You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast. Hello Peewee down in Jersey and
also twenty one truck Kill Them and I'll give the two shortest guys I know
a little shout out. I feel taller on those guys. I's gonna say,
don't forget yourself what you got them. I'm gonna say, bro,
inches and inches, that's what she said. You know, you get that
extra inch you pull your bulls back. That shown. Oh but since one,
I'm sorry, sorry, folks, believable, he gets a hacked that
he feels froggy. That's what happened. We made fun of that last week.
And that you know, you knew it was a guarantee. It was
easy money. That was like that too. A certain other little little uh
producer that we used to have. We would pummel him on something and got
I know for sure on the next show the movie Chase right, remember,
Yeah, no doubt about it. We would him hard, bro. We
used to pull him. That was funny. Ship. Maybe it's the Jews,
Pete. His wife is Jewish too. It's the half jew maybe only
a good only a good half. Decorating uh, dechering the tree tops,
the candle. I think the nights, the last night, hopefully the last
night, I think so. Wasn't it a crazy nights or some ship?
Did the old lady get you something every night? No? Naked? No?
No, we said no, what's going on? Always? It's always
the kids, you know, the kids, you know, playing spend the
draderthing like that. I was actually looking. I thought I had a dradle.
He was d drade. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't have it.
Maybe you're gonna double dip and you're gonna celebrate Christmas dip, double dip
the kids, double dip. I don't you know? You together? That's
a good answer. That's a good answer. Double pays. You know,
double dip. He's on the wrong end of that. You ain't lying stuff
roof. You must be freezing cold up there. You don't got a Parker
on though. What's up? You know? No, it's been uh,
I'm getting acclimated. It's been the thirties. The under your drapestad is that
like a decoration or something? What is that? Remember his daughter from way
back when you gotta decorated? Put that up? He did? Remember last
yearning year? Right spots? What's the you got there. What is that?
That's from the union. Oh look at that. It's the plate you
used to sit on when you should drive the rig. Oh maybe at all
going. I got me this one for last Christmas too. No trespassing due
to the High Court of AMMO from the warning shot. Nice. Where's the
big board that Frankie Major? It's right in front of me? Ah nice,
good stuff? Wow? Why can I expect my medicine hot dogs when
I see you? Like? The show? Is something? When we go
to the show in February, I could do that. Yeah, See that's
good stuff. All right. We gotta pay a couple of commercials. Yeah,
and then we'll get right into it. All right. We caught charging
two fifty two captain coming on tonight, bro we go all right. He's
got a lot of good stories, he does. He wanted to keep going
while we're going over the pictures. I'm I gotta save it, gotta save
it. Yeah. So anyway, here we go. From the Jersey Fire
established in nineteen thirty and under the current ownership since nineteen eighty seven, the
New Jersey Fiery Equipment Company handles a complete line of fire department equipment and supplies.
Headquartered in green Brook. The company operates full three M Scott service facilities
in Ridgefield Park and Tom's River staff by ten fully authorized Scott's certified technicians with
a fleet of six fully equipped service fans. All New Jersey Fire technicians and
sales representatives are active or retired firefighters, officers or chief officers, career and
volunteer. They understand the business and the importance of their work. New Jersey
Fire has represented Scott since Earl Scott entered the SCBA business at the end of
World War II. Among other leading manufacturers represented by New Jersey Fire, Art
Globe and Fiedex turnout gear, Mercedes Hose, task Force Tips and Akron Brass,
Higenol, fire hooks, Arcticompressors, MSA, Carn's Helmets, Kemguard,
Foam Alkalite and duo safety ladders, BEA Fai Shield Protectors, Truckman's Choice saws,
Groves, gear racks and washer driers, Supervac Fans, rp I stream
Light, and many others. A New Jersey incorporated and based company, sales
and service are limited to the state of New Jersey. Find us now at
www dot nj f E dot com. That's www. Dot nj f E
dot Com. A little shout out to my boy Jose Martinez. He's back.
And Robbie Procaccino's in there. Yeah yeah, somebody mentioned my hair.
I was like, well look at that Robine. I just spoke to Jimmy
Guinea the other day from New Jersey Fire. Oh yeah, it's cowboy fan,
right, I think kids getting on the new fire apartment. Yeah.
Then I know he's doing some work. It's good, good stuff. All
right, let's play it the next to Marcial. So we get this guy
in here, man, all right, here we go, They Save New
York. It is a book that will perhaps go down as the report from
Engine Company eighty two of our generation, They Saved New York, Written by
Glenn Huston and Dan Potter, retired New York City firefighter, explores the men
and women of the FD and Y and their respective journeys into the department,
from everyone from firefighters on the fire floor to those who were in positions of
command such as lieutenant, Captain in chief, and so on and so forth.
This book explores their stories told through their perspectives. Each story differs,
but the mission is the same, and the common theme is this those that
put their lives in the line to save their fellow New Yorker, no matter
the cost, no matter the situation, whenever they were in need. Get
your hands on this book today. You will not regret it. Written by
once again retired New York City firefighter Dan Potter and the concept of photography provided
by the one and only Lennis and a member of the fire Belt Club in
New York City. They Saved New York the men and women of the FDN
Y. If you'd like to purchase the book, you can do so.
And they Saved? And why dot Com? That is again ww dot they
saved? And why dot Com? Yeah, and you can buy it on
Getting Salty powerl as Value. I gotta talk to Mike. I love that
you even noticed the background music in that sounds like so long you gotta let
you so wash? Where did you get you know? I didn't even realize
that actually, But that wid you notice at the end of it is when
it's bull dropped, because it gets real deep like you gets it real like
w got me dated bench push six ninety monitor. All right, let's do
this Captain here tonight, Lady gone. When I start, I looked at
him down there and I looked up and it said the two hundred and fifty
two guys watching live. So what a coincidence, right, Oh, look
at that, what a number. All right? Coming to the stage,
Tony Characo looking away, I told you were that one appreciated. I'm telling
you right now. He just got good, has always good speaking about the
book. Uh goes in the book. Yeah. Yeah, they actually got
a couple of things wrong in my on my page, but that's all right.
You know, the fact that they even asked me. Was honored to
be to be with that level of firefighter out there. Those are some of
the best, and uh, I was honored just to be in that crowd.
Yeah. I was talking to who we have on the other night,
Uh Davis, Okay, he was saying the amount the guys in that room
that right right when we were doing the book signing, just amazing amount of
history and talent, and those guys are hard charges man. What got me
was the fact that people wanted me to sign their book. I was looking
when people signed my book a stout that the people even ask me. It
was oh yeah, yeah, I called him Chief Duff, you called it
and you and Eddie were doing it the first time. We had some good
work together over that way, and then as the chief officer, of course,
working him several times. You got compliment when he signed my book.
It was he's just a dynamite cat. He's a sweetheart and the best.
I was only talking him a couple of minutes, and I'm like, Chief,
this chief, you know, and he's like, lou you can call
me ed. I'm like, God, yeah, Chief, that's never going
to happen. I call you Chief, Yeah, yeah, exactly, call
me. Are you calling me Lou? O? God, let's get patriot
before we get into the captain. So that's real, all right, Here
we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible with liberty and justice for all. There you go. Heans asked me
about the pizza cut that's not coming to left in the holidays. Sorry,
brother, but it's on its way. I think Lou railroaded a little bit.
What all right, Chief, I did that last time I called the
Chief. I promoted you again. Yeah, So let's go back to your
early life where you grew up, you know, family life in the beginning,
and then he said that you got into the military, went to the
Air Force. So tell us about the early life. Well born in Crownhikes,
Brooklyn in June fifty six. We were living that time on Washington Aveny,
right at the Mechanical Gardens. A few years later my parents moved to
Linden Boulevard a little further south. And the final place we lived in Brooklyn,
believe it or not, it was right at Bedford and New Kirk right,
and I know it was nice at the part ended up working there too
for goods. I said, no, it was a different world back then
too. It was only six years old, and my mom would say,
go downstairs and play. You just can't leave the front of the building.
And it was two sister buildings, so I just played in front of the
buildings with whoever was out there playing well, and that's what we did.
My grandma, my mom's right down the road on Kenilworth Place at one twenty
Kenilworth Place, and so my fault my parents would walk us down and we
couldn't she we'd go to her house and hang out up there and she'd give
me a quarter and call up Ruthie downstairs at a mall shop, and I'd
go down there and whatever it course to the quarter. I guess probably a
nickel at the time. Ruthie would come up. She pinched my anthony,
how were you? You should give me a hug, and she put me
on one of the stools and make me nice big Vanilla Maulta, the real
Walter. So she lived over there, and then it was a sixties.
So my grand my parents were born in Manhattan, and my grandfather had a
building a three forty one East twenty fourth Street, and it was called Tricks
Bar and Grill. You know, a bunch of idaloons in there and then
they have a good time. The family lived above and he places was just
it was getting bad. Lowist side was getting bed and he just decided to
sell and he moved out to brentwod Long Island, and one by one everybody
went out. They set my uncle che Chad that he went out to red
Brick, Red Brick, New Jersey, something like that. Brick Brick is
a red bank, so something like that. He lived out there, was
pretty roll out there. So we moved out there and I went to school
out there seventy four comes around graduate high school us to play in a rock
and roll band. You know, head down to here the whole bit.
What did you play? What did you get a job? That? My
mom? I playing a band on the weekends. So what did you What
did you play? Cat? You're on the guitar and I still I saw
the sixth string. I play over here, an acoustic. I just putter
around, you know, so get a job, get a get a job,
get a hacker. So I just decided I went to the military.
I talked to the different guys. I talked to the Navy, but I
swim like a rock, so I didn't think that was a good idea.
And I went to the Marine Corps because my father enrolled us in the Junior
Marine Corps at like ten years old, eleven years old, and we were
in there until we're fifteen years old. You know. I love the Marine
Corps and I wanted to fly jet planes. I want to be a jet
fighter. Party and I says, you maybe can fire helicopters, and I
was like, I want to fly jets. I went to the Army,
no good, went to the Air Force, Yeah, no problem, got
it. Come on, I didn't take the test, you're in. So
joined the Air Force and I came home I told my mom, I said,
Mom, I'm getting HANDHLD and I got a job all in one though.
Yeah, and she she was actually angry with me because the Vietnam War
was still on and she's like, I'm going to send you to Canada.
And my father's like, you're not sending my kids to Canada. So that
anyway, I went into the Air Force, had a good time. I
took an aptitude test and I didn't score high enough to get picked to go
to flight school. So I ended up being a truck driver. That's what
I did. I drove wrecords and tracked the trailers and school bus and in
the military, same way of thinking, I was assigned at base operations.
Once I got my life, it's a driver bus not I'm only in the
Air Force a short time, and I got to drive all the way around
the flight line. They pick up the pilots all the time. I dropped
the pants off. So a plane comes in and I'm like, well,
why can't I just go this way? Nobody told me about the red lines
on a tarmac. Well, I'm driving along and all of a sudden I
see all these MP's, the XP they running around with the guys. I'm
like, something's going on, yeah you, And they took me away,
and my company command and my scribing command had to come and get me.
So they take me off a base ops. I'm eighteen years old. They
take me off for base ops, and they gave me a job driving a
school bus for the high school. You put an eighteen year old kid driving
a school bus with eighty year old kids. Anyway, it was a very
fruitful event. It was driver. It's faith the school bus currently. I
don't give a shit of your callige up. Yeah. I come out of
their force in seventeen and six and I picked up this old nineteen fifty two
pickup truck. I put everything I own, my motorcycle, everything in the
back of the pickup truck and I drive home and I get them, and
this guy, Billy Haveling was a Brent with fireman. He's like, hey,
why do you join the voleys. I don't want to hang around to
those pencil necks. And he was pretty adamant about it. And so I
went there and I got I talked to trustees and they said there was a
waiting list, and a couple of days later, my father says, so
you want to be a voulnty fineman. He knew everybody, my father,
and uh, I said, I give a start. So he says,
I know somebody, so the chairman, you know somebody laid down, Yes,
the water in your friends. I get a phone call. About a
week later, I go for the interview. In January seven seventy seven,
I become a VOLTI finer. There's your boy, Billy right, that's Billy
Havelin right there driving the rescue. He's the guy who started me on the
trajectory that got me the best job of the world. Yeah, yeah,
amazing how that happens every guy, Well he's stuck get through. So I've
become a rent with fireman and I'm into it about six or seven months and
I walk into the main headquarters building and he's all these guys sitting around the
table and it's like Danny Potters one of them, fill Buffer, Mike m
keeth Ree, Morris Huttner and anyhow. So, oh, we got an
application for the New York City Fire Department. I didn't even know there was
a paid fire apartment. I mean I lived in the city for a while.
I was always in the city with my grandpans or my aunts and my
uncles. Crazy. That never crossed my mind. And I almost didn't take
it because I forget what the filing fee was. I'm making one hundred dollars
a month, you know, one hundred dollars a week rather and they're charged
it, I don't know, thirty dollars a file or something, and like
command you, chief bastard, and I got the jump. I got the
job. Yeah, it was great. So it wasn't even you that was
kind of like saying I want to take that job. It was, hey,
we got an application, you might as well throw it in the in
the mix type of thing. Still, Buffer called me today and he was
saying to me about how God, God works in strange ways, and you
were guided into that position, right, And even Paddy Walsh, Patty Walsh,
so I'm going to take me. I scored good on an unwritten so
I'm going to take the physical test. And that being their knucklehead that I
was. I was out the night before and till two or too late in
the morning, too early in the morning, and Patty Walls comes to my
house and bangs on the door and he says, my mom that I'm here
to take Tony to the to the fiscal. She's like, he's her name,
go get him going out? We go without. He drags my whole
bed and everything, drags me, drops me on the floor, says,
I am going into book and by myself. You're coming with me? And
uh, he's another one to say, So that was you were that close
to that getting the job like that, you would have you wouldn't even taking
the physical. I mean, it's crazy. One shot away from not taking
a physical, one jack from not going Jackie coke, away from probably tequila.
Tequila makes one. I go this way when I close a walk.
So with the walk in the ledge, you know. And we talked a
couple of guys around there, right yeah, yeah, walking around having the
dummy up and down the stairs. They said that was a lesson super tests
and then everything changed. So what year did you take it? Seventy seven?
He took it in seventy seven, The Cauldron eighty one, right right.
Pabaly should have gone around seventy nine, but they stopped hiring because of
a lawsuit. Women were suing for the job and so they didn't start hiring
again. I believed July of eighty one they started hiring again. And what
were you doing in the meantime? I was a computer programmed analyst, believe
it or not, I want nerdle learned a lot. I guess my grandkids
how to work my phone, and I used to write code. I do
nine different languages, and I was pretty good at it. I actually worked
with a world blood banking system that was a mess, and I debugged that
whole thing got at working really well. And I asked for a raise.
I was making seventeen thousand dollars just almost with a fine, was making seventeen
thousand dollars a year, and the boss wouldn't give me a raise, And
so I said, you know what, I'm gonna give him, but he's
given me. So I come in a half hour landed you be half hour
early. I'd take an hour and a half for lunch. And he calls
me in his office and tells me I want double secret probation. Now you're
not sure, he says, after what I did, I'm just looking for
a few extra dollars a week. Excuse me. So he he gives me
this ultimatum, and the next day I get the little cardon mail says you
can hired by New York City Fire Apartment in big black letters, do not
quit your job. I never liked you can weeks know this, boss,
I'm out of here. So that my manager walks and says, you can't.
I had corner office to shaved with one guy, and my advantage walks
in and he's he's like, you can't do that. You gotta do this,
you gotta do flat shots, you gotta get this one up. I
said, get to it, which I didn't, But so that then I
became a fireman. And you know John Sullivan from one to seventy five truck.
Anybody know him. I think he did almost forty years on the job.
He and I. We got interviews together, we got a medicals together.
Everything we did we must have been like right next to each other.
As far as numbers goes, we were just over two thousands. And actually
Bob Doley rest in peace. Bob Doley was killed in a collapse in two
thirty three. In the seventies, he said to me two thousand, he
might not make it. They only take about fifteen hundred guys, right,
but they didn't know what we would behind three hundred clip right, So yeah,
didn't you get in there? Who are you in Provy school with anybody
else? That's to my right was were Monday. Into my left was Turner.
There's so many big names, the Werner, McCormick. Uh, there's
so many. There was three hundred people and we were split session no less.
So it was eight to m and end to Z. So the guys
were eight to m. You didn't get to know those guys because you know
they were coming and they were leaving when you were coming, or vice versa.
Right, you get out of Provy School and if you go to forty
two engine, Yeah, why I get out of Covide School. I gotta
tell you this. We all had we all had the peak coats and the
watch caps, and then we all looked the same. You know, we're
all the same. Well, the dusk out or maybe just a little darkening
dusk, and I'm in the building one and I says to these two guys
are the work messes. I'm gonna jump out the window into the net.
You you don't do that. This is why it's supposed to catch people.
I jump out of the building into the No big deal. We leave the
next morning. It woke well, Dudley Glass was in charge. I want
to know who jumped out of the pink and you guys are and I'm looking
like this, and I'm looking like this, and I'm saying, he better
not open the mouth, and they didn't. They No rats there, Bro,
My god, you have a rats thing. No, I don't have
a dirty rat. One. No, you dirty rat. I'll make a
note of it for you right now. That's what he needs. Another.
Nobody pinched you? Oh man, you like my sound effects, and then
you don't like my sound effects. Henry didn't pinch anybody, you know what
I mean? No, No, I'm sorry, Louis. What was that?
Did you put the fiction for the forty or No? I did not.
But as I got older in the job, later in the years,
I realized that my fall was probably working behind the scenes. You know what
I was going to say that he was a lumberman, took care of ship,
bro, you know what I mean. All McCaffrey was a pretty pretty
popular guy back in the sixties, fifty sixty seventies, and uh and h.
He and my father were good friends. And I think all, McCaffrey
was probably watching out for me. He was probably I just wanted to realize
it at the time. I thought him for a living, by the way,
But me, what did dad do for a living? He was a
lumberman. He worked at Lumberyond's one woman in Aka, what do you call
it? A collector Frankie to fix up he had. He had a little
store there and I would go. They had the old He taught me how
to do math, Matthew is the most important thing to my father. Yess.
That's why computer's made so much sense to me. It's just logic.
But he had the old cash machines there that you had to push like it
was one dollar and fifty two cents like that. You've got to king like
that and had to make you get a five it's two twenty five, twenty
six cents, twenty six seven, eight times thirty dimes quarters. All of
that he was. He taught me a lot that way, and he took
care of a lot of things right, And I think he did for at
that time in eighty one, was probably no slouch. You might say,
yeah, he was freaking I saw my father once a birthday party. I
was time was twelve years old and we're living in Brentwood, my whole top
drive and his family. Down the road. There was this guy, Danny
mc broy was way bigger than me, and he was just a bully.
And I had a button up shirt on and he ripped it and I came
home and all my buttons were off, and my father's liked, what happened
to you? And I'm trying to be nice about it, but excuse me,
but I tell that Danny grabbed me and ripped my shirt and do me
on the ground and kicked me. My father goes out there. So I
was talking to Danny and now Danny's father comes out, and now my father
I was took him Danny's father, and Danny's father pushes my father. My
father hits him. Here come the people out of my out of Danny's house.
Three different guys. My father was a boxer in the army, right,
he just stood there and they come up laying on got no tell.
I was like, that's fine, Yeah, he's up there doing it.
He's doing it. He then wants to know if you have a handkerchief hanging
out the back of the rear your pocket, yo, geez, yeah,
down, can't got to put it back into So who is it forty two
when you got there? And what was it like walking in there? They're
having mean a while? Or Okay, I walk into forty two engine,
Right, you get your assignment, you go to go right to the company.
I walk in and now fifty six truck used to be in the forty
two engine, but in July of eighty one they got lifted out of it
by this chief I believe his name is Waldon in the sixth sixth seventh division,
and they got putting forty eight truck forty eight engine, So a fifty
six truck was to fight this guy. Steve McQueen was a union guy and
he was always hit on him and Waldrom, So fifty six truck was there.
They parked out front. I come walk in the night, knock on
the door, open the door, and then send me to the kitchen.
I come walking in there, and they just lit me up. The first
guy, Kevin Colanney, as a matter of fact, was the first guy.
Who the fuck are you? You cute little blond hair, blue eyed
boy, and they just lit me up. And now I'm standing at attention
and they're killing me there. They just tear me up. Now. Unbeknownst
to me, this guy Bobta Salmon also gets a sign the forty two engines,
so he comes walking in it. Now I'm in there several minutes now.
These guys are tear me up. And because someone comes walking in and
that is tether him and what the fuck are you doing here? He says,
my name is Barbara Salmon, and I'm not Jewish. They took hit
him up, man, and I'm standing attention. I just kind of looked
over him and I thought to myself, thanks man, he took in your
mouth. That was the five shix battan at the time. Boss his whole
career down there. We have no two engines. He spent several years before
you. If you have any pictures of you when you were probing forty two,
what I have? I have this one? Okay, man with the
light and the helmet. Everybody had those lights. Gard was sweet on you.
Look at you, You're a baby. Holy ship. He didn't last
too long because this is what ended up having. I'm just kidding, because
we had a coffin fire, a coffin factory. You have to do that
right, I mean you got to do that. You got and and there
was this old time of John Ricks, right. He was a thin black
dude who lived in Harlem, and he had a real high voice and used
to carry a bone knife on him, like this big boone knife on his
hip, and he would turn himround and he pulled out his knfe because we're
being too noisy. He'd be laying on the couch watching television. He he
I don't know how many years he had, He looked like he had fifteen
years. And he would pull out that night. Now we're all kids,
got a lot of programs for him. He pulled that knife, I'm gonna
cut you white mother fuck us up and chased it around the fire house with
This is just the way he was. I go home a couple of times.
I drove him out to the hall a couple of times, and he
got out there and there every he knew everybody in the streets. He was
a tough old bird boy. Was he the guy who was some of the
c actually loud. NICOLEI and Freddie Beanman would have seen you guys. They
get on the minute abound the end of the fifties or something, and the
stories they told like Freddie Beanhaman tells me once he got stories. He says,
Now, he got on a job in the fifties. So yeah,
he got on a job in the fifties. So his senior man got on
a job at the thirties. Whose senior men got on in the teens tens,
right, And he says, this is how the stories get passed on.
So he starts telling me about house watch and taking care of the horses,
and you know, okay, so he's telling me about that. He
says, in the night watch, the midnight Watch, he says, what
they do is they roll up a ball of paper and stick it in the
horses asshole so it wouldn't ship. So then when you had to relieve,
they pulled. They got there's a way. The guy up, they come
down pull the paper within fifteen minutes thinking ship, and the other guy had
to clean it up. But I'm like, how did they do this?
Said, I've never heard of that, bro, I have never heard that
story. Beanman had some great stories, he really did. He was an
old time got on a job, like I say, in the fifties,
and that's how we passed the stories on from one to the other to the
other. Right, yeah, yeah, hell yeah, that's freaking hilarious.
I never heard that the stories they told the shovel and the coal, the
basements, they still have a knife net and forty two inters basement when I
got there. That what life net? Really? Yeah? Well, well
were they really killing it then? Like were they go into a ton of
work in the eighty one? I mean obviously they are, right, Okay,
So I'm gonna I'm going to preface this with I was a new kid
on the job. Okay, I went to six fires my first night.
Right, now, it's your first night I had. I had my first
fire probably an hour and a half, two hours into the into the my
first night. So I had a job and Neil Taylor was on the line.
So, okay, I go up the stairs. Find a fourth floor,
sixth story multipledwell and h type building, big building. Go up there
the fourth floor, put the holes on, hose line on the table on
the stair, put my knee on, I take hell and off I started
put my face piece on. Now Neil Taylor, he was an old guy.
He had twenty one years on a job. He was forty two years
old. Right, my first night I'm twenty five years old. I think
he's old. So he says, what the hell are you doing? And
I tell last and I'm putting my face piece and he goes, smack that
thing, w off your face out, walk my face. We go down
the hallway. I'm crying. It's not some one. I'm choking. I'm
coughing. I go down and put the fire out and he says, let
me tell you something, kid, when you need your air, you need
your air. You're lucky if you got ten or twelve minutes in that bottle.
He says, You've got to save your air anytime you don't need it,
you don't use learn to take a feed. Wow. So that was
the beginning of my bad habits down. It's all downhill from there. You
get away with that today? Do you mind trying to do that today?
Facebook? In a minute. They still had cowardice in the book of rules
when I got on the job. They took that out sometime later, but
they actually had charges for being being a coward. Nice yep, I Louis
love that right, that's what the other one? Oh great, please,
oh you don't be a coward. They'd have a whole line of charges on
people. Right. I never heard an idea either, So them I got
full of useless information, stuffing the rags and horses asses and the carriage drunk
and drop. So my grandma, well, my grandma grew up in East
New York and uh, she actually used to hang around in front of two
thirty one and one, and she was telling me how when the bells would
go off also on, the horses would start stamping their feet. The fight
we slide the poles and be running all over the place, and the horses
would be stepping into the hornesses and say, loll all the hornesses down.
And they're holding the horses back as they're putting on all the hornesses and everything.
And then all of a sudden they let it goveryboul to jump on the
steam and they go running out, running out the door. She says,
had I had a rope across the front door, across the operatic poor they
dropped the rope. When they dropped the rope, all the kids would wun.
You know how two thirty one quarters is you walking? You could go
straight up the stairs and write down the pole over, Yeah, that should
have done up down, back up down. That's what they do. They
go round and around around, and five would come back and get out of
here. And once they put the rope up, you didn't you didn't break
that line. That was the plane that you didn't break. Wow. Yeah,
yeah, she said it was a lot of people. You never think
about what was involved in responding back those days with the horses. Man.
Oh yeah, yeah. She says, you can hear the clopping of the
horses going and the wheels on the on the on the cobblestones, and she
said it was just so exciting when they got there. Everybody's gotting very excited
because the horses are jumping, the men are jumping. If there's a dog,
the dog is barking. Everybody's going at it. That's cool, man,
it was a lot of fun. I'm sure it was a lot of
fun in those days. Back in the days with the horses. There's a
salary just we wanted he wanted to share the salary with the back in the
day there in nineteen sixty, yes, sixty sixty, sixty seventy we got
on nineteen sixty, so sixty sixty seven hundred dollars a year. Yeah,
right, that's crazy. I think Roofie makes that every hour fifteen fifteen today.
Who are the horses over there? Cap? Okay, so, Richie
Mills, Richie Mills. I'd like to give a shout out to Richie Mills.
Richie Mills. Nothing ever rathered that man's cage. One time, we're
playing baseball in a bunk room. I don't know why, I probably,
but that's what they said we're doing. So we're playing baseball in a bunk
room. He throws the ball. I hit the ball right to the window.
Right we all stopped. The door opens up. Richie Mill six's up
looks like looks at that, looks at the guy who was a senior man
that day. He says, make it look like nothing happened. Close the
door, walk back inside. That was it so cool? I like that
anyway. Richie Mills, cool, calm, always at a fire. He
was just a really good guy. And he passed away. When he passed
away, passed away. May twenty sixth this year, I called his son,
Jimmy Mills Jimmy Bummy. So I called Jimmy off of Mike Condolencer's I
wish I'd known that he passed away. I would have drove back to New
York for his funeral. Guy to my guy, my guy. So he
was the captain. They had Roy Leveck, that's Richie Mills right there.
Well, which guy on the right. You can't tell who's the captain there
sitting on a couch. Yeah, but did he had to be in a
chief cap, you know, he never was a chief. He answered for
forty two engine after several years to one sixty six truck in state Nyland because
his son was in seventy six trucks. Yeah. But there's a couple of
his brothers, a couple of chie Mills brothers who are on a job also,
I believe. So he was a lieutenant. He had artist Santangelo who
ended up in thirty eight truck. You had Roy le Beck who spent his
whole the rest of his career forty two engine. Royler Beck actually got thrown
out of a bucket as a fireman working under the Elsam wearing hallm I believe.
And then there was Tom Fahy. Tom Fayhy, he was Tom fay
was a pit He was just he was a great, great guy. He
had a lot of good sayings to him. You know, he's just a
real good guy. Matter of fact, Tom Faye, his son Michael Faye,
was the tank chief killed up in the Bronx who came down and killed
him? Yeah, yeah, that was Tom Fayy's son Tom guy. Wow.
So those are my officers there. And as time, when let's see
one of who left, John Malcolm showed up, Bob showed up. It's
John Malcolm, John, John Malcolm too, it's Gabby and Leonard. And
you know what's actually on his head there located spaceship. Oh well, okay,
that was one of those nice they were making tinfoil helmets for recovery map
at things in those days. How does the Kitschy table change you think from
when you got there forty two engine two when you're left in two thousand and
eight. In two thousand and eight, I have to say, sensitivity wasn't
a big thing he got. You know, in two thousand and eight,
were still still having conversations, saying words that you don't say today. And
it wasn't. It didn't change a lot. It got a little bit softer,
but I think guys prided themselves on being quick, quick witted and shop
talk, and you know it's tough like that, you know that is true
cat. That is true. The faster you can get something out and if
the guys react like if they laugh right away like that, there definitely is
something to that. There's no doubt about that. And you know it's fighters
in the volleys when when you know long guy, they have a ball with
every firehouse. So we would be at the ball right after drills and we'd
start breaking and people would say things and it's just like bo I spit it
right back at and they're like, how do you do that? As as
many years of practice, Washington guys do that, and that teaches me how
to do it so well. I'm going to get a picture. Roofi knows
this because we grew up together. But when I was growing up, I
had a gigantic kitchen table because there was nine of us and my father was
flying, my brothers were flying, and I know who actually has that table
from my kitchen back then. I'm going to get a picture of the original
kitchen table because that's where I was a kid. I six seven years old.
My father's breaking our balls, my brothers are breaking our balls. I'm
like, so when I got to the firehouse and his mother is a saint
for God's easy, bro, like you get a bother me. I haven't
heard worth for my old man and for my brother's pre kid. Yeah,
really really that's awesome. And so they did break horns a lot that first
night. I was telling you about where I had all that work and forty
two engines that that first night they did nothing but break corns. We ran
around all night long. And it was, like I said, it was,
it was probably fires that you that you kind of go into like this,
you know, you try to take Okay, come on, let's stretch
a line in here. They were probably fires like that. With six fires
for a kid like me, it was a lot. So I drove home
next morning thinking to myself, the hell did I get into it? I
couldn't believe it. I four face down in the bed, I go to
sleep, I wake up, I go back to work. Camp says to
me, guy go Ustairs captures. You had a good night. It seems
like you've got to grip on things a little bit, he says. My
second night to her, he says, we're having a party here tonight.
Those days used to have parties in the firehouse. This is if anyway,
we're having a party. I can't go to certain certain areas there. So
we're having a party and I'm sitting in the kitchen. It's about two three
o'clock in the morning, and I'm sitting with my feet up on the table
and I'm leaning back and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking myself, I like
this job. And all of a sudden, I call my turn. I
look, and here comes this guy across the table. Boom, he slide
across the table. Plates are flying everywhere, hits me. I go over.
The other two guys almost like kicking me. Don't you smile? Lets
me tell you you're probly you don't smile less? Somebody lets you get permission
to smile. I clean up this mess and I get up and I look
around. I said, I'm gonna like this job. Across the table.
We want to find in an old d tenement, right, you know how
you got the You walk up and got an apartment on the left, apartment
on the straight ahead, apartment over here, and apartment over here, and
there's two apartments on fire, and in my eyes are this big and I
got the line up trying to keep the fire in there, and my backup
man is standing on my house like you're doing a good kid. There'll be
more lined up here soon. I know. That was the falcon in the
can. They called them the falcon. The falcon. Yeah, but you
know what that those are the guys, right, having those guys around you.
Oh, that's funny. Sorry, that was funny. That's my lieutenant.
Yeah, so, uh, I'm sorry too. Funny everybody's perspective,
right. Well, you know, I also want to play. Did I
mention a jilly fireman? No? We had augilly fight with this. They
talk about that, right, Nah, okay, so well, Jilly fireman.
They had a Juliy Fymon back in those days still, and they had
the yellow helmets and he used to ride on the apparatus. They were like
the extra man. So you had six guys on the rig and now you
had a seventh man. And they helped stretch lines, they helped the show
up, the hook up. They maybe do the that gun if we're using
it. Well, I walk into the kitchen my first tour and this guy
is riding me. I mean he's riding me, hide me, riding me,
and I'm just listening to what he says, you know, And as
a matter of fact, that mouse goes by and I don't do nothing.
He says, why didn't you step on the mouse. He says, the
mouse has seniority, So for me like four tours, five tours, something
like that. And he says, why are you taking that ship from him?
I said, he's one of senior guys. He's not even a five.
He's an auxiliy guy. What's an auxiliary fire And I had no idea
what that even meant. I still don't know what it means. People were
able to volunteer in New York City as augility fireman, right, the rigs
and stretch lines and help stretch you know, I just couldn't go in,
right, They couldn't go in the building. They weren't supposed to, right,
yeah, right, it's like a little bit right. You didn't have
a yellow helmet. You had a red hockey helmet, right that you on
the shore Buster, the red hockey helmet, Hey, cap, did you
have to Did you have the green rig? Uh? That? We did
eventually get the dream rig. We started with a red rig, you know,
the red rig that had the Yeah, that was that was our rig.
And that's Gary Langdon who was back to us. I know that I'm
not sure who anyone else, but that's first do with j Roman Marcy Place.
Yeah, we had to be there for a while. We had the
red wig when I first got there, the old they wanted to see D
rings. You ever see those c D rings. They looked like the Max
with the they had no muscles on. They were really loud. And those
are the rigs that every once in a while when they had a crowd on
a corner, the chaulf would just slow down a little bit and when he
get to the corner he step on the gas, real hard black crowd.
Any that was the wig when I first got there. Oh you're a rapid
water guy. The rapid water had just stopped when I got there. Oh
you got the little sperm on the door there. I talk about that cloud
of when I when I first got to once seventeen, I had we had
the ninety five foot but it would go out and I would have we'd have
a spare which from the eighties, the Mac and you know, you'd be
hanging out the back and I would look at you know, we'd stop on
a light and I'd look down at the car next to me and I'd be
like roll up your window and they'd be like, what I'm like, roll
up your window and they're like what I'm like, I don't worry about it.
Yeah, I mean what you could see his teeth, you know what
I mean? You see you're dating yourself. You dating yourself. Roll up
the wind though, roll up your win I mean it was. It was
incredible unless you saw it right like now you know the brig backs up,
You wouldn't even know that the brig is on, for God's sakes with and
we were still riding the back step, Captain, you were just I'm just
gonna still stop righting the backstep. But Richie Mills what he would do is
he would take the engine covers in the old mats. The engine covers opened
up. They from the middle. It came up like this, right,
They came up like that, and then they had a wire that you hook
them up and keep moping. So he'd make us open that and hook him
up, and then we'd all get on the back step. So if the
chief stopped him and says something, he says, Chief, I'm having an
injine problems. It's heat, not too much. I don't want to keep
the guys in there. Put him on safety and put them on a back
step. Oh okay, So we would ride the back step and there was
nothing like what straddling the backstep right like this, looking over the side and
just being able to see what you're coming into down there. One time,
Hank Baby was driving, I think it was, and we turned on to
Anthony Avenue and there's five blown out of three or four windows on the left
hand side, and there's double part cause all on the right hand side.
And Hank looks at the cap says, what should I do? He says,
only hit the double park cars. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom,
get off the backstep, climb over the cars go, stretch lines go
up, and we come out. All the double part cars are gone,
the walk gone. Nobody said nothing. I've heard that before. The guys
say, don't hit the park cof you're gonna hit anything, Hit the double
park car because they're kind of at fault. You know what mirrors going like
this was. It was SIB mirrors when and not everybody had a Sybey mirror
on the on the passenger side in those days. But whatever it was,
they was laying in the street now yeah, coop garbage cans. Ah boom
boom. I probably told us already, cap Why did they go to those
yellow rays? What was the purpose in that? It was supposed to be
more visibility. That's what they originally said. It's going to give more visibility
and stuff. But you know it just wasn wasn't working out. It's down
like ugly. Yeah. And another thing, you know, Royal the vat
he he always made a stretch of line no matter where we went, stretch
of line in the front door, for stretch of line into the lobby.
Always stretching line there he is, there's why the vec And that's Joey Aquino
on the left neck to him. Joe Aquino actually fell down a fifth from
the fifth floor. He fell into a vacant building elevator shaft and he said,
as he opened the door pulling towards him and started moving in, he
realized he's open the door moving in, and that's he's moving in. He's
realized that, Ah, you know that that's you go into an apartment apartment
like this on a door towards you. He went down the safe dec life
is landed a pile of garbage short in his career. I think he only
ended up doing seven eight years on the job and just couldn't take the pain.
Wow. Wow, that's a lot and then live Yeah yeah, really
really he moved to Montana. Joe was a great guy, and Royal Beck
would make a strip every single run we went on us, because there were
times when there was four progies on the back that Joe had about five years
on the job, six years on a job when I got there, and
all the rest of us had pumpkin shields. So you'd have a six year
driver, an officer, and all brand new guys on the back step.
So he made a stretch, stress, stress, spresial all the time.
And that's what made us good at what we did, is because we always
did it. Matter of fact, we've never drilled in those days one time.
Matter of fact, we didn't even do b I in those days.
Battalion chief, we're in a five six Battalion chief comes walking in. I'm
all in the morning, everybody still speaking. We didn't get home until until
the morning, early morning. Because he says, where's your officer. I
said, I can get him. He says, why aren't you and b
I I said, I don't know. Chief. I called lieutenant to have
teaching quarters and pacis. I said, Chief, my guys are oh my,
well, we're don't get back to five o'clock from more. He says,
oh okay, he say, don't worry about He walks out of the
building. I walked up to the back and I said, what's b I
And he says, you haven't been on a BI yet. I says,
I don't even know what it means. So that was my first st I
know somebody else who doesn't know what it means. I just go to FIS
and that's it. Brou think about it, what twenty five years? Yeah,
it was like an old time report work. Get low, lieutenant.
This is way way before computers and the beyond card files. You had the
pink cards, right. The pink cards were the cards that were vacant vacant
lots. Now they were no longer buildings there, but it had the description
of the building on there. So if you need to buy time, you
pull a pink card, you do a whole six story eight inspection, right,
And he says, you'll never get in trouble because nobody will ever get
hurt in that building like you can't take them off with building that people will
be going into. But if you take a mark with a vacant lot,
nobody's going to sue you for sue the building over. So it's one of
those things to buy time sometimes. You know, if you could have been
writing that down vacant pink card fourteen character two do four years in the engine
and then you go to Latin nineteen seven and Washington every Yep, was that
the normal progression from forty two? Because no, normally it's fifty six truck.
It was going across the floor. Yeah, But now what happened is
I had made a rescue earlier in that year, and it was it was
Super Bowl Sunday, right, it was January eighty five, I guess.
And I was driving with my wife down the street and all of a sudden,
I see this calm smoke and going to my brother's house to Super Bowl
Sunday, and I see this big cloud of smoke, So I slow down.
I looked down the block, Hans's freaking house blazing. Right, So
I drive down the street. I tell my wants to tell somebody on across
the street to call nine one one, and I kicked in the front door
and I start going and as I'm going in, I dropped my wallet.
I turned around and give it to this guy who's standing behind me, A
guy who went to high school with Bob Kade, I realized, and as
I'm calling down a holy labor later, I didn't realize it was bumb like
I just gave my wile to a guy. Right. But I went down.
I searched all of the bedrooms. I couldn't get to the left with
a but I ran around the back. I kicked in the back door and
I came in that way. And now I'm on my belly. I'm wearing
actually a Nihlon forty two engine jack Jack that I had to get a new
him because I got a little burn holes all over it. I find this
guy there and I grabbed and I pulled him out. He is toasted.
This guy, he's toasted. And I got him all over my hands,
I got him all over my legs, I stepping on, you know,
my feet, and he's I take him. I put him out in the
snow and he sits up and says, my car, my fucking car is
burning. He said, dude, you're lucky you're alive. Here you know.
So the fire department comms, I get my truck, my car truck,
and I drive away. I was an isol tabis. The chief actually
calls me and says, uh, your city finding I says, yes,
I am. He says, I don't know how he tracked me down,
but somebody knew who I was. I guess, and I said, he
said, are you want medical leave or something? Why did you run away?
I says, I did what I had to do. When I left,
I was going to Super Bowl Sunday with my brother. I kind of
wash up, you know. I went in the back of his rescue rig
and washed up, got a little stuff off me, and that was that.
So it was a pretty exciting thing to do all by hisself. I
mean, I was in a truck on my thirty day detail with twenty seven
truck Captain Jimmy Sheppell was there, who tore me up. One day I
went into a project building. I asked, I'll get back to that.
So anyway, a paper to go to the truck. So I put all
the surrounding trucks. He's forty two eents and I put off for all the
trucks around forty two engend because I didn't really know fifty six because they want
the quarters with us, But I saw I put it for fifty six,
twenty seven, forty four, nineteen and whatever other trucks are right in the
area there, so I just put the paper. And then the reason I
left so rapidly on the transfer was because the two six Battalion has somebody that
they wanted to push out of there, and the five six Battalion has got
transferred from the two six to the five says, well, look just swish
these guys back and forth. No man power issues. So they got rid
of that guy, and I went into nineteen truck. And now I went
and visited each one of the captains except Tony Alpha, who was the camp
in the nineteen truck because he was on medicals. And it happened so fast.
All of a sudden, I show up and he's like, who the
fuck are you to put a paper from my house when I didn't come to
see me. I said, Cap, I tried, you want medically,
I don't give a shit, and he just he was like, put the
thumb on me right out of the gate. So now I'm in this fire
house and I'm thinking I got along great and forty two engine. Now I'm
moving in a place where everbody's gonna fucking hate this camp don't like me.
So the first thing I do in those days, you go to the kitchen
in the morning, you're having your coffee and whatever, and you grab a
newspaper, head up to the shitter and you do your business. Right.
So I'm going to sit up, and I'm like, it's dark in here.
So I had a small construction business at the time, so I ran
some wise and put some lights up there. I was doing a commercial commercial
drive at the time. I'm sorry, guys, all right, And and
then I did something else, and I did something else. I was fixing
all these little things that I saw that he was fixing. So we're coming
back from the Yankee Stadium. We used to get on the rig now we
would. We would the whole ladder would have all guys sitting on it,
were hanging on the backstep, hanging off the side, and we'd just see
take the truck would take you at ninety Yankee Stadium. We'd all get off
and then we'd call afterwards. Well, in this particular night, the cat
were with us. We all went there and I'm in the company about two
months, I guess. And as we're walking out and walking up one hundred
and sixty seventh Street from the subway. We took the subway home for some
reason, he said, Trick, come back here. So he says,
did you do this? And did you do that? Did you do this?
And he's seeing me had a couple of fires and you know, we'd
had several fires together ready. He puts his on round and says, I
just want to let you know I'm going to keep you. And I was
like, oh, thank god. You know, I thought this guy's going
to toss me. I really didn't. It was horrible. And then he
gives me a hard right turn. We go into what Robertos. There was
this collision shop right behind nineteen and fifty and that's where we'd go to fix
other people's cars when things happened on the streets. And we went in there
and he I forget what he was drinking, but man, he got a
dragon me after the firehouse, they so I got kay with Tony album after
two months. He was a really good captain. As a matter of fact,
Mike bash Numb was three three three four four four. His Basch number
was three three three, but then Miler go to in nineteen twice. Mike
Milner was a nineteen truck along night. Yes he was. Mike Lan used
to run circus knights inside the firehouse. We used to have Hawaiian inside the
firehouse. We used to have a lot of parts. One Hawaiian night,
I was dressed in a grass skirt, naked skirt, and one of the
senior men started to get frisky, and I said, okay, trying to
put uniform back on his miller. We had some times that man we did.
That is moroniciic the giant Russian. Well he was. He was tough
man. He was a tough old bird man, yelling at people all the
time. I don't think he was ever happy. Best in peace status right
now, but I would say I would pay one thousand dollars for that door
right now, that front that right, yep. I forget who painted that.
I forget who painted that. I don't think it was Jim Maya Jack.
Jim Maya Jack was a nineteen truck also. Wow was he he was?
He was at the UH when I went to uh Proby School. Probably
school, Okay, he was teaching like uh, you know whatever. He
was teaching their physical d or something like. He was stretching. Jim Maya
Jack when he got detailed to the proby to uh the fire Academy. On
pay days we still had payper checks, he would run to the Fire Academy
up to one hundred and sixty seventh in Washington Avenue, get his check and
run back munch what he did. Matter of fact, my first moove that
I cut, Jim Maya Jack was on the inside team and I was up
there on the roof and I had this guy had me by the tail of
my coach, just holding on to the tail of my coat, and I'm
cutting the moof and if ires rolling over my head and I'm cutting a roof
and I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know this guy. You know,
this guy's coming in by bysld me by my coattail. I don't even
know this guy. I got combat boots and blue jeans on, you know,
and came off and he says, so what, Tony, what do
you think my Jack says, Tony, what do you think? I said?
That was a great workout. He says, that's not a workout.
He says, that's why you work out? That was his mentality always he
was. I still remember stuff that he said in Proby school, like when
I worked, when I trained. I still remember things that he did and
how he stretched, and you know what he talked about from all the way
back then. You know, pretty a whole bunch of sayings that they had
all over the walls too, right, even then a little bit didn't have
a whole bunch of plastic things that he said the wall, everybody's just a
brick in the wall, And they had all the different bricks with everybody's names
on it and saying drawings and paintings over the corner man was the gals in
the in a one block and said if they had permits in the south box
that they would have burned it down. You ran with forty four up there,
forty four truck and whoever, Yeah, well forty twenty and I ran
with forty four truck when I was forty twents and I ran from the north
down and nineteen truck from the south park. We were just south east of
forty four. Somebody was telling me that the war years for up around forty
four was actually a little later than the mid to late seventies was more like
late seventies, early eighties, mid eighties for that that part, because it's
the cancer was slowly moving up through the bronx. That's why look at look
at what's busy now? All the way up the Yeah, thirty seven truck
and thirty ninth, thirty ninth truck, could you imagine. Yeah, we
used to interchange up there. We still had interchange. When I got a
job, you did more than twenty one before midnight, they would send you
up to a slow house, and slow house come to your house, and
so we would interchange up there in the old ninth division up thirty nine truck.
Matter of fact, the thing we used to do is we used to
take mugs home because these things are expendable. You know, you always losing
mugs and breaking things. So every place I worked that would take a mug.
So we had this captain after Tony Alba. He had this guy I
won't even mention his name, but he was he was a deadbeat. And
so i'm I'm leaving thirty nine truck and I got my coup and I says,
see you guys, and like, hey, that's all mug, And
I said thank you well, they call the captain. The captain wants me
to can't send the mug back to them. I said, okay, I
says, I'll be right back. I went and I got a hammer.
I said, give me a min a line. Bullok, I'll send him
back to the club. So he took the mug and he holds onto me.
He says, no, you can't send it back like that. I
says they wanted back to They say how they wanted it back, and he
actually drove it back up to this guy. No shit, this guy,
They said once to me. When I came in, they said they were
calling. I forget where the fire was, but they said this guy stopped,
took his mask or putting on. The guy says, be careful up
there, guys. I'm having mask problems now. We been on the job.
I've been using Scott for my whole life in the fire department. I've
never had a mass problem. I couldn't fix on a spot because it was
always my fault. I didn't prot press a couple in perige valves open the
excellator valve is not set set. You know things like that. How did
you get a spot up there? And you don't what no poti fire.
Yeah, he knew people. That's what happened with him. Well, why
would you want to go there? Then, if that's what he's not all
about, you couldn't figure it out. But that guy Steve Lon again,
I was talking to you about Steve Lannigan said. It was really beat because
we all had the same permission, being that the same purpose. We all
disliked the same guy purpose. So one day for dinner that everybody's trying to
work something somehow get rid of this guy. So one day for lunch,
it was I made steak, eggs and potatoes. Right, Yes, steak,
eggs and potatoes. So you know those diet dishes, those long dining
dishes like that, right. I put a steak on his plate that hangs
over the side. I put a mount of potatoes over the top, and
I fry four or five eggs and put it over the top of that,
and I says, this is for you, cap'n. I put it in
front of him. That guy's looking at me like he when he finally finishes
up, I mean he ate did everything but lick the plate. This guy
when he walks out, they're like, hell, you're going to kissing the
captain's ass. I says, you guys are trying to get rid of him.
I says, the best I can do is try and give Hi a
heart attack. He left, and McNally showed up, the chief of operations.
Yeah, matter of fact, he we have an elevator once, and
we did a lot of elevators. That's why I learned the trade. We
did a lot of elevators. Matter of fact, they wouldn't even turn us
out called nineteen truck for an elevator to say, oh, just get out.
So we're standing there waiting for an elevator to go up to get this
suck elevator. And he's this guy. Those other people in the hall.
It's a project building. He goes to get in. I grabbed by the
collar. I pull him back, and I says, we need the elevator.
Well I was here first, and I argue with the guy and pokeing
with my hook the door closers. McNally's just standing. He turns right,
he looks standing, He turns right. You need to work on your public
relations a little bit on man. Then he was a trying and we had
the plan in the firehouse. Says, you remember that this, I said,
I do. He says you were right. He says your public relations
was just fine. Was a great captain. McNally came Bill Seily. Bill
Sily was another great captain. Lieutenants Comiski and long Worth and Jimmy Jimmy oh,
I can't remember his name now. Jimmy Kavanaugh would take us and come
out of a building and he stayed sitting in front of the building and say,
okay, stand right here, how many floors, where's the fire escapes?
How many windows here? He just quish it. So now when you're
walking in for your size up, you're taking all this in and you want
to make sure you know because when he come out, Jimmy's gonna question you.
And it really helps with your size up because he would make sure that
you would do all the points of your size are badger going into the building.
It was good that way. They were all great guys. I learned
from the best. I really did. I think Truck was there one of
my first details that I took from when I was in one seventeen. I
went up to nineteen Truck uh huh, And I remember knocking on the door
and knocking on the door and knocking on the door, and finally the chief
came to the door. He's like, hey, how you doing. I'm
like, hey, you doing? Chief over the detail, He's like,
yeah, everybody's downstairs. I said, all right, I'm gonna stand here.
And is that where you were looking to go? Nineteen truck? I
always messed that up. Thirty three truck. Oh, thirty three truck.
Yeah. Yeah, And it's funny should say that. Joe. You had
Joe Debernardo Chief Joe de Bnada on the show. He told the story.
He loves the story. He still tells it when we get together. He
comes up back from work. It's early morning hours, three four o'clock in
the morning, and you know, she pulls up to the door. I'm
out like a light in the on the watch, right, So he comes
in. He opens the door, slams the door shut, He walks over,
opens the garage door, walks over, and he's looking at me while
the door's going up. He's watching me, right. He backs in.
He starts slamming the car doors and everything. I'm dumb, snowing. I'm
out like a light. He waits and notes me and says, if you
were the enemy, you'd be dead and stuck it underneath my couple. Maybe
I was a great chief too, really good man, good man. Yeah.
The captain at the time it was ceiling was he was, wasn't he?
Yeah? He was a cheaper soccer. He was in the four nine
as well. M h oh that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
another good officer. So you spend nine years in nineteen huh, that's a
long time. I don't know that. That's a long time, man.
Yeah, that's what I spent the both of my career nineteen twelve. Tommy
Corre, Rob Lennon, the one on the right, is now the battalion
command at two six in that quarters, and Tom Corre, I believe he's
the chief in charge of training right now. Wow mm hmm, that's crazy,
right when you look at the young guys and now all of a sudden,
yeah in that kitchen, man, oh, this is great. You
got you got three characters here, okay. On the left of Steve Corbone
was a union guy, Joe Rio, a legend, and on the writer
is George Gabriel, another lunatic. So now this guy in the middle,
George Joe Rio, Joe Rio. There's stories about Joe Rio once on a
three story frame that was collapsing and he had the roof. He rolled the
roof down like a surfboard and just did like two tumble sawts and stood up
and he Now, Teddy Deshman tells the story. But he was in a
in a building and he's going down hall with a line and things start to
go. Band and guys that bail out out and Teddy can't bail out,
and he yells, I can't get out. I can't get out, and
Joe Rio yells down hold onto the bail and Joe leal hand by like this,
Paul drags Teddy ship Eddy told me the story, drags Teddy Bushman down
the hallway and pulls them out of the building. That's just too many many
stories. Joe Riol's face looked like he was a goalie for a knife throwing
team. Picture back up. I gotta look at that guy again. You
can't see it from here now he's no. I'm just saying, how well
do you think he was there? I mean, isn't all the guy?
Yeah? Oh yeah, I think he him and Joe Selly, the other
guy, senior guy that I think they got on a job in eighteen ninety
five. They were all times, matter of fact, Joe Rio when I
first got there. Now, I used to cook all the time in forty
two engines, And now I get to nineteen truck and I'm on right in
the middle between Joe Selling and Joe Rio, and they cook all the time.
And I come into the kitchen and everybody's for some reason. I never
really was in the TV room. I didn't like the TV room, just
not for me. I'm not a TV guy. I come walking through the
kitchen and I opened it up in his rice in there. So I take
the spoon. I stirred the rice right. I put it down in this
long table in nineteen truck and there's a round table off to the side.
I go to the round table. I pick up the newspaper, reading it.
Joe Wheeler was walking in, picks it up and turns around, excres
me, Oh, start the fucking rock. I spoke the rice though,
you to do it. I just banged this old lady man called me up
like you couldn't believe me up down that flight, I said, Joe,
I just stirred the right, you know, start the right. Joe's timing
now right, and now everybody knew this recipe was rice and real. He
added uh dollars and check peas and onion, and he made a special way.
His rice was awesome. It was really, really, really good.
So he's retiring, and I walk up to him and says, hey,
Joe, now you know I probably have I don't know, ten years,
eleven years on the job, Joe, I says, don't let the rice
of real recipe die with you. I says, will you give me it
with actually real recipe? He gives me stink and writes the whole recipe right,
and he keeps took this much of the page, and on the bottom
of the page, this much the other half of the page. Do not
stir the rice. That's man, that's like a typical thing too, with
some old time, right, they have their way and that's it. Then,
you know, all you're trying to do is help out. But he
fucking lost his marbles. It's like he's count some shekels on that table too.
What is he doing? Figure out? The meal? Always an issue
for some reason, him was always an issue. It was always a quarter
short and a half a dollar short the time that meant something, a quarter
and a half a dollar and the other old time with Joe Selly. I
don't have any pictures of him, but I mean, I don't think I
gave you any pictures. He used to sit in the corner. He had
a calmb over from here. We're all the way over right, and when
the wind would blow his haird wull do this right, float up in the
air, and he would sit in the corner. The high voice, he
talked like this, right. He's sitting there with his little diner court a
cup and he'd be drinking. And now Jimia Jack was coming back to the
firehouse and they're all talking about Jim's gonna make us eat healthy. We're not
gonna be able to Hamburgs and steaks and everything. And Joe Selly's sitting in
the corner. Classic Joe Selly. He tells when I says, hey,
if you wanted about your health in a world job, go become an accountant.
If you'ready about your healthy in the wrong job, he's not lying,
but hey, lying, that's for sure. Oh my god, that's so
freaking funny. My face is killing me right now. Do we have any
more pictures from nineteen I have? Are we moved on. Well, I
have one of my change the subject a little bit. We have that one.
Wow, my boy Tristan, he he he just loved the fight upon
them from a young age. And there's pictures of him in uniform to turn
out gear and he I used to take. I started taking to work with
when he was like maybe six or seven years old. And the stuff that
happened. One time, Dwayne Marcy had his kids, Bright and Evan gonna
say, you go there. He is probably about seven six. No,
he's a young man, but he's not old enough to go to work yet.
So Dwayne Marcy bought his boys there you go there he is. He
loved my fire year. So uh oh, now he's now he's bigger than
me. He's fourteen years old and he's got my gear on. So Dwayne
Mastery brings his two sons, Evan and Brandan Evan to work and so the
three and them are palet around. We get this job with a sixth story.
H that's a great picture. That's actually not my son. But I
had to put that picture because it reminded me of time I made that picture.
I'm posting that up tomorrow. This guy, Yes, I i'd have
to fire that down. I'd take him into the buildings, you know,
all over the place. So forty four truck pulls up first, nineteen truck
pulls up second. We're back like this, back to back, front to
back, and they're sitting on a bumper of nineteen truck. Nineteen tows the
area up to the sixth floor window and it's short by about four feet,
and this guy is on the end of the aerial and he's like jumply he
jump. She's like, you jump, I'm not jumping. Then she's back
back in the building. Well she ends up jumping anyway, not even by
the aerial ladder, and she splatters between forty four truck and nineteen truck and
he kilts and he looks over and he goes, get those fucking kids out
of here. You know. These are some of the things that they saw
up there, which they were probably too young to see. But he wanted
to come to the firehouse, and other guys bought their kids at the fire
house all the time. He was. When I was in I was in
two to eighty three engine. I come out of the building. Now he's
probably about nine ten years old, and I come we respond to a fire
on Eastern Parkway and it's two o'clock in the afternoon and this whole section of
stores, which is probably about forty five fifty five feet long, just rolling
out the windows. It was a calling store. I had to pull my
cow up like power up like this to get underneath the fight against the rowing.
I go when we fight the firefighters out to come outside this. Sorry,
it's Tristan outside. He's got gloves on to come up to here on
him and he's filthy. I'm like, what did you do? Oh dad?
I was helping us for stresch line. That was just the line.
I'm like, just come on. And John Flynn he's calling buckethead. You
know if he's lean fold he started going like that. He had all so
he says, no cat really, lieutenant really, he he was doing this.
He he straight the line and he wrote over said this is two thirty
four. He break the line. He wrote on this is uh three twenty
three, and he breaked this. He was running around helping them stretch lines,
take chasing kings. He just loved it. Charlie Willis walked in for
my relief once and he says, are you using this computer, and it
was a computer off to the side. It was the thing for making command
decisions things like that. I said, that wasn't reason. And he says,
well, who's running the second one fire? He says, that would
be my kid. He says that your kids running a second long fire?
You know? He just good? What is that? Guy? Tell a
captain his son is doing a term job in Baltimore. He's doing a term
job in Baltimore. Yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't
know. Maybe he's doing a terminal job. I have no idea what that
means. He's working at the Academy therese with the recent line of duty debts
and the previous line duty debts that will be two years next January. They
they developed a firefighter survival program over there. They have ballet systems that they
didn't have many many years. Matter of fact, he was invited by Mickey
Tomboy and dal Crouch to come up to New York with a team of his
to go through the firefighter survival program that we developed in the UH, that
was developed in the Special Operations Command and UH. They went up there and
they went through the grueling gruling. Of course, that it is, and
they went back to Baltimore and developed their own course relating it to the line
of duty debts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like we had the school
fani right, we had the schoolfany fire we did? We had uh the
who was the guy? I can't remember the names anymore? Was it foul
afire? The foul afire and the one in the Bronx where with the proby
not brick, not brick the more went they fell through the Yeah, with
the with the ninety nine cent store, I remember that. Riley and co
Pluck car Pluck. Yes, we used to practice that fire to with the
with the firefighter removal. You know again that's all our or a lot of
jobs that we you know, you know, you know, redid to practice
it, you know what I mean? Whatever. Yeah, we responded to
that one from Brooklyn and we were going up to the Grand Central Park.
Whe Wayne Pie was driving. He was driving so much. I'm sitting in
I'm sitting in the rig. Now. I trust my showf is complete.
I never say nothing but trust Wayne. Was he looking that way or are
you looking this way? Which way? Is he looking? Field Division?
Yeah? He had one hundred and eighty degrees right, so he's I find
myself going and I told him, I said, let me know, we'll
get to the box. He's like in the seat and I start looking out
at the bay. He said, what are you doing. I says,
like, this can't look no more, so tell me we'll get to the
box. I'll get you to the ninety nine cents store. We get there.
We uh. They designated us to start setting up aircarts. We set
up aircosts. We start passing down the air and everything and here comes how
we out And I look at him like how I know how he since he's
sixteen years old. He was in East Station fire and then I was a
BRENTWS the racing team together all the time. I was stunned to see that
Stunn. Those guys did a hell of a job. Let me tell you
they took a beat, a real beat. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
I work with Wayne. He was in the engine. He was at two
sixty three when I was at one seventeen. That's right. He got appointed
to tuesdaixty three. I took Wayne and to ride with me when when I
was in forty two engine and that was it. And he says, I
got to get a job like this, I got to get this job.
Yeah, he was, he was good. I had good times with him.
Oh, Wayne's a fun guy. Man, got a trustworthy person.
So why'd you want to go and ruin it? After you're in nineteen you
go and study? Yeah, yeah, promoted. Why do you study?
This is why you stuff? Right, that's why because I from nineteen and
I ended up. Oh let me back up with nineteen. One more thing.
We did a lot of good work there and one night Mike Buckey and
I had the outside team, and he still talks about it to this day.
People went into me and so I ran into a Fenian. So it's
something about you guys cut three roofs in one night. Oh that's Mike Buck
I know because we, uh, that's what we did. We had a
few jobs. We cut three roofs in one night. Mike was very impressed
with that, and I think he had to actually cut down a pitfall that
night that was burned and then he just took his holleging and went and put
down a pitfull. So anyway, so I ended up in one night huh
all on one night? Yeah, Yeah, that was that was a good
one. So I ended up in Manhattan as a lieutenant. Right, first,
I go to first line supervisor training program and Steve Loadigan, as I
said, a couple of motor together with me and I go to the first
line supervisor's training program. And I was a runner back in those days,
and Steve and I were running for lunch and I look at them one day
and say, we're not going back. This is going back where. We're
not going back to nineteen truck. He says, I know, I said.
I think I'm just getting this room my head, and now we're not
going back. You know you're out. You're out now. Yeah, I
don't think you really understand that. Yeah, there's my son and my wife
at the promotion. Sorry, I was. I was trying to pull up
the gentleman. I don't even look like you Holy macle we go hold on,
let me go back to it then, so you could take that in,
I'm old. Wow, Wow, you were a young buck. Huh.
Let's see that would be in ninety four, so it might be thirty
eight. Wow, fifty yeah, thirty eight, and you look, you
look skinny, skinny from running. Yeah, that's my family. Looks like
he's part of the married up club. He definitely married. She's a good
woman. She helped to save my life. She really did. In many
ways. I was a little bit of a lunatic once upon a time,
so she helped to make me. She had an elegance about it and kept
me, kept me great. Have you met Anna ruveless wife? Talk about
a lunatic? Somebody who saves a lunatic? Holy Christmas? Yeah, woman,
Rosie's not doing to shereby either. You're doing all right. It took
me three times, though, we get it right, so it's a little
bit of a different stuff. Yeah, you didn't learn the first time,
n all the second time. No negative. In Manhattan, that's gonna be
like a fish out of water. I end up in the first Division,
right, I'm going in and I reported. I go up to headquarters.
Dave Corkman is the division commander and Terry Roach is the sixth Battalion commander.
So I come walking in. I walk in. I snapped his attention.
I said, General Lieutenant for character Reporting has ordered. Sir Corkman looked at
me and goes, where do you come from? I said, I'm from
nineteen truck and he goes to another fucking Bronx guy and Terry Rodan. Yeah,
so the sixth Battalion and I'm bouncing around from from South Street to forty
second Street, short a shore. I had a black I go to some
I go to your house, right, and you tell me all the cool
things in that neighborhood. And then I go to your house and you say,
well, all the cool things. And everybody showed me the best of
their neighborhoods. And it was it was fun. It was just fun,
it really was. But in one year, I had three jobs. So
Jimmy McMahon from twenty nine Truck also gets promoted with me, and we go
through the post flips together and he actually lives in Mount China, I,
so we're commuting back and forth. We become fast friends, and he goes
to Brooklyn and he calls me up every night. Yeah. I caught two
jobs for two twenty seven. You know, I had a job with two
thirty six. And he's just telling me job after job, and I'm sitting
there like, I don't even pick up the radio. All I do is
give it ten eighty four and then I'm done. So I did well.
I shouldn't say that I had a second alarm on a forty story setback for
an air conditioning umit, and I thought to myself, what the fuck at
fire? There was double doors open and it was a sub cell. I
had to go down two stores. A little bit of some smoke coming out
of here, right, So I'm like, hold off on a whisper.
This is the Bronx mentality, you know, hold up on the ten seventy
five. I go downstairs and I find it's a battery room burning. But
the chief already go out on the hand to talk. We gave him ten
seventy five. And when I come out, he says, uh. He
says, where are you from. I says, I'm from the Bronx.
He says, You're not in the Bronx no more. When you see smoking,
give you ten seventy five because it can take forever. Believe me,
you guys have been in Manhattan. It's take forever for people to get this.
Just get him coming. If we don't need we set them all got
it. So it was a job. We stretched the line and went inside.
I get back to the three truck and I pull out twenty I told
on my table, I says, my first job is you guys. I
guess ah, your square bank can and uh. Chief looks at the same
chief looks at me. He goes, we don't do that here. Get
something runs out of the door as soon as that door shuts. It's like
we do that here in Manhattan. But now as you bounce around, you
figure out where you want to be. I picked three truck company. I
want to be in three truck, eleven truck or nine trucks. Those are
my three choices. I talked to the cat a three truck of eleven truck.
He didn't have any openers going the Campman nine truck. I was in
there for five minutes and said, I don't want work for this guy.
And so three truck was my target. And Murphy was the chief there and
he said you're in, You're in. So I gave the shirts again,
your hats and everything, and I'm in. And a week before the order
comes down, he says, listen, sometimes things changed. I'm like,
no, no, I'm in. You told me I'm in. I'm in
that. Ronnie Brown is the chief of Vision of Training at the time,
and his son put in for it. So Tony's out, Ronnie's kid is
in, and I go up to Dave Cork and I says, can I
can I put a paper and to go to Brooklyn. He says, well,
who do you know? I tell him who I know. He's like,
oh, yeah, I know fat Jack. And he starts talking.
We're talking about this and that, and he says, well, if you
really want to put a paper and you can't, I says, well,
when can I do that? Chief He says, whenever you're ready, there
you go. Chiefs made a phone call two weeks later on at the four
four. Nice. Yeah. And the two weeks later that happened, well,
that was when I was according to engine. So you see the pile,
we're advancing on that top floor and out of line. So Tom Fingey's
on the lieutenant and he tells Bobby Metals go downstairs, get a length to
hose in another nozzle. So Bobby takes off downstairs and maybe within thirty seconds
to a minute, he says, you know what trick. He says,
go to the window and tell Metals to bring two legs of hose up.
So I go to the window and I'm looking out the window waiting for Bobby
to come out of the building, and what was in the hair, I
screeching a metal and I look over and I see this in falling. His
slow motion is going down. It's like this boom, and it missed the
building by this much. The bucket missed the building by that much. And
a couple of broken bones. But everybody. John Crowley was in forty four
truck transfer to the nineteen truck. He was in that bucket that night,
and it was it was mortified to see that. I was like, holy
shit, I couldn't believe this guy would falling over. It's not supposed to
happen. Those guys ended up being all right, though, correct. Yeah,
I think it was a broken arm, a broken leg, and one
guy wasn't injured at all. Don't hold me too, but IM pretty sure
that's the way it went. I don't remember it ever being Uh so you
get to the four four, So how long did that take to go to
the fire. Not too long, I would imagine from I'm signed to the
four four tomic. Gavin's my gallvan is my evaluator. So I go to
the division headquarters and I meet the guys down, their officer some and everything,
and I tell them my plan, you know, like the old sayings
you want to make God laugh, tell me plan. Well, these guys
laughter. I told my plan in the first place of seventy is three twenty
three, right, So I say, I say, okay, this is
just a test. That's all it is. Go to three twenty three.
It's all right. It's a good spot, a nice little spot. Yeah,
but it was. It was very, very very slow back then.
Yeah. Yeah, I went from slowman had to slow football. But I
knew it was just a test. So I finished up my vacation there and
they gave me a night tour in two fifty five. Jump up to two
fifty five, first run and get a job in one of those pds over
like Avenue h or something like that, next to your old house. I
mean next to your old house. So I go in the front door,
and the bicycles and everything. I say, hope, line right there,
and I just stopped going to bicycles and the baby carriages and everything out.
We go. We had like two rooms like that. We go in and
knock it down and we go back to quarters and they're hooting and holland and
carrying on. I'm like, I like this place and this is a good
house. Then I bounce around the division for a while, and I started
to zero win A one seventy five, one twenty three. Those are the
three companies I'm looking for. Meanwhile, somewhere along the line, Tommy Richardson
had a guy going along to a medical leaf. So he asked me if
I come UFO to his house for a couple of months. I did that.
He was a count of two thirty fours. You know. Then Charlie
McGrath calls me up and he says, I got a oh, where's a
Brian thing? Maybe Brian called me up and told me to Charlie Grandfats have
my UFO. And guy Dennis Drisco. You know those chairs that you have
the metal frame and you have the wooden seat on it. Well, he
goes in a restaurant. He goes like this, the scooter's chairing and as
he does that, the chair comes up, his pinky finger gets in him
takes off the top of his pinchon. So he's on medical Leaf for a
while. So I do two months maybe in the house. And my philosophy
as lieutenant was, when you come to work, you've got nothing to do.
I took care of everything. I took over all your paperwork, all
your roll calls, all your time and payroll, everything's done. When you
come to work, you got the night is off, you hang out with
the men, you do your job stuff, and next morning you can actually
start to work again. And McGrath liked that style, so he said to
me. He says, when I get an opportunity, I'm going to bring
you back here. I said, I'd love to be here, so fast
forward. The opportunity comes, he calls me if I want to come to
UFO. He says, oh yeah. I go to one tip fifty seven
and a heartbeat, I'm not there. Two weeks and Tommy Galvin calls me
and says, hey, I know you look at one seventy five. There's
a UFO spot there. Chief, I just made my commitment to Charle McGrath.
I can't believe it, says one Sidy finds a really good house.
But my name would be mud if I turned around and left one fifty seven.
I really liked them anyway, so he let me go and I stayed
and the rest is history. I got a signed and I was so hot
when I got there. As a matter of fact, I was going fire
at the fire doing two three fires to twenty four that one future goal.
Now I didn't know one future at the time. One Fuchs calls me up.
It's a Brooklyn one twenty FUCHU did you have him on the show?
Yes? He had awesome guy. Oh yeah. Course when it says Lieutenant
Characo, he says, this is more fuse ba, I says, yeah,
what can I do for you? So he says, when are you
working again? I says I'm working ones to night and Thursday says okay,
I'm gonna come ride with you. Click what happened there? How can he's
telling me he's gonna ride anything? But I didn't know. He was a
friend at the firehouse, and he was these guys knew more and he was
part of the firehouse. That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because
I was so hot, everybody want to work with Mike Brussel. While that
went awful, I'd say two three months easily, and then it leveled out,
you know, because uh, it's just I was just so hot.
It was smoking, man. I was going everywhere, you know what I
wanted to ask you, coming from the Bronx, going to two fifty five.
Now I've worked a lot right, So how did you get past the
uh? You know that? I mean that place is if not the place,
it's uh, it's it's up there with two ninety one oh three is
probably the fastest turnout. And there is on the job. Yes, and
Bonzai was my chauffe run was my show. Okay, that was my chauffeur.
Uh Dennis and those guys they were they were all good, good chauffas.
But I just said, do not fucking me. I might have said
those words before it myself. I mean how fast? I mean literally,
there is no there is no you're eating you have your fark like this,
the B part, the B part and the foks are in the air.
They're in the air, and I'm not kidding, it's not They are running
to the rig, you know. And that's a tight kitchen, you know,
like to get around, you know, guys cut through the TV that
little hallway going between the kitchen and the apparatus floor, if you know,
in front of quarters there, if you did, you notice in the roadway
there's time marks going this way in the street. There's tires marskle on that
way the street because they come out they're leaving rubber on the pavement as they're
coming around the turn. Yeah, it's full out. Oh yeah, they
tried to get Charlie Price to go faster. So what they did is they
took a doughnut on a stick and taped it to the roof, so the
bonut was here. Fish. It was the guy, Fish Fish. Fish.
Fish was the man to go to when I needed something done. Right.
Call I had to do is say, Fish, can we get this
done today? No more about a horse. I got it. And he
would make sure things and put him in like Billy Ryan was there right at
the time? Was Billy Ryan wasn't there? He already went to three,
I believe, Oh he had already left. Yeah, yeah, Fish.
Actually we were coming down, Uh, we were coming down I think it
was Roger's Avenue and at Lyndon Boulevard. Fish Fish was a cautious driver.
A matter of fact, I used to complain to him, it's like driving
mistakes, you know, especially compared to the other guys. You know,
listen, Bonds, I don't get a name like Bonzie for nothing. Right.
So Fish is driving out and he was his courseous driver. As he
started to go into Linda Boulevard, this car must have been doing eighty miles
an hour down winn the boulevard. He hits the front of the rig,
bounces off the glass, shadows comes flying into the apparatus, The car rolls
across, bangs into the into the building across the street. You know,
they have those long setbacks, deeper setbacks on the boulevard, and it's like,
holy shit. So I call him a major accident, and everybody starts
to show up, and I forget who the chief was. The deputy chief
shows up and he says, no, he made a major accident also,
and then the in calls back, went to the hospital, calls back and
says, listen, this lady's denying, doesn't want to be treated, and
she's leaving. He says, well, that makes it a minor. Everybody
go home. That was That was a lot of times right in those areas,
Like even by two ninety, that would happen a lot. You get
into an accident and the people wouldn't want to either they had no insurance or
most of my time in the job was that way. Yeah. We had
liberto behind nineteen truck because if somebody wanted something, he's like, okay,
go to theay go go get the car fixed whatever, right, allegedly just
the way it was. I said, thanks, go down to UH to
fleet maintenance, and I go as a boss both in the engine and UH
in one fifty seven and then squad through fifty two. I would go down
there and talk with Andy and get spare parts, and I keep them in
the locker downstairs, because you know, there's things that are expendable, like
like sci few members they break, but they just break, so marka lights,
you know, things like that, keeping in the locker and this way
you just replace it. Did you ever have a fire near your old house.
I've had fires around that day, we had not. I actually did
have a run of my grandmother's not only her ability, but her apartment.
Oh my gosh, for g one twenty counter worth place four G. I
walked in there and looked around and says, wow, because I was a
little kid, that looks so small, you know, I thok grandma had
some big apartment. Yeah yeah, yeah, right right yeah. I mean
that area when you're working in the truck there, like again, it's such
a huge response area for the truck there, right, I mean you're in
you go to one forty seven, you go south, you're in like real
like, uh, it's a nice area, right, if you go south,
is that the Jewish area? If you get into Marine Park down there,
yeah, it's like it's nice. And you go over to the Marine
park. Bitch, you got this ponset and yeah, big houses, it's
really nice. It's incredible. How big that area is. Well, one
of my first ones as I was covering there the first time, I'm covering
and we're driving and we're going. Now, I've been in the Bronx with
the companies are close. I've been in Manhattan the companies are closed. I'm
going. I was like, where we're going, where's this box? This
is all? No, we got a ways to go. It says how
big is this area? I had to actually look up how big this area
was? One of the bigger areas that they had. Oh, it's huge.
Developed so much later in uh, in the career of the history of
the job. Oh, don't forget saddle up, settle up. We had
a have you heard about saddle up? Yeah, we have we have a
shirt saddle up. Oh okay, now we know we have to find them
rough. Now I want to start that want and started that Yes, correct.
The boss would come in and he'd know it was going to be one
to fifty seven is either going to be first or second, do or even
third? Two? Right? All you hear is settle up, Like Louis
said, they wait for the tones. They got the little hit ten to
twelve or fourteen seconds before the tones came in when saddle up came. Matter
of fact, anniversary, if you look at one fifty seven in the book,
in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary book, they have the garage door
lifted up enough for it has some stray paints saddled up across the back.
Yes, oh yeah, they were good man work at the seven was a
good shop, had a lot of good work there. We had a great
time. You spent a decent amount of time there six years. Huh yeah,
yeah, that's a lot of fires because the war years too, babe
dog years, you know. Oh we had some real good fires running.
I remember this one fire. Now, as you know, as a boss,
when you're on the radiaro, you don't want to be a screamer,
right and so uh well, well on forget where it was thirty seventh Street
and h k anyhow as we come up. I can see the four or
five buildings down. I can see a fire on the second floor of a
two story multi dwelling. So I pick up the horn book in tens seventy
five five on the second floor, two story so we dwelling. Blah blah
blah. Right. And when we got back to the guys in the engine,
like you gotta put at open that we hardly heard you. I said,
what do you want to scream? I says, a scream? You
yell at me. I told you you're gonna yell at me. I says,
it doesn't make a difference. I'd rather remain calm. But this thing
was cranking, and it was I remember it was the vino Chauncey and myself
in there, and we were by ourselves, and we went in as far
as we could, did the searches, you know, wait for the engine's
That's what I liked about these They were very aggressive. Matter of fact.
At one point we were some place I forget we relocated. It was someplace
and we had a second do fire. And as I'm going by, I
hit the boss and show it says one fifty seven. We'll be above.
And when we come back there says, you don't do that down here.
What are you talking about? I wasn't uced to that where I worked.
This is where we worked, so you know, we got to learn things
depending on when in Rome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well it's not
so much don't do that around here. It's just that there's strong companies,
there's Week companies. We happen to be in the neighborhood that there was week
of companies, and that's why they said I shouldn't do that. But I've
never worked in week company with week companies before. There was always good strong
companies. Did they have a toilet bowl in the ceiling at that time?
But me? Did they have the toilet bowl in the ceiling? But we
did have some fun over there at Christmas time. We'd after Christmas, we
take the Christmas tree and put it in a bucket of diesel fuel and leave
it out there until what do they call it February and one two three or
something like that is uh, there's a word for it, I forget.
But then we'd have a ceremony on that. We had flashovers. That was
interesting. That was very interesting. I think I told the story one time
I was covering there and they had a boys' night out, you know,
everybody was going out, and I don't remember we had we had a little
bullshit job when we came back and I went up in the office and I
was just getting back to sleep, and the guys came back. It was
two, three, four in the morning whatever it was, and it was
rowdy, man. There was a lot of shit going on down there.
And then it got really quiet, right, and then all of a sudden
I heard this explosion, like boom. I'm like, what the ef is
going on? Right? So I get up to cover that. The guy
in the engine, I don't remember who it was, but he wasn't you
know, he was covering for the for the tour. You know. We
go downstairs and they had not not like a little can like of beans,
like the big can, you know, like the fat can of porking beans.
They put the can on the oven, on the stove and just let
it cook in the until it, like levied, it was fucking beans all
over the plate. I don't even know what the hell was going on.
I don't even remember what the hell was going on. But yeah, sometimes
they actually fifty two two different guys, is uh go app doing two fifty
two. They do the mac gass inside of a plastic bag and then tie
it off with a piece of toilet paper and let it run down and then
they go up and light it and as it burned up, there or someone
to hit that. But I never heard of that one either. Allegedly,
God, don't, don't, don't get nervous. Yeah, chief, you're
not a safety chief. Fire. Okay, good, he's like you muted,
He's sorry, I'm training. Sorry, I'm trying to be quiet,
and I don't want to interact interrupt too much. So let's get fifty seven.
We ran and ran. Matter of fact, when I first got there,
I was doing some drills and on some of the more obscure tools and
it was breaking them. And Charlie McGrath was like, you're breaking all my
tools. I said, wouldn't you have like breaking drilling? And now I
gotch you a brand new tool. So we would drill a lot. We
do things like that. Matter of fact, this is a good one.
You know. We're driving down the street and like I say, if there's
an a D and I'm driving down the street, it's type of drill.
So I'm driving down the street and there's this jaguar up on blocks, no
plates. I go around, I check the whole thing out upon plates,
no up on blocks, no plates. The registration and inspection stick is scratched
off, and everything's gone, I said, and one windows broke. I
said, adv let's cut it off. And a guy's like, this is
a jaguar. I said, you ever cut a jaguar before me? No,
no, it says me, neither. Let's have at it. So
he start cutting up this jaguar. Bobby Mains in the two from the four
one comes by and he takes one look at what's going gets back in his
car, drives away, and we cut up the jaguar. No big deal.
So a month or two three pass and Richie's Richie's is working as a
covering captain. He's doing overtime in two fifty five, so obviously they tell
him the story about what's going on. Well, Richie's kid works in the
precinct down the road. So what they do is this guy is diabolical.
He gets his kid to fax him that the facts machines in my office too,
So he's going in and out with the fact machines and I'm not even
thinking anything of it. He factors the police department. Buck slips right,
and so then what he does is he gets Mains and Terry roach from the
two six. He's the deputy chief. A lot of effort here, a
lot of effort. These guys conspire and bake up this whole story about Witherspool,
who lives in Kensington, left his cotton, and and so now I
don't hear nothing. The fact machine starts going his five or six papers there
and picking up and I starts slip clipping through it. It goes from the
patrolman's report to the captain's report, to the inspector's report, to the Chief
of Department, to the borough commander, to the fifteenth Division, to the
fourth fall one Battalion to me, I'm dead, and I'm trying to think
how am I going to get out of this, because that's that's something I
think, how am I gonna get I'm trying to think about how I'm gonna
get out of this? And they call for child and I'm like beside myself,
I'm shaking my head. I'm like, you know, and he made
it good. It said like the fire engine one fifty seven showed up and
caught up this guy's car fire engine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm
sitting in the kitchen and I'm really not paying attention. But all of a
sudden, I think it's Jimmy Cavin that times, and I says, hey,
look, you're kind of quiet tonight. Everything okay, I said,
yeah, I just thinking, And as I turned my head, everybody's looking
at me. They'll go like this, Yeah, I'm thinking, well,
maybe maybe, just maybe this is a roots. I mean, this is
pretty complicated. This is I really thought through roots. That's I knew when
we had a job. Sometime we didn't finish dinner, but we had a
job. And I come out of the building and body Names is there and
he starts talking about it, but he can't stop smiling, and I'm like,
you, you fucking guys did it. I have never been so had
in my life. I thought I was losing my job. I really did.
I've never been so had. It was amazing. Really that professional.
That's a professional. Jimmy did an awesome job on that one. He had
me hooked mine and the sinking right dead in the water. But you know,
sometimes a lieutenant I was working in one twenty truck, I'm working in
one twenty truck and we're coming down Linden Boulevard. We come up to uh,
we're coming down Pennsylvania. Amnu, you're coming up to pen Linden Boulevard.
You know how you got the side lane, then you got the two
lanes. They got the turning line. They get the two lanes, and
you got the media and then you got the turning lanes. You know there's
all these different Well, he needs driving me, and we're driving in and
we're coming over and his van's kind of swerving over here, and I think
he's gonna take out all the people in the bus stop. It's snowing out,
and he comes final, he hits the curb, comes all the way
across all six lanes of traffic, go right into one twenty and slides off
to the side there right heat. He doesn't hesitate, goes the brake on
out of the rig, and after the truck, I'm like, oh,
okay, one twenty in the Brooklyn, take us off the box. We've
had a minor accident. I'll get back on this right. So I had
to think about a second, you know, one twenty in the Brooklyn,
blah blah blah, By the time I do all that, he's coming back
and the puts the signons of He says, that fucking guy he didn't have
a registration, didn't have a license to don't get the fuck out of here,
befire you arrest and he left, okay. I picked up the horn.
It says one twenty Brooklyn, cancel the accident. We're responding. Uh,
one twenty, you're canceling actions says ten four ten four. He didn't
hit us, just we're responding. I get back to quarters, the safety
chief, the deputy chief and four to four wait for me, right,
so uh and it's redheaded Butler. He's the deputy chief. He vaping me
upstairs and they say, how the fuck you cancel an accent? How do
you do that? I said, well, let me explain this to the
chief. I says, we're coming along, and here comes this guy.
See the van sliding and he hits the curtain, comes grinding clone. Hei
slams on the brake, throws the Maxi braake and this guy veers away and
I thought he hit us. And then he jumps out to see if the
guy's okay, jumps back in the rig and he says he's okay, guy
on the root. I says he didn't hit it. No, he didn't
hit us. I said, okay, let's go, I'll cancel the accident.
And they're all standing like this. He says, that's your answer.
I says, that's my answer. Chief, I mean, back in my
seat like this and just stand me. Well, like I can't believe that.
I just come up with this, like they says, don't do that
again. Any all leads like that was it. That was the end of
that cap in that area. I learned very fast after the first one not
to give that I was quote unquote in an accident. Well, you know,
unless even if I was responding, I'm just saying, we're going to
be unable to respond. I wouldn't say that we were in an accident,
because, like you said, most of the time, the people want,
you know, they had a crap car or it was just a little clip
or something like that, and they wanted to get the hell out of that.
They didn't have a license, whatever it wanted for the arrest. Yeah,
they just wanted to get the hell out of that. Exactly. I
never I don't had one previous accident. Maybe that was before Fish's accident.
But I didn't have any accidents. I mean, you know we sped cause
things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if that was the
chief who told me that too. By the way, man, guys who've
been there before, right yeah, yeah, no doubt yeah, and talking
about tips with the guys who've been there before. Going back to forty two
engine, that guy Neil tael Or slapped the face piece off me. I
want to give you a story with Neil. Here was one heck of a
mental So I'm doing a job. I had a lot of vacant building work,
but not so much occupied building work. I had had probably a couple
of dozen fires under my belt before I had my first occupied building. So
we got this occupied building. It's a row frame. There's at least three
rooms going in the back, and it's chugging down the hallway at us and
I hit my wall, hit my wall. I can't go any further,
I says Neil. I can't go down the horse, get down the hallway,
come out. You can do this, I says I can't. I
can't get any further. I'm burned. He says, you're not burning.
I'll tell you when you're burning. Get down the whole way and then look
and he said, he's on her knee. I'm on my belly, like
I'm not burning. So I went down the hallway, put all three phones
out, and I'm like, yeah, man, that's what I'm talking about.
That's and it was just an enlightening moment for me. And what he
did that day is I teach this whole time too. This is as far
as I've ever been, as much experience as I've ever had. So now
what he did is he goes like this and he pushes me like this and
opens up my window of experience and he gave me more experience. I'll never
forget that as long as I live, because it made me realize you can
do more than you think you can. You're strong and you think you are.
You just to have the guts to do it. And that was the
forming of the guts, the bravery, the coverage that you need to be
a fire And that was the beginning of that because the vacant building work was
easy. You know, it's open, it's just a lot of fire and
a lot of smoke. Now the smoke is not so bad because that's how
you can take a feed because all the windows are gone. Right. He
really taught me a lot that day. That's a common thing that we hear
a lot from the guys on the show is that you don't know how far
you know, how would you know how far you can go? You know
what I mean, until somebody shows you how far you can go? Right
exactly? Yes, Yes, you need the guys to lead you through these
things. That's what they need to do. That that all comes from passing,
passing on the information, just passing on information, right, It's just
you know every you know, tradition and you know, aggressiveness and all that
stuff. You know, you have to pass it on. And he's standing
right beside you too, He's not you know, three rooms down the hallway
telling the further bro. Yeah, the boss that yels for can to come
sliding down the hallway. Yeah yeah, yeah, you want me to go
further? Your fucking three rooms back over there. Jack and told me how
to be an enginement nineteen truck taught me how to be a truck. They
taught me my forceful engine, my engine, my my elevators, my my
uh, all all the stuff you need to know as a truck. These
guys taught me over and over and over again. And we also doing a
lot of work the time up until the Red Caps came into the Bronx.
The Bronx was very busy, it really was. But the one in Red
Caps came in. Those guys, boy, they set up their trailer,
they put their red fdm WI Fire Marshal hats on and they just sweppt the
neighborhood and they the rest of bunch of uses, I guess because the fire
duty went down, were still there. But it wasn't like it was well.
They did good. They did because it was out of control between the
bullshit the insurance claims and the shitty landlords and the city. Yep, you
and I place it and burning it down. I had a lot of good
fires in one fifty seven. A matter of fact, Gonzo, there's a
picture of one p fifty seven with a bunch of were standing in front of
a red building. Me and George Johnson, we were We were actually trapped
on the top floor and he called me uncle Tony for something and he says,
Uncle Tony, what are we going to do? I says, the
line's coming out here. Just wait here a second. And it took another
fifteen seconds or so before we could see the line knocking the fire down in
the stairway, grew up in the attic and we just rolled down and they
were like, where the hell you guys come from? But that was that
was a good fire. Had a couple of mones like that. I'm trying
to see if I can find it in the in the rest of remember,
I can only load so many in here. So was it titled one fifty
seven? Building rocket? And I were trapped in or got got held up
in something like that? Okay, because I have all the way having this
thing is cranking. As we come out of quarters to come out of Rogers
Am we s turn again out the flat bush and I can see what four
blocks away? Three blocks away, and I picked it up. I said,
what fifty seven brook ten seventy five bucks? He is what he got?
One fifty seven? I said, I let you know when I get
there. That was too far away, but I knew it was a good
job, good jobs. Matter of fact, we went in there. It
was me and Spanky and Sean Taylor, George George O'shay was Spank George Shay
was Spanky Phil As matter of fact, he's philled Buffer's cousin. I didn't
know that when I got there until later. And we go in there and
we get we get down. It was hallway, it was a it was
a mixed occupancy. Originally it was commercial on the first floor as a National
next two floors, but now it's all commercial. And we get in there
and the aisles are narrow, and we go down to one island and we
make it left. We go down the next island. They had a glass
door there. As I opened the door, I'm down, lawyer. As
I opened the door, the heat was tremendous. Boom, shut it and
I said, okay, let's back out. We get to the doorway.
Richie Smith is on the line two fifty five. Charlie prices on a nozzle
and we start heading down the hallway. And as we get towards it,
I says, Richie, there's an angry fire behind that door. I says,
it's going to come at us when we open it up. Best one,
we were trapped up on the top. You see who the bucket is
and above them those two windows. That's where we were up in there,
and that's rocket. Rocket is third one in from the right, so and
that Georgie Shay is the fifth one. Sean Taylor's the fourth one. That's
Bonzai over there after after Georgio, George say and that that that's me,
Charlie Resto, Dean Batman. And that was a thirty day guy. I'm
not I don't remember who he was. Remember this not the third day guy
there. They used to rotate guys to the company's remember that. Yeah,
that's who he was, a rotation guy. I don't remember his name now.
So we said, as matter of fact, that building, when Richie
went in, he opened it up, and now there was Ritchie Charlie,
I think it must have been Restiana after him, and then it was me
and Spanky and Taylor. Well, when they opened it up, distinct came
threw it out and everybody dropped me. Now we're all on bellies, and
I said, everybody out of here, everybody out of here. So I
followed the line back to the door, and I hear the guys screaming on
the next way. After I was standing at the door and I see him
go by this way they come. I'm like, this way out. They
should have come this way, and they go this way. So I'm screaming
it this way out, this way out. I'm waiting for them, one
at a time. They come rolling out of it. It's come rolling out.
They're smoking, they're burnt, they're in bad shape. And the only
one left on this landing is George George Shae Spanky. I says, you
ready to take this, and he says, yeah, let's go. So
me and him take the line and we get in and we start phoning,
moving in and we start knocking this fire down and the tank. She says,
what the hell's going on there? He says, I need a second
line right away, Chief, And they get a second line up there,
and we end up knocking to fire down and five guys I think went to
the burst on that one. Yeah, that was a pretty intensive player.
And what you said, Louis about ruckers in the kitchen, Let me tell
you all, Jack Pritchett, let me tell you something about Jack Critchett.
He will roll around with you in a heartby a hearty. And I saw
him come over to the table. Was Bobby hess was. I don't know
what he did because I wasn't paying attention to them. I was talking to
somebody else. Jack comes over to the table, and I know they're rolling
around on the floor and they just fight with each other. Jack Jack Pritchet
was one hell of five and you know you need to love him or hate
him. You got to know him to love him. And whenever I worked
with that man, I went out on Droe, I'd ask him to come
with me because no matter what I was teaching, no matter what I was
drolling on, I would always learn something. Jack Pitch he was that kind
of guy. He really was. I'd like to get to know him too.
Right, we're trying to get him on. I'll be calling guy all
the time. Yeah, you call him all time. What's you said?
Well, first he said yes, and now he doesn't pick up my call.
So I don't know what exactly. I don't know exactly what that means.
But to the other day he said he'd do it. Five grand rookie,
you got get the cash. I got it right here from a right
good flada baby. I got to move to get a little late, so
let's go. Uh. Two thousand and two. He spent six years there.
Two thousand and two. You get promoted to captain h Is that correct?
And you wind up with a spot UFO in one oh one. I
was UF. It was UF, and then I gotta SGN you but I
don't even know about it. I get a I knew a one on one
and I call up Phil Burns. I don't know if you know. Phil
Burns died in my guage. He's the sixth division Brooklyn guy, really really
good guy, Phil Burns. Matter of fact, he does one of those
commercials. He does the fruit and vegetable commercial, the pillars. He's always
that him. That's Phil Burns. Yeah, yeah, that's Bounds of Nature.
Yeah, bal to Nature said that you got the shamrock over here in
his hand, right. Yeah. So I call him up and say,
Chief, can I come to your office after work? Yeah? Yeah,
come on over, Tony. So I get in. I says it's gonna
be Captain Chief because me a Tony a Phil conversation. I know Phil Burns
for my Brent with Days. That's where he raised his family. He says,
Tony, what's up? I says, what you what? You put
me one on one truck for? He's like, ah, I need a
guy like you in a place like that. They're hurting. They were seven
guys. I need you to put this company back together. No prop chief
for us says, how much time you want? He says, can you
give me six months? I says, I'll go past September eleven, you
know, because six months would have put me in July, June, July,
and August, and I didn't. I couldn't leave there. You want
to leave? Like, yeah, I agree. So so he takes a
heart attack. About a month later, and this new gug just assigns me.
So I called him up and I says, can I come over to
your office? He says, no, I'll come to your house. So
it comes to the office to the firehouse and I'm like, what the hell
are you doing to signing me? He says, why not, I'm the
deputy. I says, but I got over twenty years on a job.
You can't give me a phone call. I said, that's bullshit. You
should at least give me a phone call. Say listen, I'm just signing
you and if I don't like it, that's tough shit. But you could
have at least given me the Curtsey your phone call. We went back and
forth a little bit. Then we have took about boats and cars and kids
and things like that. He said, if you want out to let you
out. I said, I made a commitment to Phil Burns. I will
complete my commitment to Phil Burns. I just didn't appreciate being a sign and
having somebody call me up and congratulate me. And I have no idea what
that woll like congratulate me about. So I stayed there for a while and
then when I called Chief Norman up in October, I guess it was end
of October. He said, Oh, I thought you wanted to stay one
on one because I saw you on the utumn. I said, okay,
yeah, I get to day get it funny man. Yeah, Hey,
let me ask you before we leave off for one on one? Did you
work with Jack Gerber over there was? He gone but for one on one
truck. Now, back in the eighteen hundreds, Columbia, South Carolina had
a big fire and they lost a lot of fire equipment, a lot of
houses. They lost a major part of the city. When New York City
decided to send an entourage of fire engines, of fireman and everything else down
to Columbia South to Columbia, South Carolina, and they took care of it.
Took care of the fireman David. Soon fire engines of equipment and hos
blah blah blah. The mayor of that city says, back in the eighteen
hundreds, if we ever have the chance to pay you, we will.
So two thousand and one happens, some kid reading history finds out about this
and says, it's our chance to repay the New York City Fine Apartment starts
a collection. That's that's Jack Jansen. He's the former chief of US Columbia
South Carolina. So this kid does all of the pay legwork and starts to
get a fun drive going. All these companies get in and they have this
whole big thing and they end up purchasing this seatwave hillary rig and donating it
to New York City Fire Department. And they bring everybody up and have all
these people from the schools come up and they have this big party and it
was a really really thoughtful time and they got to repay it that somehow.
Wow. Pretty intense, right, Yeah. I worked in one a few
times. I covered there a few times. Yeah. Yeah, it's a
bad joint, you know, but it's a good place if you want to
slow down because they don't do a lot of work. I had two jobs
in the in the eight months I was there, just stuck in the corner.
You know, they really are just stuck in the corner. So this
is what made me decide it was October. I was gonna try and hang
in there for a little while longer. I'm sitting at my desk, it's
ten minutes to eleven. Put down my pen. I go and I do
my thing in the bathroom. I put on my nighttime pajamas, my response
pajamas, right. I get into bed with my cup of tin, pull
my covers up. I turned the TV and I wait for the news come
on, and all of a sudden, it's like, fucking slug you got
there. I was walking around the firehouse one o'clock in the one like is
everybody right? So that's when I decided I'm out there. And I called
the Chief and Chief says, right, welcome board. And then I called
the man at the Special Operations Command and they're like, who what with us?
I says, that's your chief Normals, And he said, I'll call
you back. So I guess you called Chief Norman to verify I actually am
in the command now, and he says, I got no place for you.
Let me find some place for you won't figure it out. Calls me
back and says, listen, boss, I'm really sorry. He says,
I got to send you up to the Bronx. I said, no problem,
he said, I'm saying nineteen Truck. I'm like, who is this?
I think they're breaking my horns. Well, after I went to nineteen
Truck, the only guy I knew there that was working. Actually I knew
to both the showfers, Brendan Donelly and Tommy house World. And everybody on
the backstep was the kid of somebody I worked for. That's pretty cool.
It was every name on the run, and this was somebody who had been
in that firehouse before. Yep. Wow. And then I go to Squad
eighteen. I do Longway Cage, like a three week vacation. There.
I'll have a guy fall, you know the man holes that have the cones
on it with the steam coming out, got the rolls in there, and
we set up a retrieval system that they're SENTI the retrieval system and I get
on a horn and I tell him I got a guy. He's in a
steam hall. I need to shut the steam down. It's probably I mix
it off. I guess we'll mix it off. He's probably dead because he
looks like a lobster from up here, and uh, the thing exploded,
cops and everything, and Lamina negotiates with the police department because they want to
go it's a crime scene in there, and rescue where to fight apartment scene.
That's what we got to do. So they negotiate two guys from Rescue
one and two guys from the ESU will go in there. Meanwhile, es
U shows up. I see a guy going to get in the hall,
like, dude, it's really hot because I put my hand on it.
Who I couldn't keep my hand over there. It's really I got this.
I got this. He goes and sits down, wolf rolls backwards. Later
on, I see him getting his pants cut off by ems. Right,
So the chief tells of the planet says, that's bullshit. I says,
what's set up, We're ready to go. It's our box and he kind
of admonishes me right there, and I says, okay, you're the boss.
Back the way. I guess you guys what they want. I walk
down the street. I get a coffee and the donut the bagel cops.
He thrownut, sweat, bagel, bagel, and rock. She got nothing.
Yeah, so what the dome was over and he comes over and now
starts bitching me out about having coffee and Bengals. I said, you took
my box, you took my everything away from me. I said, I'm
standing here with my thumb up my ass. He says, I'll meet you
back and quarter. So we go back there and he starts breaking my bulls
and subordination. I said, time out. I'm not being insupported. I'm
just giving you my opinion. I did everything you told me to do.
I did not break any rules. I did not I did everything you said
I was supposed to do. I said, I don't have to agree with
what you did, but what you said. But I did what you said.
And he didn't like that. But either way, we got along well
enough. And there's a vacation there and Chief Norman calls me up and offers
me rescue five and I thank you, thank you, thank you. But
it's ninety two miles away from home. I said, I really didn't want
to do that. I says, if something happens in the afternoon, it's
going to take me thween and a half four hours to get there. Then
he offers me sixty one. And I didn't want to go back into the
Bronx right now. It wasn't one of my choices because I gave words I
like to work, Can I have? Can I do that? He says,
that's up to you. Okay, fair enough. I said to him,
I really want to bounce in the command a little bit more, learn
the companies, meet the guys, blah blah blah. And I guess it
was maybe a week later. Metcalf Colls, I says me and Metcalf Metchafs
was fifty five when I was in nineteen, the same battalion we lived.
Uh. He lived in the Middle Place. I lived in Mount SINAI.
We started lieutenant together. We staid for Captain Gather. You know, Metcalf
and I a longtime friends. He says, Tony, I'm going to the
rock. I'm done. This is Uh, would you take over the company?
Absolute fucking lutely two fifty two? Absolutely? So. I guess it
was a day or so later in normal culture says, uh, this is
I thought you said you want two fifty two. I says, yes,
Metcalf offer to me I'd like to jump on that opportunity. Just doesn't you
want to bounce around it, says chef. I've a bounce around for a
whole other week, and I'm exhausted. Bountly place through one two thousand and
three. I walked in that was never looked back, and it was a
great company. And my wife even said to me, she says, don't
want you like this place. They don't want you. They all go get
it. They won't want to go, go go. They don't want to
work, they don't want to go to fighters, they don't want to train.
That's a lot of matter of fact. When I retired, my wife
says, and I finally not the mistress, she says, My mistress,
my whole life, the fighting parent in my love. I love the job.
Did you have to it was a transition for you being used to first
do work, coming in as a actually no, because I was going to
a lot of work and being in the truck. You know, it's if
you're a squad, you're acting as a truck. We're a rescue, right,
I mean you can act as anything. I've been assigners. A squad
achieves a stretch of lines, so I do you know, whateverything, whatever
he asked for, we do. But it wasn't a hard transition at all.
I had actually was part of the founding group that started the Northern Brookhaven
Technical Rescue Team test force back in ninety two or three, which was because
all the small fire departments along the north shore of Long Island none of them
can really afford the men a full technical rescue team. So what we did
is we got the talkt and Stony Brook and Outside and Sound Beach Miller Place,
and we all got together and formed this group. And this group's gonna
get this. This, We're going to get this this, We're gonna get
this. So you can initiate a rescue just like a squad, right,
We can initiate a rescue with the amount of equipment we have and the support's
coming behind us. There's additional rescues and squads, right. So that's the
way we kind of worked it on a moment. So I had the knowledge
of this. I still had to go to our rescue school, of course,
which was great because it just freshed everything up and I loved it.
You remember the rescue school and it was all way in the back in those
trailers. Yeah, the trailer, Yeah, in the vacant lot in the
back of the bills back a long way. Now they certainly have look at
that place now, it's beautiful. Yeah, it is amazing. They did
a good job. Yep. So two poin fifty two was a blast.
I absolutely loved it there. The house is clean. We always keep kept
it clean. We drilled all the time. Matter of fact, when when
we got the bailout rops, I'm when they issued the bailout ropes after Black
Sunday. Yeah, well before the before Black Sunday, I had actually asked
every man in the company to get fifty feet of seven millimeters rope with some
kind of descent device in the Caribina, and we're gonna work on doing descent
now. We would use anchor points, whether it be a hog or how
And even you're SCBA, you could take your SCBA and put it underneath the
window ztone because it comes up in ninety and ninety you get it's necessary to
mass stays there and as you're descending, you're looking up and your mask comes
right off your face. Then you just keep going. So Black Sunday comes
around, we finally have years later, we finally get our bellout ropes and
we go to the rock. So I asked what they're going to train and
they said, yeah, we'll be around, we'll train this. They had
the engine where wor all came down, so I called them two three times
and they don't come down. So we had that towel in the back that
wouldn't town in the back that we used for special training. Now we're using
it for balouce. And a year later they called back to the rock and
no big deal. I'm not thinking anything about but once they take our ropes
from us, I know we're in trouble. So they called me up on
the carpet and I got like Theatian chief captains, the tenants, firemen.
They said, you used your rope. You used your rope, yeah,
and we mean and you're not supposed to use your rope. And so I
said, you guys said you're gonna come around and training. You said you're
gonna be there, You're gonna train this, you're gonna do this and that.
I said, my men need to want what to do. And I
said, you can't expect anybody to go to a PowerPoint session for four hours.
And then do six slides and know what they're doing three months, four
months, six months down the road. You can't expect that. You have
to train. So my men have hundreds of slides, hundreds of slides.
So anyway, they send me back out and they call me back in at
the end of the day and say, says, if we give you ropes,
we stop using your personal ropes. It says, that's all I want
something to train with. But they be every month for every tour, day
too and night tour for six months at least, we would go out and
do ten or fifteen slides every single tour, day too, and night too,
and night to a day tour always because that's how you're gonna get good
at it. So we were slides, and then we would do things like,
okay, what if here you go, Oh that's perfect, what if
you have to bail out? All we all have to get out the window
in a hurry. So we just bail out to everybody bounds out the window,
one after the other after the other. And I love putting two fifty
two together. Help me put it together, because that camp started rebuilding that
company was probably one of the greatest things I did. I just absolutely loved
it because all they wanted to do was throw. All they want to do
is hit better. All they want to do is be a better fireman.
Who can ask more than that? I want to be better than they are
today, right, Yeah, more than that? And how many guys did
you need on the roster when when you got there you still need the decent
I used to keep twenty five twenty six guys on the roster because it was
always somebody like. Matter of fact, one time we went to one of
those captains meetings and Norman said, bring the roster's down in twenty two.
So I've let it go and I called Phil Rublow. I asked me if
I can come over there, and I says, you've been in the command
of a long time. I'm kind of a short time in here. What
are you going to do about the roster? He says, I'm keeping it
just the way it is. I said, okay, that's fun with me,
and that's what I did. I kept it that way. Yeah,
because there was always people moving around. Who's going to technical schools, who's
going to school, who's going to chauffe's on vacation, who's on the chauffeurs
or whatever, and those criteria when you were looking at guys to come over,
how to set criteria. Well, you've got to remember that in the
beginning we needed people, you know, there just wasn't a lot of guys
come on. I mean I was looking for people like Mike Parone or pieces
like Bonse Eye or or keat Lee or Schwager. I was looking for They
weren't really getting the cream at the crop. But I don't want to say
it that way, but you were getting younger guys. Let's say I was
getting guys with two and three years on the job, right, they weren't
even first grade five in some of this christ when its first araid did buy
the meal, so they But I got these guys coming in. I can't
explain it. It's an attitude they have, it's the heart they have,
It's that drive they have. You know, before they actually paid you to
be in special operations. That's why they were coming in. They were coming
in for the love of the job and because they loved it in their heart.
That's why everybody came to special operations originally. Now people come from the
money. And the Chief Norman said that we're going to get a twelve percent
raise because of special operations. I said, that's gonna be the end of
special operations as we know it. PEP. We're gonna come money and not
for the desire in their heart. I can't explain. The military guys always
got a preference because I'm a military guy. Military guys have a certain discip
incindem but even the non military guys. But I had to go through a
lot of guys. There were guys who were able to come in, bullshit
their way past me and then once into the aptitude. I had another remember
the cement playing from one on one truck I was talking about. I had
this other place over on Irving and we'd go in the ladder. We go
into the building. I come down and it's a mechanical door there. So
I take my school driver, I take everything apart, and I take the
wires, and the wives are just hanging there. I go, tap,
the door goes up, Tap the door goes down. It's perfect. I
bring the apparatus in there. I close the door. We can drill in
there all day long. We drolled a lot of hours when we first started
because we had a lot of young guys. I'd say we're going out for
drill to ten. We'd come back at four and sometime in the afternoon they'd
be likeyeah, we're gonna eat today, and I said, you guys want
to eat too. They kind of nicknamed med' drill not. You know,
I didn't mind at all because we needed that kind of drilling. And by
putting the guys through the emotions like that, these guys show the they had
the capability, aptitude, and attitude necessary to stay in that type of an
environment. And those are the guys who stayed. Matter of fact, one
guy called me up once and he wasn't really well liked in the firehouse,
but he calls me up after he retires and he says, I just want
to thank you for keeping me. I said, I kept you not because
of your personality. I kept you because of your talent. That's why I
says. If you couldn't do the fire duty, then you wouldn't be here.
I says, just because you're in the kitchen and you're breaking balls and
somebody doesn't like it, doesn't mean you're not going to stay. Right,
he had talent. There's other guys who are we to turn in, but
didn't have the talent, and I'd be like this, I'm sorry, You've
got to go back, come back into two three years, three years when
you get more experience, and guys to be like, well, what are
your talent? I said, Thoma captain sucks. I don't care if they
think about me, guys, but we had some really really terrific guys.
I mean all guys thanking me for putting them into the Special Operation, for
bringing them into the Special Operations Command and giving them the opportunities that they had.
And I mean there's a lot of guys from two fifty two outs.
A matter of fact, Jason Bressla told I think you sold my son just
recently that two fifty two puts more guys in the rescues than any other squad
out there. I say, followed eight of course very much. No would
you say you would go to a decent amount of work there? We did,
We did, We was Italian truth. Two fifty two was probably the
slowest company that was worked in. We were only doing about twenty four to
twenty five hundred alarms a year. That's a bun, you know, I
mean, you know, from seven thousand and forty two to I don't know,
maybe forty five five thousand in nineteen and about that in one fifty seven,
twenty five hundred runs is a bun, matter of fact. One guy
answer once, would I ever leave two fifty two? I thought about a
minute, I says. The only place I'd leave two fifty two four is
rescue three. It's a wide rescue three, I said, because they do
less work than they do one when the one's got a great run to work
ratio too, squad one, Yeah, great run to work ratio. I
don't even think they two thousand runs, Yeah, yeah, all right,
five hundred runs a year. We're still getting two hundred and forty or so.
Oh, I know. So it was. It was a decent range
of about ten percent of all runs were fired. Right, that's a good
percentage. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't work at every one of them,
but you've gone through the mall of course. Not Now about I got to
give you the busiest night I ever had August third, two thousand and three,
the Blackout. Oh my god, I went to if I'm correct,
that went to eleven jobs and that fifteen hour night tour. Right, and
Chris Gola and Charlie Marshall were working at day too. I think they went
to nine more. Wow, that was a busy, busy tour. Boy,
imagine what the summer seventy seven was like. I wouldn't even imagine.
Oh my god, they had more fight than they can actually have fire rangines.
I think you know, they were guys working there, guys working there,
guys taking work structure. I was off that night year seventy seven.
I was no in uh two thousand and three seventy seven, I was Eddie
Curley one all three got a medal that night for me in two thousand and
three in one three. Yeah. Yeah, it was fire all over the
place. Man. Actually, at one point the guy said because it was
a hot night, and the guy said we need we need five minutes.
I said, got a problem. We sat on a curve that says whenever
you guys are ready, and just let me know. They hurt the ten
seventy five. We were in the court for about five minutes. Eight minutes
they heard a ten seventy five. I looked at them and says, let's
go. They got up in randon and said, okay, I'm in there.
You go, yep, fan, I want to say aim way over
time, guys, I'm sorry, that's all right. I want to say
poorly. Uh, yeah, you know what. Let's let's say that we'll
talk about the old school health and safety tip I'll tell I'll tell him,
all right, we could do that. We can do guys about was there
anything else you want to Was there anything else that you had that you definitely
wanted to talk about with fifty two? Anything else? Let me tell you
something. I can go on and on. I know I'll give you.
The last thing I'll talk about with two fifty two is now I get hurt
and they're retiring me, which is sudden, and I mean my live was
quivering when Juliani told me I'll never go back to full duty. And I
had the chief. I was up at the headquarters on Metro Tech and they
were trying to get me to run to the rescue school, and I was
like, I don't want to drive back to Ford to MANHATI five days books.
So Andrewdinkle right in Rescue one he got to medal himself or picking somebody
off for the stories in the air, he wants to like an interview to
me for the website. And one question he said to me, do you
have any regrets. I didn't think about that a little while, and I
said something along the line of, like this, things that I might not
have done had I had a chance to think about it the second time.
But the things that I did wrong also form the person I am today,
as well as the things I've done right. So if I change that,
that might change who I am now. And I like who I am now,
so realistically, I don't have regrets. Other things I would change probably,
but could if I had to go back and do it again, I
wouldn't change it because it created the person I am today, and I credit
I can't even go through all the names, Amiel Marauda and on the Alba,
and I credit so many of these people, Richie Mills, Neil Taylor
with making me the fireman I am today, molding me and watching them and
and wanted to be like when I go up, I want to be like
that guy. But it was also guys out there whose names I won't mention
when I looked it over, and I say, like Dwayne Marsha and I
worked a lot together and studying the firehouse together, I says, if I
am to do something like that, just kick me in the balls. Well,
that also formed me those guys you know you need, but it also
forms who you want because you're like, I don't want to do that.
I would never do that if I was a you know, if I a
chief, I'm never doing that. If I'm a captain, I'm never going
to do that to my guys. You know, I had a chief once
in Flatbush on the subway. You know, the in the subway flat wishes
the end of the line and this conduit running up there right. So I
gave my report and this chief comes out talking around. I'm not gonna mention
his name because he was a little pompous, and he goes walking around and
says, uh uh for one to ah got him shut down a cat Mary
Lions. I'm standing at go like this and go cat Mary Lions. He
goes, what are you all that, Lieutenant? I said, I call
that can do it? Cheef. What does he ride the air track?
Because I was fuff you know, he was buff, so he was bling
for working out and stuff. So that's what I'll talk about. With that
stuff, I can go on and I will say one other thing, which
just pique my interest. The fact that you're happy with who you are now
a lot of people can't say that about themselves, so that says a lot
about it, you know, like taking everything good and bad, and you're
happy where you are today and the person you are. And I'm not perfect,
far off from perfect, believe from it, yea off from it.
I'd love to I'd love to chip and chat more because I can tell you
about the time I shot down the Buckeye pipeline and all three airports called.
They called for a part after you moved down to Maryland. Uh your phone.
I could turn my computer show you my house is a wreck. Once
you get once you get well. I guess that's the character that I actually
got into the books on that one. I said to a chief, we
had a fire and tires store and he's pulling everybody out. I come out
of the building. I says, Chief, give me three minutes I can
get there. And he looks at me. He says, three minutes,
Danny Butler. I says, really, Chief, three minutes and I can
get this. Just give me a line of three minutes. He says,
you got three minutes. And I go in and sure enough, and first
we had to pass out pain soils. I don't want to go into it.
Go ahead. I don't want to go to it, but I do
all right, God the health and city. So I love the job.
Remember remember that guy who said, what are you going to tell him?
When you're old? Week and slow? Right? That's why I feel now.
If I could go back to Joe tomorrow, I do it. But
I'm old the week and slow and hopefully when I asked me what I did,
I tell him in New York City, fine, and it'll be enough.
It'll be enough. That's a quick right, here we go fill play
the let's come and give it a second. There's a little Yeah, the
streaming ARGs be giving us a little trouble with the with some of these ads
as a delay. Yeah, that's what I was talking to Mike about the
email stream you arg. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for
profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education
and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health,
safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first
responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation. We're
gonna go all a little off script tonight. We're gonna take a personal note
from a CAP here we talk about health and safety tip. We talked about
early identification. Uh so CAP had said, and appreciate. I mean that
that's the only reason you're alive today, right because what you had a medical
else the story now because we preach it all the time, early detection.
I was. I was getting three medicals a year, two from the job
and one from my valley house. And about every four months, I was
getting a medical. And I was fine one day, and then I go
to next medical and I get a phone call from the medical office. You
go see a doctor right away. And I don't remember exactly how the rating
of prostate cancer goes, but out of a on a scale of one to
ten, I was probably an eight, maybe a little over. So I
go to the doctor and the first doctor's pots. I changed doctors, and
I asked the doctor if I'm going to live A dine and he says,
I don't know. So I make a plan. I plan A, I
live, we continue our life. Plan B. I'm not gonna live.
I build my own coffin and I have my funeral before I die. So
I can enjoy the party. But the bottom line is that that's say,
the job saved my life because of those medicals. You know, I mean,
all right, I had the symptoms of prostate cancer, but it wasn't
registering. I'm like, you know, it's just it'll go away. You
know. It's say, the job saved my life by diagnosing me and giving
me the operation and doing what they had to do to me to make it
happen. Listen, it wasn't easy. I shriveled up, I got complete,
almost bold with white hand. But I'm alive because of those guys in
a medical office. My medical saved my life. You go, so early
detection, early detection, even when you're retired, making your business to continue
to go to the Trade Center medical and even get a medical on your own.
Roofies going right, You go and see what I was just saying.
We were talking with the cap like you said in the pre show. I'm
like, you know, I'm going twice a year, I go, you
know, January February with Rob Brown, and then I go, you know
whatever, August with the job for the World Trade Center Medical. So I'm
thinking that six months I'm good. Here. You are doing three, you
know, and in between a four month freaking checkup, like imagine if you
know, knock on, would imagine if you weren't going, you know,
doing that like Holy marcl like and prostates. You know, if you're going
to get one, that might be the one you want, you know what
I mean, you know, the lesser of all the evils, right,
it's uh, you know, the most survivable obvious, see if you catch
it early enough. So I mean, thank god, you know everything is
working out well for you, right, I mean, everything's good. Look
at Paul mcmaaman from two fifty two main cancer and to watch him just lose
everything about him. I sat with his wife, Jennifer, and when we
talked, and she said the hardest part of this was that he wasn't my
Paulie anymore. She called him Paulie. He wasn't my Paulie anymore. He'd
say things and that he would never ever say, you know, and she
just had to see too that because like the old saying, like the old
man that goes to visit his wife in the hospital dementia and they say to
him, why do you go visit her? She doesn't even know who he
wants is, But I know who she is. That's what Jennifer was.
Jennifer knows who Paul is, even though he's going through this horrible thing in
his own mind. She knows to Paul that she loves and she was never
going to give up on him. Very sad story. No, I'm just
going to tell my quick story too with Paul, because I knew him from
you know, special art when he was two fifty two, right, and
and when I was in two eighty eight, and then when I got hurt
and I was getting my operation and all that, I went back to uh.
I went to Socck Island, right, And he actually made a move,
I guess, you know, later in his career to drive the chief,
the sock chief, right, So he had like the best job.
He was like a battalion aid, you know, and he just got to
go to fires, you know what I mean. So we were in the
same group together, like over there they did the ABCD, So we were
in the same group. So I used to see him every twenty four straight
twenty four as we did. And I used to see him all the time,
and we became kind of close. And that morning he was supposed to
be coming in and you know, I was the officer on duty whatever,
and I'm like, you know, anybody talked to Paul like he was usually
in by a certain time, right, So people started reaching out. And
then we found out that he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and
I guess fell in the bathroom. I don't know all the specifics, but
his wife found them and uh, you know, ran him to the hospital
and they started doing tests and again, like you said, one day he's
going to fires and then the next day, you know, he had a
brain tuma. Do we have his picture? Gons No, you know you
don't have it. I think I have it on my Facebook page because I
remember if you find any group pictures over there, he's the guy that's usually
standing next to me. Makes me look like a hobbit, tall guy,
bald fur me see. Uh nope, not in there. Uh it's eighteen
there he is. That's him behind the captain. Okay, he's six foot
mots of him? Man, really were Yep, you got Chris Goldrap,
Dave Rodriguez camera on peak and Mike over in that picture as well. With
your theory, two fifty two cents of most guys to rescues. Yep,
yep, And uh, like I said, see that's a call with no
license plates. Don't puck you call the street no license it's gonna become convertible.
Not what goes around bro. Oh yeah, when passed away and I
was, uh that you know, guys have passed away on the job,
and you know, you know people, but uh, that one bothered me
like a whole lot. He was the sweetheart of a guy. Another line
of duty debts related to nine to eleven. Yeah, so guys, please
well Nick mccuser didn't die from that. Nick MacUser, former of our union
boss, just died this week also, and somebody else just died. I
think it was from the Bronx, wasn't. Oh I forgot the name was
like two weeks ago, right, yeah, it was a couple of weeks
ago, yes, Nick, So listen, for guys that are on the
job still, you go see Rob Brown, or if you're retired, we
heavily recommend that you go see Robbie does an extensive work up if you knows,
especially if he knows it even down you know, at the pile.
So just get the medicals, bro, stop early detection and keep blasting it
over the air here, so you gotta keep doing it. We do it
every year. Yea cap you're moving out tomorrow. Huh yes, all right,
So when you get all settled, give us a shout and we'll get
you off for round two. And today is my grandmother's hunting ninth birthday.
Issue is still lot happy birthday, Grandma nine. I still celebrate my parents
and my grandma's birthday. Nice it was one hundred and eight. You would
never know it, right, use some of the look I like you.
I like it. So Monday is a little up in the air right now.
I'm working on a couple of guys. Roofie's working on. So will
surprise you over the weekend and working on a few guys. That's maybe that's
how you work. Go ahead, we finally got you on. Yeah,
yeah, thank you, thank you for inviting man. I really appreciate it.
We'll have you back again to come back again. Got like I said,
I can tell you about the time I shut down at the airports.
You know we can do because we even doing squad by squad, we get
like three or four guys from the squads and maybe we'll get back calf in
a couple of the seventy and we did too eighty eight, So maybe we'll
do it two fifty two. We guys. Yeah, like that's a good
idea. I'd love to have a couple of old guys with me. Tommy
Rogers the time he killed three animals in one day. Tommy Rodgers is a
go to guy. He is a go to guys, a great guy.
We might have to go find Norton and revive him. I'm not We're not
dealing with Norton because he was tortured with the technology part. It was.
I'm not doing it. He lives right down there. Maybe I'll have to
come to my house. He lives right down the plot. He was horrible.
He's not doing it. Horrible. Guys. So we'll see you on
Monday. Have a great weekend. Until then, stay low, go all
right, everybody, we'll see it the big One. Thanks again, Cap,
Thank you. All right, guys, have a good night.