rush upstairs. They were

979
01:09:36.000 --> 01:09:40.399
in the back bedroom and it was
the middle room burner. We crawled past

980
01:09:40.439 --> 01:09:45.560
the middle room and we forced the
door open, hit about halfway and we

981
01:09:45.680 --> 01:09:47.560
find the guy and we dragged him
out to the steps and we go back

982
01:09:47.640 --> 01:09:50.399
in and we're pushing on the door, pushing the door, and we finally

983
01:09:50.439 --> 01:09:54.359
get in and we find a woman. She the reason we couldn't get the

984
01:09:54.359 --> 01:09:58.279
door, but she was behind it
and we drag her out. And the

985
01:09:58.319 --> 01:10:00.720
whole time I'm thinking, I know, move is coming with this pipe so

986
01:10:00.920 --> 01:10:03.479
we don't get trapped in here.
And that's what I said, you could

987
01:10:03.479 --> 01:10:08.439
depend on these guys. Man,
And the eight engine came up and we

988
01:10:08.560 --> 01:10:12.159
crawled by and they were coming into
hitting the fire. We crawled the steps,

989
01:10:12.600 --> 01:10:17.880
dragged the people outside, and they
both made a full recovery. And

990
01:10:17.960 --> 01:10:21.439
there's a picture, one of the
pictures in there, me and Donald Horton

991
01:10:21.800 --> 01:10:26.319
sitting on the running board of the
truck after we pulled those people out.

992
01:10:27.000 --> 01:10:30.960
That's it right there. And the
guy Jim Keifer took that picture. He

993
01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.000
said it's one of his favorite pictures. And what was telling when that picture

994
01:10:34.039 --> 01:10:39.239
that we didn't know until later.
You can see I'm relaxed, I'm okay.

995
01:10:39.680 --> 01:10:43.600
Donald's leaning on his knees, leaning
on the truck like he's having trouble

996
01:10:43.640 --> 01:10:45.920
breathing. I was saying, that's
a tripod position there. Yeah, damn

997
01:10:45.960 --> 01:10:53.079
it, that ems coming out and
you listen, we've been talking about it

998
01:10:53.119 --> 01:10:58.279
all night. That's all I got
in my head is d fibbs and uhs.

999
01:11:00.399 --> 01:11:02.000
A couple of years after that picture
was taken, he was home and

1000
01:11:02.079 --> 01:11:06.119
had a massive heart attack and died. A yeah, he was in his

1001
01:11:06.399 --> 01:11:10.560
I think he was like forty some
years old, like middle forties. Look

1002
01:11:10.600 --> 01:11:13.039
at you there is that okay,
looks like a movie star. Rough for

1003
01:11:13.119 --> 01:11:20.239
crying out loud. Look I like
looking at it because I'm thinner there eighty

1004
01:11:20.359 --> 01:11:25.279
five there, now I'm two twenty. Did you get a metal or citation

1005
01:11:25.439 --> 01:11:28.600
for that and anything for that?
Yeah, we we probably would have.

1006
01:11:29.439 --> 01:11:30.640
Well, we didn't push it,
and we had a We had a really

1007
01:11:30.680 --> 01:11:35.000
tough battalion chief. He was hard
to please. To please, you say,

1008
01:11:35.079 --> 01:11:38.840
two people who lived, I mean, come on, I mean that

1009
01:11:39.039 --> 01:11:42.000
was the way it was. It's
just the way it was back then.

1010
01:11:42.319 --> 01:11:45.279
That's crazy, right, just doing
the job, right, bro. Yeah,

1011
01:11:45.720 --> 01:11:48.680
yeah, John Johnson said Charles Bronson. He does look a little bit

1012
01:11:48.720 --> 01:11:55.840
like Charles Bronson. Yeah, all
my life, my life, Yeah,

1013
01:11:56.199 --> 01:11:59.319
John Johnson's right, which was piggy
on the same one we just had.

1014
01:11:59.479 --> 01:12:03.479
Yeah, yeah, I would rather
look like Brad Pitt. I didn't work

1015
01:12:03.600 --> 01:12:10.600
down. And then in eighty six
I burned one whole side in my face

1016
01:12:11.560 --> 01:12:15.960
a gas meter in a basement fire. We had it knocked. It was

1017
01:12:16.079 --> 01:12:21.520
just smoldering in places, and we
didn't know that the gas meter was leaking,

1018
01:12:23.279 --> 01:12:26.279
and all of a sudden I had
a helmet on with the shield down,

1019
01:12:26.640 --> 01:12:30.279
no mask, and all of a
sudden it lit off and the gas

1020
01:12:30.439 --> 01:12:34.239
was inside my mask and it burned
the whole right side of my face.

1021
01:12:34.560 --> 01:12:40.439
Ouch. I drove out the basement
window. It was about twenty degrees outside,

1022
01:12:41.079 --> 01:12:42.880
and I'm laying there thinking, man, I hope I didn't burn my

1023
01:12:42.960 --> 01:12:45.119
eye or what I hope it didn't
lose my eye. And the paramatics came

1024
01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:49.600
running over and poured cold water on
it. Took my breath away, and

1025
01:12:49.600 --> 01:12:54.399
then they thought I was having a
heart attack. Took me to the hospital

1026
01:12:54.680 --> 01:13:00.520
and they kept putting cold compresses on
it and wound up smearing silver dean all

1027
01:13:00.600 --> 01:13:04.119
over. It was all blistered up, and so I was in there a

1028
01:13:04.159 --> 01:13:06.560
couple of hours. They released me. I go back to ten truck,

1029
01:13:08.119 --> 01:13:10.880
take my gear back and get get
I'm gonna get my car and go home.

1030
01:13:11.720 --> 01:13:15.880
I walked in and the guys were
like, god damn. Donald's looked

1031
01:13:15.920 --> 01:13:23.119
at me and said, you were
now Robert Redford to begin with, that

1032
01:13:23.279 --> 01:13:25.439
was no. I was off duty
for quite a while with that one.

1033
01:13:25.479 --> 01:13:29.319
I was that was pretty painful.
I was gonna pull that up for you,

1034
01:13:29.880 --> 01:13:32.880
kid. Somebody they're asking about the
towel out with no boom that was

1035
01:13:32.960 --> 01:13:38.720
running coals. They want you to
talk a little bit about what the towel

1036
01:13:38.760 --> 01:13:41.760
out of that had no boom.
I'm assuming the tower was no boom running

1037
01:13:41.800 --> 01:13:45.920
coals. That's that's not mine.
Well all right, well there you go,

1038
01:13:46.359 --> 01:13:50.279
Toman. What are you doing?
Because I had Tom was hitting it

1039
01:13:50.359 --> 01:13:55.880
up too. You'll get that twenty
bucks back Tomomy. Sorry, yeah,

1040
01:13:59.159 --> 01:14:00.640
different guy. It was maybe laut
of forty nine. Maybe I don't know.

1041
01:14:01.119 --> 01:14:09.439
Maybe all right. So I met
Joaquin Phoenix. Oh digit he was

1042
01:14:09.520 --> 01:14:13.640
riding ten truck. I was,
I just retired, just retired, and

1043
01:14:13.720 --> 01:14:17.720
they had him riding ten truck to
learn how to act like a fireman and

1044
01:14:18.159 --> 01:14:20.800
somebody else for Baltimore, saying that
they were really cool, both of those

1045
01:14:20.800 --> 01:14:25.439
guys. To Volta, Oh yeah, my son, John Travolta wrote five

1046
01:14:25.520 --> 01:14:29.199
truck with my son. I got
a picture of my son and him standing

1047
01:14:29.239 --> 01:14:32.279
next to each other. But the
guys that take you said, uh,

1048
01:14:32.680 --> 01:14:38.680
Joaquin Phoenix, we're going down to
the bar down in Canton. He's buying.

1049
01:14:38.960 --> 01:14:41.880
We want you to come down and
meet him. And I went down

1050
01:14:41.960 --> 01:14:45.840
there. He was a little guy, man like five't seven or something.

1051
01:14:45.119 --> 01:14:49.479
Oh whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, Hey, you're not standing

1052
01:14:49.560 --> 01:14:55.760
up. I can't telling you I
am standing a rank five seven might be

1053
01:14:55.800 --> 01:15:00.079
a stretch too. I was just
remember I tell you about when you get

1054
01:15:00.079 --> 01:15:10.520
the gray, hey, you start
shrinking. Here what I wanted to tell

1055
01:15:10.560 --> 01:15:15.319
you. When I was at fifteen
truck, we got a little garage vacant

1056
01:15:15.720 --> 01:15:20.760
full of garbage. We go inside
and no mass four of us and the

1057
01:15:20.880 --> 01:15:26.039
engines there and we're pulling, pulling
things apart and everything, and so whatever

1058
01:15:26.119 --> 01:15:30.199
was burning effected this bed and we
all were having shortness of breath and throwing

1059
01:15:30.279 --> 01:15:32.920
up. So they called him,
and we know we're gonna be all right,

1060
01:15:32.960 --> 01:15:36.680
but they called him. Medic units. So they take me. They're

1061
01:15:36.680 --> 01:15:41.079
taking me to Johns Hopkins Hospital,
and the guy driving a medic was a

1062
01:15:41.119 --> 01:15:44.560
good friend of mine. We played
softball in the fire department softball team together

1063
01:15:44.600 --> 01:15:48.640
and everything. Name is Jerry Morgan. So we get to the hospital and

1064
01:15:48.680 --> 01:15:51.079
I'm on a stretcher and they take
me out and they're wheeling me in the

1065
01:15:51.159 --> 01:15:57.119
hospital and just being a smart ass, I grabbed Jerry by the arm.

1066
01:15:57.199 --> 01:16:00.439
I said, Jerry, I said, if I don't make it, promise

1067
01:16:00.479 --> 01:16:03.600
me you'll have sex with my wife
twice a week. He looked me right

1068
01:16:03.680 --> 01:16:14.960
aye, and he said, I'm
not cutting back for newbody. That's it

1069
01:16:15.760 --> 01:16:21.880
right there, Mike dropping. Wow, that's awesome. And we were talking

1070
01:16:21.880 --> 01:16:26.560
about fifteen truck. I forgot put
that other question up. Somebody there was,

1071
01:16:26.640 --> 01:16:30.760
Mike Ray. I'm sorry, Mike
murrit murrits I did. He was

1072
01:16:30.840 --> 01:16:32.600
a captain of ten truck. Not
on my shift. He wasn't on my

1073
01:16:32.680 --> 01:16:36.800
shift. But yeah, microphone Mike, that's what we called him. Good,

1074
01:16:38.159 --> 01:16:41.159
good, God good. His father
I worked with. His father's father

1075
01:16:41.359 --> 01:16:44.319
was a captain of fourteen engine.
Oh no, well, I got detailed

1076
01:16:44.359 --> 01:16:46.960
down there. He was really a
strict captain. Mike wasn't as strict as

1077
01:16:47.000 --> 01:16:51.079
his fathers, but he was.
They called him microphone micas he would call

1078
01:16:51.159 --> 01:16:54.760
in the size up and it would
go on and on. You know,

1079
01:16:54.840 --> 01:17:01.920
the windows are day on his flowers
and the windows yellow curtains. He was

1080
01:17:01.960 --> 01:17:05.039
a real good guy. I think
he wound up going up to New York

1081
01:17:05.039 --> 01:17:08.159
when he retired, I believe,
and I'm not sure, not in the

1082
01:17:08.239 --> 01:17:12.079
fire department, stup there for relatives
or something. I'm not sure. I

1083
01:17:12.199 --> 01:17:15.760
never laughed about that guy. Oh
that's freaking funny man. All right.

1084
01:17:15.840 --> 01:17:20.479
So December eighty seven, paramedic Pam, Yeah, she was we called her

1085
01:17:20.520 --> 01:17:26.439
aunt be off of Andy Griffith's show. She was a chunky, chunky girl,

1086
01:17:27.000 --> 01:17:30.319
come from that's her. We came
from up the up far out in

1087
01:17:30.359 --> 01:17:35.640
the county, somewhere paramedic signed our
house and we thought, we thought she'll

1088
01:17:35.680 --> 01:17:40.319
never last. There's too much blood, too much core, too much everything

1089
01:17:40.439 --> 01:17:45.560
for a look a little country girl
like her, And and we bugged her

1090
01:17:45.600 --> 01:17:48.079
and she she fit in. She
gave it back and she was. Everybody

1091
01:17:48.159 --> 01:17:54.560
wound up really looking after her and
really liking her. And she was work.

1092
01:17:54.720 --> 01:17:58.600
They worked all fourteen hour nights and
she was exhausted when she got done.

1093
01:17:59.079 --> 01:18:01.279
And I was sitting at the because
she was leaving, and I said,

1094
01:18:01.520 --> 01:18:03.960
Pam, you take it easy going
home. You had a rough night.

1095
01:18:04.119 --> 01:18:08.479
She had about a twenty five thirty
mile drive. Oh, I will.

1096
01:18:09.199 --> 01:18:14.680
And she left and I went back
in the kitchen and Captain Fugate came

1097
01:18:14.720 --> 01:18:16.800
back about fifteen minutes later and he
said, everybody, listen up, said

1098
01:18:16.800 --> 01:18:20.119
I hate to tell you this.
He said, Pam's dead. She got

1099
01:18:20.159 --> 01:18:24.359
the Lafayette Druid Hill and blew through
the light without thinking about it, and

1100
01:18:24.560 --> 01:18:28.640
I hit by a bus, killed
her instantly ejected her right through the passion

1101
01:18:28.640 --> 01:18:30.479
to window killed her. Wow,
that was tough man. I come home

1102
01:18:30.520 --> 01:18:33.000
and told my wife, Man,
I had tears of my eyes. That

1103
01:18:33.159 --> 01:18:38.720
was that was That was tough man. Her father was Captain Nabaul Mac County

1104
01:18:38.760 --> 01:18:44.279
Fire Department. To this day he
swears it's because they worked the paramedics after

1105
01:18:44.359 --> 01:18:49.720
death. Yeah maybe she just lost, just lost. Yeah yeah, cruising

1106
01:18:49.760 --> 01:18:54.159
through the lights with the lights and
sider. Yeah you know what that's true

1107
01:18:54.199 --> 01:19:00.079
man either Yeah. I said the
dog story and thenngined thirty six telling the

1108
01:19:00.199 --> 01:19:10.199
story. Yeah, now you have
to six engine was a forty six engine

1109
01:19:10.319 --> 01:19:14.279
was a single company that we ran
with. They were a mile away from

1110
01:19:14.359 --> 01:19:19.479
us or so single house. Good
guys and uh fire prevention week. They

1111
01:19:19.479 --> 01:19:25.199
would bring in school classes, show
them the fire engine. So they bring

1112
01:19:25.239 --> 01:19:28.439
in a kindergarten class or first grade
whatever it was. They bring them into

1113
01:19:28.479 --> 01:19:32.359
thirty six engines. Well, they
fed a ghetto dog there all the time.

1114
01:19:32.720 --> 01:19:35.479
So the kids are is that the
fire dog? Is that the fire

1115
01:19:35.560 --> 01:19:39.640
dog? They were like, yeah, that's the fire dog. Make them

1116
01:19:39.680 --> 01:19:42.479
happy. So they told the teachers, they said, look at the gongas

1117
01:19:42.520 --> 01:19:44.640
off. We gotta get out of
here. You got to get the kids

1118
01:19:45.479 --> 01:19:48.640
off the side. Make sure you
know everybody's away before we pull out.

1119
01:19:49.680 --> 01:19:53.000
They did a run, the gongers
off, the kids are all on the

1120
01:19:53.079 --> 01:19:56.079
side. They get up in the
truck, pull out, ran right over

1121
01:19:56.119 --> 01:20:06.159
the dog killed it. Jesus.
Within twenty minutes, everybody in the fire

1122
01:20:06.199 --> 01:20:11.319
department that was working knew what happened. Oh my god, that's so funny.

1123
01:20:12.159 --> 01:20:15.600
No, it is. It is
to us. My wife said,

1124
01:20:15.640 --> 01:20:19.520
you shouldn't tell that story. What
is that? That's their thirty six engine

1125
01:20:19.640 --> 01:20:24.680
where it was thirty six? All
right, that's a good looking job.

1126
01:20:25.880 --> 01:20:29.439
Yeah. I just wanted to ship. It was something I had. Oh

1127
01:20:29.600 --> 01:20:32.720
that's good. Then in eighty nine
I had a fire. We had a

1128
01:20:32.760 --> 01:20:36.760
fire at four in the morning on
Presbury Street and I was leaving for can

1129
01:20:36.880 --> 01:20:42.319
Couon on vacation the next day,
and so a little silent prayer to the

1130
01:20:42.359 --> 01:20:46.000
fire gods, maybe leave us alone
the rest of the night, and we

1131
01:20:46.119 --> 01:20:48.359
went out, I don't know,
three or four o'clock in the morning.

1132
01:20:48.840 --> 01:20:53.800
I was I was was that driving, Yeah, I was tillering. The

1133
01:20:53.880 --> 01:20:59.079
rick was frying, and we pull
up two story joint and there was this

1134
01:20:59.239 --> 01:21:01.680
big woman in the window on the
second floor and she's got two kids,

1135
01:21:01.760 --> 01:21:04.800
one on each side of her,
once passed out across the window sill.

1136
01:21:05.159 --> 01:21:10.880
The other one's just staring and she's
screaming a stare. She's a big woman,

1137
01:21:11.000 --> 01:21:15.680
man, she's screaming hysterically. So
there's a guy on step ladder,

1138
01:21:15.760 --> 01:21:18.920
civilian on a step ladder trying to
get to her. So we pulled the

1139
01:21:18.960 --> 01:21:23.560
twenty four off. We kicked the
step ladder out of the way, and

1140
01:21:23.640 --> 01:21:25.800
I'm going up the ladder. I'm
thinking, I got to get this kid

1141
01:21:26.119 --> 01:21:30.840
who's unconscious before he falls back in. And the smoke is just roaring out

1142
01:21:30.920 --> 01:21:33.399
of this place. And I get
about halfway up the ladder and she dives

1143
01:21:33.439 --> 01:21:38.199
out the window, comes straight down
my ladder, and I grabbed the rails

1144
01:21:38.319 --> 01:21:41.960
and turned my head and she crashed
into me, and I'm like, God's

1145
01:21:41.960 --> 01:21:45.119
still here. I thought for sure
she'd take me with her, and I

1146
01:21:45.199 --> 01:21:46.960
took her down one rung at a
time, and I got her on the

1147
01:21:47.039 --> 01:21:49.760
ground and I got her over and
I said, no, is there anybody

1148
01:21:49.760 --> 01:21:54.359
else in there? She said,
there's five more people in there. And

1149
01:21:55.520 --> 01:22:00.279
Rick and Donald had thrown another ladder
next to the twenty four and they got

1150
01:22:00.319 --> 01:22:04.199
the boy out. There was in
shock, staring, and then Rick went

1151
01:22:04.279 --> 01:22:08.520
up did a great job. The
window came down on the kid, and

1152
01:22:08.640 --> 01:22:12.159
Rick went up and pushed the window
up and strouded the windowsill, got the

1153
01:22:12.239 --> 01:22:15.279
kid out, pulled his leg out, climbed down the ladder, brought him

1154
01:22:15.319 --> 01:22:18.399
out. I went inside, Me
and Donald went inside. And it is

1155
01:22:19.000 --> 01:22:25.760
roaring rooms and I can't get to
the back. The back's not the front's

1156
01:22:25.800 --> 01:22:30.600
not burning. But if I move, there's nobody with a line yet it's

1157
01:22:30.640 --> 01:22:32.520
going to get us. And here
comes somebody with a line eight engine with

1158
01:22:32.640 --> 01:22:38.600
a lineup the steps and they're hitting
it. And another thirteen or somebody else

1159
01:22:38.640 --> 01:22:41.520
came up and they're hitting it.
And I said, don't let that get

1160
01:22:41.640 --> 01:22:45.800
down this hallway. And me and
Donald crawled down the hallway, and we

1161
01:22:45.920 --> 01:22:51.079
found a teenage boy in a side
room and dragged him out, and we

1162
01:22:51.159 --> 01:22:55.760
crawled back down. We found a
woman in the front room, dragged him

1163
01:22:55.840 --> 01:23:02.520
out her out, and somebody found
a grandmother in a chair but not too

1164
01:23:02.560 --> 01:23:06.680
far from the window, and somebody
else got somebody else had It was five

1165
01:23:06.760 --> 01:23:12.439
of them all together, and uh, but none of that. We lost

1166
01:23:12.520 --> 01:23:15.000
all five of them. The only
ones who lived with the three that we

1167
01:23:15.079 --> 01:23:17.239
got out the window. So she
jumped out the window and left the two

1168
01:23:17.319 --> 01:23:19.880
kids there. She come down head
first, left her kids in there,

1169
01:23:20.880 --> 01:23:25.000
left their kids in there. Yeah, that blew my mind when I was

1170
01:23:25.039 --> 01:23:28.119
thinking about it afterwards. Yeah,
I mean I've seen that a few times

1171
01:23:28.159 --> 01:23:32.279
too. With that, people like
really panic and they they just forget what

1172
01:23:32.520 --> 01:23:38.600
their responsibility is. I guess I
don't know, Yeah what what? Yeah,

1173
01:23:39.399 --> 01:23:41.279
I couldn't believe. I was still
not louder when she hit me,

1174
01:23:41.319 --> 01:23:45.399
because she put it. She was
probably two hundred and fifty pail bumbles,

1175
01:23:45.439 --> 01:23:56.520
bounce, rookie, he's on it. It's a new roofie. Man getting

1176
01:23:56.600 --> 01:23:59.720
up to the head of something.
I don't know what it is. What's

1177
01:23:59.760 --> 01:24:03.800
good, let's better now, blood
flow's getting up to his head. Now,

1178
01:24:04.079 --> 01:24:11.479
that's sit so Bright Street. That's
nineteen ninety. You don't know what

1179
01:24:11.560 --> 01:24:14.560
it was, nineteen ninety, nineteen
ninety. Yeah, somewhere in there.

1180
01:24:15.319 --> 01:24:19.119
Yeah, we are thirteen truck was
one that fire with us rick Legger's old

1181
01:24:19.159 --> 01:24:23.840
company, and we had to report
of kids inside. And we get in

1182
01:24:23.920 --> 01:24:28.000
there and we're searching, searching,
and we don't find anybody. And I

1183
01:24:28.079 --> 01:24:30.319
went to the window. I hollered
at the chief. I said, we

1184
01:24:30.399 --> 01:24:32.199
can't there's nobody in here. He
said, the people swear to God,

1185
01:24:32.239 --> 01:24:36.520
there's four kids in there. So
we back inside, was searching, searching,

1186
01:24:38.159 --> 01:24:43.600
and one guy saw Paul Evard from
thirteen truck. Yeah, I got

1187
01:24:43.680 --> 01:24:47.239
him. They were in the bathroom, behind the toilet. They were small,

1188
01:24:47.319 --> 01:24:53.159
and they crawled under the sink and
behind the toilet, and we lost

1189
01:24:53.239 --> 01:24:58.439
three. One lived, we got
but Paul. He had come in the

1190
01:24:58.520 --> 01:25:01.960
back window and in that and searched
that. Biff never thought to look behind

1191
01:25:01.960 --> 01:25:05.560
it. They couldn't say the smoke, but you never thought to look behind

1192
01:25:05.560 --> 01:25:10.800
the bit of the toilet. And
he was beside himself. He took that

1193
01:25:10.920 --> 01:25:15.560
one hard. He took that real
hard. The guys from his company here,

1194
01:25:15.760 --> 01:25:18.079
you could see they were. They
surrounded him, just talking to him,

1195
01:25:18.600 --> 01:25:20.760
telling him, man, nobody would
have found these kids. You know,

1196
01:25:20.880 --> 01:25:25.640
you can't think you look everywhere,
you don't look behind the Yeah,

1197
01:25:25.680 --> 01:25:28.880
you don't look behind the toilet.
And then to have four of them there

1198
01:25:29.039 --> 01:25:32.319
is yeah, the same. It's
all small too, little young kids.

1199
01:25:33.079 --> 01:25:40.800
Oh. So April eighteenth, nineteen
ninety, Donnie Horton dies. Yeah,

1200
01:25:40.880 --> 01:25:42.880
that was my buddy at ten truck. He said, when I said that

1201
01:25:42.960 --> 01:25:46.079
a massive heart attack at home.
Oh okay, lieutenant, don't call me

1202
01:25:46.199 --> 01:25:49.399
up. I was home. He
said, you better sit down for this

1203
01:25:49.520 --> 01:25:55.199
one. Why. What's the matter? He said, Donald died today and

1204
01:25:55.399 --> 01:25:59.359
I could have not been with me
and Donald work. We were, you

1205
01:25:59.439 --> 01:26:02.640
know, the whole shift was tight, and losing him was so unexpected.

1206
01:26:03.079 --> 01:26:08.199
So he was the practical joker on
the shift. You know, you might

1207
01:26:08.279 --> 01:26:12.920
get a water balloon in your face
coming out of quarters, and that was

1208
01:26:13.279 --> 01:26:16.000
That was a blow to all of
us. It was really upsetting, really

1209
01:26:16.119 --> 01:26:20.600
upsetting. And then nineteen ninety my
son got my son Ray got the fire

1210
01:26:20.640 --> 01:26:27.279
department. Oh nineteen ninety huh yeah, you're oldest son, right, yeah,

1211
01:26:27.720 --> 01:26:31.279
getting ready to retire. That's them
right there. That was the unusual

1212
01:26:31.359 --> 01:26:38.319
experience because he was detailed the ten
truck and I was crazy. He was

1213
01:26:38.319 --> 01:26:43.039
still and we had we had a
little ten cent fire and Jim Keiths took

1214
01:26:43.079 --> 01:26:46.880
that picture after the fire. That's
awesome. That's a good picture. Good

1215
01:26:46.920 --> 01:26:50.439
picture. That's a great story too. How old is he that looks?

1216
01:26:51.079 --> 01:26:55.960
How old is he there? And
he's obviously he wasn't thirty yet, right,

1217
01:26:56.279 --> 01:27:01.479
he's fifty three now. He was
probably his late late twenties. Yeah,

1218
01:27:01.600 --> 01:27:04.439
probably late twenty Yeah. I think
he was twenty when he got in

1219
01:27:05.800 --> 01:27:11.760
and he made EVD three years later, so he was probably twenty six,

1220
01:27:11.880 --> 01:27:14.720
twenty seven, twenty eight somewhere.
Now. Does it work? I mean

1221
01:27:14.760 --> 01:27:16.399
it kind of. I don't know. You know, we still have hooks

1222
01:27:16.439 --> 01:27:18.880
here and stuff like that. Were
you were you able to put them where

1223
01:27:19.000 --> 01:27:23.000
you wanted to put him or he
just was his When he got out of

1224
01:27:23.039 --> 01:27:28.239
fire school, I had had I
had had some difficulties with the chief of

1225
01:27:28.279 --> 01:27:31.279
the fire department, some arguments,
and I asked the cradle busy house,

1226
01:27:31.319 --> 01:27:35.920
and they didn't do it. He
sent him to a good house, a

1227
01:27:36.079 --> 01:27:41.239
reasonably busy house, but a good
house, a lot of really good,

1228
01:27:41.399 --> 01:27:45.840
good guys. He still keeps in
touch with. Yeah. Is he still

1229
01:27:45.880 --> 01:27:49.279
on the job. Was he retired
too? Is Ray retired your son?

1230
01:27:49.960 --> 01:27:55.760
No, he's going to retire probably
a couple three four months. I think

1231
01:27:55.800 --> 01:27:59.680
he's got thirty thirty three. You
have thirty four years and when he retires

1232
01:28:00.359 --> 01:28:04.479
sounds good to me? Rough right, help, that's my youngest son that

1233
01:28:04.640 --> 01:28:08.920
was after a fire. You had
in West Ballton. He was. I

1234
01:28:09.000 --> 01:28:12.319
got him a thirteen engine when he
got out of fire school. I got

1235
01:28:12.399 --> 01:28:15.920
him a thirteen engine that called downtown, and the guy pulled some strings for

1236
01:28:16.079 --> 01:28:19.520
me, and he went to my
old company a thirteen engine. He stayed

1237
01:28:19.520 --> 01:28:25.840
there twenty six years. Really yeah. He comp me in Baltimore most of

1238
01:28:25.920 --> 01:28:29.520
the time. He's he's out now. No, he's not out. He

1239
01:28:29.600 --> 01:28:32.239
transferred out of after twenty six years. He got beat up really bad.

1240
01:28:32.319 --> 01:28:36.439
He he had had a broken collar
bone and a broken kneecap, a broken

1241
01:28:36.479 --> 01:28:40.800
ankle. I was a dog headge
over there. I know. He got

1242
01:28:40.840 --> 01:28:44.760
beat up bad. And he had
a chance to go from six thousand runs

1243
01:28:45.119 --> 01:28:49.560
to three thousand runs and another engine
company. Oh yeah, he called me

1244
01:28:49.720 --> 01:28:53.399
up. Of course I was retired. He called me up. He said,

1245
01:28:53.399 --> 01:28:55.159
I got a chance to go to
twenty one engine. What do you

1246
01:28:55.199 --> 01:28:58.119
think I should do? I said, man, you're fifty years old,

1247
01:28:58.600 --> 01:29:01.479
you're all busted up, not going
to get any easier. I think you

1248
01:29:01.520 --> 01:29:04.640
ought to take it. Yeah,
And then he called his his brother.

1249
01:29:05.199 --> 01:29:10.880
My oldest son spent twenty some years
at the busiest truck company, Truck five

1250
01:29:10.960 --> 01:29:15.560
on the East Side, and he
got He eventually transferred to a slowhouse after

1251
01:29:15.760 --> 01:29:20.199
twenty eight years. I think he
called his brother up and said, what

1252
01:29:20.279 --> 01:29:23.279
do you think I ought to do? Man? I love thirteen engine,

1253
01:29:23.279 --> 01:29:25.880
but I got a chance to go
to twenty one. Couple of runs in

1254
01:29:25.920 --> 01:29:30.479
there. Ray said, don't be
an idiot, don't take it. Help

1255
01:29:30.560 --> 01:29:32.960
on it. That was a couple
of years ago. So they have do

1256
01:29:33.079 --> 01:29:36.960
they have sons that are maybe looking
to get out of My youngest son.

1257
01:29:38.039 --> 01:29:42.439
Steve has an eighteen year old son. But he's not going to the fire

1258
01:29:42.479 --> 01:29:46.479
department. He's he's a genius and
I mean I don't use that word lately.

1259
01:29:47.159 --> 01:29:51.159
I got you. He's been accepted
at twelve different colleges. Wow,

1260
01:29:51.399 --> 01:29:55.520
it looks like he's going to go
to Firman down in South Carolina for a

1261
01:29:55.600 --> 01:30:02.680
computer science computer science and computer what
is it? Cybersecurity? Who is that

1262
01:30:02.760 --> 01:30:09.920
your producer in the back? Yeah, boss, listen, we know about

1263
01:30:09.920 --> 01:30:15.800
these technically challenged guys. Believe me, if you called me up and and

1264
01:30:15.920 --> 01:30:18.000
I wasn't married to her, this
wouldn't be going. There's no way I

1265
01:30:18.039 --> 01:30:21.279
can do this. How long are
you guys married? Now? June will

1266
01:30:21.319 --> 01:30:31.319
be fifty six years woo if Lewis
beautiful never had a fight that he won

1267
01:30:36.520 --> 01:30:42.359
nineteen ninety five. This is the
biggest fall you ever went to. Yeah,

1268
01:30:42.439 --> 01:30:44.319
that's that far behind me. I
don't know if you could see it.

1269
01:30:45.039 --> 01:30:47.359
Oh that's the one that was scaring
me before. Yeah, it was.

1270
01:30:47.479 --> 01:30:50.640
It was vacant. The one burned
was vacant. We get a little

1271
01:30:50.640 --> 01:30:56.680
closer and there you go. It
spread. It spread to this one and

1272
01:30:56.800 --> 01:30:59.960
this one was occupied, and it
burned out to the ground. It burned

1273
01:31:00.239 --> 01:31:02.319
to the ground. That burned another
five story building next to it to the

1274
01:31:02.359 --> 01:31:06.720
ground. We couldn't put it out. I think Warwick Avenue stopped it.

1275
01:31:06.800 --> 01:31:11.079
It couldn't jump Warwick Avenue. And
I mean we built. We were there

1276
01:31:11.520 --> 01:31:15.399
all night long, and we came
we went home, and came back night

1277
01:31:15.439 --> 01:31:19.039
work, and went back again,
bail and ordering. There was eleven alarms.

1278
01:31:19.760 --> 01:31:25.680
The heavy, heavy timber, all
that stuff, heavy timber. The

1279
01:31:25.720 --> 01:31:28.239
inside, yeah, the inside.
Yeah, but they were old, old

1280
01:31:28.279 --> 01:31:31.159
buildings. The original fire building,
the one that's burning that you can see,

1281
01:31:31.600 --> 01:31:38.119
that was set by all vagrants trying
to keep it. They've gone for

1282
01:31:38.239 --> 01:31:43.279
those big streets. Yeah, they
knew how to do it back in the

1283
01:31:43.319 --> 01:31:45.479
eighteen hundred and we're gonna put a
big street there, a big street here.

1284
01:31:45.760 --> 01:31:50.800
Yeah, yeah, it's this fivey
fires with my sons. Is that

1285
01:31:51.039 --> 01:31:56.680
the story? When Ray was Ray
was the e V D. And at

1286
01:31:56.720 --> 01:32:00.359
one time he was an eighteen truck, which was not far from ten truck.

1287
01:32:00.239 --> 01:32:04.359
And I had a fire with him. And I'm on the third floor

1288
01:32:04.880 --> 01:32:10.640
and I'm crawling down the hallway,
got a mais going and there's it's a

1289
01:32:10.720 --> 01:32:14.479
long hallway and there's rooms on both
sides. So I'm crawling down the hallway

1290
01:32:14.680 --> 01:32:16.720
and I see a light at the
other end of the hallway on a floor.

1291
01:32:16.760 --> 01:32:19.439
I know it's got to be another
fireman, So I hollered down.

1292
01:32:19.479 --> 01:32:23.239
I said, I'll get my right, I'll get the rooms on my right.

1293
01:32:23.319 --> 01:32:25.560
You get the rooms when you're right, So we cover them all.

1294
01:32:26.159 --> 01:32:31.680
I hear okay, and there's a
pause. Not heard, Dad, Oh,

1295
01:32:33.319 --> 01:32:38.840
I said, yeah, right,
that's me. Oh man, you

1296
01:32:38.880 --> 01:32:42.840
med up getting hurt on that fire
tours Red Tator Cup went off to me

1297
01:32:42.880 --> 01:32:45.600
for a long time, but it
was neat to be crawling down towards and

1298
01:32:45.920 --> 01:32:49.880
hell, it doesn't get better than
that, man kill me. That is

1299
01:32:49.960 --> 01:32:57.279
that you? Dad? My youngest
son I saw a lot of him because

1300
01:32:57.279 --> 01:33:00.000
he was a thirteen engine and I
was a ten truck, and they were

1301
01:33:00.119 --> 01:33:02.520
or not that far apart. We
weren't different shifts, but if one of

1302
01:33:02.640 --> 01:33:08.720
us was on overtime or got caught
extra at or whatever, we would see

1303
01:33:08.720 --> 01:33:11.880
each other. But the first time
I saw him, I'm up on a

1304
01:33:11.960 --> 01:33:15.359
roof. It's a multiple alarm not
too far from his firehouse. I'm up

1305
01:33:15.399 --> 01:33:18.000
on a roof cut a hole in
the roof, and I'm working my ass

1306
01:33:18.119 --> 01:33:24.199
off because the roof got ninety years
of tor it's a tarrow on it,

1307
01:33:24.680 --> 01:33:27.960
and I glance at my area ladder
and I can see it moving. I

1308
01:33:28.079 --> 01:33:30.199
know somebody's coming up, and I
go back to working and I hear,

1309
01:33:30.479 --> 01:33:33.159
hey, old man, you need
some help. And I looked over and

1310
01:33:33.239 --> 01:33:38.159
it's my youngest son. Said we
have to work with balth of them at

1311
01:33:38.199 --> 01:33:43.439
a job, and then, oh, blessed man great. Four hours later,

1312
01:33:44.039 --> 01:33:47.920
had had a dwelling fire and I'm
at the top of the steps and

1313
01:33:49.000 --> 01:33:53.760
he comes up the steps with a
line and flops down right next to me,

1314
01:33:54.800 --> 01:33:58.960
and he got water and I crawled
in behind him. He's hitting the

1315
01:33:59.000 --> 01:34:01.760
fire. I'm in behind him and
I'm searching it all. This is like

1316
01:34:01.920 --> 01:34:06.439
movie stuff. I don't think we've
we've never had a guy on the show

1317
01:34:06.479 --> 01:34:10.079
that says they asked like that,
not that, man, not like that.

1318
01:34:10.479 --> 01:34:14.880
And then at that same night,
four in the morning, get a

1319
01:34:14.920 --> 01:34:17.600
fire right around the corner from ten
truck on Kerry Street goes to a second

1320
01:34:17.640 --> 01:34:21.920
alarm. I believe, I'm not
positive, but it was a It was

1321
01:34:21.960 --> 01:34:26.479
a really really good working fire.
And when it was over, I'm up

1322
01:34:26.520 --> 01:34:29.680
front. There was my son again, and I looked at him. I

1323
01:34:29.720 --> 01:34:31.479
said, you know, those first
two fires, that was pretty cool.

1324
01:34:31.560 --> 01:34:34.199
That was pretty unique. I said, but this ship's getting old now,

1325
01:34:34.319 --> 01:34:44.960
man. But I was really proud
to say that both my boys were really

1326
01:34:45.079 --> 01:34:46.680
really good fire. And you got
to see him doing it. You were

1327
01:34:46.720 --> 01:34:49.960
doing it with them. In fact, I had I had an older veteran

1328
01:34:50.520 --> 01:34:54.520
like me at the time say to
me one day, talking about Ray.

1329
01:34:55.119 --> 01:34:59.199
He said, let me tell you
something, my fire ever get trapped somewhere,

1330
01:35:00.159 --> 01:35:01.960
that's who I want coming to get
me. I thought, Man,

1331
01:35:02.399 --> 01:35:05.600
that's high phrase right there. Man, Hell yeah, what else is that

1332
01:35:05.680 --> 01:35:11.279
beside your reputation? Right? Really? Yeah, it was good fire,

1333
01:35:12.720 --> 01:35:15.399
Steven, he was doing it.
You gotta play that one. Oh he's

1334
01:35:15.479 --> 01:35:17.039
up to do it? Do I
have that one? Do I have it?

1335
01:35:17.159 --> 01:35:29.800
I don't know if I was up
there doing all right. So listen,

1336
01:35:29.880 --> 01:35:32.680
this is like the pinnacle right here. So you finally get the what

1337
01:35:32.880 --> 01:35:38.439
is it, Rescuer of the Year? You got well, because I didn't.

1338
01:35:39.159 --> 01:35:43.920
The companies and were on the fire
but it was right around the corner

1339
01:35:43.960 --> 01:35:47.840
from ten truck and Mike Proser was
tiller, and and I was driving,

1340
01:35:47.880 --> 01:35:54.000
and Mike was that's the guy they
called them energizer, Bunny good good fireman

1341
01:35:54.079 --> 01:35:58.279
man. Well, we pull up
a large three story roke home row home,

1342
01:35:58.840 --> 01:36:00.319
and there's a little girl sitting the
windowsill, getting ready to jump.

1343
01:36:01.159 --> 01:36:06.600
And I stopped the truck and I
get up on the turntable and I'm watching

1344
01:36:06.680 --> 01:36:11.399
as they grabbed the thirty five.
They throw the thirty five and it comes

1345
01:36:11.479 --> 01:36:15.680
up short, and Mike goes up
the thirty five and he can't reach her.

1346
01:36:16.439 --> 01:36:19.640
And he gets up higher and higher
until he's up on the next to

1347
01:36:19.680 --> 01:36:24.720
the last rung with his chest pushed
up against the building and his arms were

1348
01:36:24.800 --> 01:36:27.159
up like this. And he told
me later, he said to her,

1349
01:36:27.640 --> 01:36:30.640
hand, I know you're scared.
But you gotta let go. She was

1350
01:36:30.720 --> 01:36:34.479
maybe three feet above him, and
she let go, and when he caught

1351
01:36:34.520 --> 01:36:39.399
her, he went back and I
turned my head because I thought they were

1352
01:36:39.439 --> 01:36:43.840
coming down, and he threw his
chest into the wall and stayed like that

1353
01:36:44.279 --> 01:36:46.800
until he could get a hold of
her and start down the ladder. Wow.

1354
01:36:47.319 --> 01:36:49.560
I through the aira ladder. I
was supposed to ventilate the roof,

1355
01:36:49.720 --> 01:36:54.039
but they were screaming. There were
more kids inside, and I knew the

1356
01:36:54.119 --> 01:36:56.760
thirty five we wasn't gonna dohim any
good. So I threw the air out

1357
01:36:56.800 --> 01:36:59.600
to the third floor and I went
up. I didn't have a mask on,

1358
01:36:59.680 --> 01:37:03.159
and I went up and I'm crawling
around and I didn't find anybody right

1359
01:37:03.199 --> 01:37:08.079
away, and Mike Brosier came up
the air the ladder with a mask on,

1360
01:37:08.600 --> 01:37:10.960
and we're crawling around the room and
I heard him holler I got one,

1361
01:37:11.880 --> 01:37:13.800
and he said, go to the
window. You don't have a mask,

1362
01:37:14.399 --> 01:37:16.920
I'll hand him to you. And
I was hung up. My mask

1363
01:37:17.039 --> 01:37:19.680
straps were hung up on something.
I said, take them, take them

1364
01:37:19.720 --> 01:37:23.119
out, take them out. I
can't get through the window. And he

1365
01:37:23.199 --> 01:37:26.199
got over to the window and I
finally got unhooked, and we got out

1366
01:37:26.239 --> 01:37:30.600
the window and we got the got
the baby down, and two others got

1367
01:37:30.640 --> 01:37:33.319
the two guys, my Lieutenant Jones
from ten Truck and Scott Mike Fields.

1368
01:37:33.720 --> 01:37:39.439
They went inside. They got two
out and somebody in the back and somebody

1369
01:37:39.560 --> 01:37:45.960
out and I forget how many we
rescued. Six I think brought them all

1370
01:37:45.079 --> 01:37:49.960
out and they all survived. Got
them all out and they all lived.

1371
01:37:50.319 --> 01:37:58.800
Paramedics did a great job on them
and the companies they were when the fire

1372
01:37:58.800 --> 01:38:02.319
were nominated for Fire Rescue of the
Year for Baltimore City and we won that

1373
01:38:02.960 --> 01:38:08.359
and we were all honored at Tawson
University Black Tied Dinner, Governor, the

1374
01:38:08.439 --> 01:38:12.399
mayor, everybody was there. It
was, uh, it was our fifteen

1375
01:38:12.439 --> 01:38:15.920
minutes of fame. It was pretty
cool. It was nice to be recognized.

1376
01:38:16.199 --> 01:38:18.840
Nice. Yeah, man, now
he got two hours of fame on

1377
01:38:18.960 --> 01:38:27.680
here, right, So you are
a kid about this guy. I'll take

1378
01:38:27.720 --> 01:38:32.000
the dinner. I think I'll pick
let us see black Tie Fair dinner,

1379
01:38:32.720 --> 01:38:40.079
three idiots, black black tire fan. Yeah, it was. It was

1380
01:38:40.159 --> 01:38:45.039
quite quite a career. It was. I really enjoyed it. I really

1381
01:38:45.159 --> 01:38:48.279
enjoyed it. That's pretty Uh,
listening to that that grab that that that

1382
01:38:48.359 --> 01:38:53.000
guy made on the ladder. Oh, I'm telling you that's legit. Man.

1383
01:38:53.199 --> 01:38:55.479
That was that was a ballsy thing. If anybody's ever been on a

1384
01:38:55.560 --> 01:39:00.359
ladder, you know, they know
that's scary shit. I'm up two stories

1385
01:39:00.479 --> 01:39:03.880
cleaning my gut is out. I'm
like, what the fuck I'm saying.

1386
01:39:03.920 --> 01:39:08.039
If you're standing on the last rung, you ain't. You ain't at the

1387
01:39:08.399 --> 01:39:14.279
window. That ain't. No Joe, you talking about clean arms. Go

1388
01:39:14.439 --> 01:39:16.680
back cleaning your gut a out.
After I'd been retired for ten years,

1389
01:39:17.199 --> 01:39:20.279
i was sixty four years old,
and every year I'd been up on my

1390
01:39:20.399 --> 01:39:26.039
roof walking along the edge with a
leaf blower, blowing the gut leaves out

1391
01:39:26.039 --> 01:39:28.720
of the gutters. I'm sixty four
years old. I got up there and

1392
01:39:28.760 --> 01:39:33.760
I went, whoa, I could
fall off here. I gotta keep waking

1393
01:39:33.880 --> 01:39:40.000
up here. Then we moved to
a condo. Yeah, hell yeah.

1394
01:39:40.319 --> 01:39:43.960
Now they mowed my launch collect my
pen for a while. Lois is gonna

1395
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:49.319
kill me, that's right. Then
I retired. I retired in twenty year

1396
01:39:49.439 --> 01:39:54.239
one. Oh wait, we missed
one story. The Lucky Lockets. Oh

1397
01:39:54.399 --> 01:39:57.279
yeah, we were lucky. The
whole family was lucky. They had a

1398
01:39:57.319 --> 01:40:00.680
really bad fire on the east side
and a guy from thirteen engines. The

1399
01:40:00.880 --> 01:40:05.079
floors collapsed, they were thrown into
the basement burned. A guy with thirteen

1400
01:40:05.119 --> 01:40:09.880
engines got burned, but my youngest
son was off. Guy from five truck

1401
01:40:09.920 --> 01:40:15.319
got trapped, My oldest son was
off, and ten truck Mike Prosier was

1402
01:40:15.399 --> 01:40:18.520
the first one down in the basement
to try and drag him out. And

1403
01:40:18.960 --> 01:40:23.199
all three of us were off duty
at that time. Because that could have

1404
01:40:23.239 --> 01:40:26.560
been that could have been real bad, could have been real bad for us,

1405
01:40:27.399 --> 01:40:30.399
but it wasn't. And they always
call my oldest son Lucky Lockett.

1406
01:40:31.439 --> 01:40:34.640
I mean, I mean, no
matter what happens then and he comes out

1407
01:40:34.680 --> 01:40:41.359
on a good side. Put that. You got that picture of me and

1408
01:40:41.399 --> 01:40:44.760
my boys when we retired. Yes, I was waiting to bring up that's

1409
01:40:44.840 --> 01:40:47.960
it. Yeah, I was last
night last night in the fire department and

1410
01:40:48.039 --> 01:40:51.800
they got permission to come over and
ride with me. I had to fire

1411
01:40:51.920 --> 01:40:55.680
my next to last night. I
wanted to fire my last night, so

1412
01:40:55.880 --> 01:41:00.359
bad guy. I should have paid
somebody who abbed that one. But you

1413
01:41:00.439 --> 01:41:03.359
got the Pike Act, that's you
know. Yeah, we could have hide

1414
01:41:03.399 --> 01:41:06.319
Mike cologne to go out and do
something. Set a couple of fives out

1415
01:41:06.319 --> 01:41:09.840
there something I don't know, you
know him, he's itching? What he's

1416
01:41:09.920 --> 01:41:15.760
itching? What's the tones to drop? We had a bunch of runs where

1417
01:41:15.760 --> 01:41:18.199
we didn't have any fars. You
got to work with him anyway though,

1418
01:41:18.520 --> 01:41:21.560
both of them, which is unheard. I don't think we've ever had anybody

1419
01:41:21.600 --> 01:41:25.399
on the show that actually got to
work, go to work, work with

1420
01:41:25.640 --> 01:41:29.680
like like legit work rights job or
something. But to have you know,

1421
01:41:29.840 --> 01:41:32.279
you've crawled down the hall and then
the other guy coming the other way is

1422
01:41:32.359 --> 01:41:38.000
your kid? Hilarious. I gotta
say you were right. This guy is

1423
01:41:38.039 --> 01:41:47.399
the guy. This guy got.
That's what they said. Cobo, all

1424
01:41:47.479 --> 01:41:50.439
right, stand by we got because
we're behind, we got to play commercials.

1425
01:41:50.560 --> 01:41:55.600
Let's play the h what do we
do? Let's do and then you

1426
01:41:55.640 --> 01:41:58.560
get your old school tip when he
does his thing right? Yes, yes,

1427
01:41:59.159 --> 01:42:01.840
yes, that's come get your autograph
copy of They Saved New York at

1428
01:42:01.880 --> 01:42:06.039
this year's FDIC twenty twenty four at
the Getting Salty Booth. It's the nation's

1429
01:42:06.079 --> 01:42:11.439
premiere fire conference and photographer Glenn Osden
will be there and he'll autograph your book

1430
01:42:11.520 --> 01:42:15.159
at the aforementioned Getting Salty Booth during
exhibit hours on both Thursday and Friday,

1431
01:42:15.199 --> 01:42:19.560
April eighteenth and nineteenth, respectively.
Each book will come with a limited edition

1432
01:42:19.720 --> 01:42:25.399
sixteen by twenty color poster that is
suitable for framing and This limited edition Qualfee

1433
01:42:25.439 --> 01:42:30.159
table book features the compelling stories of
a ninety FD and Y firefighters and is

1434
01:42:30.159 --> 01:42:34.439
almost three hundred pages packed with action
photos from the nineteen seventies all the way

1435
01:42:34.640 --> 01:42:40.720
up to today's FD and Y fire
operations. Read the personal stories of the

1436
01:42:40.800 --> 01:42:44.319
men and women who fought the warriors, fires, the World Trade Center and

1437
01:42:44.439 --> 01:42:48.239
Black Sunday tragedies, and almost every
major incident in the last fifty years of

1438
01:42:48.279 --> 01:42:51.520
the FD and Y. Come see
us at the Getting Salty booth in the

1439
01:42:51.560 --> 01:42:57.840
hallway outside the main exhibit area Thursday
and Friday of FDIC Week, April eighteenth

1440
01:42:58.119 --> 01:43:02.479
and nineteenth, twenty twenty four.
And if you get there early enough,

1441
01:43:02.920 --> 01:43:06.279
Louise and I will not be bagged
up. We will not be in the

1442
01:43:06.359 --> 01:43:09.800
cups. Yet. Get there early
and we won't be in the cups.

1443
01:43:11.000 --> 01:43:13.239
I don't know about that, but
yeah, I don't know about that.

1444
01:43:13.760 --> 01:43:15.479
That's a trink of thumb. But
all right, you know what time it

1445
01:43:15.560 --> 01:43:18.399
is, though? What time?
What time is it? What time is

1446
01:43:18.479 --> 01:43:30.880
it? The old old school day
day? All right, right, take

1447
01:43:30.920 --> 01:43:33.920
it away, kid. If I
was going to talk to the rookies nowadays,

1448
01:43:35.119 --> 01:43:40.159
I would tell them that there's a
time for play, there's a time

1449
01:43:40.199 --> 01:43:44.159
for laughing, but there's a time
for work. And don't get the too

1450
01:43:44.279 --> 01:43:50.119
confused, because work is serious.
You can lose your life. Somebody else

1451
01:43:50.159 --> 01:43:54.359
from some way, you can lose
their life. You've got to listen to

1452
01:43:54.439 --> 01:43:57.600
the old guys. What you learned
a fire school is nothing compared to what

1453
01:43:57.720 --> 01:44:00.800
the old guys in your companies can
tell you what to do, when to

1454
01:44:00.920 --> 01:44:04.479
do it, or when not to
do it. It's fun, it's a

1455
01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:08.960
lot of laughs. The kitchen's always
fun. But when that gong goes off,

1456
01:44:09.520 --> 01:44:13.039
it'll take it serious because it's no
joke. You can get hurt or

1457
01:44:13.159 --> 01:44:19.039
killed very easily out there. Excellent, excellent, great career brother, great

1458
01:44:19.159 --> 01:44:23.000
stories. Man. I love guys. I can tell stories. And he

1459
01:44:23.119 --> 01:44:26.239
lived it. He was doing it, Stephen. Can I tell you something

1460
01:44:26.239 --> 01:44:31.199
about my youngest son real quick after
he had been in less than a year,

1461
01:44:31.520 --> 01:44:40.600
maybe a year The Discovery Channel made
a documentary called Streets of Fire and

1462
01:44:40.720 --> 01:44:44.159
it was shown in Europe and then
it was shown in the United States and

1463
01:44:44.319 --> 01:44:49.079
they featured thirteen engine and they featured
his shift and they featured him a lot

1464
01:44:49.119 --> 01:44:53.119
because he was a rookie. He
come in in ninety five. This was

1465
01:44:53.159 --> 01:44:59.760
either ninety five or ninety six,
and it's still on YouTube. You bring

1466
01:44:59.880 --> 01:45:01.359
up you see it on YouTube.
I'm going to watch it and you'll see

1467
01:45:01.439 --> 01:45:06.640
him. He's the youngest. He
looks like he's twelve. What's it called

1468
01:45:06.680 --> 01:45:11.319
Street to Fire Fire? Oh,
we got to talk about the book quick

1469
01:45:11.359 --> 01:45:14.920
too. Yep, yeah, the
book. Yeah, the book book FRC.

1470
01:45:15.800 --> 01:45:19.760
Yeah. When I had been retired, let's see twenty fifteen, four

1471
01:45:19.840 --> 01:45:23.800
or five years, I decided to
write. I wasn't writing a book.

1472
01:45:24.000 --> 01:45:26.880
I wanted to write the memoirs for
my grandkids to read when they got older.

1473
01:45:27.560 --> 01:45:30.199
And my mother had kept scrap books. She kept four scrap books of

1474
01:45:30.560 --> 01:45:35.159
all newspaper articles and fires that I
was on, and then she passed.

1475
01:45:35.640 --> 01:45:39.680
I was still in the fire department, and I kept the fifth scrap book

1476
01:45:40.039 --> 01:45:43.720
from my up until I retired.
And when I decided to write my memoirs,

1477
01:45:43.960 --> 01:45:45.720
I just opened that first scrap book
and there was a little article in

1478
01:45:45.720 --> 01:45:49.960
there about my first fire. Wow, And you know you always remember your

1479
01:45:50.000 --> 01:45:55.079
first fire, and it brings back
a lot of memories. I don't even

1480
01:45:55.079 --> 01:45:58.520
know how to turn on a computer. My wife's a secretary. She turns

1481
01:45:58.560 --> 01:46:03.880
on the computers, brings up word. So I just sit there, hunt

1482
01:46:03.920 --> 01:46:11.600
and pe yes, it just like
that. And I did that for about

1483
01:46:11.640 --> 01:46:15.199
a year off and one's high.
I get in a roll hours. Then

1484
01:46:15.199 --> 01:46:18.079
I wouldn't do anything for days,
and I get on a roll again,

1485
01:46:18.119 --> 01:46:20.760
and I'd do it. And when
I got it, when I got it

1486
01:46:20.840 --> 01:46:24.800
all done, and she printed it
all out and I gave it to her.

1487
01:46:25.279 --> 01:46:27.920
I said, what do you think
she's looking through it? She said,

1488
01:46:27.960 --> 01:46:30.399
you know what you got here?
I said what she said, you

1489
01:46:30.439 --> 01:46:36.960
got a two hundred and sixty page
paragraph. He said, I'll take care

1490
01:46:38.000 --> 01:46:40.960
of that way. Oh what a
good way. Won in the book it

1491
01:46:41.079 --> 01:46:45.560
was memoirs. And then my son
Ray took it to work, and a

1492
01:46:45.680 --> 01:46:48.800
guy at his firehouse said, tell
your son to put it on a disc,

1493
01:46:49.800 --> 01:46:51.640
or your father to put it on
a disc. I got a friend

1494
01:46:51.640 --> 01:46:55.199
of mine who's an independent publisher.
I wanted to look at it. So

1495
01:46:55.319 --> 01:46:59.399
I told my wife, put this
on a disc and he took it to

1496
01:46:59.439 --> 01:47:01.319
this guy and he sent it to
his partner that was a woman in Denver,

1497
01:47:01.399 --> 01:47:03.880
Colorado, and they emailed me and
said, we want to make it

1498
01:47:03.920 --> 01:47:06.920
a book. I was like,
are you kidding me? There? You

1499
01:47:08.039 --> 01:47:14.079
go into there it is and I
was throwing on here, they're all in

1500
01:47:14.159 --> 01:47:17.600
there, and I couldn't believe it. I told him, I said,

1501
01:47:17.600 --> 01:47:20.319
look, I can't put thousands of
dollars up to get this thing started.

1502
01:47:20.760 --> 01:47:26.079
They said, no, we only
we only published first time authors, and

1503
01:47:26.159 --> 01:47:29.600
you don't have to put any money
up front, and uh, we'll edit

1504
01:47:29.680 --> 01:47:31.640
it and you can give us the
pictures you want in it, and uh

1505
01:47:32.640 --> 01:47:39.640
that's what they did. And I
couldn't when when we got the book at

1506
01:47:39.680 --> 01:47:43.840
home they wanted to but first they
edited. They wanted to change everything that

1507
01:47:43.960 --> 01:47:46.239
I said the way because I said, I just wrote it the way I

1508
01:47:46.359 --> 01:47:49.880
talked, right, and I said. They kept sending. I'd send him

1509
01:47:49.880 --> 01:47:54.800
two chapters. They edited, scratched
the scratch that I'd say as I had

1510
01:47:54.880 --> 01:47:57.840
finals say, I'd say no,
no, no, no, send it

1511
01:47:57.960 --> 01:48:00.439
back. Finally said, well,
I want you to change anything I said,

1512
01:48:00.439 --> 01:48:02.840
because if I let you read it, change it the way it reads,

1513
01:48:03.760 --> 01:48:06.239
people that know me are going to
read this and say he didn't write

1514
01:48:06.239 --> 01:48:09.880
it like that. Yeah, right, right right. So I left it

1515
01:48:09.920 --> 01:48:12.600
the way it was. Ninety percent
of it was the way it was good.

1516
01:48:13.039 --> 01:48:15.840
You get that, my god,
I'll understand that. And they said

1517
01:48:15.840 --> 01:48:18.800
how much you want to sell for? I said ten bucks? They said

1518
01:48:18.840 --> 01:48:21.079
ten dollars. I said, right, you can sell us for twenty dollars

1519
01:48:21.079 --> 01:48:24.920
a copy. I said, I'm
selling a fireman. I don't have any

1520
01:48:24.960 --> 01:48:31.079
money. And then she and I
sold three thousand copies. Wow. And

1521
01:48:31.520 --> 01:48:35.159
I took a thousand dollars and donated
it to the Window's Norphan's fun for my

1522
01:48:35.319 --> 01:48:39.199
union. And I had a couple
of grand left over I put down towards

1523
01:48:39.239 --> 01:48:42.760
a new car. And my publisher
went out of business. I couldn't get

1524
01:48:42.800 --> 01:48:45.760
any more books, and now the
only way you can get it now is

1525
01:48:45.840 --> 01:48:51.319
on kindle on Amazon. I don't
have any more books. So I just

1526
01:48:51.399 --> 01:48:55.199
out there. Hear this, and
you want to get that book going again?

1527
01:48:55.720 --> 01:49:00.159
Yeah, reach out to ride Lockett. Yeah, I mean I had

1528
01:49:00.159 --> 01:49:01.880
to figure out how to get it
back. My wife was pretty good at

1529
01:49:01.920 --> 01:49:08.119
it. We couldn't get it the
way it was originally to cover, the

1530
01:49:08.159 --> 01:49:12.920
same cover and everything. But I'm
fine with it. I didn't write it

1531
01:49:13.600 --> 01:49:16.239
as a book, and I didn't
sell it to retire to book over Ton,

1532
01:49:17.119 --> 01:49:19.720
you know I was. I was
happy with it. Boca Vista.

1533
01:49:20.359 --> 01:49:28.439
Yeah, so good for you.
Right, you did a great job man.

1534
01:49:28.520 --> 01:49:30.800
You did a great job with your
sons, did a great job on

1535
01:49:30.720 --> 01:49:34.720
with your career. But staying married
for fifty six years, God bless you

1536
01:49:35.479 --> 01:49:39.960
and and everything you did. Just
keep now, you just got to keep.

1537
01:49:40.000 --> 01:49:42.039
But you know, don't be fluffing
the ball up now, you know,

1538
01:49:42.199 --> 01:49:44.399
no, don't be fluffing. He
plays golf a lot, now,

1539
01:49:44.479 --> 01:49:46.840
Cooby could be fluffing the battle,
fluffing it up. Now he's a big

1540
01:49:46.920 --> 01:49:53.720
confer. Now, huh, I
got a frustra golf. Lock me up

1541
01:49:53.760 --> 01:49:58.439
and throw it straight, man,
hit him straight. Let's play the old

1542
01:49:58.479 --> 01:50:01.520
school health and safety tip guns real
quick. Yes. The First Responder Center

1543
01:50:01.560 --> 01:50:06.239
for Excellence is a not for profit
organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods

1544
01:50:06.319 --> 01:50:12.039
of first responders. Their education and
research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and

1545
01:50:12.239 --> 01:50:16.319
understanding the challenges to the health,
safety and well being of firefighters, EMS

1546
01:50:16.399 --> 01:50:20.720
personnel and other first responders too.
They are an affiliate of the National Fallen

1547
01:50:20.880 --> 01:50:28.279
Firefighter Foundations, and Tonight's old school
health and safety tip is regularly watched.

1548
01:50:28.319 --> 01:50:32.359
The inside liner of the helmet.
Maintaining the clean hamlet removes harmful contaminants to

1549
01:50:32.399 --> 01:50:39.199
minimize your risk of skin cancer and
pre cancerous cells on your four or five

1550
01:50:39.279 --> 01:50:42.920
head whatever you have. I don't
know. That's it. That's all I

1551
01:50:43.000 --> 01:50:46.520
got. We'll be remiss if we
did not talk about the New York City

1552
01:50:46.560 --> 01:50:49.720
Police officer that was murdered in the
line of duty. Conso pull out all

1553
01:50:49.760 --> 01:50:58.479
please yep of officer Jonathan E.
Diller on a traffic stop though left man

1554
01:50:58.800 --> 01:51:03.399
unbelievable dirt big who had twenty one
counts prize before that. So I heard

1555
01:51:03.479 --> 01:51:10.199
that the barstool guys raised they did
yees seven hundred and fifty thousand, and

1556
01:51:10.279 --> 01:51:13.319
then they matched it, so they
got one point five million for the family.

1557
01:51:13.479 --> 01:51:16.359
And then I also heard that the
the steven Silla the tunnel to tower

1558
01:51:16.399 --> 01:51:21.119
is steven Silla Foundation, Uh paid
off the mortgage. Yeah, So so

1559
01:51:21.239 --> 01:51:26.920
again that doesn't doesn't bring the guy
back, but maybe just makes it a

1560
01:51:26.960 --> 01:51:30.279
little bit easier. I guess,
I don't know. Let's stay up prayers.

1561
01:51:30.279 --> 01:51:44.640
We're gonna bring the five bells line
of due to death. Rest in

1562
01:51:44.720 --> 01:51:47.000
peace, brother, Rest in peace
brother, and got in prayers for his

1563
01:51:47.119 --> 01:51:53.039
family and and his coworkers. Got
a baby boy, one year old.

1564
01:51:53.199 --> 01:51:57.159
It's terrible, all right, So
right, thank you so much to stay

1565
01:51:57.199 --> 01:52:00.800
around so we could talk to you
on the after show. Don't forget Big

1566
01:52:00.840 --> 01:52:03.359
show Monday night, Big reveal,
Big. It's big rough. I don't

1567
01:52:03.359 --> 01:52:06.800
even gonna be huge. It's gonna
be huge. It's gonna be huge,

1568
01:52:06.840 --> 01:52:12.720
just a huge bitch yep. That's
it. So until Monday, ladies and

1569
01:52:12.760 --> 01:52:16.119
gentlemen, pull up your boots because
it looks like work. Oh no,

1570
01:52:19.880 --> 01:52:25.000
let's see it, the big one, right, alright, saddle up,

1571
01:52:25.039 --> 01:52:30.159
sounds like work, all right,
good night, every one,