You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast. Oh no, it's hello,
La, Hire we go. What a great welcome past. It's the only
one that breaks the firehouse kitchen table. We had to kitch your table going
on here and appreciate we're pumbling Mike into permission right before the show. We
had to kitch your table going on. Sorry, let slip that right in
there. Sorry. Welcome back, Welcome back, Welcome back. I got
a guy who got on nineteen sixty two. I love these guys. Eighty
four years old. Is attack of crying that lot. I was gonna tell
him we got to get him on here soon. You know what I mean.
He's still married. TikTok TikTok. Hooked him up with my mother.
It's gonna be eighty five. He's he's ready to go. I think,
yes, yes, hold on, yeah, Well hook him up with the
first time. He found a guy who actually worked with my father in seventeen
engine bro. I've been striking out every single time you get a guy on,
like nope, you were starting to think the member starting to talk,
you know, starting to talk like it was something wrong with me, right,
Like maybe I every numbers back wins. I don't know what we were
dealing with the old every time he has somebody a little too long, you
gotta dan. But the captain. Captain did remember my father transferred to He
remembered the whole nine goats. So I'll talk to him about on it.
We will. Hey, Mike, I don't know what Mike's doing in Mike
wasn't nicking, thank god, thank god. Yeah, maybe he was watching
a cop show and you know, something like that going on. I don't
know what's going on. That's what sounded like. It was quick. But
anyway, I got I just finished locking up all the silver with because I
got Gonzo and Jose coming up uh to stay with me over the weekend,
so I had to secure all the valuables. You know, get Porter Ricans
coming up. He don't whoa, whoa. I don't know. I didn't
even go missing, you know, sound effects. Now, look here here
we go talking about God. I don't know unless you're hurt. I'm only
a little bit of Spanish. Yeah, what side you decide that steals all
the jewelry or what's up? You know, if it's free, it's for
me. You know, fight was a fight. I don't know. You
have to come up papers. Uh going to get them papers. We got
to get our guests in here. So let's do we get a couple of
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at nine O eight nine one seven seven six nine seven. Vince, we're
going to see him. Well, I'm gonna see and roof He's not coming
to the Jersey Show show. I'll be on there with my family. I'll
be putting the pressure heavy on Vince to fucking pick up a meal. You
know what I'm saying, because with two in a hole with Big Vince,
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give him a plug too. Those floors are great. He's a great guy.
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Will soon be selling that on our website. Who soon rough you gets
sands out of his pockets? Excellent, good job, excellent sponsors. Great
book. I got two copies. I gave one to my mother. She
was all tear eyed. She was very proud of me, and she said,
you know what, she said, her mother's son. She called you
her mother's son. She's all right. The second mom, Yeah, well,
you know it's gonna be my third step day. Our next guest.
I hook him up with my mother. I think he's liking it. He's
smiled, smiles back there, he's all smiles back there. All right,
let's bring him in. Rook, you do it, kid, you know
how you are? You ready? Yeah, let's do this. All right?
Coming to the stage, Captain Joe says, so do you think,
captain, how are you doing to night? You guys doing well? Thank
you, Thank you for coming on. So I never knew you were so
handsome, you know, wow, thank you? But I'll see that later.
You should see my mother. Did you get somehow? I gotta be
careful, you know, I can't divulge too many secrets. I hear what
you're saying. A man of mystery. He's a man of mystery. That
captain says. Are we gotta get patriotic real quick? Here we go.
I pleasurely to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice
for all. Yeah. But you guys in the chat too, who we're
going to see on Monday. They're coming down to pay their respect to two
eighty eight Darren Phillips coming away from Canada. A whole bunch of guys.
We'll go out for a few drinks. And the first person that comes to
me and you can tell me exactly what the friction coefficient is, that round
is on me, bro. So come up with whatever the coefficient is when
you see me, and you'll win a round the drinks. All right,
All right, all right, kat Well, welcome to the show. Thanks
for coming on. Like I said before, uh, let's go back back
because you got on the sixth back. But before you got on. Let's
say, let's get a little the old where you grew up a little about
your childhood, what made you want to be a five man, etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. Well, let me see, I was born in nineteen
thirty nine, and I grew up like as a kid. During the war,
I heard all the more stuff on the radio. I has heard about
the Japs in the Nazis and this sat and the other thing. And I
started grammar school in forty five, graduated grammar school in fifty three. I
went to beat to the pre seminary in the Brooklyn on Washington and Atlantic Avenue
for two years, and then I decided that I didn't think I would make
a good priest. So you liked this too, that's something to do with
it. We never once man's poison. Wow, I didn't know that.
I went to this high school. The last two years in the Bronx Saint
Helen's High School. So I went two years in Lebronx. There I got
out of high school. I had a hair up my ass. I couldn't
go back to I couldn't go to any more school. I was finished with
it. So I have to me and my friends bought a car. We
bought a fifty one Chevy station Wagon, ripped out those back seats and make
a camper out of it. We traveled a whole United States. I wasn't
gonna ranch in the in the Rocky Mountains, worked picking peaches and Paradise Valley,
Colorado. I worked in a department store in LA And one morning I
wake up and the guys say to me, we always did everything by majority
rules. It was three of us. I wake up. We lived in
Labria, by the Labria top pits, and they said, we're joining the
Marines today. And I said, screw you, guys, I joined the
freaking Marange. What do you think I'm crazy? You know? So so
they say, sorry, you're out vot. You gotta join Marines. So
you got down to join Marines. And Marines and says, well, we'd
love to have you guys, and the quote you can will take you for
six months, and you can do six years the weekends and and and and
uh two weeks in the summer for six years. So we didn't like that
deal. So he's we said no. So then they he says, well,
I got a friend in the army. He might take you. He
was a real school guy. So he send us down to the Army.
I got down to the Army with these guys. The army guy takes us.
So we got down for induction, and I passed my physical and everything,
and I'm up there and they I crossed the line, raised my hand.
I'm looking around for my buddies. Nither one of them could get in
the freaking army. I'm the only guy who didn't. All right out of
there, and I'm I'm winging my way to Ford in California. Didn't know
ship from SHANEO or about nothing. Man, So I ended up in a
freaking army. Dude. That is hilarious. So all the guys that wanted
to go into the service, none of them went into the service. The
one guy caught up with me, Billy Dietrich, who became a deputy chief
in the job in the sixth Division. He was with me. He caught
up in me a little while later. So I'll tell you about the army.
So I wasn't I was used to, you know what I mean,
the brothers in school and all that stuff. He used to wrap us around
and treat us a little shambley. But Anyhow, I get these sergeants.
They wake us up for REBELI about five o'clock in the morning, it's about
October fifteenth. Were standing out there, pitch black, big black colored guy,
really really tough, tough man, and he cursed and coursed and curse
and he says, h he says, all right, oh, your motherfucker's
He says, I want you to look up at the sky and it's just
you see that light going across that sky. And we all looked up and
it was like a star. This is nineteen fifty seven. Now the star
going across the sky very very slowly. You know what that is? He's
telling us. You know what that is. That's a fucking Sputnik sput We
didn't know what Sputnik was. He says, that's the motherfuck the Russians,
and they're gonna bomb the shit out of us. You better be ready and
you better pay attention here. And this is bootcam. So that's how my
bootcamp started out. Soh my god, it's awesome. So anyhow, I
went through when I went there, and I I went down to Fort Gordon,
Georgia and went to MP school and then uh, they shipped my ass
from them Fort Gordon too. Germany sent me over to Germany and I worked
in in the headquarters in Germany in the in the crypto room. I had
a top ultra secret clearance in the scripto room, and I had a gun
and if anybody come in, I had to shoot them. But nobody ever
came in. So you got that going for you. Yeah, yeah,
So I don't like that job too much. So I what year were in
Germany? Cap What year was that? Fifty eight to sixty? I was
there twenty nine, thirty thirty months was it still you know from the walled
it was just starting to be rebuilt. It was great as holes. All
the buildings were collapsed. Nobody everybody walked the road. Bicycles there was,
and they were picking up bricks off the street and piling them up and taking
them places to build homes and stuff like that. They didn't have many cars
anyhow. So I transferred to a company battalion MP battalion that did patrol work
rather than the headquarters. And I was very fortunate. I was eighteen years
old. They gave me a brand new nineteen fifty seven Chevy and the German
policeman as a partner and put me on the auto barn as a highway patrolman.
Can you imagine that stoop A little kid just out of high school about
six months and I'm the highway patroma and a brand new Chevy riding the auto
barn in Germany. I had a ball. All I did was scraped bodies
off the freaking paper. They couldn't drive over there because they didn't have cars
for years. They were just getting the cars, and they drove one hundred
freaking fifty miles an hour. The mortal bonds were. They were banned now,
but that terrible and all I used to do was crash into each other.
They were killing each other left and right over there at that time.
So that was one of my jobs. I did that for a while.
Then they was black lieutenant. Name was linwood Cott Hill Hartman. They just
got out of that college in DC that it's a very good college that I
can't think of the name of it. But anyhow town, no, no,
Howard Howard University, Okay, Howard University. So they made me,
made me drive him and our job. They had missions. The Russians had
missions in Heidelberg because that was the United States headquarters, and we had missions
in Berlin and the uh with the Russian part of Berlin, and in Moscow,
and so these guys were nothing but spies. And they had they had
this big black Russian limousine with the hammer and sickle on the back of it.
And we had to go out and sit in front of the where they
lived in the morning. And when they come out, we get me in
Linwood. He called me Sahib Joe. I don't know what he called me
joe, and he said, all rights, these these Russians all around,
all around all day, and we were harassed them, you know, every
time they stopped, we'd be right there. We wouldn't let them go anywhere
without being on their tail. So I did that for a while. Then
they sent me to Warns Germany, and I was up there. That was
fun, I would There was along the Rhine River where the pattern and them
guys crossed from Mets, Germany only twelve years before. It was really a
big, big, terrible battles crossing the Rhine there. They had just built
the bridge, rebuilt the bridge that crossed the Rhine there, but the river
banks were filled with shell holes like the artillery shell holes and bomb holes eight
ten feet deep just all over the place, and they were in the ruin
backs were inherited by these great big rabbits hairs they had tall twelve years and
we take the jeeps and we chased the hairs that farm graders. That was
great time over there. Of course, we had all lovely frau lines and
oh nice had a little schnitzel, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah,
they had. They had those wine region there, so they had big,
big wine festivals all the time and beer festivals. So that was really
good. Then I went back to Mannheim, Germany, and I I just
was more or less a town patrol MP drive around, you know, gies
up and bringing them home and all that stuff. That stuff like that.
So I did that all our traffic about two and a half years. And
then they put my ass on the boat sent me back to America. I
come back into It was beautiful July summer day, my dream day, beautiful
coming down. We passed up Ambrose Lightship and I can see the Jones Beach
water tower and you know, I love Jones Beach when I was a kid.
I saw that. I was just so happy, man, I was
like it's like unbelievable. We pulled into the the Brooklyn Army Terminal with the
ship called in there, and when I was doing the ship, I ripped
my name tag off and I would never answer any role calls or anything because
I didn't want to do any job. So I would sleep on the deck
summer times. To get it comes to get off the ship to get discharged,
they call my name and and and they said, where the hell you've
been? We hadn't seen you in ten days. We've been looking all over
for you. I said, I don't know, I hear I never heard
you call my name. So anyhow, so they tell you, They tell
me, all right, you got a choice we give you. I think
it was fifteen cents a mile travel to get from Brooklyn Army Terminal to your
home of record. And my home of record was New York City, so
they would have gave me a subway token, right, but your place of
enlistment. My place of enlistment was LA three thousand miles away. Nice.
Look at that? Nice for sure? I want to go back to my
hot place of enlistening. Pay me so nice. I don't know how much
it was, but three thousand times a couple of bucks sent for something.
But anyhow, it is the fifteenth cent ride hot back to Flushing and I
was home. Yeah, with a few extra shekels they dressing. I went
to work for Italian guy in Corona, mixing cement for a couple of months.
And we had a hurricane in September and it's flushing the cemetery. The
place was devastating and they needed clean up cruise. So I went to the
cemetery and got a job cleaning up after that. It was a temporary job
cleaning up after the hurricane, but the guy they liked me, so he
says, you want to stay on as a jobs I stayed there. I
stayed for thirteen months as a grave digger, so I dug graves there for
thirteen months. Then I got on the cops. I took the cops tests
in the fireman's test about two or three weeks apart. The cops called me
in no time, so I went on the police department and I lasted a
year on them. Well, the fire department called me in June, but
I turned it down because I sort of like being a cop, you know.
And then by July I decided maybe I don't like being the cop.
You know. One of the reasons was I was working on the west side
and house kitchen and it's the daytime. Some guys comes up to me and
says, oh, just smoked. They're smoke in the building up there.
Like I run up and being a you know, a cop hero like break
down the door and I run in. But I don't know nothing about smoking
nothing, right if I'm leophyte with this scrap. But the guy in the
apartment was had had filled it up with sulfa candles to kill all the roaches.
Roaches, yeah yeah, do you ever get you ever get a feed
of sulfa candles? Oh? Yeah, good? I mean it was just
show me the death of two seconds. I stumbled out of an apartment,
fell halfway down the stairs, and I says, ah, man, this
this sucks. The fireman come running in. Boom, boom boom. They
did that in two seconds. They had it taken care of. So I
was watching them. I seeing a few flyers there when I was a coping
right, and I see these guys are doing all right. I like that.
I like this style, so so I put my name back on the
list. So instead of going in June. I went in in October.
I don't even lost about four months or five months, I don't know,
not that much. Did you did you tell him? I did I tell
him what I was doing it? Doing it? Who bro, No,
I'm potentially keeping it low. I don't want to scare loom Cap What So
that was nineteen what sixty two? Sixty two? Yeah, October sixty two
he got appointed. Right? How long was probi school then? And what
to like December twelve? Couple of weeks right, yeah, Wait, did
you have anybody on the job? Did you know anybody on the I didn't
know anybody. No. Wow, look at that guy. That guy was
a world traveler, slim and trim, kicking mp bro, he know how
to do it. Yeah, guy was picking peaches and yeah, slaying women
California and then he was slaying women and he was like my whole life.
I was in probi school. They had that collapse or the fat factory in
Masmith. You might remember that's the soap factory. Yeah. Yeah, they
lost five and yeah they lost four guys. The six guys get five guys,
I think five guys. Yeah. I was in probi school for that.
So that they made a big deal about that to make us learn,
you know, well that was the fire was out and then the marquee collapsed.
Yeah, the whole thing fell down on them. Yeah wow. Yeah.
So and then I get out of there and they sent me down to
the Broom Street eighteen truck and Broom Street, right at the foot of the
Wiisburg Bridge. Yeah, they just tare that building down. That's that's too
long, ago called me. They just tore that firehouse down. Not too
long or did they tear it down? Yeah, the cops were using it
for a while, and then they just finally tore it down. One eight
five Broom Street was the address, right at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge,
right, Yeah, except it wasn't a towel out of back then,
yea. And we used to get those, uh, the wonderful spare riggs,
you know those, and they were they had wooden spring loaded ladders about
eighty five feet or something maybe the longest. And the tractors were nineteen thirty
thirty two thirty three tractors. If you're lucky you got a thirty eight nineteen
thirty eight tractors. Some of them had solid rubber wheels. You know,
and you can never stop, and god damn things. We just had to
open the apprass doors and we'd all get behind the thing. We pushed it,
push the rig, push the rig out, the lieutenant, everybody,
we put just a chauffeur would be you know. We pushed it out the
doors and turn right, go down Broom Street. Was the tiniest little bit
of a hill, impercept of them, but it was enough, and it
was just like, would get it going going, and he popped the clutch.
You never shut it down until you get back to quarters. Could you
imagine telling the guys nowadays that story. Could you imagine you gotta push it
down the block? Could you half a block before we could pop the clutch?
Cap That was pretty crappy over there, big fifteen foot over hangs on
the yeah, yeah, yeah, right right, and you rode the sideboards.
There was no seats running, and the bell was in the middle.
One guy rang the bell. How how was the neighborhood back then? Cap?
It was pretty crazy, right, treacherous. It was the heroin capital
of the city. I saw more murders than I went the fires, and
I saw a lot of fires, believe me. In front of courters one
day in Broome Street right now, summer, like sitting there horse shit and
watching the the girls go by or whatever was going by. They were just
beginning to get there. They were getting them in plants about that time.
So they look at his broad over here with the tenement across the street.
And later on that tenement was used in the Urban Cowboy movie they filmed in
it, but it was occupied. This day, it was still occupied.
There was a guy on the first boutany the fire escape and his girlfriend right
it's right across the street. We're looking up at him and they're arguing.
There was Spanish. The argument like Helen Spanish. This guy takes a machetti
and he shots. He rom off at the shoulder. Oh God, picks
her up and he throws her up the fire escape into Broome Street. That's
what it was like down then. It was crazy man. That's crazy man.
Yeah. How what was the work like? How long before you caught
your first job? When you were there? My first job I caught down
there by weight down, real low reach side down by sort of just above
the Fulton Fish Market, towards sort of by the Manhattan Bridge a little,
I guess it would be Eastern Manhattan Bridge. You ten minute or something.
I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I don't know. I
know there was they were dragging me around in the smoke. I don't know.
Yeah, put a whole here, put a whole break that window.
Do this. Well, I got into it after a while. You know,
cap who was some of the guys you remember, like who was your
boss? Is there that you that you remember? Well? If you can
remember him, I can remember him. Yeah, Beatman who became the August
Yeah, gush, Yeah, he was the captain of seventeen engine and then
he became a battalion chief and came back to the battalion. Uh Ray Gimler
was the captain of seventeen engine after him, and he was a great guy.
He was a patriotic guy. He ran all the support the guy in
Vietnam parades up fifteen and you went everything. The captain of the truck was
Walter Bourbon. And we had I can name the lieutenants, Murretta, Maretta,
I remember Murretta. And there was so many lieutenants. But anyhow,
was there a senior guy there that kind of there was a there was a
senior the guy was a couple of senior guys that were good in the in
the in the truck and in the engine. There was a couple of senior
guys to two Jewish guys, Maxie Rutter and David Cohen. They had been
there since nineteen since the war ended. Was a vote in the war.
Maxie Rutter was standing on the deck of the Missouri when they signed that the
the world the Jacks signed the thing, and he has a he had a
picture of it, and then you could see him. He was a sailor.
He was all he's there. So those those two guys are really really
good guys or lower recited Jews. They came from the area. They knew
everybody. They could get anything you wanted. They were great, great guys.
We had a one guy in the in the truck and he was a
big polart guy and he was he didn't like he didn't like ProBiS, he
didn't like young punks and he were to arrest the it out of you,
you know. Yeah, And then we had other guys Manny Syracuse, he
was he was a senior guy. He was good. And Amiel Pagano was
another one. He was great. And when I when I get there,
as I probably, they told me they gave me like a big five gallon
can of whitewash. And I'm brushing about eight to tenants brush and I said,
you got a whitewash the seller. That's that's your job, kid,
you know. And and I went down and I was whitewashing. And so,
I mean, it's a big, huge double firehousing. And I was
whitewashing and sellar every time I went to work down there, and down there.
One day I got I know, I got maybe halfway through it,
and I said, this is bullshit. I ain't doing this. So so
I stopped. And nobody ever said anything to me. You're gonna last white.
Let's see if this kid's gonna actually go down there and do this.
Let's see how long we get this guy to do this? How was that
guy will blay that cap? How was that guy Kobla? He was one
of the engine guys. They were all good guys. They treated me nice.
They were they were love of the guys. Seventeen Engine were perfect.
They were great. I loved them guys. You hated to see when a
guy left you, you thought you were getting abandoned. You know what what
are you leaving for? You know this? This is great? You take
it personal almost right? Yeah? Yeah? Did you work with a lot
of World War Two guys? Cap, h You work with a lot of
World War two guys. Oh, they were all World War two guys,
been right. One of the MPOs, the seventeen engine, Bob Scolone.
He was a belly gunner and then beat seventeens and that over in Europe.
That guy he was never said nothing to just sit at the kitchen table and
drink off and smoke cigarettes. He was someplace else. Yeah, he survived
the war. I don't know how many missions he did, but he was
a great, great guy. And he he became a chief, you know.
And I think his son was on the jar too. Not positive,
but he became a chief out on White Corse Street at someplace out there in
Brooklyn. Mikey Baron was there too, right, Cap. Mikey Barron was
Yeah, he came just there to me, Mikey. He was a good
guy. I work with him. Who else? I mean, I can
name all of them guys that you probably know. Mikey Barron was great.
Jowey McWilliams, Joey Mcwilliams' son is one of the guys who was putting the
flag up down at the World Trade Center with that famous picture. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, right right right, right, yeah, Well his
father was me. Were buddies there. So you do almost ten years in
the truck, right, and then I put it Yeah, well I was
there twelve years in the truck. I was only in the engine for a
month or two because one of the what happened was in the nineteen seventy three
I was supposed to get promoted and and they called it off for two weeks.
So so now I'm supposed to get promoted. November fourth, November thirty,
we went on strike. The fight apartment, the UFA went on strike.
So I was supposed to get promoted the next morning. So you know,
nobody says anything. I go down there with my wife, my kids,
my family, down to the eleventh floor in the all municipal building and
there's a whole bunch of other people. They are similarly like me, and
they say, what are you doing here? What are you doing here?
And we said, we come down to get promoted. Nobody called you,
Nobody told you it was Oh my god, yeah, it's terrible. That's
horrible to there, you know, and all the other people. The women
went crazy, they started screaming and yelling. Finally the guy ran and he
got some big chief. I don't know who the big chief was, I
don't remember. And he came out and he was very stern. He says,
there's no promotions today. Leave and he kicked us all off, kicked
everybody out of the headquarters. And then we were still on Broome Street then.
And then right after that, I think December six, that was like
November fourth, December six, we moved into Fort pitt On down there on
pitt Street, and and then one of the guys who wanted to go to
the truck, so I went across the floor for that time. It was
only six weeks. I think I was in the engine. I don't know,
but we are always in the engine. We worked, you know,
across the floor all the time. Yeah, but you were there during the
layoffs then two. No, it's up in the Bronx during the layoffs.
Okay, that they came in seventy five, July seventy five, they came.
Oh you got promoted in January of seventy four, right, right,
Yeah, So that. Then I covered a little bit in Brooklyn Knife Battalion
and Brooklyn very short. I had a little wait, so I got six
two you know truck. And that was great because all of them good guys
who are up there. John O'Regan who wrote Lot of three, Vinnie Done
you know, never heard him. Yeah, now that that rig was in,
they were all in quarters with each other. Twenty six, twenty six,
two fifty eight they were all in. Yeah. We had a towel
out there, and they had a remount and UH and fifty eight had the
engine and the officers there were and the engine. The engine was Ray Donny
I was in the truck. Wow. Uh, let's see Lottery Fitzpatrick was
in the truck. He got killed up in the UH in nineteen eighty.
Yeah, I'm trying to think who else. There was a lot of pretty
famous Donny Hayde up there at that time. No, not that I know,
he wasn't there at that time, probably after, but yeah, Billy
Ryan was there. He became captain and Rescue three. Very Yellow was there.
He was a lieutenant, but he got hurt and he got out of
the job. Josh would again he ever hears George McCain. I've heard of
it. Yeah, I've heard of He was twenty five truck captain. There's
you can get to write a book about that guy. He was such a
screwball, but good fireman, probably Grace. When he was a fireman,
he got locked up with a Bronx River for catching Canadian geese and pulling their
feathers out because he wanted to make a freaking sleeping bag. And the maid
was on the front page of the news. Fireman arrested. Oh my goodness,
that's a little screwy. That's a little screwyt Yeah. The only way
back in the sixties, So twenty six two, how would they how would
they divide the runs? I mean, you guys, just for all in
the you would have alternate day. It's first stop. One day we'd be
first, first s up, and we go out first. It was very
busy, so it didn't really make much something If if we were first s
up, we'd go out to a box and you know, ten minutes later
they were out in another box. You know, it's just back and forth
like that. But that's what it was, was alternate days. You would
go like that was it was. It just as busy as eighteen or was
it more Did you feel like it was more busy up there at the time
in your career, Well, there was eighteen truck at the end down there.
They were doing eight or nine thousand runs a year when I when I
finished, you know, I don't know, I don't know about at least
you know, around nineteen seventy we were really way up there. Twenty six
trucks seemed to have more fires. You know, it was a bigger area,
and they had a lot of trouble up there because they had the the
Black mus on the headquarters on one hundred and sixteenth Street there, and they
were always causing problems. You know, it was always troubled fires this that
a lot of fires up there. They've been in that same fire house the
whole time. Cap that one right into projects there is that well date,
I know that they had the old fire houses and they built that one probably
around and in the early maybe early early sixties, maybe nineteen sixty or something
like that. I don't know, but it was it wasn't brand new when
I was there, but it was you know, relatively new. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Fifty eight had a single house and twenty six
side of single house some place I don't know where they were, all right,
and that was it's a pretty pretty good place over there. We had
a lot of well you must have had a lot of laughs too, because
having so many guys in, you know, working at that time, right,
it's crazy. We had Johnson, you know that the firehouse cookbook guy.
You know, yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right,
and him and he was always cooking, wanting to cook, cook, cook,
cook, And there was all the other guys who wanted to cook.
And they would fight and then once in a while the other guy make a
meal and and and they said he's better than Sanino, and Saneo get pissed
off, you know, and you know, and they'd fight back and forth.
It was crazy. Angelo Pernicon was the guy he used to fight with.
Angelo cas Angelo liked to cook too. Would you say that was like
the craziest time for the city like that? That seventy four seventy five was
that the the Bronx was was really when it took off, Well, the
lower reast side was absolutely insane. But Avery ABCD twenty eight, Yeah,
yeah, yeah, Alphabette City there, Yeah, yeah, Fourth battalion was
out of sight, out of sight. I used to go four or five
little hands at night down there, you know, all the time, all
the time, you know. And they had they had these gangs, Puerto
Rican gangs down there. They hated us, and they were blocked, you
know. But set a car fire, you go down the block, they
block off the They throw two ay dvs, one of each ends that are
blocked blocking in. Then they all be in the roofs, thrown refrigerators,
ash cans, ti roof tiles. And then I used to shoot out us.
They all right, everybody inside, small on this fire, you know.
So would everybody run in the buildings And then they say, all right,
everybody out, it's only bricks and bottles to get. Could you imagine
the bottles? Can you imagine the guys today? I mean, could you
imagine running for the space. Oh my god, I'm offended. Oh my
God, Almighty give me strength. So you stayed there until they disbanded them.
Oh no, not was Bricks and bot That was the Lower East cent
I was thrown about the bricks and Bottles in twenty six struck. I stayed
there. They disbanded the company. Uh and and the budget cuts because it's
seventy five. That's when they were getting getting ready to lay off. And
Beam was the mayor and the city was broken ship, you know, and
so they were they were doing away with the second sections, the twenty six
two, twenty seven two, and then all them one o three, they
were doing away with him. That like one of the last days in twenty
six two, we got a second or third along the Second Avenue on about
one hundred and I don't know, fifteenth Street or something, and it was
a really bad fire. And when one of the one of the apartments when
it blew, you know, I don't know what I'm blue, but it
blue the air conditioner out of the front window all the way across Second Avenue,
through a window across the street in the tenement across the street. But
anyhow, this fire, it was murdered, so we put it out and
everything you go home. When you're watching on news channel four, it was
this little blonde head cuty and who was coming and she was up there reporting
on this fire, and she accused us of setting the fire because we didn't
want to get disbanded. On the evening news. Can you imagine accusing us
of setting the fire fake news back then, true to NBC you get that
name. But Cap, did you know that you were getting disbanded? Did
you know that it was happening beforehand? You know, it's not what you
can do about it. You know, how long beforehand do you think?
Did you did? I don't know, two or three weeks or not?
Not warm? And they just said, where do you want to go?
Or they stuck yourself? They sent me the fireman pretty much got it,
you know, they stayed in hall them. They sent me to the tenth
Battalion and I was there very shortly. But it's another good story covering in
the tenth battalion. So I'm surplus stay tour. Right, it's winter.
So I call him up the night before. You wanted to want me to
do. We didn't want me to go blah blah, that's what you did.
And they tell you go to this truck, go to that engine.
And they says, well, report the battalion headquarters because there's no vacancies and
just come in and hang out there. Right, So it's snowing like crazy.
I drive into Manhattan and I parked the car and I go in and
they said, oh, didn't they call you? I said, no,
nobody call me. He said, you gotta go to Coney Island during m
on the fifth Street and I gotta go to Tony Island. You know,
sure drive. So I call up the guy in Coney Island. I saiy,
look like Lou, I says, I'm your relief. They just told
me now. And I'm on the east side of Manhattan and eighty fifth Street.
I said, I don't know how long it's gonna take me to get
there. I'll get there as soon as I can, but God knows with
the snowstorm and everything. Right, Yeah, I drive, I drive there.
It takes me about two two and a half hours. I get to
Coney Island. The guy was happy he got over time. So I'm sitting
in the kitchen having a couple of coffee and it's his chief and then he
was Birmingham. I'm not gonna get a little fat bastard. He comes down
to the kitchen and he says, who's the truck officer. I says,
I am. He says, you get up right now and go, oh
no, it was the engine officer. I'm sorry, who's the engine officer?
I say, it's me. He says, you get up right now
and go over to Coney Island Hospital and vacated. Do you ever see Coney
Island Hospital. It's Jake Bunda. It's like it's five stare blocks stories and
the spill of Brooklyn Jews sick and it's a blizzard. And he wants me
to go over there and put them all out in the front lawn and then
vacated because they got night for selling those X rays in the basement, and
they got a big pile of night to sell your those X rays in a
basement and it's a very dangerous condition. You go down and get him out.
And I said to him, I said, chief, I says,
I'm not having my picture on the front page of the news tomorrow. Stupid
fireman puts four hundred Jews on the front lawn in a blizzard. I says,
I ain't doing that. You can call a deputy, you can call
a commissioner, you can call relone, but I ain't doing it. Yeah,
I've heard that before, so I didn't do it. He got all
shook up and he gets the deputy to come over and and then the deputy
says, why isn't you crazy you can't do that, you know. He
says, let's just go over there and see what's going on. So we
took the truck in the engine. We went over there and shut and crap
in a basement. It was I mean, how to be thirty feet around,
all the whole x rays all piled up. It was dangerous, but
it was a you know, fireproof basement and everything. And he says,
all right, charge a line, which would have done nothing because if not
to sell you goes goes off. You can't put it out with water creates
its own oxygen. You can't put a night to sell you those fire out
with water. And we all knew that, but we're putting on a show.
So he says, get the main maintenance manager and the manager at the
hospitals. So this guy comes down and it's a Jewish guy. Get a
Jewish name and everything and so and the yelling at him and everything, and
he gets me. He says, hey, he says, I'm retired fire
Marshal. I said, oh shit. I says, well, what can
we do here? So I cooked up a story with him and we went
to the dept. And I says, this is on and he's retired from
the job. He's a fire marshal. He knows what he's doing, and
he has a vendor who he has coming to take this and he'll just tell
him to come fourthwith and get rid of this stuff. And he says,
and I said, in the meantime, I'll sit here with a charge line
until a vendor gets here and starts to removing it. And so that's how
we solved that problem. Any But I didn't get my picture in the paper
or anyhow. That's such a weird scenario, too, right, I mean
how often. I mean, that's such something you would never show up on,
like you know, you would never respond to something like that. I
understand it's could have been there for fifty years. Cap how long were they
there for? They could have been there for all you know. I don't
know how long they would I don't know nothing. I want to tell a
story about this chief. I have it on my think from the fourth b
time Denny Shape he came. He was he was there from the from the
forties, you know, now we're in the sixties. He was an old
irishman. He lived on in our old lawd tenement down there by the by
the Manhattan Bridge. But he was a tough, tough burden. Everybody in
the job, all at higher ups knew him. Everybody knew him, and
they knew when he said one and one and the rest first. Even the
commissioner got out of bed and came. He would never ever give a second
along. They wouldn't, No matter what happened, he wouldn't. He wouldn't
do it. And when we rolled down there in seventeen engines, seventeen engine
had two pieces at that time. I don't know if your dad ever told
you that, but they had a pupper and a hose wagon. And he
used to get three and two in the box, you know, three engines,
two trucks in the box, and then plus some of them had the
hose wagons. So you're getting a lot of appris. We're down there and
it's appeared burning, you know, on fire. So we're all setting up
and everybody's everybody's working. Everybody's working, and Chase Chase drivers the guy named
nol Hard. Noel's Hard ultimately became the chief of department and Gary, Indiana
years later. But anyhow, he's driving, he's driving shape. Chase says
to him, No, he says, tell him, we're using one on
one. Plus we got a boat. You got Marin six on it.
The boats there too, and tell them we're using one on one the rest
standing fast. Send another boat, not send us an additional truck for an
additional engine. Send a boat. That's that was a common I think that
that was probably a common thing though, right cap who uh you know you
don't want to You took pride and using quote unquote less companies, right,
you know, that's that's that's what he did. He wouldn't use anybody,
right right, right, Yeah, that's funny, shit funny. So he
wound up in twenty seven truck after they disband Uh yeah, I went there
and may. They had the layoffs in July and I stayed there as a
lady too. That was another great great spot there. That was wonderful.
What was that like over I can't tell you the fires in that place.
We were all over the Bronx all of and we had that seventy seven black
out there that was horrendous. Oh my god, that was just that was
the one of the I thought the world ended that night. I swear that
I was working. It was ninety eight degrees and everything was burning. Everything
was burning, every block was every freaking everything was burning. For a guy,
the guy who was in the Lower East Side right in twenty six two,
that night, everything was burning. I mean, is that incredible.
We were eating chicken. When we were eating chicken, catch a tory when
the box come and we go out. The dream on there when you were
prom them back and the lights go out, you know, all the traffic
lights and everything, and there was a jewelry store on the corner. We
stopped at the light. When the gang of people went up to the jewels
store, that scissor gates on it. They grabbed the scissor gates and they
pulled them off and they went in and it looked like this in out right.
There wasn't one thing left in the jewelry store, not not even a
piece of dust. They took everything out of there in about two seconds while
I'm waiting for the light. So I call him dispatcher, I send the
cops over here, blah blah blah, And they said, well, we
got a problem. When you gotta blackout, he says, you gotta go
down to this post office on Brook Avenue or someplace. There's a fire in
the post office. So all right, So we go down to the post
office and there's a guy standing in front of the postal office with a pistol
and he's a postal inspector and he's a big crowd around him. And they
went in and they were robbing the post office and they set the bags of
mail on fire. Now he started trying to hold him off. So we
go up there and we go knock down. It wasn't much of a fire.
We knock it down fast, and we tell him, can you lock
this place up? And lock it up? And he says, I'm staying
here. I don't know if a decade had a little you know, six
shot revolve. I says, when we leave here, these guys are gonna
take that gun from you and shove it up your ass. You better just
skip your face up, getting your truck and get the hell out of here,
and and and and get out of this burrow because the ship's sitting the
fan. Yeah, you know. And from them, we just went from
one fire to one another's one another. It's one another and we were on
a fire. Up on says, you're thinking we're cutting the roof and doing
the stuff. A big tax Fay went around the corner. They mugged.
They mubbed the MPO and forty six Enginess wild West, bro it's the wild
West? What ye was? Ten companies and they mugged them. Can you
imagine that? No? I can't imagine. I can't imagine. Imagine people.
What did they get from him? The pocket? He had his wallet
or something? I don't know. Maybe he didn't have a munching pumping the
rig. Yeah, unbelievable. It was a crazy night man, A good
time for that. Somebody wants to know in the chat if you worked with
the Captain Crestio? I know him? Where? Did I know him?
Frohim? He was in seventeen two, right, Ruth? Yes, I
believe yes? And then he went to Brooklyn. I think he was in
Brooklyn one that he was one of seven he want to be a distributed Yes
did yeah? Yeah, I know him. He looked This freaking guy remembers
everything. I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I know
we can remember every one of my where my father Tradford two fifty years ago.
I don't know what I'm doing right now. Just three seconds ago he
did. Cappy owned it it was in mass but or Elmhurst actually right on
grand Dad right, yeah, yeah, I know him flush Yeah, we
had him on the show too. It was it was great. Did you
did? I always wondering what happened? Then he said Florida too, Maybe
we'll hook you guys up. Yeah, it's twenty seven, the one that's
right off the expressway there cross Bronx Expressway Washington Avenue. Yeah. Great.
That had to be may I can't even imagine. And you were a boss
there like that had to be Baham there. I mean absolutely, Oh yeah,
that was a great place. Those guys were superman. They all knew
exactly what to do and I had a given order or nothing. I swear
to guard. It was. It was a dream. It was a dream
place to work because these guys are all salty old guys and uh, they
knew their job. You know. Yeah that Spink Did you ever hear of
Tanto and Spink and twenty No, it was one guy they called Tanto and
Spink was his partner. The Spinker is the guy that that cut his stumb
off and then then he had his toe transplanted trans Oh yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was Spink, so Tanto
and Spink that those guys could do anything. I mean they were great,
great, strong, big, strong, heavy duty guys. Man made your
job easy, right cap oh man, thank god. So when you got
Mick swiggin there, Jimmy mcswiggan, I went to high school Saint Helen.
As I told you, there was about maybe twelve or fifteen universe from Mike
class that run in the fire department. Some of them are pretty pretty.
You know. Larry Hatton, he was a safety chief. Jimmy mcswiggan,
he was, He became a fire marshal. Stevie Heshan was a deputy.
Carbine Crochry was famous and uh in thirty one truck. There was a bunch
of us. Wilkins Wilkinson says, he was your twenty Walter Wilkinson was my
twenty four partner. Just said, yeah, yeah, we did, we
did. We did mutuals all the time. Man him. I was gonna
tell you about what the he was. I gonna tell you about mcswiggan.
Mc swiggin was a big hunter. He went, he had Africa, did
struggling by every place. But anyhow, he shoots a bear upstate, right
He brings it down, he cuts the head off it. He skins it
right, and he cuts the feet in the hands off it. Now he's
got a torso looks exactly like a human Huh, looks like a human being.
Yeah, he put he put a pair of finding pants on it,
and he tied a rope around his ankle and they tied together rope around the
thing on a tiller up and by the tiller wheel, and he goes on
the run. Now he's driving through the Bronx with this streaking whatever. And
as he comes around the corner on Park Avenue on the one seven and something,
he takes his knife out and he cuts the rope and the thing rolls
down towards towards the side of the road and R tricks. So they don't
know what happens because nobody knows what it happened to it. The next day
in the paper headless ape found in South Bronx, Oh, I heard that
it was willis Saving You someplace, willis Save You? How it got from
one hundred and seventy six and Park. We always had a real South Bronze
down around Willis Save You. We don't know who did it. I guess
the neighbors did it. Somebody told us that story, Cap a while back.
I don't remember who it was, but somebody told us about that.
It was in the paper the next day. Yeah, it was they and
they all thought it was They all thought it was an eighth But Cap,
I'm not I'm not kidding. If you skin, if you skin a bear
and you look at it and then you hang it, it looks like it
looks like a person like I know, it really does. It's like you
said, if you took the hands off. I've been involved in that.
Yeah, skinning people, not bears. Yeah, I understand, I understand.
Dennis Smith said that that's right. Thank you did. The South Bronze
from Bond. You of Germany post World War Two when you got there was
worse. We had guys, guys come there from from Israel to ride with
us, and they were government officials or something. I don't know what they
were why they were there, but they were touring that and they said this
was worse than Germany. They said when they went around Charlotte Street and all
that crap, you know, all them down by thirty one truck and eighty
two engine, fifty fifty nine and eighty five when they were there and they
were a gas there was terrible. It was a terrible, terrible disaster that
area. Everything happened, it was was crazy. Crazy things happened there.
They go down they caused the Charlotte Street. You get down there's nothing but
but rubble and those ghetto weeds grown, those ghetto sumac trees, you know,
they grow sixty eight feet high. So there's a group of guys down
there living, living in a rubble and living under the shade trees. They
had like bench seats from vans and stuff that they would sit on. They
called us down there. We'll get down there and we go up to the
guy. I say, yeah, what what's the matter? They shaid,
Frank over there, Frank ain't doing so well. So we go over.
There's a guy laying. You know, we're gonna tell you sorry, but
your paler, Franks. Did you know the guys a bailable over time?
He said, Franks did? He said, yeah, he's dead. Oh
Frank oled me a dollar, my two dollars. Does that work out like
that? Frank getting to see into his pockets now while he's still in gosh
cat, what companies did you? I'm not that familiar. That's about the
only borrow I'm not that familiar with. Who did you run in with?
You running in with thirty one? Now? Like, who do you running
with nineteen nineteen, fifty, forty forty two, fifty six, eighty eight,
thirty eight, forty five, fifty eight. Wow, See right in
the middle of that all that. Yeah, it was right in the middle.
Called it the eye of the on. We called it that. You
know, we were right in the middle of the more we ran with all
of them guys. All right, So now I'm gonna ask you again with
now with this company with you know, you were on the set on the
Lower East Side or point you were in Harlem, and now you're you're in
twenty seven, Like, where did you feel like? I now, I
know seventy seven was the year, but when did where did you feel like
you were doing the most work in your career at that point? I was
saying the Bronx. Yeah, definitely the Bronx. Yeah, we were.
We were always busy. You know, that's a lot of funny stories.
Get out of there. Yeah, this is a good story. Here,
let's I'm gonna pull this pick up. Oh yeah, that was back in
twenty seven. That was fifty seventy six. I have the date on the
back, it's January something. And that's right across the street from forty two
and fifty when fifty six and forty two ones, you're in the same court
as I'm un row, and that was right across the streets road frames like.
So we go there and the fire is in the basement. So I
know, I'm in there in the basement with a guy with a can and
we're trying to knock the fire down, and the can wasn't enough. The
thing flamed over over the room, you know, over the ceiling balloom well,
and then then the whole place got shocked down with with you know,
black thick, hot smoke, and so we hit the deck and I we
got to get out of there. So I'm kicking their asses to get out
because I'm I'm scared to ships, you know, I want to. I
can't leave him. I gotta I gotta wait for them, you know,
come on, come on, you guys, let's go. Let's go.
And I the stairs going down. They had just started to build a closet
under the cellar stairs and it was framed out, but it didn't have any
walls. I had the misfortune of crawling in that closet trying get out of
this basement, and I and I hit the you know, I crawled in
and bang, I hit this thing, and I couldn't I couldn't go any
further. I turned to the right, I couldn't go to the right.
Bang, I couldn't go to the left. I couldn't see anything or anything.
So now I didn't know what the hell I do and I was on
the verge of panic. Hard to believe, but that that's that's true.
Anyhow, I said, the only way I'm gonna get out of here,
I gotta put my nose to this ground and see if there's any if I
can see anything. So I put my face on a on a cement,
and I looked and it was about maybe three inches of clear, you know,
no smoke. It didn't reach the floor, and I could see a
light. So I got out of the closet and I crawled and I got
out of there. So that was that was the first little mishap at that
job. So that not the whole place is going Now we end up on
the roof. I were trying to cut that the back roof there andvent it
for the guys going in with the line. American falls through the roof.
John Merrigan falls through the roof, and so Tommy used was with me from
fifty six Struck and me, and they're wearing that picture and we're pulling him.
We're pulling American out. That's me, Tommy used American. I don't
know who this guy is. I don't remember. So we get him out
and get him stood up, and then me and him fall through the roof.
We had a we had a we scurried out ourselves, you know,
we like you know, but that they're all happening, like within fifteen minutes.
She's unbelievable. A lot that shit happens, right, you know,
two a minute to find the next minute, Yeah, trouble even a guy
like you called to so many fives with the experience, you could be humbled
and killed a second two seconds. It doesn't take two seconds. Yeah,
I mean, I spent three days in UH in UH North Central bronx and
intensive care, and you wouldn't believe you can get a feed. I got
a feed on the roof of an h and we almost lost the whole company
because we got trapped on the side of the roof and the area was on
the other side, and the cock woff just exploded and started caving in.
And we had a run. And as we were running, the roof's forum
behind us, you know, going down down, were almost running uphill to
get to this, and the smoke was absolutely horrendous. So we got I
got all the guys on the area and all that stuff. By the time
I got on it, I was finished. They took me to North Central
Bronx and they put me in tense of care and they said to me,
it's all right, you know, got somewhat the rejuvenated. I said,
all right, can I want to go? You know, I want to
go home in it? And I said no, you go, you and
go and know it. And I said why not? They say, well,
you're clinically dead, they told me. And they said, I mean,
I'm clinically dead. And they says, well, you're you're combat monoxide
blood count is so low that you can't survive. You You nobody ever survives
that low with that much carbon oxide in their blood. And this is we
ain't letting you out of here until you your blood is clear. Took three
days they clear my clear my blood before they'd let me go. That was
that was at noontime, you know, not of the nighttime. You think
something's gonna happen at night time. It's a nice sunny day, you know.
And and and I happened that stuff cap You know what I want to
ask you guns put that picture back up for a second. Was that was
that tool the tool at that crowbar something you just picked up? Or was
that? No, that was I bought that? That was a just a
nail poor nice you know, Yeah, I like it. It's a carbon
just nail puller. I don't know if they saw them that length anymore,
or that that the type, but that's what I use. Yeah, we
still have m I use them for trench rescue. We use them to pull
the nails. We have the same same size, same one. Ye when
it was nineteen seventy. You know, they weren't buying four hundred dollars like
many Halligans. You know what I mean? They needed you know what I
he went to the hard way stuff for twenty bucks. It was the officer's
tool. Yeah, no, I get it, man, I knew it
a sort of picture the job. That was a good tool. I like
that tool like that. Do we have any other pictures gone from twenty seven?
Uh? That's that was the one I had, and it was in
that time frame. Let me see, uh go back in case we missed
any before we move on to captain. Yea, that was pictures of twenty
seven. Too bad I didn't put them all on. No, that was
the other than the actual rigor the rig. That's the old firehouse they had
one hundred and seventy sixth Street and at Rescue three went in there after they
left Manhattan and stayed dead to like build up the new firehouse that they have
done right down the road there. Look at them all garbage cans coob,
Yeah, how much those things weighed? Those things sucked. I remember how
you get like a plastic garbage can. Right, Those things weighed like there
was another house right next to it to the left. That was where forty
six engine was. There were separate houses. Oh really, Oh John's find
that bro Bro seven engine that was called It actually looks like two two different
firehouses and they were to get twenty two was the same way like that one
twenty two year. Give me a year nineteen seventy. I'll just look at
that. Let me see what like a fine nineteen seventy that that that was
about nineteen seventy four, seventy seventy three, that picture, I think I
see what they could find. Yeah, a lot of rigs. Cap You
had the same while you were in twenty seven. Uh, you had the
same bosses for the most of the time. You said you did uh twenty
fours with Wally that but who was the Wilkinson. We had Wally Wilkinson,
me Bobby Schmidt, who the boy's nicknamed the Ayatola because he was he was
a tough guy on him, the Golden the Ayatola altla comani, right,
Yeah, Yeah, And we had we had Maddy Mertz always the captain for
a while, and then Jimmy Shuffle became the captain. And we had Jimmy
Roach was the captain and when I went there, but he was outsick and
he never worked when I was there, guy named Roach, who I wanted
to ask you this before I just thought about it, not to cut you
off. Who did you study with you? Did you have a study group
that you stayed with the whole study was studied with a Billy Dietrich, Bob
Mullen, Charlie Boyce and uh Jimmy. Uh, he'll come to you.
Name Jimmy from Rescue one. He's the same name as that lieutenant from Rescue
one whose kid got killed in nine to eleven and he just died out in
Vegas. Jimmy, get uh the hint. That's there's another story. This
guy, Jimmy. I would think of his name in a second. He
was. He comes to the eighteen truck and I'm there. You know,
I'm sort of like a senior guy because a couple of ProBiS came after us.
So he walks in the door and he had a kid. He's an
old guy, so, you know, and he sort of knew his way
around. So I said the talking to him, he was eight years a
cop. He's playing clothes. His partner was Cerprocal. Well shit, yeah,
So I said to him, Jimmy, your partner was Serprocal And I
said yeah, And I said, what he did? What did he say
to you about this stuff when the cops? And he says, well,
what do we he said? Sebago said to him, Jimmy, what are
we gonna do about this? And Jimmy said, I don't know what you're
doing about it. But I'm going to the fire department. And he went
to the fire I'm getting the hell out of here. And Sebagos did his
thing. And Jimmy Jimmy Kerren, his name was Jimmy Jimmy Kerr. Yeah,
but it's not the one from rescue one. Not the sort of a
guy that's well known. This guy grew up in the Lower East Side.
He was an orphan. He grew up with his grandfather. His grandfather had
a bad heart, but he was a cold deliverer. So since he was
a little kid, he had to go with his grandfather and delivered bangs call.
And he was strong as you could be. And he was a heavyweight
professional boxer, but he was mile matting guy. He wouldn't know he was
a fighter. He had known nothing on him. He only had six or
eight heavyweight fights. But he used to small Rocky Marciano ain't shit, No,
this is Jimmy. This is what was that like? Sparn with him.
He says, every time he hit me, it felt like a six
story building fell on me. He said, he said, it would just
go right through your bones, everything to your bones. Right, Okay,
Maiana, it's not the ain't shit I found this. I mean, I
tried to see if this is? Is this back? Then? This is?
What's it? Fine? Okay, it's kind of it's not the best
picture I was. Can you zoom it? No, I have to put
a little blurry looks a little blurry. See if I can find a little
kind of now seen that guy current hit one guy once because the guy curring
got promoters a lieutenant and the guy thought he should have got promoted before him.
So he was pissed off and to getting promoted before him. And he's
a picture to beer in his face and Karen like, he wouldn't like this
here about. He couldn't have thrown it that much. It just just cap.
It's always the jab. Cap, It's always the jab. Oh just
a little bang. And that was the end of them because he wanted that
again. Brouh, It's always the jab. So let's captain. You got
promoted to uh captain in UH eighty two eighty two. Yeah, I went
to the fifteenth division covering, but I wasn't a Brooklyn man. They they
didn't take kindly stream take kindly to my demeanor in Brooklyn too well, although
I knew all of them guys, I still they couldn't get a company for
shit. I wasn't in there. You know, you need to be in
a circle, the circle of trust, circle of trust. So I spent
a lot of time in two thirty three Engine because the captain they had died,
so I was covering there for a while. And Bobby, you remember
Bobby Sarno. I do remember that name, but I don't remember looking at
time, Fella, I don't remember for sure. I got two guys out
of that company to rescue for though, when I became captain I liked.
I got Mike Loftus and uh pelf Garrett, Michael Garret. One time I
was when I when one of the problems when I went, they were like
when I was in the Bronx suite. You know you had drill at seven
thirty every night and that stuff. We never drove the le Bronx because we
were we weren't there. You know, you're always out, you know,
So I wasn't. We didn't have that that built into us to have a
drill. So I got to three thirty two Engine one night and it's snowing.
I'm sitting at your office swilling my thumbs and they called me down and
I said, you got the drill. It's time to drill, Time to
drill. I said, what you know, like, what the hell?
What do you mean drink? And they said it's time to drill. And
I'm saying, oh crap, what am I gonna drill with? I know,
you know, I'm not even thinking about that, And my mind was
sort of blank. But they had a female that she was just there.
She just came there. I don't remember her name. So yeah, dip
foxing around in the kitchen everything, and then when they want to drill,
they want to drill. So I said that you guys know how to make
Irish soda brigg and they said, no, I don't know. But in
twenty seventh truck we had a famous Irish soda brig recipe. We used to
make it all the time. So I said, you don't know how to
make it Irish soda brig? You know. There was a couple of Irish
guys said no, no, no, you like it? Oh yeah,
we love it. Yeah. I said, well, tonight's drill is Irish
solder brig. And I said, and I got, I got all this
stuff. I told him what they're getting everything, and they made him each
make a loaf of Irish sorder brick, so they ate it and everything and
then come out it or come out terrific and everything. So that was my
drill for them, and they loved it. What do I find that in
the manual? I think it's in the manual where you take your name or
if your uniform too, and you're coming into port, it's in that same
on that same page, right, yeah, I mean the two earty three
engine and it's annual inspection. Right. That firehouse is huge. You ever
see that fifth division? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, four bays, yeah
yeah. They had an ambulance in there, they had everything, the squad
in there at one time. Yeah. Well the only person in there now
was two eighty three and a division. So just the day before the inspection,
I go on building inspection. There's nothing to inspect. They're all vacant
buildings. I walked into a vacant liquor store and there was a like account
or something. I find our three fifty seven magnum pistol, fake fake three
fifty seven magnum pistol, but it was as real looking as could be.
So I just took it with me, and I went back to the quarters
and I put it in the Captain's box on the desk. The next day
we're having the annual inspection. So I don't, I mean the chief is
in quarters. I don't. I'm not worried about this at all. You
know, it's a yell over here. I like that. But so and
the guys had just painted the firehouse, the whole inside of the firehouse with
their own money, because to tribute to captain who died. He wanted to
do that, so they did it. They did it on their own,
paid everything and everything. So f figering your Steputy's gonna, you know,
give us a wash, right, yeah. So I Mikey Loftus was the
MPO, like the senior guy. And I says, Mikey, just tell
me where the roof is. I know what even know where the roof was.
I just tell me where the roof is. Because these guys usually like
to go to the roof. Ja they never go to the roof. Don't
worry about it. So I didn't know where the roof was. Right,
So the chief says, okay, it comes down his clippo and everything.
He's all right, cat, let's go to the roof. I said,
the roof. That's even money I might commit. We got to go to
the roof. So the roof was a straight run ladder up there, and
I had a hatch. I climb up on the roof and I damned dropped
dead. I swear to god. There were sumac trees growing out of the
roof. About eight There was beer cans, Oh my cans, and it
was all these these air conditioning cans that they used to charge a conditioners or
something. There was ten or fifteen and laying on the roof. The roof
was a total wreck. And I looked at him and I said, holy
shit, oh my god. And so it depinutely looks at me. He
says, watch this, And I says, chief, I says, we
can't keep this thing clean. He said, that subway station is right there.
All they do is throw berkens on the roof. I said, and
those things are Those cans are from the shops. You know that they come
over here and they put them in. So those cans are from the shops.
And I says, those trees, I said, Dad, the men's
marijuana plants. So he would all right, let's go down this let's get
the hell out here. Yeah, as long as you have an answer,
right, cap. That's really so this guy, this guy, he's going
over everything, everything to the nail. I'm going crazy, right. The
finally we get finished and if the the n annual inspection, usually go in
a kitchen and have cake and coffee in you know. So, but he
goes in a normal company in a place where there was not where there was
occupied buildings. You had building cards and everything. So he says, he
wants to see my A forty two cards. The A forty two cards list
every building in a district when they were inspected the last time, the inspector,
the number of violations, blah blah blah, the whole history. So
I get the A forty two cards out and I showed them to him,
and he's notting on him. It's like the rem chief. And he says,
what the hell is this? And I says, I said, I
looked and I saw my box with the gun in it, right, And
he starts harassing me about these eight twenty two cards. I reached in,
I took the gun and I said that's enough, chief, you know,
And it looked real and he almost shooting with cans, and he says,
I guess it's time for coffee. That says, you're right. I should
have had that in mind him. We bought a mailbox and he passed us.
Still, I don't know how the hell he passed in Muni coups.
Oh my good, I know how he passed. He was scared for his
life. That's how he passed. You. He might have thought it was
real. I don't know it looked real, all right? So how long?
How do you get the spot? He covering around? How do you
wound up over? And well it wasn't stock back then, right, it
was how he wound up and rescue four rescue services. Right. Yeah,
So I was in two eighty three and I was gonna get that spot if
I hung out there long enough. But I had serious problems at home.
H my what. I had six kids and my wife took a hike and
left me six kids. You know, so I'm working and I got six
kids at home. I added five girls. They're all young teens, preteens
and teens. And I was, I was, I was struggling, you
know, to keep my family together and keep him straight and keep him out
of trouble and everything. So I knew South Sansoni was in charge of the
Bureau of Training, and he says, can I help you out? He
says, I give you a day job over here. Un least should be
home at night, you know. So I said, okay, I'll try
that. So I went to Division of Training, put me in charge of
Chauffis School and I lasted about three weeks and I hated. I was just
freaking drove me out of my mind. I couldn't do it, and it
was worse. It was worse than than before at home. The way that
I was were and everything. It wasn't good. So I went to him
and I said, SI, I can't. I can't do this. I
gotta go back to the field. He says, will tell me where you
want to go. I says, put me in the fourteenth division. That
way, my commute won't be that far anyhow, it's Queens. So I
went to the fourteenth division and he put me in one four truck immediately because
that captive got sick and he was never coming back. So I stayed there
for about I was going to get that spot two. I stayed there for
about nine months or something, and my power was Ray Brown, who was
the charge of rescue services at the time. That was the precursor to Sack.
They called it rescue services, and so he was running rescue services and
he was he you know, they had HASMA. They were trying to get
a hazmat company because Rescue four had the hazmat and they were just transferring all
that stuff over to the real has the new hasmat company and that stuff.
And so it happened that Rescue one had old Faery, Rescue two head Downy,
Rescue three had Rhyme, Rescue four had me and and the Rescue five
at DRISCO five Irish captains. Right. So there were some Colombian guys that
were a little myffed at this ship, you know, and they knew that
that Mehan was getting promoted to battalion chief and they insisted that they're getting Italian
in and Rescue forward. I want an Italian in there. And all these
Colombian guys were all, you know, all fighting over it and everybody,
and you know, everybody's coming out of the woodwork and everybody, and Ray
Brown is telling I don't even notice, right, Ray Brown is starting to
tell He's telling me this, you know, he's sitting there. He said,
they drive me crazy. I don't know what to do. Boom.
He says, I don't know who to get. I can't find anybody that
I think should have it. That's that's halfway decent and everything. And he
says, and the plus the the animal Society is going crazy. They don't
want to give up, you know, the spot they want to have.
They want to keep the Irish in there and everything. I said, I
just thought about it, and I says, you know, Ray, you
know, I'm remember the Columbia Society, and I'm also remember Emeralds Society.
Three quarters Irish. My mother's name is Shannon. My grandmother was Shannon,
and my other grandmother was Egan. The other one was white. You know,
I was three quarters Irish. I says, I'm a member of both
satieties. Put me in there and let them fight it out after I get
it. And they can't say nothing. They can't say you didn't put an
Italian in there. You put a Columbian in there. And the other guy
says, you can you didn't put an Emerald guy in there. I'm in
there, so he says, oh, he goes who so he took it
down to the chief of department or whatever his name was. The guy from
Massapika is a good guy, and he run it up in front of them,
and so they interviewed me, you know, and they said, well,
you got in a reputation as a party guy. I don't know.
I don't know where I got that reputation. I really don't, but I
don't know where they got that. But I said, well, you know,
I can't. I can't. I can't answer it, you know.
And they says, well, we have one lieutenant there that's a problem,
and his name is John Dylan. And if you, if you, if
you, if you think you can handle him and straighten his ass out,
we'll give you the company. I saw sure, I said, I don't
want to have any problem with John Dolan. Little didn't know that John was
one of my best friends. Yea, hang around with him and his and
his cousins and all that stuff. Duke, I'm gonna get him a helmet,
That's what I'm gonna get him. Yeah, So I go, I
call they give me the company, you know. So I go to Duke,
I said, Duke, I said, listen to the story. So
he had a big kick out of it there. Don't worry, he says,
I ain't gonna He said, I ain't gonna do anything to screw her
up, and he didn't. But it didn't make any difference because the duke
had so much weight that they couldn't hurt him if they wanted to. The
fire commissioner couldn't even hurt him, he had so much weight, so he
did what he wanted. Anyhow. Then I got the company and what year
was that cap? Yeah, so I stayed on ninety one. Wasn't it
a big change for you, you know, coming in instead of first two
company, now you coming in as a rescue Well, it was different,
you know, I mean it was. I liked it because there was no
we didn't have hydrants, you didn't have buildings, you know, we didn't
have any of that crap. And you had a lot of we had a
lot of a lot of nice tools that you could, you know, you'd
have fun with, you know, and do things with. And I started
drilling with them. Guys. We went out. We used to we had
a boat. We used to go out in the boat going to the East
River. We'd go to the Rockaways and go out in the ocean, go
out to Fort Totten and drive around. You know, we did that,
and you know, we'd go down to the railroad yards. We're going to
ships, going to the subway tunnels. The airports we had JFK and LaGuardia
Airports are two biggest airports around, and we'd go over to those places.
We've got to learn them places good, you know. I mean when you
think about how big the area is, right, you can go to Astoria
and then you can go to Rockaway. Right when you think about how crazy
there could be a two hour ride, right yeah, and plus where it's
located, you could be in the Bronx and ten minutes you can be minute.
Yeah, and it's perfectly be in Brooklyn in ten minutes. So anytime
one of them rescues was doing something and something happened, we were there.
Yeah, you could go to fifty nine Street Bridge right away, right,
were there all the time, and different burrows you know. Yeah, when
you're when you were in those other companies, CAP, did you ever have
any problems, you know, with when you were in the other companies like
twenty seven and and before that twenty six, do you ever have any problems
with the rescues you know, we had problems with rescue one when I was
in eighteen because it was two a couple of guys there that were nasty guys,
you know, they I don't want to say their names. I don't
know, you know, I don't say. I don't think I should,
but too in particular, that caused a lot of grief. You know.
Basically a lot of them are good because we sent guys there. We sent
we got Eddie took went there from eighteen truck. He was up there a
week and he got killed up there in the rest of one. He got
killed the memorial then when we were having memorial services and the ice house in
Greenwich Village. I don't know if you know about that fire, but it
was a fourteen story ice house along the west Side Highway, and he was
cutting the roof and what they did up on the roof was they had had
a skylight there and they took the skylight out and they just laid plywood over
the chef. It's a fourteen story chef. But they never put any crossbeans
and have a supported it. So he just happened it putt the thing flapped
and he went down and it flapped back up. And they didn't know where,
they didn't even realize he was he was gone. And as he fell
down the Kate twelve saw cut his cut his leg off. I think he
was he was going to die anyhow, but on the way down he cut
his leg off. And then they got killed. And then we were up
at the Fireman's memorial up and Riverside Drive and during the ceremony, and then
and then when we got the word that Eddie got killed October's seventeen seventy seventy
one or something. Yeah. So but for the most part he got along
with the rescues, right, yeah, Rescue of three we got along great.
I know. We never dealt with Rescue two as as you know in
the other companies. I thought with him when I was in in four because
I was opposite down here group wise, and I I got and he was
out a lot. He got hurt, he got sick, he had operations.
So I would always work over there over time. So I knew them
guys do they were pretty They were they had a big rep. But the
guys I had worked with seemed to be good. There was a couple of
two or three trouble makers here. Two when I was working, but I
don't want to mention anything. Troublemakers everywhere making was Milner. Was Milder a
troublemaker. No, Milder was a sweetheart. He was. He was a
nineteen truck I know him because I was in twenty seven. I know him
down there. I'll tell you a story about Milner. This is a great
story. We get special calls to the Bronx for a building classes guests explosion,
four story building classes. Right, get up. There's a guy buried
in the rubble. Riskue three goes down to sellar because they can sort of
see him up and they can hear him yell him. So they tell him,
all right, they're gonna dig from the bottom up. And we started
digging from the bottom down right. We had a lot further to go,
but they had to be more careful because they were afraid the building of collapse
into the cellar. So we dug this great, big hole. It took
hours to get to this guy. We get to them. Now we're down
maybe eight or ten foot hole and everything is shifting. It's really it's Harry,
you know, to say the least. And I got like, let
me see, I had probably three guys down in the hole, and Milner
was one of them, Mikey Lofters was one, Norman Sebisi was the other,
and there and the might have been another guy, and maybe Billy Billips
might have been there. I got them in the hole and they're showing stuff
up and they're cutting and sharing and cutting and showing. It took a real,
real long time. So we get this guy pretty much uncovered, but
we still can't get them out. Now. They didn't have EMS in the
fire department then, but they had ems City ems people and they they're pissing
and mowner that we're not letting them do anything with this victim. So anyhow,
whoever was running the show for the fire department, some assistant chief or
something, relents and they were gonna put and the MS worker down into the
into the pit. Will take him down and give the guy a shot.
I know it's a pain color or what kind of shot they're going to give
them. So they picked a girl, the MS girl, and you know,
we take her over to the edge and she looks down and it's scary.
I mean, it was scary. So she starts to, you know,
get very very nervous and all that stuff. So we take it,
get it down and get it way down in a hole and hour eight or
ten feet down in this rubble, and Miller's there. She takes the needle
and instead of sticking the victims, she sticks Milner in the thigh. He
gets in the shot. Yes, we gotta ask. You can't even make
that up. I've never heard of I don't think I've ever heard him say
that. Can No. He kept that ship quiet, already, kept that
ship quiet or something. She shot him right with the big old freaking syringe,
righting his leg. Oh my god. In the chat here I saw
Richie Euler was in the chat. Yeah, Richie, Richie. Richie came
from one eleven. And I almost didn't let him stay because he kept screwing
up, you know. But he had a lot of He had a lot
of good things that people said good things about him, and I got to
like him, and we're very good friends now and I love him now to
this day, and his wife wonderful. People wants to know who shot the
reverend, Oh god, I don't know. I bucket as the ship we
had this guy, this guy wants to come, he wants to come in
east and I he was in Hasmat and he all of a sudden he shows
up, worked with an onion skin, and I said, what the hell
is this? Nobody's said to me about this. I called up downtown.
I sent them back. I said, get this guy out of here.
I don't even know who he is. You know, I don't want to
so so so I said, let me go through channels and come the right
way and all that shit. So, I don't know, six or eight
months later this he had a lot of weight to scape to who I don't
know who it was. But he shows up and then he was a fire
buff. But he didn't buff New York Fight apartment. He buffed the Boston
fire apartment. He loved the Boston fire apartment. He got tools from the
Boston Fire department. He used to carry Boston rates, you know, and
stuff like that. But anyhow, he was in there. So count the
cop and he's he's not patrolling Minneola. Right, And they got a radio
call that some black guy held up people with a gun at the Hicksville train
station and jumped on the train station, right, and the train is heading
towards Minneola. So and it comes to trains and the Minneola train station.
He hops on and she's a black guy back there and he goes booms and
the guy was a reverend reading the Bible. Oh my god. And he
got out this job. Well, he ended up in a fight upove and
I don't know what happened, but oh my het the reverend. She got
the reverend. He shot the reverend. Reverend him. He didn't kill him,
Thank God, he didn't kill him. Goodness, Gray shot just he
just a graze would it was a graze would shoot the rebin Ray Strong was
in the chat before Strong, Big Race I'll tell you a story about good
Already he comes to see me. He must have come to the rescue for
he comes into the office. Thought, do you ever see Race Strong?
Oh? I know Mary very well. Big monster guy right fits the name.
He's very young, he's big. He feels the whole door on.
Look. I'm sitting at the dusk. I'm looking at this guy. He
said, holy shit, and he's telling me I'm this, I'm not in
a volunteer fight of b blah blah blah and all this stuff. And I'm
saying I didn't have any room for him any how, blah blah, blah
blah blah blah. So I said to him, I said, I'll tell
you what, kid, I says, I think you'd probably be good here,
but I think you got to bulk up a little bit before we let
That's right, right, that's a big my bed, my bed. I'm
trying to be good. He was. He was bigger, he was likest.
He's a monster Schwarz. It looks like Arnold. Yeah, he'sick.
I told him, I said, no, no, you gotta bulk up
a little better. And you know, he comes on about six or eight
months and the guys twice as big as he ports, as old ship as.
I gotta take this guy. He's gonna kill me if I don't take
him. He probably eleven guy guys. Yeah, and he went to he
went back to one to eleven. He stayed there for a while. I
went to one eleven and then came back as a lieutenant to rescue. Yeah.
I'm very he's a great guy. I like he listened by me in
Rocky Points Sweetheart right here? Yea who else that I saw? I saw.
I don't know exactly what he said because I don't see it, but
Chief killed Duff was in there and he said, you know, for an
old guy, you remember a lot, you're pretty sharp. Eddie killed Uff.
I grew up with his father a little bit. I know his own
man from Flushing, and he hangs out with my brother Eddie. So hen
like this, Yeah, Louis and Edda like this. I called him,
I called hi chief killed Lewis calls him head. But you know, I
didn't really know Eddie too much. And until later and after I got out
of the job, I sort of got to know him better. Now I
know him very well. We played golf in the same golf league and everything.
I see him every week. So he's a good good man. I
was gonna say that, rof, he's a big golfer. Who is I
play? I play like this? This guy it up here you Yeah,
Lewis this guy handicapped in you That's what I was gonna say. Well,
he's good friend, we're good friends. So he's got a really high handicap.
That would be called coombs. That's me. Oh yeah, well last
year this time I weighed one hundred and forty eight pounds, so I couldn't
I couldn't even swing a golf squad, but I tried. I try.
I finally got back on my feet. I had a few struggles in the
last two three years. I spent thirty days in the hospital and COVID and
since I was eighty years old, they said screw this guy, and they
put me in a corner to croak. But I fooled them. I'll show
you so. Yeah, so I didn't croak on them. So that then,
that was, that was. I spent the whole first month of twenty
twenty one in the hospital. Then I then in June and I got pneumonia.
I spent another eight days in the hospital. Then in October I got
heart failure and I spent another eight to ten days in the hospital. Then
then I went to Florida and I probably fell and broke my fema and I
spent four months on my back without walking. Shit. Yeah, so I
went down to one hundred and forty eight pounds. I was two thirty when
I started. Now I'm about about one. So I'm getting some strengths back.
The kids live close by cap Club me, your kids live close by?
Yeah? Yeah. I got him around. Yeah, I got a
picture of him and his son. He's that guys down in Carolina, but
he comes up all the time, said Green Greensville, South Carolina. He's
a copper fireman. No, no, no, he's a national educator.
He's a national education consultant. All right. He travels all over the country,
does a lot of Indian reservations, and travels all over does He did
a lot of New York Long Island up state. Now he's out in the
Dakota's down in Arizona and New Mexico. And he straightens out of school districts.
You know, that's what he does. Is he still in volund here?
Not now? No, not down there, take the base of a
car and drive across country. Did he No, he didn't not, but
he was. He was. He was at the principal in the King's Park
Junior High School and he quit that job and he went down in Tucson and
became superintendent assistant superintendent schools, and and in the district down there was just
there was just starting to build Tucson big. It was four hundred square miles
school district. That's huge, you know. So he got a huge He
get down there and he built seven high schools as as a as an administrator,
built seven high schools, and he wrote some books, and he got
noticed by these national companies, so they hired him and now he goes and
he works for them. He goes around, he does stuff for them.
But so that's why I could see him often because he's up he's up here.
That's what. Well, before before we get too far, I wanted
to ask you this. I forgot h he had chief Lafamina, Freddy Lafamina.
Oh, Freddie's a good guy. Freddy. Yeah, man, he's
a sweetheart. We played golf like, I gotta find out if he shot
him into the short game when when he was playing, I played him a
match and he couldn't he couldn't chip or a pitch with the ship and he
was but he could hit the ball good. But he was really fair.
You know, you need a shot in the shot game. Well, he
failed in it, and I talked. I gave him a few hints and
I said, you gotta go get lessons, man, because you could be
a good damn golfer. And he said he had a friend who was a
pro that was going to teach him. So I haven't asked him. I
see him, but I haven't asked him if he took But he's a good,
good man. I loved him. He was a great fire and Donna
when when he was covering in four and not Stuf and career. What about
the Triple Lindy on the Bluga boat? How do you hear about that?
My little birdie, little birdie, You show a picture of you show a
picture of Quick on the back of the boat, right, which one with
a shaved seat? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that the Beluga boat belongs.
Yeah, that's it. That that boat belonged to the Heglin brothers,
the two brothers that you saw these other pictures. They called it the Beluga.
Every year on my birthday, we'd have a birthday party on a Beluga
boat and on to the Triple Lindy off the the top of the boat,
right, you know, like Rodney Dangerfields and yeah, so that was famous.
But I always did it naked, you know, let that part out.
Oh then there's that so uh so this this this this day, my
fiftieth birth was my fiftieth birthday. We're all out there and you know,
there was this guy in rescue for Bobby Leone. We call him the funds
Or. And then he was he was on the top roof the roof of
the boat was suntan oil and he was like an a speedo and oh no
no, he was doing the naked and home man. A man, he
did so good. Let's see, it's gonna be tough to get him back,
I think. Yeah, before he gets back, let's do the least
spot we got fr CE. Dude, that guy can remember everything. Man,
it's crazy. Now I remember what half for breakfast this morning? These
guys tell me, oh, look he's back. Alight, Hi, all
right, you ready to go? Yeah, here we go. The First
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finish the blooga here we got so you're naked. The other guy's oiling
up with a speed on on. Can you hear us? No, I
don't hear it. There's something wrong and I'll get I don't know where it's
what it could be. Can you hear us one too. I've gotten the
pictures and I don't hear your voice. Is he muted? No? I
don't think so. And you're frozen your pictures of frozen. That's on his
idea. He's not muted or anything. He's good walks have him go out
and put him out and then U we'll bring him back in. We'll try
and bring him back in. Maybe something's going on. All right, you
want to give him a quick call and I get stom Yeah, yep,
So check out that First Responder Center dot org. You know what, while
reefing bro, we can run our right if you want, or we can
run our right if you want to take the fifty seconds and yeah, that
way. All we have to do is the old school tip of the day
from El Capon. Okay, let's run all right, I'll tell you what.
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we have them. But no, no, he's not there. He's
he's here, he's in the back. But I let's see if you still
have Let's see what's bring him in se if you can hear us, he's
he's mute to Joe, I'll mute yourself. I think you're gonna be okay.
I'll mute yourself. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I can't im mute
himself. Tell him to mute himself one more time. Let me see if
I can do it. Louiep himself. My browser failed to play the video
quip. Can you hear us? No? I can't, I can't hear
you. I can't hear Louie. Just tell to give his old school ticket
the day. Then your your voice is your voice is all distorted. Yeah,
all right, Brook, just tell him to get tell to give the
old school tip of the day. That's it. Just tell me he going
to the old school tip of the day is to get better at the cable.
All right, Well, Rufie's muted. Now, Ruffie muted, my
friend, let me give him mut you you gotta do it. I said,
well, uh, we'll have him back. I already told him the
captain will have him back because he tried four times. So I said,
well, just have him back on when we do the rescue four thing.
Okay, we can have him with. You know, we'll get a bunch
of guys, not maybe Richie Youl that we know he watches a lot of
him on there. He'll come on. I've talked to rich back and forth.
He's back. He's trying. He's trying, but you're there joking.
Here's no, here's nope, All right, what does happen back? That's
all? Yeah? We did everything, Yeah, we did. We we'll
just been a we don't have a show Monday, right, it's nine eleven,
No nine eleven. We don't have a show following that Thursday to fourteen,
fifteen, sixteenth year away at h right, so the next show would
be that following money we have a show at eighteenth. There's a tenant Bella
Sharry Squad two eighty one thirty eight guy. Okay, so a few guys
who will kind of come down to the Jersey Show and Wildwood. I'll be
down there with my sons and my wife will be there with the boys Jamie
from One Source Jamie and Big Big Though Big Bill Amy. We'll be down
there with them in their booth. One Source will play the One Source commercial
again, so look us up down there. And for those of guys who
are coming down on nine eleven, we appreciate it. Well. Remember that
don't forget to tell me about the frictional kill efficient and gons will buy you
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with them, and Ruffie and I will be out in Ohio at the Firehouse
Magazine at the end of September. Sometimes that's it, all right, guys,
do you allude? You guys have any ground rules for anybody that shows
up to new guests that come to the firehouse. Just be respectful. I
want to buy a shirt. Wait till lean don't start asking guys like to
buy a squad shirt or something like that, like here's your brain. Yes,
just be respectful, kind of just spill around in the back and let's
it. Pay your respects and then we go up to the watering hole that
we burnt down once before, O'Neil fire and tell me about the fresh and
coefficient and that's it, all right, rough, I'll see you h monday.
You come into my house this weekend. Let me now ten four gods.
I'll see you tomorrow as I picked your stinky es up from the airport.
Stinky man, I'll put some good cologne on thie. Thank you Ahi.
Guys. Until then, stay low and go and everybody will see it
the big one. Everyone's seeing the top floor. And have a good night.
Stay safe,