WEBVTT

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You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience
podcast. Hello Peewee down in Jersey and

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also twenty one truck Kill Them and
I'll give the two shortest guys I know

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a little shout out. I feel
taller on those guys. I's gonna say,

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don't forget yourself what you got them. I'm gonna say, bro,

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inches and inches, that's what she
said. You know, you get that

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extra inch you pull your bulls back. That shown. Oh but since one,

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I'm sorry, sorry, folks,
believable, he gets a hacked that

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he feels froggy. That's what happened. We made fun of that last week.

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And that you know, you knew
it was a guarantee. It was

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easy money. That was like that
too. A certain other little little uh

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producer that we used to have.
We would pummel him on something and got

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I know for sure on the next
show the movie Chase right, remember,

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Yeah, no doubt about it.
We would him hard, bro. We

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used to pull him. That was
funny. Ship. Maybe it's the Jews,

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Pete. His wife is Jewish too. It's the half jew maybe only

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a good only a good half.
Decorating uh, dechering the tree tops,

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the candle. I think the nights, the last night, hopefully the last

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night, I think so. Wasn't
it a crazy nights or some ship?

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Did the old lady get you something
every night? No? Naked? No?

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No, we said no, what's
going on? Always? It's always

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the kids, you know, the
kids, you know, playing spend the

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draderthing like that. I was actually
looking. I thought I had a dradle.

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He was d drade. Oh,
I'm sorry, I don't have it.

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Maybe you're gonna double dip and you're
gonna celebrate Christmas dip, double dip

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the kids, double dip. I
don't you know? You together? That's

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a good answer. That's a good
answer. Double pays. You know,

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double dip. He's on the wrong
end of that. You ain't lying stuff

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roof. You must be freezing cold
up there. You don't got a Parker

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on though. What's up? You
know? No, it's been uh,

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I'm getting acclimated. It's been the
thirties. The under your drapestad is that

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like a decoration or something? What
is that? Remember his daughter from way

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back when you gotta decorated? Put
that up? He did? Remember last

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yearning year? Right spots? What's
the you got there. What is that?

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That's from the union. Oh look
at that. It's the plate you

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used to sit on when you should
drive the rig. Oh maybe at all

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going. I got me this one
for last Christmas too. No trespassing due

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to the High Court of AMMO from
the warning shot. Nice. Where's the

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big board that Frankie Major? It's
right in front of me? Ah nice,

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good stuff? Wow? Why can
I expect my medicine hot dogs when

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I see you? Like? The
show? Is something? When we go

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to the show in February, I
could do that. Yeah, See that's

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good stuff. All right. We
gotta pay a couple of commercials. Yeah,

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and then we'll get right into it. All right. We caught charging

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two fifty two captain coming on tonight, bro we go all right. He's

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got a lot of good stories,
he does. He wanted to keep going

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while we're going over the pictures.
I'm I gotta save it, gotta save

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it. Yeah. So anyway,
here we go. From the Jersey Fire

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established in nineteen thirty and under the
current ownership since nineteen eighty seven, the

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New Jersey Fiery Equipment Company handles a
complete line of fire department equipment and supplies.

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Headquartered in green Brook. The company
operates full three M Scott service facilities

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in Ridgefield Park and Tom's River staff
by ten fully authorized Scott's certified technicians with

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a fleet of six fully equipped service
fans. All New Jersey Fire technicians and

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sales representatives are active or retired firefighters, officers or chief officers, career and

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volunteer. They understand the business and
the importance of their work. New Jersey

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Fire has represented Scott since Earl Scott
entered the SCBA business at the end of

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World War II. Among other leading
manufacturers represented by New Jersey Fire, Art

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Globe and Fiedex turnout gear, Mercedes
Hose, task Force Tips and Akron Brass,

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Higenol, fire hooks, Arcticompressors,
MSA, Carn's Helmets, Kemguard,

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Foam Alkalite and duo safety ladders,
BEA Fai Shield Protectors, Truckman's Choice saws,

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Groves, gear racks and washer driers, Supervac Fans, rp I stream

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Light, and many others. A
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and service are limited to the state
of New Jersey. Find us now at

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www dot nj f E dot com. That's www. Dot nj f E

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dot Com. A little shout out
to my boy Jose Martinez. He's back.

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And Robbie Procaccino's in there. Yeah
yeah, somebody mentioned my hair.

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I was like, well look at
that Robine. I just spoke to Jimmy

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Guinea the other day from New Jersey
Fire. Oh yeah, it's cowboy fan,

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right, I think kids getting on
the new fire apartment. Yeah.

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Then I know he's doing some work. It's good, good stuff. All

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right, let's play it the next
to Marcial. So we get this guy

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in here, man, all right, here we go, They Save New

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York. It is a book that
will perhaps go down as the report from

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Engine Company eighty two of our generation, They Saved New York, Written by

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00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:05.519
Glenn Huston and Dan Potter, retired
New York City firefighter, explores the men

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and women of the FD and Y
and their respective journeys into the department,

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from everyone from firefighters on the fire
floor to those who were in positions of

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command such as lieutenant, Captain in
chief, and so on and so forth.

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This book explores their stories told through
their perspectives. Each story differs,

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but the mission is the same,
and the common theme is this those that

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put their lives in the line to
save their fellow New Yorker, no matter

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the cost, no matter the situation, whenever they were in need. Get

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your hands on this book today.
You will not regret it. Written by

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once again retired New York City firefighter
Dan Potter and the concept of photography provided

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by the one and only Lennis and
a member of the fire Belt Club in

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New York City. They Saved New
York the men and women of the FDN

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00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:48.560
Y. If you'd like to purchase
the book, you can do so.

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00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:53.399
And they Saved? And why dot
Com? That is again ww dot they

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00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:58.439
saved? And why dot Com?
Yeah, and you can buy it on

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Getting Salty powerl as Value. I
gotta talk to Mike. I love that

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you even noticed the background music in
that sounds like so long you gotta let

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you so wash? Where did you
get you know? I didn't even realize

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that actually, But that wid you
notice at the end of it is when

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it's bull dropped, because it gets
real deep like you gets it real like

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w got me dated bench push six
ninety monitor. All right, let's do

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this Captain here tonight, Lady gone. When I start, I looked at

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him down there and I looked up
and it said the two hundred and fifty

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two guys watching live. So what
a coincidence, right, Oh, look

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at that, what a number.
All right? Coming to the stage,

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Tony Characo looking away, I told
you were that one appreciated. I'm telling

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you right now. He just got
good, has always good speaking about the

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book. Uh goes in the book. Yeah. Yeah, they actually got

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a couple of things wrong in my
on my page, but that's all right.

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You know, the fact that they
even asked me. Was honored to

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be to be with that level of
firefighter out there. Those are some of

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the best, and uh, I
was honored just to be in that crowd.

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Yeah. I was talking to who
we have on the other night,

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Uh Davis, Okay, he was
saying the amount the guys in that room

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that right right when we were doing
the book signing, just amazing amount of

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history and talent, and those guys
are hard charges man. What got me

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was the fact that people wanted me
to sign their book. I was looking

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when people signed my book a stout
that the people even ask me. It

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was oh yeah, yeah, I
called him Chief Duff, you called it

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and you and Eddie were doing it
the first time. We had some good

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work together over that way, and
then as the chief officer, of course,

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working him several times. You got
compliment when he signed my book.

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It was he's just a dynamite cat. He's a sweetheart and the best.

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I was only talking him a couple
of minutes, and I'm like, Chief,

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this chief, you know, and
he's like, lou you can call

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me ed. I'm like, God, yeah, Chief, that's never going

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to happen. I call you Chief, Yeah, yeah, exactly, call

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me. Are you calling me Lou? O? God, let's get patriot

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before we get into the captain.
So that's real, all right, Here

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we go. I pledge allegiance to
the flag of the United States of America

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and to the Republic, for which
it stands, one nation under God,

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indivisible with liberty and justice for all. There you go. Heans asked me

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about the pizza cut that's not coming
to left in the holidays. Sorry,

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brother, but it's on its way. I think Lou railroaded a little bit.

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What all right, Chief, I
did that last time I called the

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Chief. I promoted you again.
Yeah, So let's go back to your

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early life where you grew up,
you know, family life in the beginning,

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and then he said that you got
into the military, went to the

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Air Force. So tell us about
the early life. Well born in Crownhikes,

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Brooklyn in June fifty six. We
were living that time on Washington Aveny,

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right at the Mechanical Gardens. A
few years later my parents moved to

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Linden Boulevard a little further south.
And the final place we lived in Brooklyn,

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believe it or not, it was
right at Bedford and New Kirk right,

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and I know it was nice at
the part ended up working there too

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for goods. I said, no, it was a different world back then

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too. It was only six years
old, and my mom would say,

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go downstairs and play. You just
can't leave the front of the building.

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And it was two sister buildings,
so I just played in front of the

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buildings with whoever was out there playing
well, and that's what we did.

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My grandma, my mom's right down
the road on Kenilworth Place at one twenty

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Kenilworth Place, and so my fault
my parents would walk us down and we

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couldn't she we'd go to her house
and hang out up there and she'd give

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me a quarter and call up Ruthie
downstairs at a mall shop, and I'd

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go down there and whatever it course
to the quarter. I guess probably a

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nickel at the time. Ruthie would
come up. She pinched my anthony,

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how were you? You should give
me a hug, and she put me

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on one of the stools and make
me nice big Vanilla Maulta, the real

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Walter. So she lived over there, and then it was a sixties.

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So my grand my parents were born
in Manhattan, and my grandfather had a

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building a three forty one East twenty
fourth Street, and it was called Tricks

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Bar and Grill. You know,
a bunch of idaloons in there and then

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they have a good time. The
family lived above and he places was just

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it was getting bad. Lowist side
was getting bed and he just decided to

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sell and he moved out to brentwod
Long Island, and one by one everybody

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went out. They set my uncle
che Chad that he went out to red

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Brick, Red Brick, New Jersey, something like that. Brick Brick is

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a red bank, so something like
that. He lived out there, was

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pretty roll out there. So we
moved out there and I went to school

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out there seventy four comes around graduate
high school us to play in a rock

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and roll band. You know,
head down to here the whole bit.

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What did you play? What did
you get a job? That? My

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mom? I playing a band on
the weekends. So what did you What

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did you play? Cat? You're
on the guitar and I still I saw

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the sixth string. I play over
here, an acoustic. I just putter

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around, you know, so get
a job, get a get a job,

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get a hacker. So I just
decided I went to the military.

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I talked to the different guys.
I talked to the Navy, but I

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swim like a rock, so I
didn't think that was a good idea.

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And I went to the Marine Corps
because my father enrolled us in the Junior

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Marine Corps at like ten years old, eleven years old, and we were

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in there until we're fifteen years old. You know. I love the Marine

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Corps and I wanted to fly jet
planes. I want to be a jet

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fighter. Party and I says,
you maybe can fire helicopters, and I

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was like, I want to fly
jets. I went to the Army,

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no good, went to the Air
Force, Yeah, no problem, got

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00:13:20.679 --> 00:13:22.360
it. Come on, I didn't
take the test, you're in. So

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joined the Air Force and I came
home I told my mom, I said,

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Mom, I'm getting HANDHLD and I
got a job all in one though.

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Yeah, and she she was actually
angry with me because the Vietnam War

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00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:35.559
was still on and she's like,
I'm going to send you to Canada.

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And my father's like, you're not
sending my kids to Canada. So that

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00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:41.600
anyway, I went into the Air
Force, had a good time. I

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00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:43.679
took an aptitude test and I didn't
score high enough to get picked to go

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to flight school. So I ended
up being a truck driver. That's what

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00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:52.879
I did. I drove wrecords and
tracked the trailers and school bus and in

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the military, same way of thinking, I was assigned at base operations.

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Once I got my life, it's
a driver bus not I'm only in the

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00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:03.799
Air Force a short time, and
I got to drive all the way around

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00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:07.320
the flight line. They pick up
the pilots all the time. I dropped

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00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:09.399
the pants off. So a plane
comes in and I'm like, well,

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00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:13.120
why can't I just go this way? Nobody told me about the red lines

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00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:15.799
on a tarmac. Well, I'm
driving along and all of a sudden I

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00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:18.159
see all these MP's, the XP
they running around with the guys. I'm

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00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:24.440
like, something's going on, yeah
you, And they took me away,

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00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:28.759
and my company command and my scribing
command had to come and get me.

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00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:31.399
So they take me off a base
ops. I'm eighteen years old. They

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00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:35.240
take me off for base ops,
and they gave me a job driving a

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00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:39.919
school bus for the high school.
You put an eighteen year old kid driving

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00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:41.600
a school bus with eighty year old
kids. Anyway, it was a very

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00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:58.679
fruitful event. It was driver.
It's faith the school bus currently. I

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00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:03.360
don't give a shit of your callige
up. Yeah. I come out of

205
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:07.320
their force in seventeen and six and
I picked up this old nineteen fifty two

206
00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:09.919
pickup truck. I put everything I
own, my motorcycle, everything in the

207
00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:11.720
back of the pickup truck and I
drive home and I get them, and

208
00:15:11.799 --> 00:15:13.960
this guy, Billy Haveling was a
Brent with fireman. He's like, hey,

209
00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:16.759
why do you join the voleys.
I don't want to hang around to

210
00:15:16.759 --> 00:15:20.799
those pencil necks. And he was
pretty adamant about it. And so I

211
00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:24.240
went there and I got I talked
to trustees and they said there was a

212
00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:26.840
waiting list, and a couple of
days later, my father says, so

213
00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:28.759
you want to be a voulnty fineman. He knew everybody, my father,

214
00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:31.840
and uh, I said, I
give a start. So he says,

215
00:15:31.879 --> 00:15:37.559
I know somebody, so the chairman, you know somebody laid down, Yes,

216
00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:41.600
the water in your friends. I
get a phone call. About a

217
00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:43.120
week later, I go for the
interview. In January seven seventy seven,

218
00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.240
I become a VOLTI finer. There's
your boy, Billy right, that's Billy

219
00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:50.399
Havelin right there driving the rescue.
He's the guy who started me on the

220
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:54.720
trajectory that got me the best job
of the world. Yeah, yeah,

221
00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:00.600
amazing how that happens every guy,
Well he's stuck get through. So I've

222
00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:04.519
become a rent with fireman and I'm
into it about six or seven months and

223
00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:07.720
I walk into the main headquarters building
and he's all these guys sitting around the

224
00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:11.720
table and it's like Danny Potters one
of them, fill Buffer, Mike m

225
00:16:11.799 --> 00:16:15.960
keeth Ree, Morris Huttner and anyhow. So, oh, we got an

226
00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:18.360
application for the New York City Fire
Department. I didn't even know there was

227
00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:21.480
a paid fire apartment. I mean
I lived in the city for a while.

228
00:16:21.519 --> 00:16:22.799
I was always in the city with
my grandpans or my aunts and my

229
00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:26.919
uncles. Crazy. That never crossed
my mind. And I almost didn't take

230
00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.440
it because I forget what the filing
fee was. I'm making one hundred dollars

231
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.159
a month, you know, one
hundred dollars a week rather and they're charged

232
00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:34.399
it, I don't know, thirty
dollars a file or something, and like

233
00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:37.399
command you, chief bastard, and
I got the jump. I got the

234
00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:41.879
job. Yeah, it was great. So it wasn't even you that was

235
00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:44.360
kind of like saying I want to
take that job. It was, hey,

236
00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:45.720
we got an application, you might
as well throw it in the in

237
00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:49.919
the mix type of thing. Still, Buffer called me today and he was

238
00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:53.080
saying to me about how God,
God works in strange ways, and you

239
00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.919
were guided into that position, right, And even Paddy Walsh, Patty Walsh,

240
00:16:57.240 --> 00:17:00.440
so I'm going to take me.
I scored good on an unwritten so

241
00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:04.759
I'm going to take the physical test. And that being their knucklehead that I

242
00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:08.240
was. I was out the night
before and till two or too late in

243
00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:11.079
the morning, too early in the
morning, and Patty Walls comes to my

244
00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:14.559
house and bangs on the door and
he says, my mom that I'm here

245
00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:18.880
to take Tony to the to the
fiscal. She's like, he's her name,

246
00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:22.279
go get him going out? We
go without. He drags my whole

247
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:23.640
bed and everything, drags me,
drops me on the floor, says,

248
00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:26.680
I am going into book and by
myself. You're coming with me? And

249
00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:30.920
uh, he's another one to say, So that was you were that close

250
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:33.440
to that getting the job like that, you would have you wouldn't even taking

251
00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:37.920
the physical. I mean, it's
crazy. One shot away from not taking

252
00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:45.519
a physical, one jack from not
going Jackie coke, away from probably tequila.

253
00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:48.200
Tequila makes one. I go this
way when I close a walk.

254
00:17:48.279 --> 00:17:52.000
So with the walk in the ledge, you know. And we talked a

255
00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:56.200
couple of guys around there, right
yeah, yeah, walking around having the

256
00:17:56.279 --> 00:18:00.599
dummy up and down the stairs.
They said that was a lesson super tests

257
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:06.759
and then everything changed. So what
year did you take it? Seventy seven?

258
00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:10.319
He took it in seventy seven,
The Cauldron eighty one, right right.

259
00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:11.960
Pabaly should have gone around seventy nine, but they stopped hiring because of

260
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:17.920
a lawsuit. Women were suing for
the job and so they didn't start hiring

261
00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:21.279
again. I believed July of eighty
one they started hiring again. And what

262
00:18:21.359 --> 00:18:25.079
were you doing in the meantime?
I was a computer programmed analyst, believe

263
00:18:25.079 --> 00:18:27.920
it or not, I want nerdle
learned a lot. I guess my grandkids

264
00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:32.079
how to work my phone, and
I used to write code. I do

265
00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:34.559
nine different languages, and I was
pretty good at it. I actually worked

266
00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:37.559
with a world blood banking system that
was a mess, and I debugged that

267
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:42.279
whole thing got at working really well. And I asked for a raise.

268
00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.519
I was making seventeen thousand dollars just
almost with a fine, was making seventeen

269
00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:48.559
thousand dollars a year, and the
boss wouldn't give me a raise, And

270
00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:51.079
so I said, you know what, I'm gonna give him, but he's

271
00:18:51.079 --> 00:18:52.160
given me. So I come in
a half hour landed you be half hour

272
00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:56.240
early. I'd take an hour and
a half for lunch. And he calls

273
00:18:56.279 --> 00:18:59.640
me in his office and tells me
I want double secret probation. Now you're

274
00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:02.599
not sure, he says, after
what I did, I'm just looking for

275
00:19:02.599 --> 00:19:08.279
a few extra dollars a week.
Excuse me. So he he gives me

276
00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:14.279
this ultimatum, and the next day
I get the little cardon mail says you

277
00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:15.880
can hired by New York City Fire
Apartment in big black letters, do not

278
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:22.680
quit your job. I never liked
you can weeks know this, boss,

279
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:26.039
I'm out of here. So that
my manager walks and says, you can't.

280
00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:27.920
I had corner office to shaved with
one guy, and my advantage walks

281
00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.519
in and he's he's like, you
can't do that. You gotta do this,

282
00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.559
you gotta do flat shots, you
gotta get this one up. I

283
00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:36.799
said, get to it, which
I didn't, But so that then I

284
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:40.519
became a fireman. And you know
John Sullivan from one to seventy five truck.

285
00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:44.200
Anybody know him. I think he
did almost forty years on the job.

286
00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:47.319
He and I. We got interviews
together, we got a medicals together.

287
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:49.000
Everything we did we must have been
like right next to each other.

288
00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:55.039
As far as numbers goes, we
were just over two thousands. And actually

289
00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:57.519
Bob Doley rest in peace. Bob
Doley was killed in a collapse in two

290
00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:03.119
thirty three. In the seventies,
he said to me two thousand, he

291
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:06.359
might not make it. They only
take about fifteen hundred guys, right,

292
00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:10.920
but they didn't know what we would
behind three hundred clip right, So yeah,

293
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:12.599
didn't you get in there? Who
are you in Provy school with anybody

294
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:17.319
else? That's to my right was
were Monday. Into my left was Turner.

295
00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:22.920
There's so many big names, the
Werner, McCormick. Uh, there's

296
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:26.079
so many. There was three hundred
people and we were split session no less.

297
00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:29.759
So it was eight to m and
end to Z. So the guys

298
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:32.759
were eight to m. You didn't
get to know those guys because you know

299
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:34.160
they were coming and they were leaving
when you were coming, or vice versa.

300
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:40.319
Right, you get out of Provy
School and if you go to forty

301
00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:42.240
two engine, Yeah, why I
get out of Covide School. I gotta

302
00:20:42.279 --> 00:20:47.559
tell you this. We all had
we all had the peak coats and the

303
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:49.119
watch caps, and then we all
looked the same. You know, we're

304
00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:52.559
all the same. Well, the
dusk out or maybe just a little darkening

305
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.160
dusk, and I'm in the building
one and I says to these two guys

306
00:20:56.200 --> 00:20:59.400
are the work messes. I'm gonna
jump out the window into the net.

307
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:02.400
You you don't do that. This
is why it's supposed to catch people.

308
00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:04.359
I jump out of the building into
the No big deal. We leave the

309
00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:07.440
next morning. It woke well,
Dudley Glass was in charge. I want

310
00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:11.279
to know who jumped out of the
pink and you guys are and I'm looking

311
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:11.960
like this, and I'm looking like
this, and I'm saying, he better

312
00:21:12.039 --> 00:21:19.000
not open the mouth, and they
didn't. They No rats there, Bro,

313
00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:25.039
My god, you have a rats
thing. No, I don't have

314
00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.160
a dirty rat. One. No, you dirty rat. I'll make a

315
00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:32.079
note of it for you right now. That's what he needs. Another.

316
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:37.279
Nobody pinched you? Oh man,
you like my sound effects, and then

317
00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:41.200
you don't like my sound effects.
Henry didn't pinch anybody, you know what

318
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:47.359
I mean? No, No,
I'm sorry, Louis. What was that?

319
00:21:47.559 --> 00:21:51.599
Did you put the fiction for the
forty or No? I did not.

320
00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.880
But as I got older in the
job, later in the years,

321
00:21:56.400 --> 00:22:00.319
I realized that my fall was probably
working behind the scenes. You know what

322
00:22:00.359 --> 00:22:03.599
I was going to say that he
was a lumberman, took care of ship,

323
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:07.440
bro, you know what I mean. All McCaffrey was a pretty pretty

324
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:11.920
popular guy back in the sixties,
fifty sixty seventies, and uh and h.

325
00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:14.839
He and my father were good friends. And I think all, McCaffrey

326
00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:18.680
was probably watching out for me.
He was probably I just wanted to realize

327
00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:21.200
it at the time. I thought
him for a living, by the way,

328
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:22.960
But me, what did dad do
for a living? He was a

329
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:30.119
lumberman. He worked at Lumberyond's one
woman in Aka, what do you call

330
00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:33.759
it? A collector Frankie to fix
up he had. He had a little

331
00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:37.079
store there and I would go.
They had the old He taught me how

332
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:38.720
to do math, Matthew is the
most important thing to my father. Yess.

333
00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:41.119
That's why computer's made so much sense
to me. It's just logic.

334
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:45.079
But he had the old cash machines
there that you had to push like it

335
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:48.640
was one dollar and fifty two cents
like that. You've got to king like

336
00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:52.200
that and had to make you get
a five it's two twenty five, twenty

337
00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:56.599
six cents, twenty six seven,
eight times thirty dimes quarters. All of

338
00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:00.400
that he was. He taught me
a lot that way, and he took

339
00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:04.720
care of a lot of things right, And I think he did for at

340
00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:08.759
that time in eighty one, was
probably no slouch. You might say,

341
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:15.200
yeah, he was freaking I saw
my father once a birthday party. I

342
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:18.799
was time was twelve years old and
we're living in Brentwood, my whole top

343
00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:22.119
drive and his family. Down the
road. There was this guy, Danny

344
00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:23.519
mc broy was way bigger than me, and he was just a bully.

345
00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:27.559
And I had a button up shirt
on and he ripped it and I came

346
00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:30.880
home and all my buttons were off, and my father's liked, what happened

347
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:33.839
to you? And I'm trying to
be nice about it, but excuse me,

348
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:37.799
but I tell that Danny grabbed me
and ripped my shirt and do me

349
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:41.920
on the ground and kicked me.
My father goes out there. So I

350
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:45.079
was talking to Danny and now Danny's
father comes out, and now my father

351
00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:47.880
I was took him Danny's father,
and Danny's father pushes my father. My

352
00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:49.799
father hits him. Here come the
people out of my out of Danny's house.

353
00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:52.559
Three different guys. My father was
a boxer in the army, right,

354
00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:57.599
he just stood there and they come
up laying on got no tell.

355
00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:03.640
I was like, that's fine,
Yeah, he's up there doing it.

356
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:07.920
He's doing it. He then wants
to know if you have a handkerchief hanging

357
00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:15.279
out the back of the rear your
pocket, yo, geez, yeah,

358
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:23.720
down, can't got to put it
back into So who is it forty two

359
00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:26.000
when you got there? And what
was it like walking in there? They're

360
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.559
having mean a while? Or Okay, I walk into forty two engine,

361
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:33.720
Right, you get your assignment,
you go to go right to the company.

362
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.960
I walk in and now fifty six
truck used to be in the forty

363
00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:38.480
two engine, but in July of
eighty one they got lifted out of it

364
00:24:38.599 --> 00:24:42.279
by this chief I believe his name
is Waldon in the sixth sixth seventh division,

365
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:47.799
and they got putting forty eight truck
forty eight engine, So a fifty

366
00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:49.559
six truck was to fight this guy. Steve McQueen was a union guy and

367
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:56.319
he was always hit on him and
Waldrom, So fifty six truck was there.

368
00:24:56.400 --> 00:24:57.640
They parked out front. I come
walk in the night, knock on

369
00:24:57.720 --> 00:25:00.920
the door, open the door,
and then send me to the kitchen.

370
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.359
I come walking in there, and
they just lit me up. The first

371
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.359
guy, Kevin Colanney, as a
matter of fact, was the first guy.

372
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:10.559
Who the fuck are you? You
cute little blond hair, blue eyed

373
00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:14.599
boy, and they just lit me
up. And now I'm standing at attention

374
00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:17.960
and they're killing me there. They
just tear me up. Now. Unbeknownst

375
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:19.839
to me, this guy Bobta Salmon
also gets a sign the forty two engines,

376
00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:25.039
so he comes walking in it.
Now I'm in there several minutes now.

377
00:25:25.079 --> 00:25:27.799
These guys are tear me up.
And because someone comes walking in and

378
00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:30.640
that is tether him and what the
fuck are you doing here? He says,

379
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:37.160
my name is Barbara Salmon, and
I'm not Jewish. They took hit

380
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:41.559
him up, man, and I'm
standing attention. I just kind of looked

381
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:45.640
over him and I thought to myself, thanks man, he took in your

382
00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:52.519
mouth. That was the five shix
battan at the time. Boss his whole

383
00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:59.119
career down there. We have no
two engines. He spent several years before

384
00:25:59.160 --> 00:26:02.279
you. If you have any pictures
of you when you were probing forty two,

385
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:08.720
what I have? I have this
one? Okay, man with the

386
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:12.839
light and the helmet. Everybody had
those lights. Gard was sweet on you.

387
00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:19.279
Look at you, You're a baby. Holy ship. He didn't last

388
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:25.240
too long because this is what ended
up having. I'm just kidding, because

389
00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:27.759
we had a coffin fire, a
coffin factory. You have to do that

390
00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:32.519
right, I mean you got to
do that. You got and and there

391
00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:34.680
was this old time of John Ricks, right. He was a thin black

392
00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:37.759
dude who lived in Harlem, and
he had a real high voice and used

393
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:41.160
to carry a bone knife on him, like this big boone knife on his

394
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:44.920
hip, and he would turn himround
and he pulled out his knfe because we're

395
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:48.279
being too noisy. He'd be laying
on the couch watching television. He he

396
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:51.880
I don't know how many years he
had, He looked like he had fifteen

397
00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:56.000
years. And he would pull out
that night. Now we're all kids,

398
00:26:56.200 --> 00:26:59.240
got a lot of programs for him. He pulled that knife, I'm gonna

399
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:00.799
cut you white mother fuck us up
and chased it around the fire house with

400
00:27:03.480 --> 00:27:04.920
This is just the way he was. I go home a couple of times.

401
00:27:04.960 --> 00:27:07.960
I drove him out to the hall
a couple of times, and he

402
00:27:07.079 --> 00:27:10.559
got out there and there every he
knew everybody in the streets. He was

403
00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:15.359
a tough old bird boy. Was
he the guy who was some of the

404
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:18.920
c actually loud. NICOLEI and Freddie
Beanman would have seen you guys. They

405
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:21.839
get on the minute abound the end
of the fifties or something, and the

406
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:26.079
stories they told like Freddie Beanhaman tells
me once he got stories. He says,

407
00:27:26.119 --> 00:27:29.119
Now, he got on a job
in the fifties. So yeah,

408
00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:30.559
he got on a job in the
fifties. So his senior man got on

409
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:33.559
a job at the thirties. Whose
senior men got on in the teens tens,

410
00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:36.799
right, And he says, this
is how the stories get passed on.

411
00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:40.000
So he starts telling me about house
watch and taking care of the horses,

412
00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:41.519
and you know, okay, so
he's telling me about that. He

413
00:27:41.559 --> 00:27:45.160
says, in the night watch,
the midnight Watch, he says, what

414
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:48.000
they do is they roll up a
ball of paper and stick it in the

415
00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:51.599
horses asshole so it wouldn't ship.
So then when you had to relieve,

416
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:52.960
they pulled. They got there's a
way. The guy up, they come

417
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.079
down pull the paper within fifteen minutes
thinking ship, and the other guy had

418
00:27:57.079 --> 00:27:59.880
to clean it up. But I'm
like, how did they do this?

419
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:02.799
Said, I've never heard of that, bro, I have never heard that

420
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:04.960
story. Beanman had some great stories, he really did. He was an

421
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:07.960
old time got on a job,
like I say, in the fifties,

422
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.559
and that's how we passed the stories
on from one to the other to the

423
00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:12.559
other. Right, yeah, yeah, hell yeah, that's freaking hilarious.

424
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:15.359
I never heard that the stories they
told the shovel and the coal, the

425
00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:18.640
basements, they still have a knife
net and forty two inters basement when I

426
00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:23.880
got there. That what life net? Really? Yeah? Well, well

427
00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:27.079
were they really killing it then?
Like were they go into a ton of

428
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:30.440
work in the eighty one? I
mean obviously they are, right, Okay,

429
00:28:30.519 --> 00:28:34.119
So I'm gonna I'm going to preface
this with I was a new kid

430
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:37.039
on the job. Okay, I
went to six fires my first night.

431
00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:42.079
Right, now, it's your first
night I had. I had my first

432
00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:45.680
fire probably an hour and a half, two hours into the into the my

433
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:48.519
first night. So I had a
job and Neil Taylor was on the line.

434
00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:51.119
So, okay, I go up
the stairs. Find a fourth floor,

435
00:28:51.160 --> 00:28:53.160
sixth story multipledwell and h type building, big building. Go up there

436
00:28:53.240 --> 00:28:56.839
the fourth floor, put the holes
on, hose line on the table on

437
00:28:56.960 --> 00:28:59.880
the stair, put my knee on, I take hell and off I started

438
00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:02.359
put my face piece on. Now
Neil Taylor, he was an old guy.

439
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:03.839
He had twenty one years on a
job. He was forty two years

440
00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.519
old. Right, my first night
I'm twenty five years old. I think

441
00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:11.559
he's old. So he says,
what the hell are you doing? And

442
00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:14.599
I tell last and I'm putting my
face piece and he goes, smack that

443
00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:19.519
thing, w off your face out, walk my face. We go down

444
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:22.359
the hallway. I'm crying. It's
not some one. I'm choking. I'm

445
00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:25.920
coughing. I go down and put
the fire out and he says, let

446
00:29:25.960 --> 00:29:27.400
me tell you something, kid,
when you need your air, you need

447
00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:30.720
your air. You're lucky if you
got ten or twelve minutes in that bottle.

448
00:29:30.759 --> 00:29:32.839
He says, You've got to save
your air anytime you don't need it,

449
00:29:32.920 --> 00:29:36.440
you don't use learn to take a
feed. Wow. So that was

450
00:29:36.440 --> 00:29:41.359
the beginning of my bad habits down. It's all downhill from there. You

451
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:45.440
get away with that today? Do
you mind trying to do that today?

452
00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:49.319
Facebook? In a minute. They
still had cowardice in the book of rules

453
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:52.240
when I got on the job.
They took that out sometime later, but

454
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:57.400
they actually had charges for being being
a coward. Nice yep, I Louis

455
00:29:57.480 --> 00:30:00.640
love that right, that's what the
other one? Oh great, please,

456
00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:06.119
oh you don't be a coward.
They'd have a whole line of charges on

457
00:30:06.200 --> 00:30:10.920
people. Right. I never heard
an idea either, So them I got

458
00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:15.599
full of useless information, stuffing the
rags and horses asses and the carriage drunk

459
00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:18.160
and drop. So my grandma,
well, my grandma grew up in East

460
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:22.039
New York and uh, she actually
used to hang around in front of two

461
00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:26.240
thirty one and one, and she
was telling me how when the bells would

462
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:27.680
go off also on, the horses
would start stamping their feet. The fight

463
00:30:27.880 --> 00:30:30.440
we slide the poles and be running
all over the place, and the horses

464
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:33.039
would be stepping into the hornesses and
say, loll all the hornesses down.

465
00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:37.039
And they're holding the horses back as
they're putting on all the hornesses and everything.

466
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:38.240
And then all of a sudden they
let it goveryboul to jump on the

467
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:41.920
steam and they go running out,
running out the door. She says,

468
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:45.000
had I had a rope across the
front door, across the operatic poor they

469
00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:48.160
dropped the rope. When they dropped
the rope, all the kids would wun.

470
00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:49.480
You know how two thirty one quarters
is you walking? You could go

471
00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:52.920
straight up the stairs and write down
the pole over, Yeah, that should

472
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:55.440
have done up down, back up
down. That's what they do. They

473
00:30:55.519 --> 00:30:56.559
go round and around around, and
five would come back and get out of

474
00:30:56.599 --> 00:31:00.519
here. And once they put the
rope up, you didn't you didn't break

475
00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:03.039
that line. That was the plane
that you didn't break. Wow. Yeah,

476
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:06.559
yeah, she said it was a
lot of people. You never think

477
00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:08.920
about what was involved in responding back
those days with the horses. Man.

478
00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:12.599
Oh yeah, yeah. She says, you can hear the clopping of the

479
00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:17.200
horses going and the wheels on the
on the on the cobblestones, and she

480
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:19.200
said it was just so exciting when
they got there. Everybody's gotting very excited

481
00:31:19.240 --> 00:31:22.640
because the horses are jumping, the
men are jumping. If there's a dog,

482
00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:26.240
the dog is barking. Everybody's going
at it. That's cool, man,

483
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:27.000
it was a lot of fun.
I'm sure it was a lot of

484
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:30.799
fun in those days. Back in
the days with the horses. There's a

485
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:33.200
salary just we wanted he wanted to
share the salary with the back in the

486
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:37.720
day there in nineteen sixty, yes, sixty sixty, sixty seventy we got

487
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:41.880
on nineteen sixty, so sixty sixty
seven hundred dollars a year. Yeah,

488
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:51.279
right, that's crazy. I think
Roofie makes that every hour fifteen fifteen today.

489
00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:57.119
Who are the horses over there?
Cap? Okay, so, Richie

490
00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.480
Mills, Richie Mills. I'd like
to give a shout out to Richie Mills.

491
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:05.359
Richie Mills. Nothing ever rathered that
man's cage. One time, we're

492
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:07.920
playing baseball in a bunk room.
I don't know why, I probably,

493
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:09.160
but that's what they said we're doing. So we're playing baseball in a bunk

494
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:13.440
room. He throws the ball.
I hit the ball right to the window.

495
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:15.519
Right we all stopped. The door
opens up. Richie Mill six's up

496
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:19.359
looks like looks at that, looks
at the guy who was a senior man

497
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:21.880
that day. He says, make
it look like nothing happened. Close the

498
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:23.920
door, walk back inside. That
was it so cool? I like that

499
00:32:24.359 --> 00:32:28.519
anyway. Richie Mills, cool,
calm, always at a fire. He

500
00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:30.440
was just a really good guy.
And he passed away. When he passed

501
00:32:30.440 --> 00:32:34.160
away, passed away. May twenty
sixth this year, I called his son,

502
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:40.039
Jimmy Mills Jimmy Bummy. So I
called Jimmy off of Mike Condolencer's I

503
00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:43.440
wish I'd known that he passed away. I would have drove back to New

504
00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:45.759
York for his funeral. Guy to
my guy, my guy. So he

505
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:52.160
was the captain. They had Roy
Leveck, that's Richie Mills right there.

506
00:32:52.799 --> 00:32:55.720
Well, which guy on the right. You can't tell who's the captain there

507
00:32:59.480 --> 00:33:01.400
sitting on a couch. Yeah,
but did he had to be in a

508
00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:06.440
chief cap, you know, he
never was a chief. He answered for

509
00:33:06.519 --> 00:33:10.160
forty two engine after several years to
one sixty six truck in state Nyland because

510
00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:15.240
his son was in seventy six trucks. Yeah. But there's a couple of

511
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:16.839
his brothers, a couple of chie
Mills brothers who are on a job also,

512
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:21.920
I believe. So he was a
lieutenant. He had artist Santangelo who

513
00:33:22.039 --> 00:33:27.200
ended up in thirty eight truck.
You had Roy le Beck who spent his

514
00:33:27.240 --> 00:33:30.319
whole the rest of his career forty
two engine. Royler Beck actually got thrown

515
00:33:30.359 --> 00:33:34.640
out of a bucket as a fireman
working under the Elsam wearing hallm I believe.

516
00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:38.400
And then there was Tom Fahy.
Tom Fayhy, he was Tom fay

517
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:42.559
was a pit He was just he
was a great, great guy. He

518
00:33:42.680 --> 00:33:45.680
had a lot of good sayings to
him. You know, he's just a

519
00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:46.880
real good guy. Matter of fact, Tom Faye, his son Michael Faye,

520
00:33:47.079 --> 00:33:52.880
was the tank chief killed up in
the Bronx who came down and killed

521
00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:57.319
him? Yeah, yeah, that
was Tom Fayy's son Tom guy. Wow.

522
00:33:57.839 --> 00:34:00.599
So those are my officers there.
And as time, when let's see

523
00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:05.799
one of who left, John Malcolm
showed up, Bob showed up. It's

524
00:34:05.880 --> 00:34:10.239
John Malcolm, John, John Malcolm
too, it's Gabby and Leonard. And

525
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:20.519
you know what's actually on his head
there located spaceship. Oh well, okay,

526
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:25.000
that was one of those nice they
were making tinfoil helmets for recovery map

527
00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:34.159
at things in those days. How
does the Kitschy table change you think from

528
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.440
when you got there forty two engine
two when you're left in two thousand and

529
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:44.199
eight. In two thousand and eight, I have to say, sensitivity wasn't

530
00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:45.199
a big thing he got. You
know, in two thousand and eight,

531
00:34:45.239 --> 00:34:50.800
were still still having conversations, saying
words that you don't say today. And

532
00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:54.920
it wasn't. It didn't change a
lot. It got a little bit softer,

533
00:34:55.039 --> 00:34:59.679
but I think guys prided themselves on
being quick, quick witted and shop

534
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:04.000
talk, and you know it's tough
like that, you know that is true

535
00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:07.280
cat. That is true. The
faster you can get something out and if

536
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:10.119
the guys react like if they laugh
right away like that, there definitely is

537
00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:14.199
something to that. There's no doubt
about that. And you know it's fighters

538
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:16.239
in the volleys when when you know
long guy, they have a ball with

539
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:21.679
every firehouse. So we would be
at the ball right after drills and we'd

540
00:35:21.719 --> 00:35:23.800
start breaking and people would say things
and it's just like bo I spit it

541
00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:27.199
right back at and they're like,
how do you do that? As as

542
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:30.360
many years of practice, Washington guys
do that, and that teaches me how

543
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:34.360
to do it so well. I'm
going to get a picture. Roofi knows

544
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.320
this because we grew up together.
But when I was growing up, I

545
00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:40.000
had a gigantic kitchen table because there
was nine of us and my father was

546
00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:44.880
flying, my brothers were flying,
and I know who actually has that table

547
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:46.440
from my kitchen back then. I'm
going to get a picture of the original

548
00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:51.960
kitchen table because that's where I was
a kid. I six seven years old.

549
00:35:52.039 --> 00:35:54.079
My father's breaking our balls, my
brothers are breaking our balls. I'm

550
00:35:54.119 --> 00:35:58.280
like, so when I got to
the firehouse and his mother is a saint

551
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:01.719
for God's easy, bro, like
you get a bother me. I haven't

552
00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:05.800
heard worth for my old man and
for my brother's pre kid. Yeah,

553
00:36:05.880 --> 00:36:09.800
really really that's awesome. And so
they did break horns a lot that first

554
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:12.800
night. I was telling you about
where I had all that work and forty

555
00:36:12.840 --> 00:36:17.719
two engines that that first night they
did nothing but break corns. We ran

556
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:20.880
around all night long. And it
was, like I said, it was,

557
00:36:22.440 --> 00:36:24.360
it was probably fires that you that
you kind of go into like this,

558
00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:27.239
you know, you try to take
Okay, come on, let's stretch

559
00:36:27.239 --> 00:36:29.920
a line in here. They were
probably fires like that. With six fires

560
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:31.760
for a kid like me, it
was a lot. So I drove home

561
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:35.280
next morning thinking to myself, the
hell did I get into it? I

562
00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:37.880
couldn't believe it. I four face
down in the bed, I go to

563
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:39.320
sleep, I wake up, I
go back to work. Camp says to

564
00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:43.960
me, guy go Ustairs captures.
You had a good night. It seems

565
00:36:43.960 --> 00:36:45.880
like you've got to grip on things
a little bit, he says. My

566
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:49.440
second night to her, he says, we're having a party here tonight.

567
00:36:49.480 --> 00:36:54.440
Those days used to have parties in
the firehouse. This is if anyway,

568
00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:58.840
we're having a party. I can't
go to certain certain areas there. So

569
00:36:59.159 --> 00:37:00.599
we're having a party and I'm sitting
in the kitchen. It's about two three

570
00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:04.280
o'clock in the morning, and I'm
sitting with my feet up on the table

571
00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:07.480
and I'm leaning back and I'm sitting
there and I'm thinking myself, I like

572
00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:08.559
this job. And all of a
sudden, I call my turn. I

573
00:37:08.679 --> 00:37:12.400
look, and here comes this guy
across the table. Boom, he slide

574
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:14.840
across the table. Plates are flying
everywhere, hits me. I go over.

575
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:16.239
The other two guys almost like kicking
me. Don't you smile? Lets

576
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:20.039
me tell you you're probly you don't
smile less? Somebody lets you get permission

577
00:37:20.079 --> 00:37:22.719
to smile. I clean up this
mess and I get up and I look

578
00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:30.760
around. I said, I'm gonna
like this job. Across the table.

579
00:37:31.159 --> 00:37:34.199
We want to find in an old
d tenement, right, you know how

580
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:37.119
you got the You walk up and
got an apartment on the left, apartment

581
00:37:37.159 --> 00:37:39.280
on the straight ahead, apartment over
here, and apartment over here, and

582
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:45.320
there's two apartments on fire, and
in my eyes are this big and I

583
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:46.840
got the line up trying to keep
the fire in there, and my backup

584
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:51.800
man is standing on my house like
you're doing a good kid. There'll be

585
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:59.320
more lined up here soon. I
know. That was the falcon in the

586
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:02.239
can. They called them the falcon. The falcon. Yeah, but you

587
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:07.440
know what that those are the guys, right, having those guys around you.

588
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:15.239
Oh, that's funny. Sorry,
that was funny. That's my lieutenant.

589
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:25.519
Yeah, so, uh, I'm
sorry too. Funny everybody's perspective,

590
00:38:25.599 --> 00:38:29.679
right. Well, you know,
I also want to play. Did I

591
00:38:29.800 --> 00:38:32.440
mention a jilly fireman? No?
We had augilly fight with this. They

592
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:36.679
talk about that, right, Nah, okay, so well, Jilly fireman.

593
00:38:36.920 --> 00:38:38.239
They had a Juliy Fymon back in
those days still, and they had

594
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:40.920
the yellow helmets and he used to
ride on the apparatus. They were like

595
00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:44.920
the extra man. So you had
six guys on the rig and now you

596
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:46.840
had a seventh man. And they
helped stretch lines, they helped the show

597
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:49.880
up, the hook up. They
maybe do the that gun if we're using

598
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:52.280
it. Well, I walk into
the kitchen my first tour and this guy

599
00:38:52.400 --> 00:38:54.679
is riding me. I mean he's
riding me, hide me, riding me,

600
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:58.440
and I'm just listening to what he
says, you know, And as

601
00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:00.239
a matter of fact, that mouse
goes by and I don't do nothing.

602
00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:00.880
He says, why didn't you step
on the mouse. He says, the

603
00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:08.559
mouse has seniority, So for me
like four tours, five tours, something

604
00:39:08.599 --> 00:39:10.920
like that. And he says,
why are you taking that ship from him?

605
00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:14.960
I said, he's one of senior
guys. He's not even a five.

606
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:17.400
He's an auxiliy guy. What's an
auxiliary fire And I had no idea

607
00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:23.159
what that even meant. I still
don't know what it means. People were

608
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:27.280
able to volunteer in New York City
as augility fireman, right, the rigs

609
00:39:27.280 --> 00:39:30.760
and stretch lines and help stretch you
know, I just couldn't go in,

610
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:34.599
right, They couldn't go in the
building. They weren't supposed to, right,

611
00:39:34.760 --> 00:39:37.039
yeah, right, it's like a
little bit right. You didn't have

612
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:42.800
a yellow helmet. You had a
red hockey helmet, right that you on

613
00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:45.320
the shore Buster, the red hockey
helmet, Hey, cap, did you

614
00:39:45.400 --> 00:39:49.920
have to Did you have the green
rig? Uh? That? We did

615
00:39:49.960 --> 00:39:52.159
eventually get the dream rig. We
started with a red rig, you know,

616
00:39:52.239 --> 00:39:54.000
the red rig that had the Yeah, that was that was our rig.

617
00:39:55.039 --> 00:39:59.039
And that's Gary Langdon who was back
to us. I know that I'm

618
00:39:59.079 --> 00:40:04.039
not sure who anyone else, but
that's first do with j Roman Marcy Place.

619
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:07.679
Yeah, we had to be there
for a while. We had the

620
00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:09.840
red wig when I first got there, the old they wanted to see D

621
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:13.239
rings. You ever see those c
D rings. They looked like the Max

622
00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:15.480
with the they had no muscles on. They were really loud. And those

623
00:40:15.480 --> 00:40:17.559
are the rigs that every once in
a while when they had a crowd on

624
00:40:17.599 --> 00:40:21.079
a corner, the chaulf would just
slow down a little bit and when he

625
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:23.880
get to the corner he step on
the gas, real hard black crowd.

626
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:28.960
Any that was the wig when I
first got there. Oh you're a rapid

627
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:32.320
water guy. The rapid water had
just stopped when I got there. Oh

628
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:36.960
you got the little sperm on the
door there. I talk about that cloud

629
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:39.519
of when I when I first got
to once seventeen, I had we had

630
00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:43.519
the ninety five foot but it would
go out and I would have we'd have

631
00:40:43.559 --> 00:40:46.320
a spare which from the eighties,
the Mac and you know, you'd be

632
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:50.199
hanging out the back and I would
look at you know, we'd stop on

633
00:40:50.239 --> 00:40:52.320
a light and I'd look down at
the car next to me and I'd be

634
00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:54.679
like roll up your window and they'd
be like, what I'm like, roll

635
00:40:54.840 --> 00:40:58.840
up your window and they're like what
I'm like, I don't worry about it.

636
00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:02.719
Yeah, I mean what you could
see his teeth, you know what

637
00:41:02.719 --> 00:41:07.960
I mean? You see you're dating
yourself. You dating yourself. Roll up

638
00:41:08.039 --> 00:41:15.840
the wind though, roll up your
win I mean it was. It was

639
00:41:15.920 --> 00:41:20.000
incredible unless you saw it right like
now you know the brig backs up,

640
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:22.280
You wouldn't even know that the brig
is on, for God's sakes with and

641
00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:25.880
we were still riding the back step, Captain, you were just I'm just

642
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:30.079
gonna still stop righting the backstep.
But Richie Mills what he would do is

643
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:34.280
he would take the engine covers in
the old mats. The engine covers opened

644
00:41:34.360 --> 00:41:37.039
up. They from the middle.
It came up like this, right,

645
00:41:37.119 --> 00:41:38.280
They came up like that, and
then they had a wire that you hook

646
00:41:38.320 --> 00:41:42.199
them up and keep moping. So
he'd make us open that and hook him

647
00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:43.679
up, and then we'd all get
on the back step. So if the

648
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:45.000
chief stopped him and says something,
he says, Chief, I'm having an

649
00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:46.920
injine problems. It's heat, not
too much. I don't want to keep

650
00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:50.360
the guys in there. Put him
on safety and put them on a back

651
00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:52.840
step. Oh okay, So we
would ride the back step and there was

652
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:57.719
nothing like what straddling the backstep right
like this, looking over the side and

653
00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:00.760
just being able to see what you're
coming into down there. One time,

654
00:42:01.119 --> 00:42:04.679
Hank Baby was driving, I think
it was, and we turned on to

655
00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:07.599
Anthony Avenue and there's five blown out
of three or four windows on the left

656
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:10.880
hand side, and there's double part
cause all on the right hand side.

657
00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:14.079
And Hank looks at the cap says, what should I do? He says,

658
00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:17.920
only hit the double park cars.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom,

659
00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:21.559
get off the backstep, climb over
the cars go, stretch lines go

660
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:22.880
up, and we come out.
All the double part cars are gone,

661
00:42:23.079 --> 00:42:27.880
the walk gone. Nobody said nothing. I've heard that before. The guys

662
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:30.840
say, don't hit the park cof
you're gonna hit anything, Hit the double

663
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:37.719
park car because they're kind of at
fault. You know what mirrors going like

664
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:43.000
this was. It was SIB mirrors
when and not everybody had a Sybey mirror

665
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:45.920
on the on the passenger side in
those days. But whatever it was,

666
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:52.000
they was laying in the street now
yeah, coop garbage cans. Ah boom

667
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:58.159
boom. I probably told us already, cap Why did they go to those

668
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:00.679
yellow rays? What was the purpose
in that? It was supposed to be

669
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:04.280
more visibility. That's what they originally
said. It's going to give more visibility

670
00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:07.280
and stuff. But you know it
just wasn wasn't working out. It's down

671
00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:10.920
like ugly. Yeah. And another
thing, you know, Royal the vat

672
00:43:12.039 --> 00:43:15.679
he he always made a stretch of
line no matter where we went, stretch

673
00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:16.679
of line in the front door,
for stretch of line into the lobby.

674
00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:20.840
Always stretching line there he is,
there's why the vec And that's Joey Aquino

675
00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:24.480
on the left neck to him.
Joe Aquino actually fell down a fifth from

676
00:43:24.519 --> 00:43:28.880
the fifth floor. He fell into
a vacant building elevator shaft and he said,

677
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:30.360
as he opened the door pulling towards
him and started moving in, he

678
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:32.599
realized he's open the door moving in, and that's he's moving in. He's

679
00:43:32.639 --> 00:43:37.920
realized that, Ah, you know
that that's you go into an apartment apartment

680
00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:40.960
like this on a door towards you. He went down the safe dec life

681
00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:44.519
is landed a pile of garbage short
in his career. I think he only

682
00:43:44.599 --> 00:43:46.880
ended up doing seven eight years on
the job and just couldn't take the pain.

683
00:43:47.480 --> 00:43:54.159
Wow. Wow, that's a lot
and then live Yeah yeah, really

684
00:43:54.480 --> 00:44:00.480
really he moved to Montana. Joe
was a great guy, and Royal Beck

685
00:44:00.519 --> 00:44:02.360
would make a strip every single run
we went on us, because there were

686
00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:06.880
times when there was four progies on
the back that Joe had about five years

687
00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:08.280
on the job, six years on
a job when I got there, and

688
00:44:09.239 --> 00:44:13.480
all the rest of us had pumpkin
shields. So you'd have a six year

689
00:44:13.559 --> 00:44:15.599
driver, an officer, and all
brand new guys on the back step.

690
00:44:15.679 --> 00:44:17.639
So he made a stretch, stress, stress, spresial all the time.

691
00:44:19.079 --> 00:44:21.480
And that's what made us good at
what we did, is because we always

692
00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:24.519
did it. Matter of fact,
we've never drilled in those days one time.

693
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:27.920
Matter of fact, we didn't even
do b I in those days.

694
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.719
Battalion chief, we're in a five
six Battalion chief comes walking in. I'm

695
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:34.519
all in the morning, everybody still
speaking. We didn't get home until until

696
00:44:34.519 --> 00:44:37.599
the morning, early morning. Because
he says, where's your officer. I

697
00:44:37.679 --> 00:44:39.840
said, I can get him.
He says, why aren't you and b

698
00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:43.599
I I said, I don't know. Chief. I called lieutenant to have

699
00:44:43.719 --> 00:44:45.920
teaching quarters and pacis. I said, Chief, my guys are oh my,

700
00:44:45.960 --> 00:44:47.679
well, we're don't get back to
five o'clock from more. He says,

701
00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:50.679
oh okay, he say, don't
worry about He walks out of the

702
00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:52.159
building. I walked up to the
back and I said, what's b I

703
00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:55.760
And he says, you haven't been
on a BI yet. I says,

704
00:44:55.800 --> 00:45:00.039
I don't even know what it means. So that was my first st I

705
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:02.360
know somebody else who doesn't know what
it means. I just go to FIS

706
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:07.719
and that's it. Brou think about
it, what twenty five years? Yeah,

707
00:45:09.079 --> 00:45:12.639
it was like an old time report
work. Get low, lieutenant.

708
00:45:12.679 --> 00:45:15.320
This is way way before computers and
the beyond card files. You had the

709
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:19.760
pink cards, right. The pink
cards were the cards that were vacant vacant

710
00:45:19.960 --> 00:45:22.960
lots. Now they were no longer
buildings there, but it had the description

711
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:24.360
of the building on there. So
if you need to buy time, you

712
00:45:24.480 --> 00:45:29.920
pull a pink card, you do
a whole six story eight inspection, right,

713
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:32.239
And he says, you'll never get
in trouble because nobody will ever get

714
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:36.519
hurt in that building like you can't
take them off with building that people will

715
00:45:36.519 --> 00:45:37.800
be going into. But if you
take a mark with a vacant lot,

716
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:42.039
nobody's going to sue you for sue
the building over. So it's one of

717
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:44.639
those things to buy time sometimes.
You know, if you could have been

718
00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:52.519
writing that down vacant pink card fourteen
character two do four years in the engine

719
00:45:52.599 --> 00:46:00.159
and then you go to Latin nineteen
seven and Washington every Yep, was that

720
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.960
the normal progression from forty two?
Because no, normally it's fifty six truck.

721
00:46:06.280 --> 00:46:08.679
It was going across the floor.
Yeah, But now what happened is

722
00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:14.719
I had made a rescue earlier in
that year, and it was it was

723
00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:19.119
Super Bowl Sunday, right, it
was January eighty five, I guess.

724
00:46:19.719 --> 00:46:22.000
And I was driving with my wife
down the street and all of a sudden,

725
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:24.199
I see this calm smoke and going
to my brother's house to Super Bowl

726
00:46:24.199 --> 00:46:27.760
Sunday, and I see this big
cloud of smoke, So I slow down.

727
00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:30.000
I looked down the block, Hans's
freaking house blazing. Right, So

728
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:34.559
I drive down the street. I
tell my wants to tell somebody on across

729
00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:37.679
the street to call nine one one, and I kicked in the front door

730
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:39.239
and I start going and as I'm
going in, I dropped my wallet.

731
00:46:39.239 --> 00:46:42.119
I turned around and give it to
this guy who's standing behind me, A

732
00:46:42.159 --> 00:46:45.280
guy who went to high school with
Bob Kade, I realized, and as

733
00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:47.039
I'm calling down a holy labor later, I didn't realize it was bumb like

734
00:46:47.079 --> 00:46:50.519
I just gave my wile to a
guy. Right. But I went down.

735
00:46:50.559 --> 00:46:52.400
I searched all of the bedrooms.
I couldn't get to the left with

736
00:46:52.519 --> 00:46:54.719
a but I ran around the back. I kicked in the back door and

737
00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:57.719
I came in that way. And
now I'm on my belly. I'm wearing

738
00:46:57.760 --> 00:47:00.599
actually a Nihlon forty two engine jack
Jack that I had to get a new

739
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:02.719
him because I got a little burn
holes all over it. I find this

740
00:47:02.840 --> 00:47:06.440
guy there and I grabbed and I
pulled him out. He is toasted.

741
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:08.840
This guy, he's toasted. And
I got him all over my hands,

742
00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:10.920
I got him all over my legs, I stepping on, you know,

743
00:47:12.119 --> 00:47:14.400
my feet, and he's I take
him. I put him out in the

744
00:47:14.440 --> 00:47:17.360
snow and he sits up and says, my car, my fucking car is

745
00:47:17.440 --> 00:47:21.599
burning. He said, dude,
you're lucky you're alive. Here you know.

746
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:24.039
So the fire department comms, I
get my truck, my car truck,

747
00:47:24.079 --> 00:47:28.719
and I drive away. I was
an isol tabis. The chief actually

748
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:30.280
calls me and says, uh,
your city finding I says, yes,

749
00:47:30.360 --> 00:47:32.320
I am. He says, I
don't know how he tracked me down,

750
00:47:32.360 --> 00:47:35.760
but somebody knew who I was.
I guess, and I said, he

751
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:37.000
said, are you want medical leave
or something? Why did you run away?

752
00:47:37.400 --> 00:47:38.880
I says, I did what I
had to do. When I left,

753
00:47:38.880 --> 00:47:40.760
I was going to Super Bowl Sunday
with my brother. I kind of

754
00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:43.440
wash up, you know. I
went in the back of his rescue rig

755
00:47:43.519 --> 00:47:45.000
and washed up, got a little
stuff off me, and that was that.

756
00:47:45.480 --> 00:47:50.360
So it was a pretty exciting thing
to do all by hisself. I

757
00:47:50.440 --> 00:47:52.960
mean, I was in a truck
on my thirty day detail with twenty seven

758
00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:55.639
truck Captain Jimmy Sheppell was there,
who tore me up. One day I

759
00:47:55.679 --> 00:47:59.159
went into a project building. I
asked, I'll get back to that.

760
00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:02.679
So anyway, a paper to go
to the truck. So I put all

761
00:48:02.719 --> 00:48:06.000
the surrounding trucks. He's forty two
eents and I put off for all the

762
00:48:06.039 --> 00:48:08.039
trucks around forty two engend because I
didn't really know fifty six because they want

763
00:48:08.079 --> 00:48:10.159
the quarters with us, But I
saw I put it for fifty six,

764
00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:16.159
twenty seven, forty four, nineteen
and whatever other trucks are right in the

765
00:48:16.239 --> 00:48:19.760
area there, so I just put
the paper. And then the reason I

766
00:48:20.159 --> 00:48:23.320
left so rapidly on the transfer was
because the two six Battalion has somebody that

767
00:48:23.400 --> 00:48:28.880
they wanted to push out of there, and the five six Battalion has got

768
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:30.760
transferred from the two six to the
five says, well, look just swish

769
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:34.920
these guys back and forth. No
man power issues. So they got rid

770
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.559
of that guy, and I went
into nineteen truck. And now I went

771
00:48:37.599 --> 00:48:39.480
and visited each one of the captains
except Tony Alpha, who was the camp

772
00:48:39.519 --> 00:48:44.039
in the nineteen truck because he was
on medicals. And it happened so fast.

773
00:48:44.039 --> 00:48:45.800
All of a sudden, I show
up and he's like, who the

774
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:49.039
fuck are you to put a paper
from my house when I didn't come to

775
00:48:49.039 --> 00:48:50.599
see me. I said, Cap, I tried, you want medically,

776
00:48:50.639 --> 00:48:52.159
I don't give a shit, and
he just he was like, put the

777
00:48:52.239 --> 00:48:54.519
thumb on me right out of the
gate. So now I'm in this fire

778
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:58.400
house and I'm thinking I got along
great and forty two engine. Now I'm

779
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:00.880
moving in a place where everbody's gonna
fucking hate this camp don't like me.

780
00:49:00.639 --> 00:49:04.880
So the first thing I do in
those days, you go to the kitchen

781
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:07.280
in the morning, you're having your
coffee and whatever, and you grab a

782
00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:09.599
newspaper, head up to the shitter
and you do your business. Right.

783
00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:13.480
So I'm going to sit up,
and I'm like, it's dark in here.

784
00:49:14.039 --> 00:49:15.639
So I had a small construction business
at the time, so I ran

785
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:20.800
some wise and put some lights up
there. I was doing a commercial commercial

786
00:49:20.880 --> 00:49:25.039
drive at the time. I'm sorry, guys, all right, And and

787
00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:27.960
then I did something else, and
I did something else. I was fixing

788
00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:30.400
all these little things that I saw
that he was fixing. So we're coming

789
00:49:30.440 --> 00:49:34.000
back from the Yankee Stadium. We
used to get on the rig now we

790
00:49:34.039 --> 00:49:37.079
would. We would the whole ladder
would have all guys sitting on it,

791
00:49:37.159 --> 00:49:38.960
were hanging on the backstep, hanging
off the side, and we'd just see

792
00:49:39.199 --> 00:49:43.400
take the truck would take you at
ninety Yankee Stadium. We'd all get off

793
00:49:43.400 --> 00:49:45.079
and then we'd call afterwards. Well, in this particular night, the cat

794
00:49:45.199 --> 00:49:49.159
were with us. We all went
there and I'm in the company about two

795
00:49:49.199 --> 00:49:52.159
months, I guess. And as
we're walking out and walking up one hundred

796
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:54.039
and sixty seventh Street from the subway. We took the subway home for some

797
00:49:54.159 --> 00:49:57.880
reason, he said, Trick,
come back here. So he says,

798
00:49:57.920 --> 00:49:59.639
did you do this? And did
you do that? Did you do this?

799
00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:00.679
And he's seeing me had a couple
of fires and you know, we'd

800
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:05.079
had several fires together ready. He
puts his on round and says, I

801
00:50:05.159 --> 00:50:07.000
just want to let you know I'm
going to keep you. And I was

802
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:08.559
like, oh, thank god.
You know, I thought this guy's going

803
00:50:08.599 --> 00:50:12.199
to toss me. I really didn't. It was horrible. And then he

804
00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:15.079
gives me a hard right turn.
We go into what Robertos. There was

805
00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:19.159
this collision shop right behind nineteen and
fifty and that's where we'd go to fix

806
00:50:19.239 --> 00:50:22.679
other people's cars when things happened on
the streets. And we went in there

807
00:50:22.719 --> 00:50:25.719
and he I forget what he was
drinking, but man, he got a

808
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:30.599
dragon me after the firehouse, they
so I got kay with Tony album after

809
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:34.239
two months. He was a really
good captain. As a matter of fact,

810
00:50:34.280 --> 00:50:37.280
Mike bash Numb was three three three
four four four. His Basch number

811
00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:42.360
was three three three, but then
Miler go to in nineteen twice. Mike

812
00:50:42.440 --> 00:50:45.719
Milner was a nineteen truck along night. Yes he was. Mike Lan used

813
00:50:45.719 --> 00:50:49.320
to run circus knights inside the firehouse. We used to have Hawaiian inside the

814
00:50:49.400 --> 00:50:52.519
firehouse. We used to have a
lot of parts. One Hawaiian night,

815
00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:57.599
I was dressed in a grass skirt, naked skirt, and one of the

816
00:50:57.639 --> 00:50:59.800
senior men started to get frisky,
and I said, okay, trying to

817
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:07.599
put uniform back on his miller.
We had some times that man we did.

818
00:51:08.440 --> 00:51:12.679
That is moroniciic the giant Russian.
Well he was. He was tough

819
00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:15.199
man. He was a tough old
bird man, yelling at people all the

820
00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:17.679
time. I don't think he was
ever happy. Best in peace status right

821
00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:22.400
now, but I would say I
would pay one thousand dollars for that door

822
00:51:22.639 --> 00:51:27.559
right now, that front that right, yep. I forget who painted that.

823
00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:30.480
I forget who painted that. I
don't think it was Jim Maya Jack.

824
00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:35.400
Jim Maya Jack was a nineteen truck
also. Wow was he he was?

825
00:51:35.960 --> 00:51:39.920
He was at the UH when I
went to uh Proby School. Probably

826
00:51:39.920 --> 00:51:43.960
school, Okay, he was teaching
like uh, you know whatever. He

827
00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:49.159
was teaching their physical d or something
like. He was stretching. Jim Maya

828
00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:52.960
Jack when he got detailed to the
proby to uh the fire Academy. On

829
00:51:52.079 --> 00:51:55.119
pay days we still had payper checks, he would run to the Fire Academy

830
00:51:55.199 --> 00:51:59.039
up to one hundred and sixty seventh
in Washington Avenue, get his check and

831
00:51:59.159 --> 00:52:02.760
run back munch what he did.
Matter of fact, my first moove that

832
00:52:02.840 --> 00:52:07.440
I cut, Jim Maya Jack was
on the inside team and I was up

833
00:52:07.480 --> 00:52:09.320
there on the roof and I had
this guy had me by the tail of

834
00:52:09.440 --> 00:52:12.719
my coach, just holding on to
the tail of my coat, and I'm

835
00:52:12.920 --> 00:52:15.119
cutting the moof and if ires rolling
over my head and I'm cutting a roof

836
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:17.960
and I'm thinking to myself, I
don't even know this guy. You know,

837
00:52:19.079 --> 00:52:22.119
this guy's coming in by bysld me
by my coattail. I don't even

838
00:52:22.159 --> 00:52:23.480
know this guy. I got combat
boots and blue jeans on, you know,

839
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:27.280
and came off and he says,
so what, Tony, what do

840
00:52:27.320 --> 00:52:29.000
you think my Jack says, Tony, what do you think? I said?

841
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:30.039
That was a great workout. He
says, that's not a workout.

842
00:52:30.079 --> 00:52:35.360
He says, that's why you work
out? That was his mentality always he

843
00:52:35.519 --> 00:52:39.400
was. I still remember stuff that
he said in Proby school, like when

844
00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:43.239
I worked, when I trained.
I still remember things that he did and

845
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:45.599
how he stretched, and you know
what he talked about from all the way

846
00:52:45.639 --> 00:52:49.719
back then. You know, pretty
a whole bunch of sayings that they had

847
00:52:50.159 --> 00:52:53.000
all over the walls too, right, even then a little bit didn't have

848
00:52:53.039 --> 00:52:57.679
a whole bunch of plastic things that
he said the wall, everybody's just a

849
00:52:57.719 --> 00:53:00.360
brick in the wall, And they
had all the different bricks with everybody's names

850
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:06.840
on it and saying drawings and paintings
over the corner man was the gals in

851
00:53:06.960 --> 00:53:09.159
the in a one block and said
if they had permits in the south box

852
00:53:09.199 --> 00:53:15.400
that they would have burned it down. You ran with forty four up there,

853
00:53:15.480 --> 00:53:19.199
forty four truck and whoever, Yeah, well forty twenty and I ran

854
00:53:19.280 --> 00:53:22.760
with forty four truck when I was
forty twents and I ran from the north

855
00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.280
down and nineteen truck from the south
park. We were just south east of

856
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:31.960
forty four. Somebody was telling me
that the war years for up around forty

857
00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:36.239
four was actually a little later than
the mid to late seventies was more like

858
00:53:36.599 --> 00:53:40.239
late seventies, early eighties, mid
eighties for that that part, because it's

859
00:53:40.239 --> 00:53:44.559
the cancer was slowly moving up through
the bronx. That's why look at look

860
00:53:44.599 --> 00:53:46.320
at what's busy now? All the
way up the Yeah, thirty seven truck

861
00:53:46.400 --> 00:53:52.159
and thirty ninth, thirty ninth truck, could you imagine. Yeah, we

862
00:53:52.239 --> 00:53:53.519
used to interchange up there. We
still had interchange. When I got a

863
00:53:53.639 --> 00:53:57.199
job, you did more than twenty
one before midnight, they would send you

864
00:53:57.320 --> 00:53:59.599
up to a slow house, and
slow house come to your house, and

865
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:05.480
so we would interchange up there in
the old ninth division up thirty nine truck.

866
00:54:05.719 --> 00:54:07.679
Matter of fact, the thing we
used to do is we used to

867
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:09.400
take mugs home because these things are
expendable. You know, you always losing

868
00:54:09.480 --> 00:54:13.239
mugs and breaking things. So every
place I worked that would take a mug.

869
00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:16.000
So we had this captain after Tony
Alba. He had this guy I

870
00:54:16.039 --> 00:54:21.199
won't even mention his name, but
he was he was a deadbeat. And

871
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:23.960
so i'm I'm leaving thirty nine truck
and I got my coup and I says,

872
00:54:24.119 --> 00:54:27.079
see you guys, and like,
hey, that's all mug, And

873
00:54:27.119 --> 00:54:30.679
I said thank you well, they
call the captain. The captain wants me

874
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:31.760
to can't send the mug back to
them. I said, okay, I

875
00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:34.800
says, I'll be right back.
I went and I got a hammer.

876
00:54:34.920 --> 00:54:36.559
I said, give me a min
a line. Bullok, I'll send him

877
00:54:36.559 --> 00:54:37.559
back to the club. So he
took the mug and he holds onto me.

878
00:54:37.599 --> 00:54:39.199
He says, no, you can't
send it back like that. I

879
00:54:39.239 --> 00:54:42.880
says they wanted back to They say
how they wanted it back, and he

880
00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:46.280
actually drove it back up to this
guy. No shit, this guy,

881
00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:50.280
They said once to me. When
I came in, they said they were

882
00:54:50.440 --> 00:54:54.000
calling. I forget where the fire
was, but they said this guy stopped,

883
00:54:54.039 --> 00:54:57.199
took his mask or putting on.
The guy says, be careful up

884
00:54:57.239 --> 00:55:00.599
there, guys. I'm having mask
problems now. We been on the job.

885
00:55:00.039 --> 00:55:04.400
I've been using Scott for my whole
life in the fire department. I've

886
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:06.719
never had a mass problem. I
couldn't fix on a spot because it was

887
00:55:06.719 --> 00:55:09.719
always my fault. I didn't prot
press a couple in perige valves open the

888
00:55:10.039 --> 00:55:15.000
excellator valve is not set set.
You know things like that. How did

889
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:16.639
you get a spot up there?
And you don't what no poti fire.

890
00:55:16.840 --> 00:55:20.320
Yeah, he knew people. That's
what happened with him. Well, why

891
00:55:20.320 --> 00:55:22.320
would you want to go there?
Then, if that's what he's not all

892
00:55:22.360 --> 00:55:24.239
about, you couldn't figure it out. But that guy Steve Lon again,

893
00:55:24.280 --> 00:55:28.079
I was talking to you about Steve
Lannigan said. It was really beat because

894
00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:30.679
we all had the same permission,
being that the same purpose. We all

895
00:55:30.719 --> 00:55:36.159
disliked the same guy purpose. So
one day for dinner that everybody's trying to

896
00:55:36.159 --> 00:55:38.079
work something somehow get rid of this
guy. So one day for lunch,

897
00:55:38.119 --> 00:55:43.280
it was I made steak, eggs
and potatoes. Right, Yes, steak,

898
00:55:43.280 --> 00:55:45.440
eggs and potatoes. So you know
those diet dishes, those long dining

899
00:55:45.519 --> 00:55:50.119
dishes like that, right. I
put a steak on his plate that hangs

900
00:55:50.119 --> 00:55:52.719
over the side. I put a
mount of potatoes over the top, and

901
00:55:52.800 --> 00:55:54.039
I fry four or five eggs and
put it over the top of that,

902
00:55:54.079 --> 00:55:57.000
and I says, this is for
you, cap'n. I put it in

903
00:55:57.039 --> 00:56:00.000
front of him. That guy's looking
at me like he when he finally finishes

904
00:56:00.079 --> 00:56:02.639
up, I mean he ate did
everything but lick the plate. This guy

905
00:56:04.719 --> 00:56:07.000
when he walks out, they're like, hell, you're going to kissing the

906
00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:08.239
captain's ass. I says, you
guys are trying to get rid of him.

907
00:56:08.239 --> 00:56:09.599
I says, the best I can
do is try and give Hi a

908
00:56:09.599 --> 00:56:21.639
heart attack. He left, and
McNally showed up, the chief of operations.

909
00:56:22.039 --> 00:56:25.559
Yeah, matter of fact, he
we have an elevator once, and

910
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:29.360
we did a lot of elevators.
That's why I learned the trade. We

911
00:56:29.440 --> 00:56:31.159
did a lot of elevators. Matter
of fact, they wouldn't even turn us

912
00:56:31.159 --> 00:56:34.760
out called nineteen truck for an elevator
to say, oh, just get out.

913
00:56:35.840 --> 00:56:37.679
So we're standing there waiting for an
elevator to go up to get this

914
00:56:37.719 --> 00:56:40.440
suck elevator. And he's this guy. Those other people in the hall.

915
00:56:40.559 --> 00:56:43.639
It's a project building. He goes
to get in. I grabbed by the

916
00:56:43.639 --> 00:56:45.800
collar. I pull him back,
and I says, we need the elevator.

917
00:56:45.079 --> 00:56:47.519
Well I was here first, and
I argue with the guy and pokeing

918
00:56:47.559 --> 00:56:51.719
with my hook the door closers.
McNally's just standing. He turns right,

919
00:56:51.719 --> 00:56:54.400
he looks standing, He turns right. You need to work on your public

920
00:56:54.440 --> 00:57:00.119
relations a little bit on man.
Then he was a trying and we had

921
00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:01.039
the plan in the firehouse. Says, you remember that this, I said,

922
00:57:01.039 --> 00:57:04.280
I do. He says you were
right. He says your public relations

923
00:57:04.440 --> 00:57:08.800
was just fine. Was a great
captain. McNally came Bill Seily. Bill

924
00:57:08.840 --> 00:57:19.920
Sily was another great captain. Lieutenants
Comiski and long Worth and Jimmy Jimmy oh,

925
00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:23.920
I can't remember his name now.
Jimmy Kavanaugh would take us and come

926
00:57:23.960 --> 00:57:27.159
out of a building and he stayed
sitting in front of the building and say,

927
00:57:27.159 --> 00:57:30.639
okay, stand right here, how
many floors, where's the fire escapes?

928
00:57:30.719 --> 00:57:32.679
How many windows here? He just
quish it. So now when you're

929
00:57:32.719 --> 00:57:36.079
walking in for your size up,
you're taking all this in and you want

930
00:57:36.119 --> 00:57:37.480
to make sure you know because when
he come out, Jimmy's gonna question you.

931
00:57:37.719 --> 00:57:40.039
And it really helps with your size
up because he would make sure that

932
00:57:40.079 --> 00:57:43.960
you would do all the points of
your size are badger going into the building.

933
00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:46.400
It was good that way. They
were all great guys. I learned

934
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:52.119
from the best. I really did. I think Truck was there one of

935
00:57:52.159 --> 00:57:57.119
my first details that I took from
when I was in one seventeen. I

936
00:57:57.199 --> 00:58:00.000
went up to nineteen Truck uh huh, And I remember knocking on the door

937
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:06.119
and knocking on the door and knocking
on the door, and finally the chief

938
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:07.800
came to the door. He's like, hey, how you doing. I'm

939
00:58:07.800 --> 00:58:09.880
like, hey, you doing?
Chief over the detail, He's like,

940
00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:16.280
yeah, everybody's downstairs. I said, all right, I'm gonna stand here.

941
00:58:16.400 --> 00:58:20.320
And is that where you were looking
to go? Nineteen truck? I

942
00:58:20.360 --> 00:58:22.440
always messed that up. Thirty three
truck. Oh, thirty three truck.

943
00:58:23.559 --> 00:58:27.360
Yeah. Yeah, And it's funny
should say that. Joe. You had

944
00:58:27.440 --> 00:58:31.079
Joe Debernardo Chief Joe de Bnada on
the show. He told the story.

945
00:58:32.000 --> 00:58:36.519
He loves the story. He still
tells it when we get together. He

946
00:58:36.639 --> 00:58:38.639
comes up back from work. It's
early morning hours, three four o'clock in

947
00:58:38.639 --> 00:58:43.119
the morning, and you know,
she pulls up to the door. I'm

948
00:58:43.159 --> 00:58:45.960
out like a light in the on
the watch, right, So he comes

949
00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:47.599
in. He opens the door,
slams the door shut, He walks over,

950
00:58:47.719 --> 00:58:51.239
opens the garage door, walks over, and he's looking at me while

951
00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:52.639
the door's going up. He's watching
me, right. He backs in.

952
00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:55.400
He starts slamming the car doors and
everything. I'm dumb, snowing. I'm

953
00:58:55.440 --> 00:58:58.679
out like a light. He waits
and notes me and says, if you

954
00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:07.880
were the enemy, you'd be dead
and stuck it underneath my couple. Maybe

955
00:59:07.079 --> 00:59:10.880
I was a great chief too,
really good man, good man. Yeah.

956
00:59:12.639 --> 00:59:16.559
The captain at the time it was
ceiling was he was, wasn't he?

957
00:59:17.239 --> 00:59:20.519
Yeah? He was a cheaper soccer. He was in the four nine

958
00:59:20.559 --> 00:59:22.280
as well. M h oh that's
right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

959
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:28.039
another good officer. So you spend
nine years in nineteen huh, that's a

960
00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:30.639
long time. I don't know that. That's a long time, man.

961
00:59:31.119 --> 00:59:36.960
Yeah, that's what I spent the
both of my career nineteen twelve. Tommy

962
00:59:37.039 --> 00:59:39.840
Corre, Rob Lennon, the one
on the right, is now the battalion

963
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:44.079
command at two six in that quarters, and Tom Corre, I believe he's

964
00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:49.840
the chief in charge of training right
now. Wow mm hmm, that's crazy,

965
00:59:49.960 --> 00:59:52.079
right when you look at the young
guys and now all of a sudden,

966
00:59:52.519 --> 00:59:54.599
yeah in that kitchen, man,
oh, this is great. You

967
00:59:54.679 --> 00:59:58.760
got you got three characters here,
okay. On the left of Steve Corbone

968
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:01.639
was a union guy, Joe Rio, a legend, and on the writer

969
01:00:01.719 --> 01:00:06.119
is George Gabriel, another lunatic.
So now this guy in the middle,

970
01:00:06.199 --> 01:00:09.000
George Joe Rio, Joe Rio.
There's stories about Joe Rio once on a

971
01:00:09.119 --> 01:00:13.679
three story frame that was collapsing and
he had the roof. He rolled the

972
01:00:13.760 --> 01:00:16.639
roof down like a surfboard and just
did like two tumble sawts and stood up

973
01:00:16.760 --> 01:00:23.039
and he Now, Teddy Deshman tells
the story. But he was in a

974
01:00:24.079 --> 01:00:28.199
in a building and he's going down
hall with a line and things start to

975
01:00:28.239 --> 01:00:30.239
go. Band and guys that bail
out out and Teddy can't bail out,

976
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:32.519
and he yells, I can't get
out. I can't get out, and

977
01:00:32.599 --> 01:00:37.679
Joe Rio yells down hold onto the
bail and Joe leal hand by like this,

978
01:00:37.079 --> 01:00:43.119
Paul drags Teddy ship Eddy told me
the story, drags Teddy Bushman down

979
01:00:43.159 --> 01:00:46.079
the hallway and pulls them out of
the building. That's just too many many

980
01:00:46.159 --> 01:00:50.119
stories. Joe Riol's face looked like
he was a goalie for a knife throwing

981
01:00:50.159 --> 01:00:55.599
team. Picture back up. I
gotta look at that guy again. You

982
01:00:55.679 --> 01:00:58.960
can't see it from here now he's
no. I'm just saying, how well

983
01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:00.800
do you think he was there?
I mean, isn't all the guy?

984
01:01:00.920 --> 01:01:02.440
Yeah? Oh yeah, I think
he him and Joe Selly, the other

985
01:01:02.519 --> 01:01:05.960
guy, senior guy that I think
they got on a job in eighteen ninety

986
01:01:06.039 --> 01:01:10.000
five. They were all times,
matter of fact, Joe Rio when I

987
01:01:10.079 --> 01:01:13.079
first got there. Now, I
used to cook all the time in forty

988
01:01:13.119 --> 01:01:15.960
two engines, And now I get
to nineteen truck and I'm on right in

989
01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:17.559
the middle between Joe Selling and Joe
Rio, and they cook all the time.

990
01:01:19.159 --> 01:01:22.199
And I come into the kitchen and
everybody's for some reason. I never

991
01:01:22.239 --> 01:01:23.519
really was in the TV room.
I didn't like the TV room, just

992
01:01:23.760 --> 01:01:27.480
not for me. I'm not a
TV guy. I come walking through the

993
01:01:27.599 --> 01:01:30.639
kitchen and I opened it up in
his rice in there. So I take

994
01:01:30.679 --> 01:01:32.360
the spoon. I stirred the rice
right. I put it down in this

995
01:01:32.639 --> 01:01:36.119
long table in nineteen truck and there's
a round table off to the side.

996
01:01:36.280 --> 01:01:37.320
I go to the round table.
I pick up the newspaper, reading it.

997
01:01:37.559 --> 01:01:40.880
Joe Wheeler was walking in, picks
it up and turns around, excres

998
01:01:40.960 --> 01:01:47.639
me, Oh, start the fucking
rock. I spoke the rice though,

999
01:01:49.119 --> 01:01:52.519
you to do it. I just
banged this old lady man called me up

1000
01:01:52.599 --> 01:01:54.920
like you couldn't believe me up down
that flight, I said, Joe,

1001
01:01:55.000 --> 01:02:04.000
I just stirred the right, you
know, start the right. Joe's timing

1002
01:02:04.079 --> 01:02:07.480
now right, and now everybody knew
this recipe was rice and real. He

1003
01:02:07.559 --> 01:02:13.920
added uh dollars and check peas and
onion, and he made a special way.

1004
01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:15.599
His rice was awesome. It was
really, really, really good.

1005
01:02:16.119 --> 01:02:19.559
So he's retiring, and I walk
up to him and says, hey,

1006
01:02:19.639 --> 01:02:22.039
Joe, now you know I probably
have I don't know, ten years,

1007
01:02:22.199 --> 01:02:25.480
eleven years on the job, Joe, I says, don't let the rice

1008
01:02:25.519 --> 01:02:28.760
of real recipe die with you.
I says, will you give me it

1009
01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:31.280
with actually real recipe? He gives
me stink and writes the whole recipe right,

1010
01:02:31.519 --> 01:02:34.559
and he keeps took this much of
the page, and on the bottom

1011
01:02:34.559 --> 01:02:36.840
of the page, this much the
other half of the page. Do not

1012
01:02:37.119 --> 01:02:45.880
stir the rice. That's man,
that's like a typical thing too, with

1013
01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.039
some old time, right, they
have their way and that's it. Then,

1014
01:02:49.119 --> 01:02:51.079
you know, all you're trying to
do is help out. But he

1015
01:02:51.320 --> 01:02:53.880
fucking lost his marbles. It's like
he's count some shekels on that table too.

1016
01:02:53.920 --> 01:02:59.199
What is he doing? Figure out? The meal? Always an issue

1017
01:02:59.239 --> 01:03:01.039
for some reason, him was always
an issue. It was always a quarter

1018
01:03:01.159 --> 01:03:04.679
short and a half a dollar short
the time that meant something, a quarter

1019
01:03:04.679 --> 01:03:07.519
and a half a dollar and the
other old time with Joe Selly. I

1020
01:03:07.519 --> 01:03:08.960
don't have any pictures of him,
but I mean, I don't think I

1021
01:03:09.000 --> 01:03:12.280
gave you any pictures. He used
to sit in the corner. He had

1022
01:03:12.320 --> 01:03:14.599
a calmb over from here. We're
all the way over right, and when

1023
01:03:14.599 --> 01:03:15.880
the wind would blow his haird wull
do this right, float up in the

1024
01:03:15.920 --> 01:03:19.360
air, and he would sit in
the corner. The high voice, he

1025
01:03:19.480 --> 01:03:22.559
talked like this, right. He's
sitting there with his little diner court a

1026
01:03:22.599 --> 01:03:24.559
cup and he'd be drinking. And
now Jimia Jack was coming back to the

1027
01:03:24.599 --> 01:03:28.400
firehouse and they're all talking about Jim's
gonna make us eat healthy. We're not

1028
01:03:28.440 --> 01:03:30.360
gonna be able to Hamburgs and steaks
and everything. And Joe Selly's sitting in

1029
01:03:30.400 --> 01:03:32.880
the corner. Classic Joe Selly.
He tells when I says, hey,

1030
01:03:34.400 --> 01:03:37.079
if you wanted about your health in
a world job, go become an accountant.

1031
01:03:42.679 --> 01:03:45.480
If you'ready about your healthy in the
wrong job, he's not lying,

1032
01:03:45.599 --> 01:03:50.719
but hey, lying, that's for
sure. Oh my god, that's so

1033
01:03:50.840 --> 01:03:52.679
freaking funny. My face is killing
me right now. Do we have any

1034
01:03:52.719 --> 01:03:58.039
more pictures from nineteen I have?
Are we moved on. Well, I

1035
01:03:58.119 --> 01:04:00.360
have one of my change the subject
a little bit. We have that one.

1036
01:04:00.800 --> 01:04:04.599
Wow, my boy Tristan, he
he he just loved the fight upon

1037
01:04:04.679 --> 01:04:08.519
them from a young age. And
there's pictures of him in uniform to turn

1038
01:04:08.599 --> 01:04:11.119
out gear and he I used to
take. I started taking to work with

1039
01:04:11.239 --> 01:04:14.840
when he was like maybe six or
seven years old. And the stuff that

1040
01:04:14.960 --> 01:04:17.280
happened. One time, Dwayne Marcy
had his kids, Bright and Evan gonna

1041
01:04:17.280 --> 01:04:19.719
say, you go there. He
is probably about seven six. No,

1042
01:04:19.840 --> 01:04:23.000
he's a young man, but he's
not old enough to go to work yet.

1043
01:04:23.559 --> 01:04:27.719
So Dwayne Marcy bought his boys there
you go there he is. He

1044
01:04:27.840 --> 01:04:31.239
loved my fire year. So uh
oh, now he's now he's bigger than

1045
01:04:31.280 --> 01:04:35.239
me. He's fourteen years old and
he's got my gear on. So Dwayne

1046
01:04:35.280 --> 01:04:39.920
Mastery brings his two sons, Evan
and Brandan Evan to work and so the

1047
01:04:39.960 --> 01:04:42.639
three and them are palet around.
We get this job with a sixth story.

1048
01:04:42.840 --> 01:04:45.880
H that's a great picture. That's
actually not my son. But I

1049
01:04:45.920 --> 01:04:47.760
had to put that picture because it
reminded me of time I made that picture.

1050
01:04:47.760 --> 01:04:51.800
I'm posting that up tomorrow. This
guy, Yes, I i'd have

1051
01:04:51.920 --> 01:04:54.840
to fire that down. I'd take
him into the buildings, you know,

1052
01:04:55.559 --> 01:05:00.000
all over the place. So forty
four truck pulls up first, nineteen truck

1053
01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:02.920
pulls up second. We're back like
this, back to back, front to

1054
01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:05.960
back, and they're sitting on a
bumper of nineteen truck. Nineteen tows the

1055
01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:10.679
area up to the sixth floor window
and it's short by about four feet,

1056
01:05:11.119 --> 01:05:14.280
and this guy is on the end
of the aerial and he's like jumply he

1057
01:05:14.360 --> 01:05:15.679
jump. She's like, you jump, I'm not jumping. Then she's back

1058
01:05:15.719 --> 01:05:18.519
back in the building. Well she
ends up jumping anyway, not even by

1059
01:05:18.559 --> 01:05:23.880
the aerial ladder, and she splatters
between forty four truck and nineteen truck and

1060
01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:26.880
he kilts and he looks over and
he goes, get those fucking kids out

1061
01:05:26.920 --> 01:05:29.400
of here. You know. These
are some of the things that they saw

1062
01:05:29.559 --> 01:05:31.760
up there, which they were probably
too young to see. But he wanted

1063
01:05:31.800 --> 01:05:34.559
to come to the firehouse, and
other guys bought their kids at the fire

1064
01:05:34.559 --> 01:05:39.400
house all the time. He was. When I was in I was in

1065
01:05:39.719 --> 01:05:42.480
two to eighty three engine. I
come out of the building. Now he's

1066
01:05:42.480 --> 01:05:46.000
probably about nine ten years old,
and I come we respond to a fire

1067
01:05:46.079 --> 01:05:50.960
on Eastern Parkway and it's two o'clock
in the afternoon and this whole section of

1068
01:05:51.079 --> 01:05:55.519
stores, which is probably about forty
five fifty five feet long, just rolling

1069
01:05:55.559 --> 01:05:58.239
out the windows. It was a
calling store. I had to pull my

1070
01:05:58.400 --> 01:06:00.760
cow up like power up like this
to get underneath the fight against the rowing.

1071
01:06:02.079 --> 01:06:08.039
I go when we fight the firefighters
out to come outside this. Sorry,

1072
01:06:10.159 --> 01:06:13.000
it's Tristan outside. He's got gloves
on to come up to here on

1073
01:06:13.119 --> 01:06:15.320
him and he's filthy. I'm like, what did you do? Oh dad?

1074
01:06:15.400 --> 01:06:16.320
I was helping us for stresch line. That was just the line.

1075
01:06:16.360 --> 01:06:20.480
I'm like, just come on.
And John Flynn he's calling buckethead. You

1076
01:06:20.519 --> 01:06:26.000
know if he's lean fold he started
going like that. He had all so

1077
01:06:27.320 --> 01:06:30.559
he says, no cat really,
lieutenant really, he he was doing this.

1078
01:06:30.679 --> 01:06:32.440
He he straight the line and he
wrote over said this is two thirty

1079
01:06:32.480 --> 01:06:35.079
four. He break the line.
He wrote on this is uh three twenty

1080
01:06:35.119 --> 01:06:38.920
three, and he breaked this.
He was running around helping them stretch lines,

1081
01:06:39.079 --> 01:06:42.559
take chasing kings. He just loved
it. Charlie Willis walked in for

1082
01:06:42.639 --> 01:06:45.440
my relief once and he says,
are you using this computer, and it

1083
01:06:45.519 --> 01:06:48.400
was a computer off to the side. It was the thing for making command

1084
01:06:48.480 --> 01:06:50.800
decisions things like that. I said, that wasn't reason. And he says,

1085
01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:54.199
well, who's running the second one
fire? He says, that would

1086
01:06:54.199 --> 01:06:56.920
be my kid. He says that
your kids running a second long fire?

1087
01:06:57.480 --> 01:07:01.800
You know? He just good?
What is that? Guy? Tell a

1088
01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:06.840
captain his son is doing a term
job in Baltimore. He's doing a term

1089
01:07:06.960 --> 01:07:11.360
job in Baltimore. Yeah, I
don't know what that means. I don't

1090
01:07:11.400 --> 01:07:14.239
know. Maybe he's doing a terminal
job. I have no idea what that

1091
01:07:14.360 --> 01:07:18.360
means. He's working at the Academy
therese with the recent line of duty debts

1092
01:07:18.400 --> 01:07:21.880
and the previous line duty debts that
will be two years next January. They

1093
01:07:24.119 --> 01:07:28.559
they developed a firefighter survival program over
there. They have ballet systems that they

1094
01:07:28.559 --> 01:07:31.519
didn't have many many years. Matter
of fact, he was invited by Mickey

1095
01:07:31.599 --> 01:07:35.920
Tomboy and dal Crouch to come up
to New York with a team of his

1096
01:07:36.119 --> 01:07:39.880
to go through the firefighter survival program
that we developed in the UH, that

1097
01:07:40.039 --> 01:07:43.079
was developed in the Special Operations Command
and UH. They went up there and

1098
01:07:43.079 --> 01:07:47.199
they went through the grueling gruling.
Of course, that it is, and

1099
01:07:47.280 --> 01:07:50.519
they went back to Baltimore and developed
their own course relating it to the line

1100
01:07:50.519 --> 01:07:54.320
of duty debts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like we had the school

1101
01:07:54.360 --> 01:08:00.559
fani right, we had the schoolfany
fire we did? We had uh the

1102
01:08:01.119 --> 01:08:04.400
who was the guy? I can't
remember the names anymore? Was it foul

1103
01:08:04.440 --> 01:08:09.400
afire? The foul afire and the
one in the Bronx where with the proby

1104
01:08:11.719 --> 01:08:16.279
not brick, not brick the more
went they fell through the Yeah, with

1105
01:08:16.399 --> 01:08:19.720
the with the ninety nine cent store, I remember that. Riley and co

1106
01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:25.159
Pluck car Pluck. Yes, we
used to practice that fire to with the

1107
01:08:25.279 --> 01:08:28.600
with the firefighter removal. You know
again that's all our or a lot of

1108
01:08:28.680 --> 01:08:32.119
jobs that we you know, you
know, you know, redid to practice

1109
01:08:32.159 --> 01:08:34.840
it, you know what I mean? Whatever. Yeah, we responded to

1110
01:08:34.880 --> 01:08:39.720
that one from Brooklyn and we were
going up to the Grand Central Park.

1111
01:08:39.760 --> 01:08:42.920
Whe Wayne Pie was driving. He
was driving so much. I'm sitting in

1112
01:08:43.119 --> 01:08:45.159
I'm sitting in the rig. Now. I trust my showf is complete.

1113
01:08:45.199 --> 01:08:48.239
I never say nothing but trust Wayne. Was he looking that way or are

1114
01:08:48.239 --> 01:08:55.279
you looking this way? Which way? Is he looking? Field Division?

1115
01:08:55.439 --> 01:09:00.640
Yeah? He had one hundred and
eighty degrees right, so he's I find

1116
01:09:00.680 --> 01:09:02.920
myself going and I told him,
I said, let me know, we'll

1117
01:09:02.920 --> 01:09:05.319
get to the box. He's like
in the seat and I start looking out

1118
01:09:05.319 --> 01:09:06.960
at the bay. He said,
what are you doing. I says,

1119
01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:09.640
like, this can't look no more, so tell me we'll get to the

1120
01:09:09.680 --> 01:09:12.319
box. I'll get you to the
ninety nine cents store. We get there.

1121
01:09:12.680 --> 01:09:15.520
We uh. They designated us to
start setting up aircarts. We set

1122
01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:17.079
up aircosts. We start passing down
the air and everything and here comes how

1123
01:09:17.119 --> 01:09:20.119
we out And I look at him
like how I know how he since he's

1124
01:09:20.119 --> 01:09:23.319
sixteen years old. He was in
East Station fire and then I was a

1125
01:09:23.399 --> 01:09:26.800
BRENTWS the racing team together all the
time. I was stunned to see that

1126
01:09:27.039 --> 01:09:29.159
Stunn. Those guys did a hell
of a job. Let me tell you

1127
01:09:29.239 --> 01:09:31.359
they took a beat, a real
beat. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

1128
01:09:32.399 --> 01:09:35.079
I work with Wayne. He was
in the engine. He was at two

1129
01:09:35.119 --> 01:09:38.840
sixty three when I was at one
seventeen. That's right. He got appointed

1130
01:09:38.880 --> 01:09:42.039
to tuesdaixty three. I took Wayne
and to ride with me when when I

1131
01:09:42.119 --> 01:09:45.000
was in forty two engine and that
was it. And he says, I

1132
01:09:45.079 --> 01:09:46.079
got to get a job like this, I got to get this job.

1133
01:09:46.600 --> 01:09:49.119
Yeah, he was, he was
good. I had good times with him.

1134
01:09:49.479 --> 01:09:53.159
Oh, Wayne's a fun guy.
Man, got a trustworthy person.

1135
01:09:53.479 --> 01:09:55.680
So why'd you want to go and
ruin it? After you're in nineteen you

1136
01:09:55.760 --> 01:09:59.079
go and study? Yeah, yeah, promoted. Why do you study?

1137
01:09:59.239 --> 01:10:05.880
This is why you stuff? Right, that's why because I from nineteen and

1138
01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:09.199
I ended up. Oh let me
back up with nineteen. One more thing.

1139
01:10:10.479 --> 01:10:14.399
We did a lot of good work
there and one night Mike Buckey and

1140
01:10:14.520 --> 01:10:16.640
I had the outside team, and
he still talks about it to this day.

1141
01:10:16.760 --> 01:10:20.359
People went into me and so I
ran into a Fenian. So it's

1142
01:10:20.399 --> 01:10:24.239
something about you guys cut three roofs
in one night. Oh that's Mike Buck

1143
01:10:24.279 --> 01:10:27.319
I know because we, uh,
that's what we did. We had a

1144
01:10:27.600 --> 01:10:30.560
few jobs. We cut three roofs
in one night. Mike was very impressed

1145
01:10:30.560 --> 01:10:32.239
with that, and I think he
had to actually cut down a pitfall that

1146
01:10:32.359 --> 01:10:35.319
night that was burned and then he
just took his holleging and went and put

1147
01:10:35.359 --> 01:10:41.039
down a pitfull. So anyway,
so I ended up in one night huh

1148
01:10:41.399 --> 01:10:44.359
all on one night? Yeah,
Yeah, that was that was a good

1149
01:10:44.399 --> 01:10:47.560
one. So I ended up in
Manhattan as a lieutenant. Right, first,

1150
01:10:47.600 --> 01:10:50.840
I go to first line supervisor training
program and Steve Loadigan, as I

1151
01:10:50.840 --> 01:10:54.279
said, a couple of motor together
with me and I go to the first

1152
01:10:54.319 --> 01:10:57.199
line supervisor's training program. And I
was a runner back in those days,

1153
01:10:57.600 --> 01:10:59.800
and Steve and I were running for
lunch and I look at them one day

1154
01:10:59.800 --> 01:11:02.119
and say, we're not going back. This is going back where. We're

1155
01:11:02.159 --> 01:11:04.399
not going back to nineteen truck.
He says, I know, I said.

1156
01:11:04.399 --> 01:11:06.199
I think I'm just getting this room
my head, and now we're not

1157
01:11:06.279 --> 01:11:13.399
going back. You know you're out. You're out now. Yeah, I

1158
01:11:13.439 --> 01:11:15.479
don't think you really understand that.
Yeah, there's my son and my wife

1159
01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:18.239
at the promotion. Sorry, I
was. I was trying to pull up

1160
01:11:18.279 --> 01:11:21.520
the gentleman. I don't even look
like you Holy macle we go hold on,

1161
01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:24.359
let me go back to it then, so you could take that in,

1162
01:11:24.840 --> 01:11:29.079
I'm old. Wow, Wow,
you were a young buck. Huh.

1163
01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:31.560
Let's see that would be in ninety
four, so it might be thirty

1164
01:11:31.600 --> 01:11:36.560
eight. Wow, fifty yeah,
thirty eight, and you look, you

1165
01:11:36.640 --> 01:11:43.199
look skinny, skinny from running.
Yeah, that's my family. Looks like

1166
01:11:43.279 --> 01:11:47.479
he's part of the married up club. He definitely married. She's a good

1167
01:11:47.520 --> 01:11:50.760
woman. She helped to save my
life. She really did. In many

1168
01:11:50.840 --> 01:11:55.479
ways. I was a little bit
of a lunatic once upon a time,

1169
01:11:55.920 --> 01:11:59.239
so she helped to make me.
She had an elegance about it and kept

1170
01:11:59.319 --> 01:12:04.720
me, kept me great. Have
you met Anna ruveless wife? Talk about

1171
01:12:04.760 --> 01:12:11.520
a lunatic? Somebody who saves a
lunatic? Holy Christmas? Yeah, woman,

1172
01:12:11.920 --> 01:12:15.439
Rosie's not doing to shereby either.
You're doing all right. It took

1173
01:12:15.479 --> 01:12:16.359
me three times, though, we
get it right, so it's a little

1174
01:12:16.359 --> 01:12:19.000
bit of a different stuff. Yeah, you didn't learn the first time,

1175
01:12:19.399 --> 01:12:26.319
n all the second time. No
negative. In Manhattan, that's gonna be

1176
01:12:26.359 --> 01:12:28.880
like a fish out of water.
I end up in the first Division,

1177
01:12:28.960 --> 01:12:30.439
right, I'm going in and I
reported. I go up to headquarters.

1178
01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:35.279
Dave Corkman is the division commander and
Terry Roach is the sixth Battalion commander.

1179
01:12:36.119 --> 01:12:39.520
So I come walking in. I
walk in. I snapped his attention.

1180
01:12:39.720 --> 01:12:43.720
I said, General Lieutenant for character
Reporting has ordered. Sir Corkman looked at

1181
01:12:43.720 --> 01:12:45.119
me and goes, where do you
come from? I said, I'm from

1182
01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:50.840
nineteen truck and he goes to another
fucking Bronx guy and Terry Rodan. Yeah,

1183
01:12:51.000 --> 01:12:57.399
so the sixth Battalion and I'm bouncing
around from from South Street to forty

1184
01:12:57.439 --> 01:13:00.039
second Street, short a shore.
I had a black I go to some

1185
01:13:00.239 --> 01:13:02.880
I go to your house, right, and you tell me all the cool

1186
01:13:02.920 --> 01:13:04.960
things in that neighborhood. And then
I go to your house and you say,

1187
01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:08.479
well, all the cool things.
And everybody showed me the best of

1188
01:13:08.520 --> 01:13:11.600
their neighborhoods. And it was it
was fun. It was just fun,

1189
01:13:11.680 --> 01:13:14.880
it really was. But in one
year, I had three jobs. So

1190
01:13:15.079 --> 01:13:17.960
Jimmy McMahon from twenty nine Truck also
gets promoted with me, and we go

1191
01:13:18.039 --> 01:13:20.880
through the post flips together and he
actually lives in Mount China, I,

1192
01:13:20.880 --> 01:13:26.439
so we're commuting back and forth.
We become fast friends, and he goes

1193
01:13:26.479 --> 01:13:29.239
to Brooklyn and he calls me up
every night. Yeah. I caught two

1194
01:13:29.319 --> 01:13:31.000
jobs for two twenty seven. You
know, I had a job with two

1195
01:13:31.119 --> 01:13:33.760
thirty six. And he's just telling
me job after job, and I'm sitting

1196
01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:36.720
there like, I don't even pick
up the radio. All I do is

1197
01:13:36.760 --> 01:13:41.399
give it ten eighty four and then
I'm done. So I did well.

1198
01:13:41.399 --> 01:13:45.039
I shouldn't say that I had a
second alarm on a forty story setback for

1199
01:13:45.039 --> 01:13:50.000
an air conditioning umit, and I
thought to myself, what the fuck at

1200
01:13:50.159 --> 01:13:53.600
fire? There was double doors open
and it was a sub cell. I

1201
01:13:53.640 --> 01:13:59.359
had to go down two stores.
A little bit of some smoke coming out

1202
01:13:59.399 --> 01:14:00.399
of here, right, So I'm
like, hold off on a whisper.

1203
01:14:00.760 --> 01:14:03.079
This is the Bronx mentality, you
know, hold up on the ten seventy

1204
01:14:03.119 --> 01:14:06.399
five. I go downstairs and I
find it's a battery room burning. But

1205
01:14:06.439 --> 01:14:09.279
the chief already go out on the
hand to talk. We gave him ten

1206
01:14:09.319 --> 01:14:11.840
seventy five. And when I come
out, he says, uh. He

1207
01:14:11.880 --> 01:14:13.640
says, where are you from.
I says, I'm from the Bronx.

1208
01:14:13.680 --> 01:14:15.920
He says, You're not in the
Bronx no more. When you see smoking,

1209
01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:17.239
give you ten seventy five because it
can take forever. Believe me,

1210
01:14:17.560 --> 01:14:20.439
you guys have been in Manhattan.
It's take forever for people to get this.

1211
01:14:20.640 --> 01:14:23.760
Just get him coming. If we
don't need we set them all got

1212
01:14:23.840 --> 01:14:26.439
it. So it was a job. We stretched the line and went inside.

1213
01:14:26.479 --> 01:14:29.199
I get back to the three truck
and I pull out twenty I told

1214
01:14:29.199 --> 01:14:30.720
on my table, I says,
my first job is you guys. I

1215
01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:33.520
guess ah, your square bank can
and uh. Chief looks at the same

1216
01:14:33.600 --> 01:14:36.039
chief looks at me. He goes, we don't do that here. Get

1217
01:14:36.079 --> 01:14:39.359
something runs out of the door as
soon as that door shuts. It's like

1218
01:14:39.720 --> 01:14:49.439
we do that here in Manhattan.
But now as you bounce around, you

1219
01:14:49.439 --> 01:14:51.399
figure out where you want to be. I picked three truck company. I

1220
01:14:51.479 --> 01:14:54.600
want to be in three truck,
eleven truck or nine trucks. Those are

1221
01:14:54.600 --> 01:14:58.880
my three choices. I talked to
the cat a three truck of eleven truck.

1222
01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:00.239
He didn't have any openers going the
Campman nine truck. I was in

1223
01:15:00.279 --> 01:15:02.000
there for five minutes and said,
I don't want work for this guy.

1224
01:15:02.479 --> 01:15:06.840
And so three truck was my target. And Murphy was the chief there and

1225
01:15:06.960 --> 01:15:12.039
he said you're in, You're in. So I gave the shirts again,

1226
01:15:12.079 --> 01:15:15.479
your hats and everything, and I'm
in. And a week before the order

1227
01:15:15.520 --> 01:15:16.560
comes down, he says, listen, sometimes things changed. I'm like,

1228
01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:18.079
no, no, I'm in.
You told me I'm in. I'm in

1229
01:15:21.279 --> 01:15:25.680
that. Ronnie Brown is the chief
of Vision of Training at the time,

1230
01:15:25.720 --> 01:15:29.439
and his son put in for it. So Tony's out, Ronnie's kid is

1231
01:15:29.479 --> 01:15:31.000
in, and I go up to
Dave Cork and I says, can I

1232
01:15:31.119 --> 01:15:33.479
can I put a paper and to
go to Brooklyn. He says, well,

1233
01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:35.600
who do you know? I tell
him who I know. He's like,

1234
01:15:35.680 --> 01:15:38.640
oh, yeah, I know fat
Jack. And he starts talking.

1235
01:15:38.720 --> 01:15:42.359
We're talking about this and that,
and he says, well, if you

1236
01:15:42.439 --> 01:15:44.119
really want to put a paper and
you can't, I says, well,

1237
01:15:44.159 --> 01:15:45.640
when can I do that? Chief
He says, whenever you're ready, there

1238
01:15:45.640 --> 01:15:49.000
you go. Chiefs made a phone
call two weeks later on at the four

1239
01:15:49.079 --> 01:15:54.359
four. Nice. Yeah. And
the two weeks later that happened, well,

1240
01:15:54.479 --> 01:15:57.239
that was when I was according to
engine. So you see the pile,

1241
01:15:58.000 --> 01:16:01.159
we're advancing on that top floor and
out of line. So Tom Fingey's

1242
01:16:01.199 --> 01:16:04.439
on the lieutenant and he tells Bobby
Metals go downstairs, get a length to

1243
01:16:04.479 --> 01:16:11.159
hose in another nozzle. So Bobby
takes off downstairs and maybe within thirty seconds

1244
01:16:11.199 --> 01:16:12.600
to a minute, he says,
you know what trick. He says,

1245
01:16:12.640 --> 01:16:14.840
go to the window and tell Metals
to bring two legs of hose up.

1246
01:16:15.119 --> 01:16:16.279
So I go to the window and
I'm looking out the window waiting for Bobby

1247
01:16:16.279 --> 01:16:19.680
to come out of the building,
and what was in the hair, I

1248
01:16:19.800 --> 01:16:23.079
screeching a metal and I look over
and I see this in falling. His

1249
01:16:23.199 --> 01:16:26.520
slow motion is going down. It's
like this boom, and it missed the

1250
01:16:26.560 --> 01:16:29.279
building by this much. The bucket
missed the building by that much. And

1251
01:16:29.800 --> 01:16:31.680
a couple of broken bones. But
everybody. John Crowley was in forty four

1252
01:16:31.720 --> 01:16:34.039
truck transfer to the nineteen truck.
He was in that bucket that night,

1253
01:16:34.920 --> 01:16:38.760
and it was it was mortified to
see that. I was like, holy

1254
01:16:38.880 --> 01:16:41.680
shit, I couldn't believe this guy
would falling over. It's not supposed to

1255
01:16:41.720 --> 01:16:45.159
happen. Those guys ended up being
all right, though, correct. Yeah,

1256
01:16:45.159 --> 01:16:47.000
I think it was a broken arm, a broken leg, and one

1257
01:16:47.039 --> 01:16:49.199
guy wasn't injured at all. Don't
hold me too, but IM pretty sure

1258
01:16:49.199 --> 01:16:54.479
that's the way it went. I
don't remember it ever being Uh so you

1259
01:16:54.520 --> 01:16:58.079
get to the four four, So
how long did that take to go to

1260
01:16:58.079 --> 01:17:00.279
the fire. Not too long,
I would imagine from I'm signed to the

1261
01:17:00.279 --> 01:17:05.680
four four tomic. Gavin's my gallvan
is my evaluator. So I go to

1262
01:17:05.960 --> 01:17:09.920
the division headquarters and I meet the
guys down, their officer some and everything,

1263
01:17:09.960 --> 01:17:12.199
and I tell them my plan,
you know, like the old sayings

1264
01:17:12.239 --> 01:17:14.600
you want to make God laugh,
tell me plan. Well, these guys

1265
01:17:14.680 --> 01:17:16.119
laughter. I told my plan in
the first place of seventy is three twenty

1266
01:17:16.159 --> 01:17:19.840
three, right, So I say, I say, okay, this is

1267
01:17:19.920 --> 01:17:23.199
just a test. That's all it
is. Go to three twenty three.

1268
01:17:23.239 --> 01:17:26.239
It's all right. It's a good
spot, a nice little spot. Yeah,

1269
01:17:26.279 --> 01:17:28.640
but it was. It was very, very very slow back then.

1270
01:17:28.720 --> 01:17:31.600
Yeah. Yeah, I went from
slowman had to slow football. But I

1271
01:17:31.680 --> 01:17:34.159
knew it was just a test.
So I finished up my vacation there and

1272
01:17:34.199 --> 01:17:40.920
they gave me a night tour in
two fifty five. Jump up to two

1273
01:17:40.960 --> 01:17:44.079
fifty five, first run and get
a job in one of those pds over

1274
01:17:44.279 --> 01:17:46.560
like Avenue h or something like that, next to your old house. I

1275
01:17:46.680 --> 01:17:54.119
mean next to your old house.
So I go in the front door,

1276
01:17:54.159 --> 01:17:56.119
and the bicycles and everything. I
say, hope, line right there,

1277
01:17:56.159 --> 01:17:58.680
and I just stopped going to bicycles
and the baby carriages and everything out.

1278
01:17:58.680 --> 01:18:00.159
We go. We had like two
rooms like that. We go in and

1279
01:18:00.279 --> 01:18:03.079
knock it down and we go back
to quarters and they're hooting and holland and

1280
01:18:03.119 --> 01:18:05.840
carrying on. I'm like, I
like this place and this is a good

1281
01:18:05.880 --> 01:18:09.960
house. Then I bounce around the
division for a while, and I started

1282
01:18:09.960 --> 01:18:12.840
to zero win A one seventy five, one twenty three. Those are the

1283
01:18:12.840 --> 01:18:15.760
three companies I'm looking for. Meanwhile, somewhere along the line, Tommy Richardson

1284
01:18:15.800 --> 01:18:17.840
had a guy going along to a
medical leaf. So he asked me if

1285
01:18:17.840 --> 01:18:20.680
I come UFO to his house for
a couple of months. I did that.

1286
01:18:21.079 --> 01:18:29.319
He was a count of two thirty
fours. You know. Then Charlie

1287
01:18:29.359 --> 01:18:31.439
McGrath calls me up and he says, I got a oh, where's a

1288
01:18:31.479 --> 01:18:34.920
Brian thing? Maybe Brian called me
up and told me to Charlie Grandfats have

1289
01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:41.119
my UFO. And guy Dennis Drisco. You know those chairs that you have

1290
01:18:41.199 --> 01:18:43.600
the metal frame and you have the
wooden seat on it. Well, he

1291
01:18:43.760 --> 01:18:45.960
goes in a restaurant. He goes
like this, the scooter's chairing and as

1292
01:18:46.000 --> 01:18:48.680
he does that, the chair comes
up, his pinky finger gets in him

1293
01:18:48.920 --> 01:18:53.119
takes off the top of his pinchon. So he's on medical Leaf for a

1294
01:18:53.199 --> 01:18:57.159
while. So I do two months
maybe in the house. And my philosophy

1295
01:18:57.159 --> 01:18:59.479
as lieutenant was, when you come
to work, you've got nothing to do.

1296
01:18:59.880 --> 01:19:01.119
I took care of everything. I
took over all your paperwork, all

1297
01:19:01.159 --> 01:19:04.159
your roll calls, all your time
and payroll, everything's done. When you

1298
01:19:04.239 --> 01:19:06.600
come to work, you got the
night is off, you hang out with

1299
01:19:06.640 --> 01:19:10.560
the men, you do your job
stuff, and next morning you can actually

1300
01:19:10.600 --> 01:19:14.000
start to work again. And McGrath
liked that style, so he said to

1301
01:19:14.079 --> 01:19:15.079
me. He says, when I
get an opportunity, I'm going to bring

1302
01:19:15.119 --> 01:19:18.159
you back here. I said,
I'd love to be here, so fast

1303
01:19:18.239 --> 01:19:20.520
forward. The opportunity comes, he
calls me if I want to come to

1304
01:19:20.640 --> 01:19:24.399
UFO. He says, oh yeah. I go to one tip fifty seven

1305
01:19:24.479 --> 01:19:27.800
and a heartbeat, I'm not there. Two weeks and Tommy Galvin calls me

1306
01:19:27.840 --> 01:19:29.840
and says, hey, I know
you look at one seventy five. There's

1307
01:19:29.840 --> 01:19:32.920
a UFO spot there. Chief,
I just made my commitment to Charle McGrath.

1308
01:19:32.920 --> 01:19:35.039
I can't believe it, says one
Sidy finds a really good house.

1309
01:19:35.279 --> 01:19:38.800
But my name would be mud if
I turned around and left one fifty seven.

1310
01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:42.560
I really liked them anyway, so
he let me go and I stayed

1311
01:19:42.600 --> 01:19:45.880
and the rest is history. I
got a signed and I was so hot

1312
01:19:45.920 --> 01:19:47.000
when I got there. As a
matter of fact, I was going fire

1313
01:19:47.000 --> 01:19:51.079
at the fire doing two three fires
to twenty four that one future goal.

1314
01:19:51.119 --> 01:19:54.439
Now I didn't know one future at
the time. One Fuchs calls me up.

1315
01:19:55.039 --> 01:19:58.039
It's a Brooklyn one twenty FUCHU did
you have him on the show?

1316
01:19:58.479 --> 01:20:02.359
Yes? He had awesome guy.
Oh yeah. Course when it says Lieutenant

1317
01:20:02.479 --> 01:20:05.720
Characo, he says, this is
more fuse ba, I says, yeah,

1318
01:20:05.720 --> 01:20:08.479
what can I do for you?
So he says, when are you

1319
01:20:08.520 --> 01:20:10.640
working again? I says I'm working
ones to night and Thursday says okay,

1320
01:20:10.640 --> 01:20:15.319
I'm gonna come ride with you.
Click what happened there? How can he's

1321
01:20:15.359 --> 01:20:16.199
telling me he's gonna ride anything?
But I didn't know. He was a

1322
01:20:16.239 --> 01:20:19.960
friend at the firehouse, and he
was these guys knew more and he was

1323
01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:23.800
part of the firehouse. That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because

1324
01:20:23.800 --> 01:20:25.960
I was so hot, everybody want
to work with Mike Brussel. While that

1325
01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:30.319
went awful, I'd say two three
months easily, and then it leveled out,

1326
01:20:30.439 --> 01:20:31.640
you know, because uh, it's
just I was just so hot.

1327
01:20:31.720 --> 01:20:33.800
It was smoking, man. I
was going everywhere, you know what I

1328
01:20:33.840 --> 01:20:39.800
wanted to ask you, coming from
the Bronx, going to two fifty five.

1329
01:20:39.840 --> 01:20:44.960
Now I've worked a lot right,
So how did you get past the

1330
01:20:45.239 --> 01:20:48.880
uh? You know that? I
mean that place is if not the place,

1331
01:20:48.960 --> 01:20:51.720
it's uh, it's it's up there
with two ninety one oh three is

1332
01:20:51.760 --> 01:20:57.159
probably the fastest turnout. And there
is on the job. Yes, and

1333
01:20:57.680 --> 01:21:00.279
Bonzai was my chauffe run was my
show. Okay, that was my chauffeur.

1334
01:21:01.079 --> 01:21:06.920
Uh Dennis and those guys they were
they were all good, good chauffas.

1335
01:21:08.279 --> 01:21:16.680
But I just said, do not
fucking me. I might have said

1336
01:21:16.720 --> 01:21:21.279
those words before it myself. I
mean how fast? I mean literally,

1337
01:21:21.479 --> 01:21:27.880
there is no there is no you're
eating you have your fark like this,

1338
01:21:29.720 --> 01:21:34.960
the B part, the B part
and the foks are in the air.

1339
01:21:35.199 --> 01:21:39.760
They're in the air, and I'm
not kidding, it's not They are running

1340
01:21:39.880 --> 01:21:43.000
to the rig, you know.
And that's a tight kitchen, you know,

1341
01:21:43.159 --> 01:21:46.520
like to get around, you know, guys cut through the TV that

1342
01:21:46.840 --> 01:21:50.199
little hallway going between the kitchen and
the apparatus floor, if you know,

1343
01:21:50.520 --> 01:21:54.880
in front of quarters there, if
you did, you notice in the roadway

1344
01:21:55.079 --> 01:21:57.479
there's time marks going this way in
the street. There's tires marskle on that

1345
01:21:57.520 --> 01:22:00.760
way the street because they come out
they're leaving rubber on the pavement as they're

1346
01:22:00.760 --> 01:22:05.479
coming around the turn. Yeah,
it's full out. Oh yeah, they

1347
01:22:05.560 --> 01:22:09.199
tried to get Charlie Price to go
faster. So what they did is they

1348
01:22:09.239 --> 01:22:11.479
took a doughnut on a stick and
taped it to the roof, so the

1349
01:22:11.520 --> 01:22:19.319
bonut was here. Fish. It
was the guy, Fish Fish. Fish.

1350
01:22:19.680 --> 01:22:23.800
Fish was the man to go to
when I needed something done. Right.

1351
01:22:23.960 --> 01:22:25.560
Call I had to do is say, Fish, can we get this

1352
01:22:25.640 --> 01:22:27.520
done today? No more about a
horse. I got it. And he

1353
01:22:27.560 --> 01:22:32.680
would make sure things and put him
in like Billy Ryan was there right at

1354
01:22:32.680 --> 01:22:36.720
the time? Was Billy Ryan wasn't
there? He already went to three,

1355
01:22:36.760 --> 01:22:40.760
I believe, Oh he had already
left. Yeah, yeah, Fish.

1356
01:22:40.800 --> 01:22:43.960
Actually we were coming down, Uh, we were coming down I think it

1357
01:22:44.039 --> 01:22:48.000
was Roger's Avenue and at Lyndon Boulevard. Fish Fish was a cautious driver.

1358
01:22:48.039 --> 01:22:50.039
A matter of fact, I used
to complain to him, it's like driving

1359
01:22:50.079 --> 01:22:53.119
mistakes, you know, especially compared
to the other guys. You know,

1360
01:22:53.399 --> 01:22:56.159
listen, Bonds, I don't get
a name like Bonzie for nothing. Right.

1361
01:22:56.680 --> 01:22:59.760
So Fish is driving out and he
was his courseous driver. As he

1362
01:22:59.760 --> 01:23:02.640
started to go into Linda Boulevard,
this car must have been doing eighty miles

1363
01:23:02.640 --> 01:23:05.159
an hour down winn the boulevard.
He hits the front of the rig,

1364
01:23:05.279 --> 01:23:11.359
bounces off the glass, shadows comes
flying into the apparatus, The car rolls

1365
01:23:11.399 --> 01:23:14.359
across, bangs into the into the
building across the street. You know,

1366
01:23:14.479 --> 01:23:17.239
they have those long setbacks, deeper
setbacks on the boulevard, and it's like,

1367
01:23:17.359 --> 01:23:21.119
holy shit. So I call him
a major accident, and everybody starts

1368
01:23:21.159 --> 01:23:25.439
to show up, and I forget
who the chief was. The deputy chief

1369
01:23:25.479 --> 01:23:29.159
shows up and he says, no, he made a major accident also,

1370
01:23:29.520 --> 01:23:31.399
and then the in calls back,
went to the hospital, calls back and

1371
01:23:31.439 --> 01:23:35.239
says, listen, this lady's denying, doesn't want to be treated, and

1372
01:23:35.439 --> 01:23:39.239
she's leaving. He says, well, that makes it a minor. Everybody

1373
01:23:39.279 --> 01:23:44.479
go home. That was That was
a lot of times right in those areas,

1374
01:23:44.560 --> 01:23:46.319
Like even by two ninety, that
would happen a lot. You get

1375
01:23:46.319 --> 01:23:50.439
into an accident and the people wouldn't
want to either they had no insurance or

1376
01:23:51.239 --> 01:23:55.399
most of my time in the job
was that way. Yeah. We had

1377
01:23:55.560 --> 01:23:58.640
liberto behind nineteen truck because if somebody
wanted something, he's like, okay,

1378
01:23:59.600 --> 01:24:02.479
go to theay go go get the
car fixed whatever, right, allegedly just

1379
01:24:02.520 --> 01:24:05.560
the way it was. I said, thanks, go down to UH to

1380
01:24:05.760 --> 01:24:10.119
fleet maintenance, and I go as
a boss both in the engine and UH

1381
01:24:10.279 --> 01:24:13.439
in one fifty seven and then squad
through fifty two. I would go down

1382
01:24:13.479 --> 01:24:16.880
there and talk with Andy and get
spare parts, and I keep them in

1383
01:24:16.920 --> 01:24:19.520
the locker downstairs, because you know, there's things that are expendable, like

1384
01:24:19.880 --> 01:24:26.000
like sci few members they break,
but they just break, so marka lights,

1385
01:24:26.039 --> 01:24:28.479
you know, things like that,
keeping in the locker and this way

1386
01:24:28.520 --> 01:24:30.680
you just replace it. Did you
ever have a fire near your old house.

1387
01:24:33.039 --> 01:24:36.119
I've had fires around that day,
we had not. I actually did

1388
01:24:36.199 --> 01:24:40.119
have a run of my grandmother's not
only her ability, but her apartment.

1389
01:24:40.520 --> 01:24:44.199
Oh my gosh, for g one
twenty counter worth place four G. I

1390
01:24:44.279 --> 01:24:45.600
walked in there and looked around and
says, wow, because I was a

1391
01:24:45.600 --> 01:24:48.880
little kid, that looks so small, you know, I thok grandma had

1392
01:24:48.880 --> 01:24:53.319
some big apartment. Yeah yeah,
yeah, right right yeah. I mean

1393
01:24:53.359 --> 01:24:58.560
that area when you're working in the
truck there, like again, it's such

1394
01:24:58.600 --> 01:25:00.800
a huge response area for the truck
there, right, I mean you're in

1395
01:25:01.560 --> 01:25:04.279
you go to one forty seven,
you go south, you're in like real

1396
01:25:04.520 --> 01:25:08.720
like, uh, it's a nice
area, right, if you go south,

1397
01:25:08.840 --> 01:25:11.680
is that the Jewish area? If
you get into Marine Park down there,

1398
01:25:11.840 --> 01:25:13.680
yeah, it's like it's nice.
And you go over to the Marine

1399
01:25:13.680 --> 01:25:16.560
park. Bitch, you got this
ponset and yeah, big houses, it's

1400
01:25:16.600 --> 01:25:19.840
really nice. It's incredible. How
big that area is. Well, one

1401
01:25:19.880 --> 01:25:23.680
of my first ones as I was
covering there the first time, I'm covering

1402
01:25:23.720 --> 01:25:26.239
and we're driving and we're going.
Now, I've been in the Bronx with

1403
01:25:26.319 --> 01:25:29.720
the companies are close. I've been
in Manhattan the companies are closed. I'm

1404
01:25:29.760 --> 01:25:32.399
going. I was like, where
we're going, where's this box? This

1405
01:25:32.520 --> 01:25:34.279
is all? No, we got
a ways to go. It says how

1406
01:25:34.359 --> 01:25:36.720
big is this area? I had
to actually look up how big this area

1407
01:25:36.800 --> 01:25:40.239
was? One of the bigger areas
that they had. Oh, it's huge.

1408
01:25:40.520 --> 01:25:44.119
Developed so much later in uh,
in the career of the history of

1409
01:25:44.159 --> 01:25:47.239
the job. Oh, don't forget
saddle up, settle up. We had

1410
01:25:47.279 --> 01:25:53.720
a have you heard about saddle up? Yeah, we have we have a

1411
01:25:53.800 --> 01:25:57.359
shirt saddle up. Oh okay,
now we know we have to find them

1412
01:25:57.439 --> 01:26:00.359
rough. Now I want to start
that want and started that Yes, correct.

1413
01:26:00.359 --> 01:26:02.279
The boss would come in and he'd
know it was going to be one

1414
01:26:02.319 --> 01:26:04.439
to fifty seven is either going to
be first or second, do or even

1415
01:26:04.479 --> 01:26:09.560
third? Two? Right? All
you hear is settle up, Like Louis

1416
01:26:09.560 --> 01:26:19.399
said, they wait for the tones. They got the little hit ten to

1417
01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:24.399
twelve or fourteen seconds before the tones
came in when saddle up came. Matter

1418
01:26:24.439 --> 01:26:27.359
of fact, anniversary, if you
look at one fifty seven in the book,

1419
01:26:27.359 --> 01:26:30.159
in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary
book, they have the garage door

1420
01:26:30.199 --> 01:26:31.880
lifted up enough for it has some
stray paints saddled up across the back.

1421
01:26:33.600 --> 01:26:36.319
Yes, oh yeah, they were
good man work at the seven was a

1422
01:26:36.359 --> 01:26:40.000
good shop, had a lot of
good work there. We had a great

1423
01:26:40.079 --> 01:26:44.279
time. You spent a decent amount
of time there six years. Huh yeah,

1424
01:26:44.399 --> 01:26:45.920
yeah, that's a lot of fires
because the war years too, babe

1425
01:26:46.279 --> 01:26:50.000
dog years, you know. Oh
we had some real good fires running.

1426
01:26:50.720 --> 01:26:55.039
I remember this one fire. Now, as you know, as a boss,

1427
01:26:55.319 --> 01:26:57.640
when you're on the radiaro, you
don't want to be a screamer,

1428
01:26:57.800 --> 01:27:02.079
right and so uh well, well
on forget where it was thirty seventh Street

1429
01:27:02.159 --> 01:27:06.560
and h k anyhow as we come
up. I can see the four or

1430
01:27:06.600 --> 01:27:09.720
five buildings down. I can see
a fire on the second floor of a

1431
01:27:09.760 --> 01:27:13.960
two story multi dwelling. So I
pick up the horn book in tens seventy

1432
01:27:14.000 --> 01:27:16.720
five five on the second floor,
two story so we dwelling. Blah blah

1433
01:27:16.760 --> 01:27:19.880
blah. Right. And when we
got back to the guys in the engine,

1434
01:27:19.960 --> 01:27:23.239
like you gotta put at open that
we hardly heard you. I said,

1435
01:27:23.279 --> 01:27:24.680
what do you want to scream?
I says, a scream? You

1436
01:27:24.760 --> 01:27:26.319
yell at me. I told you
you're gonna yell at me. I says,

1437
01:27:26.319 --> 01:27:28.880
it doesn't make a difference. I'd
rather remain calm. But this thing

1438
01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:30.720
was cranking, and it was I
remember it was the vino Chauncey and myself

1439
01:27:30.800 --> 01:27:33.199
in there, and we were by
ourselves, and we went in as far

1440
01:27:33.199 --> 01:27:38.720
as we could, did the searches, you know, wait for the engine's

1441
01:27:38.720 --> 01:27:41.399
That's what I liked about these They
were very aggressive. Matter of fact.

1442
01:27:41.399 --> 01:27:44.720
At one point we were some place
I forget we relocated. It was someplace

1443
01:27:45.199 --> 01:27:47.439
and we had a second do fire. And as I'm going by, I

1444
01:27:47.520 --> 01:27:49.760
hit the boss and show it says
one fifty seven. We'll be above.

1445
01:27:50.319 --> 01:27:54.399
And when we come back there says, you don't do that down here.

1446
01:27:55.359 --> 01:27:57.439
What are you talking about? I
wasn't uced to that where I worked.

1447
01:27:57.720 --> 01:28:00.279
This is where we worked, so
you know, we got to learn things

1448
01:28:00.319 --> 01:28:04.159
depending on when in Rome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well it's not

1449
01:28:04.279 --> 01:28:08.159
so much don't do that around here. It's just that there's strong companies,

1450
01:28:08.199 --> 01:28:10.520
there's Week companies. We happen to
be in the neighborhood that there was week

1451
01:28:10.560 --> 01:28:12.800
of companies, and that's why they
said I shouldn't do that. But I've

1452
01:28:12.840 --> 01:28:15.800
never worked in week company with week
companies before. There was always good strong

1453
01:28:15.840 --> 01:28:19.199
companies. Did they have a toilet
bowl in the ceiling at that time?

1454
01:28:19.680 --> 01:28:28.199
But me? Did they have the
toilet bowl in the ceiling? But we

1455
01:28:28.319 --> 01:28:31.000
did have some fun over there at
Christmas time. We'd after Christmas, we

1456
01:28:31.119 --> 01:28:34.079
take the Christmas tree and put it
in a bucket of diesel fuel and leave

1457
01:28:34.119 --> 01:28:38.159
it out there until what do they
call it February and one two three or

1458
01:28:38.199 --> 01:28:41.479
something like that is uh, there's
a word for it, I forget.

1459
01:28:41.600 --> 01:28:48.439
But then we'd have a ceremony on
that. We had flashovers. That was

1460
01:28:48.520 --> 01:28:54.520
interesting. That was very interesting.
I think I told the story one time

1461
01:28:55.239 --> 01:28:57.800
I was covering there and they had
a boys' night out, you know,

1462
01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:00.640
everybody was going out, and I
don't remember we had we had a little

1463
01:29:00.640 --> 01:29:04.680
bullshit job when we came back and
I went up in the office and I

1464
01:29:04.800 --> 01:29:09.760
was just getting back to sleep,
and the guys came back. It was

1465
01:29:09.960 --> 01:29:12.520
two, three, four in the
morning whatever it was, and it was

1466
01:29:12.680 --> 01:29:14.840
rowdy, man. There was a
lot of shit going on down there.

1467
01:29:15.439 --> 01:29:18.199
And then it got really quiet,
right, and then all of a sudden

1468
01:29:18.199 --> 01:29:25.279
I heard this explosion, like boom. I'm like, what the ef is

1469
01:29:25.399 --> 01:29:28.039
going on? Right? So I
get up to cover that. The guy

1470
01:29:28.119 --> 01:29:30.159
in the engine, I don't remember
who it was, but he wasn't you

1471
01:29:30.239 --> 01:29:31.920
know, he was covering for the
for the tour. You know. We

1472
01:29:32.079 --> 01:29:39.399
go downstairs and they had not not
like a little can like of beans,

1473
01:29:39.600 --> 01:29:42.960
like the big can, you know, like the fat can of porking beans.

1474
01:29:43.000 --> 01:29:46.239
They put the can on the oven, on the stove and just let

1475
01:29:46.319 --> 01:29:50.319
it cook in the until it,
like levied, it was fucking beans all

1476
01:29:50.359 --> 01:29:53.199
over the plate. I don't even
know what the hell was going on.

1477
01:29:53.319 --> 01:29:56.560
I don't even remember what the hell
was going on. But yeah, sometimes

1478
01:29:56.600 --> 01:30:00.840
they actually fifty two two different guys, is uh go app doing two fifty

1479
01:30:00.880 --> 01:30:03.960
two. They do the mac gass
inside of a plastic bag and then tie

1480
01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:08.960
it off with a piece of toilet
paper and let it run down and then

1481
01:30:09.000 --> 01:30:10.880
they go up and light it and
as it burned up, there or someone

1482
01:30:10.960 --> 01:30:15.920
to hit that. But I never
heard of that one either. Allegedly,

1483
01:30:17.000 --> 01:30:23.640
God, don't, don't, don't
get nervous. Yeah, chief, you're

1484
01:30:23.680 --> 01:30:27.800
not a safety chief. Fire.
Okay, good, he's like you muted,

1485
01:30:28.800 --> 01:30:32.079
He's sorry, I'm training. Sorry, I'm trying to be quiet,

1486
01:30:32.079 --> 01:30:36.920
and I don't want to interact interrupt
too much. So let's get fifty seven.

1487
01:30:38.000 --> 01:30:40.319
We ran and ran. Matter of
fact, when I first got there,

1488
01:30:40.640 --> 01:30:44.319
I was doing some drills and on
some of the more obscure tools and

1489
01:30:44.439 --> 01:30:46.119
it was breaking them. And Charlie
McGrath was like, you're breaking all my

1490
01:30:46.239 --> 01:30:48.680
tools. I said, wouldn't you
have like breaking drilling? And now I

1491
01:30:48.760 --> 01:30:51.399
gotch you a brand new tool.
So we would drill a lot. We

1492
01:30:51.479 --> 01:30:54.279
do things like that. Matter of
fact, this is a good one.

1493
01:30:54.560 --> 01:30:59.479
You know. We're driving down the
street and like I say, if there's

1494
01:30:59.520 --> 01:31:01.520
an a D and I'm driving down
the street, it's type of drill.

1495
01:31:02.039 --> 01:31:06.439
So I'm driving down the street and
there's this jaguar up on blocks, no

1496
01:31:06.600 --> 01:31:10.439
plates. I go around, I
check the whole thing out upon plates,

1497
01:31:10.720 --> 01:31:14.479
no up on blocks, no plates. The registration and inspection stick is scratched

1498
01:31:14.479 --> 01:31:16.159
off, and everything's gone, I
said, and one windows broke. I

1499
01:31:16.159 --> 01:31:18.479
said, adv let's cut it off. And a guy's like, this is

1500
01:31:18.479 --> 01:31:20.640
a jaguar. I said, you
ever cut a jaguar before me? No,

1501
01:31:20.720 --> 01:31:23.720
no, it says me, neither. Let's have at it. So

1502
01:31:23.800 --> 01:31:29.239
he start cutting up this jaguar.
Bobby Mains in the two from the four

1503
01:31:29.319 --> 01:31:30.840
one comes by and he takes one
look at what's going gets back in his

1504
01:31:30.880 --> 01:31:34.359
car, drives away, and we
cut up the jaguar. No big deal.

1505
01:31:35.000 --> 01:31:43.680
So a month or two three pass
and Richie's Richie's is working as a

1506
01:31:43.760 --> 01:31:46.720
covering captain. He's doing overtime in
two fifty five, so obviously they tell

1507
01:31:46.800 --> 01:31:50.479
him the story about what's going on. Well, Richie's kid works in the

1508
01:31:50.520 --> 01:31:55.039
precinct down the road. So what
they do is this guy is diabolical.

1509
01:31:55.520 --> 01:31:59.720
He gets his kid to fax him
that the facts machines in my office too,

1510
01:31:59.760 --> 01:32:00.640
So he's going in and out with
the fact machines and I'm not even

1511
01:32:00.640 --> 01:32:04.800
thinking anything of it. He factors
the police department. Buck slips right,

1512
01:32:05.640 --> 01:32:10.680
and so then what he does is
he gets Mains and Terry roach from the

1513
01:32:10.960 --> 01:32:14.720
two six. He's the deputy chief. A lot of effort here, a

1514
01:32:14.760 --> 01:32:18.640
lot of effort. These guys conspire
and bake up this whole story about Witherspool,

1515
01:32:18.640 --> 01:32:26.840
who lives in Kensington, left his
cotton, and and so now I

1516
01:32:26.920 --> 01:32:30.039
don't hear nothing. The fact machine
starts going his five or six papers there

1517
01:32:30.239 --> 01:32:31.920
and picking up and I starts slip
clipping through it. It goes from the

1518
01:32:31.960 --> 01:32:38.119
patrolman's report to the captain's report,
to the inspector's report, to the Chief

1519
01:32:38.159 --> 01:32:41.920
of Department, to the borough commander, to the fifteenth Division, to the

1520
01:32:42.039 --> 01:32:48.920
fourth fall one Battalion to me,
I'm dead, and I'm trying to think

1521
01:32:48.960 --> 01:32:51.399
how am I going to get out
of this, because that's that's something I

1522
01:32:51.760 --> 01:32:55.119
think, how am I gonna get
I'm trying to think about how I'm gonna

1523
01:32:55.119 --> 01:32:58.319
get out of this? And they
call for child and I'm like beside myself,

1524
01:32:58.319 --> 01:33:00.359
I'm shaking my head. I'm like, you know, and he made

1525
01:33:00.359 --> 01:33:02.079
it good. It said like the
fire engine one fifty seven showed up and

1526
01:33:02.159 --> 01:33:06.199
caught up this guy's car fire engine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

1527
01:33:06.239 --> 01:33:11.000
sitting in the kitchen and I'm really
not paying attention. But all of a

1528
01:33:11.039 --> 01:33:13.640
sudden, I think it's Jimmy Cavin
that times, and I says, hey,

1529
01:33:13.680 --> 01:33:15.800
look, you're kind of quiet tonight. Everything okay, I said,

1530
01:33:15.880 --> 01:33:17.439
yeah, I just thinking, And
as I turned my head, everybody's looking

1531
01:33:17.439 --> 01:33:26.640
at me. They'll go like this, Yeah, I'm thinking, well,

1532
01:33:26.800 --> 01:33:29.159
maybe maybe, just maybe this is
a roots. I mean, this is

1533
01:33:29.239 --> 01:33:32.960
pretty complicated. This is I really
thought through roots. That's I knew when

1534
01:33:32.960 --> 01:33:36.039
we had a job. Sometime we
didn't finish dinner, but we had a

1535
01:33:36.159 --> 01:33:40.199
job. And I come out of
the building and body Names is there and

1536
01:33:40.279 --> 01:33:43.439
he starts talking about it, but
he can't stop smiling, and I'm like,

1537
01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:47.560
you, you fucking guys did it. I have never been so had

1538
01:33:47.600 --> 01:33:50.039
in my life. I thought I
was losing my job. I really did.

1539
01:33:50.199 --> 01:33:54.520
I've never been so had. It
was amazing. Really that professional.

1540
01:33:54.600 --> 01:33:59.319
That's a professional. Jimmy did an
awesome job on that one. He had

1541
01:33:59.399 --> 01:34:02.000
me hooked mine and the sinking right
dead in the water. But you know,

1542
01:34:02.199 --> 01:34:08.600
sometimes a lieutenant I was working in
one twenty truck, I'm working in

1543
01:34:08.640 --> 01:34:11.960
one twenty truck and we're coming down
Linden Boulevard. We come up to uh,

1544
01:34:12.439 --> 01:34:15.720
we're coming down Pennsylvania. Amnu,
you're coming up to pen Linden Boulevard.

1545
01:34:15.920 --> 01:34:17.279
You know how you got the side
lane, then you got the two

1546
01:34:17.359 --> 01:34:19.039
lanes. They got the turning line. They get the two lanes, and

1547
01:34:19.119 --> 01:34:20.920
you got the media and then you
got the turning lanes. You know there's

1548
01:34:20.920 --> 01:34:26.239
all these different Well, he needs
driving me, and we're driving in and

1549
01:34:26.319 --> 01:34:29.079
we're coming over and his van's kind
of swerving over here, and I think

1550
01:34:29.079 --> 01:34:30.520
he's gonna take out all the people
in the bus stop. It's snowing out,

1551
01:34:30.880 --> 01:34:33.840
and he comes final, he hits
the curb, comes all the way

1552
01:34:33.840 --> 01:34:39.640
across all six lanes of traffic,
go right into one twenty and slides off

1553
01:34:39.680 --> 01:34:43.920
to the side there right heat.
He doesn't hesitate, goes the brake on

1554
01:34:44.039 --> 01:34:45.119
out of the rig, and after
the truck, I'm like, oh,

1555
01:34:45.680 --> 01:34:48.479
okay, one twenty in the Brooklyn, take us off the box. We've

1556
01:34:48.520 --> 01:34:53.159
had a minor accident. I'll get
back on this right. So I had

1557
01:34:53.199 --> 01:34:56.479
to think about a second, you
know, one twenty in the Brooklyn,

1558
01:34:56.520 --> 01:34:59.319
blah blah blah, By the time
I do all that, he's coming back

1559
01:34:59.359 --> 01:35:03.119
and the puts the signons of He
says, that fucking guy he didn't have

1560
01:35:03.119 --> 01:35:05.319
a registration, didn't have a license
to don't get the fuck out of here,

1561
01:35:05.319 --> 01:35:09.319
befire you arrest and he left,
okay. I picked up the horn.

1562
01:35:09.359 --> 01:35:13.119
It says one twenty Brooklyn, cancel
the accident. We're responding. Uh,

1563
01:35:13.319 --> 01:35:15.159
one twenty, you're canceling actions says
ten four ten four. He didn't

1564
01:35:15.199 --> 01:35:19.479
hit us, just we're responding.
I get back to quarters, the safety

1565
01:35:19.560 --> 01:35:23.560
chief, the deputy chief and four
to four wait for me, right,

1566
01:35:24.039 --> 01:35:28.560
so uh and it's redheaded Butler.
He's the deputy chief. He vaping me

1567
01:35:28.640 --> 01:35:30.760
upstairs and they say, how the
fuck you cancel an accent? How do

1568
01:35:30.800 --> 01:35:32.920
you do that? I said,
well, let me explain this to the

1569
01:35:33.039 --> 01:35:35.560
chief. I says, we're coming
along, and here comes this guy.

1570
01:35:35.920 --> 01:35:40.159
See the van sliding and he hits
the curtain, comes grinding clone. Hei

1571
01:35:40.600 --> 01:35:44.359
slams on the brake, throws the
Maxi braake and this guy veers away and

1572
01:35:44.439 --> 01:35:46.199
I thought he hit us. And
then he jumps out to see if the

1573
01:35:46.239 --> 01:35:49.000
guy's okay, jumps back in the
rig and he says he's okay, guy

1574
01:35:49.079 --> 01:35:50.920
on the root. I says he
didn't hit it. No, he didn't

1575
01:35:50.960 --> 01:35:54.079
hit us. I said, okay, let's go, I'll cancel the accident.

1576
01:35:54.560 --> 01:36:01.079
And they're all standing like this.
He says, that's your answer.

1577
01:36:01.399 --> 01:36:03.319
I says, that's my answer.
Chief, I mean, back in my

1578
01:36:03.399 --> 01:36:06.880
seat like this and just stand me. Well, like I can't believe that.

1579
01:36:06.960 --> 01:36:11.720
I just come up with this,
like they says, don't do that

1580
01:36:11.840 --> 01:36:15.399
again. Any all leads like that
was it. That was the end of

1581
01:36:15.479 --> 01:36:19.000
that cap in that area. I
learned very fast after the first one not

1582
01:36:19.159 --> 01:36:26.439
to give that I was quote unquote
in an accident. Well, you know,

1583
01:36:26.720 --> 01:36:28.800
unless even if I was responding,
I'm just saying, we're going to

1584
01:36:28.840 --> 01:36:31.359
be unable to respond. I wouldn't
say that we were in an accident,

1585
01:36:31.560 --> 01:36:35.079
because, like you said, most
of the time, the people want,

1586
01:36:35.159 --> 01:36:38.520
you know, they had a crap
car or it was just a little clip

1587
01:36:38.680 --> 01:36:40.680
or something like that, and they
wanted to get the hell out of that.

1588
01:36:40.800 --> 01:36:43.680
They didn't have a license, whatever
it wanted for the arrest. Yeah,

1589
01:36:43.760 --> 01:36:45.640
they just wanted to get the hell
out of that. Exactly. I

1590
01:36:45.840 --> 01:36:48.920
never I don't had one previous accident. Maybe that was before Fish's accident.

1591
01:36:48.960 --> 01:36:51.600
But I didn't have any accidents.
I mean, you know we sped cause

1592
01:36:51.640 --> 01:36:57.720
things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if that was the

1593
01:36:57.800 --> 01:37:01.520
chief who told me that too.
By the way, man, guys who've

1594
01:37:01.520 --> 01:37:05.399
been there before, right yeah,
yeah, no doubt yeah, and talking

1595
01:37:05.439 --> 01:37:09.319
about tips with the guys who've been
there before. Going back to forty two

1596
01:37:09.359 --> 01:37:12.920
engine, that guy Neil tael Or
slapped the face piece off me. I

1597
01:37:13.000 --> 01:37:15.920
want to give you a story with
Neil. Here was one heck of a

1598
01:37:16.000 --> 01:37:19.359
mental So I'm doing a job.
I had a lot of vacant building work,

1599
01:37:19.399 --> 01:37:23.760
but not so much occupied building work. I had had probably a couple

1600
01:37:23.760 --> 01:37:26.920
of dozen fires under my belt before
I had my first occupied building. So

1601
01:37:27.000 --> 01:37:29.399
we got this occupied building. It's
a row frame. There's at least three

1602
01:37:29.479 --> 01:37:30.920
rooms going in the back, and
it's chugging down the hallway at us and

1603
01:37:31.039 --> 01:37:33.560
I hit my wall, hit my
wall. I can't go any further,

1604
01:37:33.800 --> 01:37:36.039
I says Neil. I can't go
down the horse, get down the hallway,

1605
01:37:36.039 --> 01:37:38.279
come out. You can do this, I says I can't. I

1606
01:37:38.319 --> 01:37:40.560
can't get any further. I'm burned. He says, you're not burning.

1607
01:37:40.600 --> 01:37:42.479
I'll tell you when you're burning.
Get down the whole way and then look

1608
01:37:43.279 --> 01:37:45.960
and he said, he's on her
knee. I'm on my belly, like

1609
01:37:45.359 --> 01:37:48.079
I'm not burning. So I went
down the hallway, put all three phones

1610
01:37:48.079 --> 01:37:50.159
out, and I'm like, yeah, man, that's what I'm talking about.

1611
01:37:50.239 --> 01:37:54.680
That's and it was just an enlightening
moment for me. And what he

1612
01:37:54.760 --> 01:37:57.760
did that day is I teach this
whole time too. This is as far

1613
01:37:57.800 --> 01:38:00.239
as I've ever been, as much
experience as I've ever had. So now

1614
01:38:00.279 --> 01:38:01.880
what he did is he goes like
this and he pushes me like this and

1615
01:38:02.000 --> 01:38:05.399
opens up my window of experience and
he gave me more experience. I'll never

1616
01:38:05.439 --> 01:38:09.039
forget that as long as I live, because it made me realize you can

1617
01:38:09.119 --> 01:38:11.479
do more than you think you can. You're strong and you think you are.

1618
01:38:11.720 --> 01:38:14.479
You just to have the guts to
do it. And that was the

1619
01:38:14.600 --> 01:38:17.359
forming of the guts, the bravery, the coverage that you need to be

1620
01:38:17.439 --> 01:38:20.359
a fire And that was the beginning
of that because the vacant building work was

1621
01:38:20.399 --> 01:38:23.720
easy. You know, it's open, it's just a lot of fire and

1622
01:38:23.760 --> 01:38:26.520
a lot of smoke. Now the
smoke is not so bad because that's how

1623
01:38:26.560 --> 01:38:29.520
you can take a feed because all
the windows are gone. Right. He

1624
01:38:29.880 --> 01:38:32.399
really taught me a lot that day. That's a common thing that we hear

1625
01:38:32.439 --> 01:38:36.279
a lot from the guys on the
show is that you don't know how far

1626
01:38:36.359 --> 01:38:39.560
you know, how would you know
how far you can go? You know

1627
01:38:39.600 --> 01:38:42.880
what I mean, until somebody shows
you how far you can go? Right

1628
01:38:43.439 --> 01:38:45.720
exactly? Yes, Yes, you
need the guys to lead you through these

1629
01:38:45.800 --> 01:38:50.760
things. That's what they need to
do. That that all comes from passing,

1630
01:38:51.359 --> 01:38:55.119
passing on the information, just passing
on information, right, It's just

1631
01:38:55.720 --> 01:38:59.039
you know every you know, tradition
and you know, aggressiveness and all that

1632
01:38:59.119 --> 01:39:02.239
stuff. You know, you have
to pass it on. And he's standing

1633
01:39:02.359 --> 01:39:05.279
right beside you too, He's not
you know, three rooms down the hallway

1634
01:39:05.359 --> 01:39:12.920
telling the further bro. Yeah,
the boss that yels for can to come

1635
01:39:13.000 --> 01:39:16.720
sliding down the hallway. Yeah yeah, yeah, you want me to go

1636
01:39:16.880 --> 01:39:20.640
further? Your fucking three rooms back
over there. Jack and told me how

1637
01:39:20.680 --> 01:39:24.119
to be an enginement nineteen truck taught
me how to be a truck. They

1638
01:39:24.159 --> 01:39:28.079
taught me my forceful engine, my
engine, my my elevators, my my

1639
01:39:28.319 --> 01:39:30.119
uh, all all the stuff you
need to know as a truck. These

1640
01:39:30.159 --> 01:39:33.000
guys taught me over and over and
over again. And we also doing a

1641
01:39:33.039 --> 01:39:36.119
lot of work the time up until
the Red Caps came into the Bronx.

1642
01:39:36.159 --> 01:39:40.079
The Bronx was very busy, it
really was. But the one in Red

1643
01:39:40.159 --> 01:39:42.319
Caps came in. Those guys,
boy, they set up their trailer,

1644
01:39:42.520 --> 01:39:46.079
they put their red fdm WI Fire
Marshal hats on and they just sweppt the

1645
01:39:46.119 --> 01:39:49.079
neighborhood and they the rest of bunch
of uses, I guess because the fire

1646
01:39:49.159 --> 01:39:55.159
duty went down, were still there. But it wasn't like it was well.

1647
01:39:55.199 --> 01:39:58.840
They did good. They did because
it was out of control between the

1648
01:39:59.319 --> 01:40:03.840
bullshit the insurance claims and the shitty
landlords and the city. Yep, you

1649
01:40:04.920 --> 01:40:08.800
and I place it and burning it
down. I had a lot of good

1650
01:40:08.800 --> 01:40:11.560
fires in one fifty seven. A
matter of fact, Gonzo, there's a

1651
01:40:11.640 --> 01:40:13.920
picture of one p fifty seven with
a bunch of were standing in front of

1652
01:40:13.920 --> 01:40:16.680
a red building. Me and George
Johnson, we were We were actually trapped

1653
01:40:16.720 --> 01:40:18.840
on the top floor and he called
me uncle Tony for something and he says,

1654
01:40:18.920 --> 01:40:20.520
Uncle Tony, what are we going
to do? I says, the

1655
01:40:20.600 --> 01:40:24.359
line's coming out here. Just wait
here a second. And it took another

1656
01:40:24.439 --> 01:40:27.159
fifteen seconds or so before we could
see the line knocking the fire down in

1657
01:40:27.800 --> 01:40:30.640
the stairway, grew up in the
attic and we just rolled down and they

1658
01:40:30.640 --> 01:40:32.359
were like, where the hell you
guys come from? But that was that

1659
01:40:32.479 --> 01:40:38.720
was a good fire. Had a
couple of mones like that. I'm trying

1660
01:40:38.720 --> 01:40:40.720
to see if I can find it
in the in the rest of remember,

1661
01:40:40.720 --> 01:40:43.880
I can only load so many in
here. So was it titled one fifty

1662
01:40:43.960 --> 01:40:49.079
seven? Building rocket? And I
were trapped in or got got held up

1663
01:40:49.119 --> 01:40:54.600
in something like that? Okay,
because I have all the way having this

1664
01:40:54.720 --> 01:40:57.079
thing is cranking. As we come
out of quarters to come out of Rogers

1665
01:40:57.159 --> 01:41:00.199
Am we s turn again out the
flat bush and I can see what four

1666
01:41:00.279 --> 01:41:01.279
blocks away? Three blocks away,
and I picked it up. I said,

1667
01:41:01.560 --> 01:41:04.640
what fifty seven brook ten seventy five
bucks? He is what he got?

1668
01:41:04.680 --> 01:41:06.279
One fifty seven? I said,
I let you know when I get

1669
01:41:06.319 --> 01:41:10.279
there. That was too far away, but I knew it was a good

1670
01:41:10.359 --> 01:41:13.880
job, good jobs. Matter of
fact, we went in there. It

1671
01:41:14.039 --> 01:41:17.359
was me and Spanky and Sean Taylor, George George O'shay was Spank George Shay

1672
01:41:17.439 --> 01:41:20.279
was Spanky Phil As matter of fact, he's philled Buffer's cousin. I didn't

1673
01:41:20.279 --> 01:41:25.840
know that when I got there until
later. And we go in there and

1674
01:41:25.880 --> 01:41:28.880
we get we get down. It
was hallway, it was a it was

1675
01:41:28.920 --> 01:41:31.560
a mixed occupancy. Originally it was
commercial on the first floor as a National

1676
01:41:31.600 --> 01:41:35.199
next two floors, but now it's
all commercial. And we get in there

1677
01:41:35.239 --> 01:41:38.920
and the aisles are narrow, and
we go down to one island and we

1678
01:41:39.000 --> 01:41:40.800
make it left. We go down
the next island. They had a glass

1679
01:41:40.800 --> 01:41:43.399
door there. As I opened the
door, I'm down, lawyer. As

1680
01:41:43.439 --> 01:41:45.680
I opened the door, the heat
was tremendous. Boom, shut it and

1681
01:41:45.960 --> 01:41:47.880
I said, okay, let's back
out. We get to the doorway.

1682
01:41:48.119 --> 01:41:51.399
Richie Smith is on the line two
fifty five. Charlie prices on a nozzle

1683
01:41:51.800 --> 01:41:55.399
and we start heading down the hallway. And as we get towards it,

1684
01:41:55.439 --> 01:41:58.279
I says, Richie, there's an
angry fire behind that door. I says,

1685
01:41:58.319 --> 01:42:00.279
it's going to come at us when
we open it up. Best one,

1686
01:42:00.479 --> 01:42:01.680
we were trapped up on the top. You see who the bucket is

1687
01:42:01.720 --> 01:42:04.319
and above them those two windows.
That's where we were up in there,

1688
01:42:04.760 --> 01:42:11.000
and that's rocket. Rocket is third
one in from the right, so and

1689
01:42:11.039 --> 01:42:14.840
that Georgie Shay is the fifth one. Sean Taylor's the fourth one. That's

1690
01:42:14.920 --> 01:42:19.039
Bonzai over there after after Georgio,
George say and that that that's me,

1691
01:42:19.239 --> 01:42:24.720
Charlie Resto, Dean Batman. And
that was a thirty day guy. I'm

1692
01:42:24.720 --> 01:42:27.600
not I don't remember who he was. Remember this not the third day guy

1693
01:42:27.680 --> 01:42:30.079
there. They used to rotate guys
to the company's remember that. Yeah,

1694
01:42:30.359 --> 01:42:33.079
that's who he was, a rotation
guy. I don't remember his name now.

1695
01:42:35.720 --> 01:42:40.600
So we said, as matter of
fact, that building, when Richie

1696
01:42:40.640 --> 01:42:44.399
went in, he opened it up, and now there was Ritchie Charlie,

1697
01:42:45.199 --> 01:42:47.399
I think it must have been Restiana
after him, and then it was me

1698
01:42:47.520 --> 01:42:50.479
and Spanky and Taylor. Well,
when they opened it up, distinct came

1699
01:42:50.680 --> 01:42:54.399
threw it out and everybody dropped me. Now we're all on bellies, and

1700
01:42:54.439 --> 01:42:56.039
I said, everybody out of here, everybody out of here. So I

1701
01:42:56.079 --> 01:42:58.840
followed the line back to the door, and I hear the guys screaming on

1702
01:42:58.880 --> 01:43:00.359
the next way. After I was
standing at the door and I see him

1703
01:43:00.399 --> 01:43:02.359
go by this way they come.
I'm like, this way out. They

1704
01:43:02.359 --> 01:43:05.359
should have come this way, and
they go this way. So I'm screaming

1705
01:43:05.399 --> 01:43:08.000
it this way out, this way
out. I'm waiting for them, one

1706
01:43:08.039 --> 01:43:10.880
at a time. They come rolling
out of it. It's come rolling out.

1707
01:43:10.920 --> 01:43:14.319
They're smoking, they're burnt, they're
in bad shape. And the only

1708
01:43:14.359 --> 01:43:17.159
one left on this landing is George
George Shae Spanky. I says, you

1709
01:43:17.279 --> 01:43:18.720
ready to take this, and he
says, yeah, let's go. So

1710
01:43:18.800 --> 01:43:20.600
me and him take the line and
we get in and we start phoning,

1711
01:43:20.720 --> 01:43:24.760
moving in and we start knocking this
fire down and the tank. She says,

1712
01:43:24.760 --> 01:43:26.359
what the hell's going on there?
He says, I need a second

1713
01:43:26.399 --> 01:43:28.960
line right away, Chief, And
they get a second line up there,

1714
01:43:29.000 --> 01:43:31.359
and we end up knocking to fire
down and five guys I think went to

1715
01:43:31.399 --> 01:43:35.159
the burst on that one. Yeah, that was a pretty intensive player.

1716
01:43:35.520 --> 01:43:39.840
And what you said, Louis about
ruckers in the kitchen, Let me tell

1717
01:43:39.840 --> 01:43:42.720
you all, Jack Pritchett, let
me tell you something about Jack Critchett.

1718
01:43:42.800 --> 01:43:45.600
He will roll around with you in
a heartby a hearty. And I saw

1719
01:43:45.680 --> 01:43:47.199
him come over to the table.
Was Bobby hess was. I don't know

1720
01:43:47.279 --> 01:43:49.279
what he did because I wasn't paying
attention to them. I was talking to

1721
01:43:49.319 --> 01:43:51.760
somebody else. Jack comes over to
the table, and I know they're rolling

1722
01:43:51.760 --> 01:43:56.279
around on the floor and they just
fight with each other. Jack Jack Pritchet

1723
01:43:56.359 --> 01:43:58.239
was one hell of five and you
know you need to love him or hate

1724
01:43:58.279 --> 01:44:00.560
him. You got to know him
to love him. And whenever I worked

1725
01:44:00.560 --> 01:44:02.560
with that man, I went out
on Droe, I'd ask him to come

1726
01:44:02.600 --> 01:44:05.479
with me because no matter what I
was teaching, no matter what I was

1727
01:44:05.600 --> 01:44:09.840
drolling on, I would always learn
something. Jack Pitch he was that kind

1728
01:44:09.880 --> 01:44:12.600
of guy. He really was.
I'd like to get to know him too.

1729
01:44:13.079 --> 01:44:15.600
Right, we're trying to get him
on. I'll be calling guy all

1730
01:44:15.640 --> 01:44:17.159
the time. Yeah, you call
him all time. What's you said?

1731
01:44:17.760 --> 01:44:20.520
Well, first he said yes,
and now he doesn't pick up my call.

1732
01:44:20.600 --> 01:44:25.479
So I don't know what exactly.
I don't know exactly what that means.

1733
01:44:25.560 --> 01:44:30.680
But to the other day he said
he'd do it. Five grand rookie,

1734
01:44:30.720 --> 01:44:34.920
you got get the cash. I
got it right here from a right

1735
01:44:36.640 --> 01:44:42.079
good flada baby. I got to
move to get a little late, so

1736
01:44:42.159 --> 01:44:45.640
let's go. Uh. Two thousand
and two. He spent six years there.

1737
01:44:45.720 --> 01:44:49.399
Two thousand and two. You get
promoted to captain h Is that correct?

1738
01:44:49.560 --> 01:44:54.319
And you wind up with a spot
UFO in one oh one. I

1739
01:44:54.479 --> 01:44:58.359
was UF. It was UF,
and then I gotta SGN you but I

1740
01:44:58.359 --> 01:45:00.000
don't even know about it. I
get a I knew a one on one

1741
01:45:00.039 --> 01:45:01.960
and I call up Phil Burns.
I don't know if you know. Phil

1742
01:45:02.000 --> 01:45:05.640
Burns died in my guage. He's
the sixth division Brooklyn guy, really really

1743
01:45:05.640 --> 01:45:09.880
good guy, Phil Burns. Matter
of fact, he does one of those

1744
01:45:09.880 --> 01:45:13.600
commercials. He does the fruit and
vegetable commercial, the pillars. He's always

1745
01:45:13.600 --> 01:45:15.840
that him. That's Phil Burns.
Yeah, yeah, that's Bounds of Nature.

1746
01:45:16.159 --> 01:45:19.439
Yeah, bal to Nature said that
you got the shamrock over here in

1747
01:45:19.520 --> 01:45:24.840
his hand, right. Yeah.
So I call him up and say,

1748
01:45:24.920 --> 01:45:27.039
Chief, can I come to your
office after work? Yeah? Yeah,

1749
01:45:27.039 --> 01:45:29.439
come on over, Tony. So
I get in. I says it's gonna

1750
01:45:29.439 --> 01:45:31.119
be Captain Chief because me a Tony
a Phil conversation. I know Phil Burns

1751
01:45:31.119 --> 01:45:34.399
for my Brent with Days. That's
where he raised his family. He says,

1752
01:45:34.439 --> 01:45:36.840
Tony, what's up? I says, what you what? You put

1753
01:45:36.880 --> 01:45:42.760
me one on one truck for?
He's like, ah, I need a

1754
01:45:42.800 --> 01:45:45.279
guy like you in a place like
that. They're hurting. They were seven

1755
01:45:45.359 --> 01:45:47.800
guys. I need you to put
this company back together. No prop chief

1756
01:45:47.800 --> 01:45:49.920
for us says, how much time
you want? He says, can you

1757
01:45:49.960 --> 01:45:53.840
give me six months? I says, I'll go past September eleven, you

1758
01:45:53.880 --> 01:45:56.279
know, because six months would have
put me in July, June, July,

1759
01:45:56.479 --> 01:45:59.439
and August, and I didn't.
I couldn't leave there. You want

1760
01:45:59.439 --> 01:46:02.560
to leave? Like, yeah,
I agree. So so he takes a

1761
01:46:02.600 --> 01:46:05.720
heart attack. About a month later, and this new gug just assigns me.

1762
01:46:05.840 --> 01:46:08.520
So I called him up and I
says, can I come over to

1763
01:46:08.520 --> 01:46:10.399
your office? He says, no, I'll come to your house. So

1764
01:46:10.520 --> 01:46:14.560
it comes to the office to the
firehouse and I'm like, what the hell

1765
01:46:14.560 --> 01:46:16.119
are you doing to signing me?
He says, why not, I'm the

1766
01:46:16.199 --> 01:46:18.000
deputy. I says, but I
got over twenty years on a job.

1767
01:46:18.039 --> 01:46:20.199
You can't give me a phone call. I said, that's bullshit. You

1768
01:46:20.239 --> 01:46:23.279
should at least give me a phone
call. Say listen, I'm just signing

1769
01:46:23.279 --> 01:46:25.560
you and if I don't like it, that's tough shit. But you could

1770
01:46:25.560 --> 01:46:27.840
have at least given me the Curtsey
your phone call. We went back and

1771
01:46:27.920 --> 01:46:30.840
forth a little bit. Then we
have took about boats and cars and kids

1772
01:46:30.920 --> 01:46:31.800
and things like that. He said, if you want out to let you

1773
01:46:31.840 --> 01:46:33.960
out. I said, I made
a commitment to Phil Burns. I will

1774
01:46:34.279 --> 01:46:38.479
complete my commitment to Phil Burns.
I just didn't appreciate being a sign and

1775
01:46:38.520 --> 01:46:40.640
having somebody call me up and congratulate
me. And I have no idea what

1776
01:46:40.640 --> 01:46:45.880
that woll like congratulate me about.
So I stayed there for a while and

1777
01:46:45.960 --> 01:46:50.760
then when I called Chief Norman up
in October, I guess it was end

1778
01:46:50.800 --> 01:46:54.479
of October. He said, Oh, I thought you wanted to stay one

1779
01:46:54.520 --> 01:46:57.560
on one because I saw you on
the utumn. I said, okay,

1780
01:46:57.640 --> 01:47:00.800
yeah, I get to day get
it funny man. Yeah, Hey,

1781
01:47:00.880 --> 01:47:01.920
let me ask you before we leave
off for one on one? Did you

1782
01:47:01.960 --> 01:47:06.560
work with Jack Gerber over there was? He gone but for one on one

1783
01:47:06.600 --> 01:47:12.039
truck. Now, back in the
eighteen hundreds, Columbia, South Carolina had

1784
01:47:12.079 --> 01:47:14.239
a big fire and they lost a
lot of fire equipment, a lot of

1785
01:47:14.319 --> 01:47:16.199
houses. They lost a major part
of the city. When New York City

1786
01:47:16.279 --> 01:47:20.279
decided to send an entourage of fire
engines, of fireman and everything else down

1787
01:47:20.399 --> 01:47:25.359
to Columbia South to Columbia, South
Carolina, and they took care of it.

1788
01:47:25.399 --> 01:47:28.000
Took care of the fireman David.
Soon fire engines of equipment and hos

1789
01:47:28.039 --> 01:47:30.319
blah blah blah. The mayor of
that city says, back in the eighteen

1790
01:47:30.399 --> 01:47:33.119
hundreds, if we ever have the
chance to pay you, we will.

1791
01:47:33.520 --> 01:47:39.680
So two thousand and one happens,
some kid reading history finds out about this

1792
01:47:39.800 --> 01:47:43.640
and says, it's our chance to
repay the New York City Fine Apartment starts

1793
01:47:43.640 --> 01:47:47.239
a collection. That's that's Jack Jansen. He's the former chief of US Columbia

1794
01:47:47.279 --> 01:47:51.640
South Carolina. So this kid does
all of the pay legwork and starts to

1795
01:47:51.680 --> 01:47:55.920
get a fun drive going. All
these companies get in and they have this

1796
01:47:56.039 --> 01:48:00.720
whole big thing and they end up
purchasing this seatwave hillary rig and donating it

1797
01:48:00.760 --> 01:48:05.000
to New York City Fire Department.
And they bring everybody up and have all

1798
01:48:05.079 --> 01:48:08.880
these people from the schools come up
and they have this big party and it

1799
01:48:09.000 --> 01:48:12.600
was a really really thoughtful time and
they got to repay it that somehow.

1800
01:48:12.840 --> 01:48:16.560
Wow. Pretty intense, right,
Yeah. I worked in one a few

1801
01:48:16.600 --> 01:48:19.920
times. I covered there a few
times. Yeah. Yeah, it's a

1802
01:48:20.000 --> 01:48:23.399
bad joint, you know, but
it's a good place if you want to

1803
01:48:23.399 --> 01:48:25.439
slow down because they don't do a
lot of work. I had two jobs

1804
01:48:25.520 --> 01:48:28.039
in the in the eight months I
was there, just stuck in the corner.

1805
01:48:28.359 --> 01:48:30.039
You know, they really are just
stuck in the corner. So this

1806
01:48:30.199 --> 01:48:32.960
is what made me decide it was
October. I was gonna try and hang

1807
01:48:33.000 --> 01:48:35.680
in there for a little while longer. I'm sitting at my desk, it's

1808
01:48:35.720 --> 01:48:39.560
ten minutes to eleven. Put down
my pen. I go and I do

1809
01:48:39.680 --> 01:48:42.840
my thing in the bathroom. I
put on my nighttime pajamas, my response

1810
01:48:42.880 --> 01:48:45.800
pajamas, right. I get into
bed with my cup of tin, pull

1811
01:48:45.840 --> 01:48:47.159
my covers up. I turned the
TV and I wait for the news come

1812
01:48:47.239 --> 01:48:54.119
on, and all of a sudden, it's like, fucking slug you got

1813
01:48:57.279 --> 01:49:00.359
there. I was walking around the
firehouse one o'clock in the one like is

1814
01:49:00.439 --> 01:49:03.479
everybody right? So that's when I
decided I'm out there. And I called

1815
01:49:03.520 --> 01:49:06.119
the Chief and Chief says, right, welcome board. And then I called

1816
01:49:06.159 --> 01:49:12.319
the man at the Special Operations Command
and they're like, who what with us?

1817
01:49:12.920 --> 01:49:14.640
I says, that's your chief Normals, And he said, I'll call

1818
01:49:14.680 --> 01:49:16.199
you back. So I guess you
called Chief Norman to verify I actually am

1819
01:49:16.239 --> 01:49:19.479
in the command now, and he
says, I got no place for you.

1820
01:49:19.600 --> 01:49:21.880
Let me find some place for you
won't figure it out. Calls me

1821
01:49:21.960 --> 01:49:24.680
back and says, listen, boss, I'm really sorry. He says,

1822
01:49:24.680 --> 01:49:26.720
I got to send you up to
the Bronx. I said, no problem,

1823
01:49:26.920 --> 01:49:29.039
he said, I'm saying nineteen Truck. I'm like, who is this?

1824
01:49:29.600 --> 01:49:31.119
I think they're breaking my horns.
Well, after I went to nineteen

1825
01:49:31.119 --> 01:49:34.520
Truck, the only guy I knew
there that was working. Actually I knew

1826
01:49:34.520 --> 01:49:38.720
to both the showfers, Brendan Donelly
and Tommy house World. And everybody on

1827
01:49:38.800 --> 01:49:42.479
the backstep was the kid of somebody
I worked for. That's pretty cool.

1828
01:49:42.920 --> 01:49:45.479
It was every name on the run, and this was somebody who had been

1829
01:49:45.520 --> 01:49:48.239
in that firehouse before. Yep.
Wow. And then I go to Squad

1830
01:49:48.279 --> 01:49:51.880
eighteen. I do Longway Cage,
like a three week vacation. There.

1831
01:49:53.039 --> 01:49:55.520
I'll have a guy fall, you
know the man holes that have the cones

1832
01:49:55.520 --> 01:49:57.920
on it with the steam coming out, got the rolls in there, and

1833
01:49:58.479 --> 01:50:01.439
we set up a retrieval system that
they're SENTI the retrieval system and I get

1834
01:50:01.479 --> 01:50:03.199
on a horn and I tell him
I got a guy. He's in a

1835
01:50:03.279 --> 01:50:06.560
steam hall. I need to shut
the steam down. It's probably I mix

1836
01:50:06.640 --> 01:50:10.000
it off. I guess we'll mix
it off. He's probably dead because he

1837
01:50:10.279 --> 01:50:14.199
looks like a lobster from up here, and uh, the thing exploded,

1838
01:50:14.279 --> 01:50:18.159
cops and everything, and Lamina negotiates
with the police department because they want to

1839
01:50:18.199 --> 01:50:21.399
go it's a crime scene in there, and rescue where to fight apartment scene.

1840
01:50:21.439 --> 01:50:24.600
That's what we got to do.
So they negotiate two guys from Rescue

1841
01:50:24.640 --> 01:50:27.920
one and two guys from the ESU
will go in there. Meanwhile, es

1842
01:50:28.000 --> 01:50:29.920
U shows up. I see a
guy going to get in the hall,

1843
01:50:30.039 --> 01:50:30.840
like, dude, it's really hot
because I put my hand on it.

1844
01:50:31.000 --> 01:50:33.760
Who I couldn't keep my hand over
there. It's really I got this.

1845
01:50:34.079 --> 01:50:38.680
I got this. He goes and
sits down, wolf rolls backwards. Later

1846
01:50:38.720 --> 01:50:41.439
on, I see him getting his
pants cut off by ems. Right,

1847
01:50:44.239 --> 01:50:46.079
So the chief tells of the planet
says, that's bullshit. I says,

1848
01:50:46.279 --> 01:50:49.319
what's set up, We're ready to
go. It's our box and he kind

1849
01:50:49.319 --> 01:50:53.359
of admonishes me right there, and
I says, okay, you're the boss.

1850
01:50:53.880 --> 01:50:55.640
Back the way. I guess you
guys what they want. I walk

1851
01:50:55.680 --> 01:50:59.039
down the street. I get a
coffee and the donut the bagel cops.

1852
01:50:59.079 --> 01:51:01.560
He thrownut, sweat, bagel,
bagel, and rock. She got nothing.

1853
01:51:02.600 --> 01:51:05.199
Yeah, so what the dome was
over and he comes over and now

1854
01:51:05.279 --> 01:51:09.920
starts bitching me out about having coffee
and Bengals. I said, you took

1855
01:51:09.960 --> 01:51:12.079
my box, you took my everything
away from me. I said, I'm

1856
01:51:12.079 --> 01:51:14.039
standing here with my thumb up my
ass. He says, I'll meet you

1857
01:51:14.079 --> 01:51:15.680
back and quarter. So we go
back there and he starts breaking my bulls

1858
01:51:15.720 --> 01:51:19.399
and subordination. I said, time
out. I'm not being insupported. I'm

1859
01:51:19.479 --> 01:51:21.479
just giving you my opinion. I
did everything you told me to do.

1860
01:51:21.760 --> 01:51:25.600
I did not break any rules.
I did not I did everything you said

1861
01:51:25.600 --> 01:51:27.279
I was supposed to do. I
said, I don't have to agree with

1862
01:51:27.359 --> 01:51:29.560
what you did, but what you
said. But I did what you said.

1863
01:51:29.800 --> 01:51:31.359
And he didn't like that. But
either way, we got along well

1864
01:51:31.439 --> 01:51:36.479
enough. And there's a vacation there
and Chief Norman calls me up and offers

1865
01:51:36.520 --> 01:51:40.119
me rescue five and I thank you, thank you, thank you. But

1866
01:51:40.880 --> 01:51:44.039
it's ninety two miles away from home. I said, I really didn't want

1867
01:51:44.039 --> 01:51:45.239
to do that. I says,
if something happens in the afternoon, it's

1868
01:51:45.239 --> 01:51:48.640
going to take me thween and a
half four hours to get there. Then

1869
01:51:48.720 --> 01:51:51.640
he offers me sixty one. And
I didn't want to go back into the

1870
01:51:51.680 --> 01:51:56.359
Bronx right now. It wasn't one
of my choices because I gave words I

1871
01:51:56.359 --> 01:51:58.479
like to work, Can I have? Can I do that? He says,

1872
01:51:58.520 --> 01:52:00.760
that's up to you. Okay,
fair enough. I said to him,

1873
01:52:00.760 --> 01:52:02.840
I really want to bounce in the
command a little bit more, learn

1874
01:52:02.920 --> 01:52:06.039
the companies, meet the guys,
blah blah blah. And I guess it

1875
01:52:06.159 --> 01:52:11.520
was maybe a week later. Metcalf
Colls, I says me and Metcalf Metchafs

1876
01:52:11.520 --> 01:52:14.479
was fifty five when I was in
nineteen, the same battalion we lived.

1877
01:52:14.560 --> 01:52:15.960
Uh. He lived in the Middle
Place. I lived in Mount SINAI.

1878
01:52:17.000 --> 01:52:19.560
We started lieutenant together. We staid
for Captain Gather. You know, Metcalf

1879
01:52:19.680 --> 01:52:23.880
and I a longtime friends. He
says, Tony, I'm going to the

1880
01:52:23.960 --> 01:52:26.800
rock. I'm done. This is
Uh, would you take over the company?

1881
01:52:27.159 --> 01:52:31.199
Absolute fucking lutely two fifty two?
Absolutely? So. I guess it

1882
01:52:31.279 --> 01:52:34.000
was a day or so later in
normal culture says, uh, this is

1883
01:52:34.800 --> 01:52:36.640
I thought you said you want two
fifty two. I says, yes,

1884
01:52:36.680 --> 01:52:40.520
Metcalf offer to me I'd like to
jump on that opportunity. Just doesn't you

1885
01:52:40.520 --> 01:52:42.479
want to bounce around it, says
chef. I've a bounce around for a

1886
01:52:42.520 --> 01:52:50.680
whole other week, and I'm exhausted. Bountly place through one two thousand and

1887
01:52:50.720 --> 01:52:55.039
three. I walked in that was
never looked back, and it was a

1888
01:52:55.159 --> 01:52:57.920
great company. And my wife even
said to me, she says, don't

1889
01:52:57.920 --> 01:52:59.840
want you like this place. They
don't want you. They all go get

1890
01:52:59.880 --> 01:53:00.479
it. They won't want to go, go go. They don't want to

1891
01:53:00.479 --> 01:53:02.159
work, they don't want to go
to fighters, they don't want to train.

1892
01:53:02.800 --> 01:53:05.119
That's a lot of matter of fact. When I retired, my wife

1893
01:53:05.159 --> 01:53:10.319
says, and I finally not the
mistress, she says, My mistress,

1894
01:53:10.359 --> 01:53:14.880
my whole life, the fighting parent
in my love. I love the job.

1895
01:53:15.800 --> 01:53:19.159
Did you have to it was a
transition for you being used to first

1896
01:53:19.239 --> 01:53:24.000
do work, coming in as a
actually no, because I was going to

1897
01:53:24.039 --> 01:53:27.199
a lot of work and being in
the truck. You know, it's if

1898
01:53:27.239 --> 01:53:29.760
you're a squad, you're acting as
a truck. We're a rescue, right,

1899
01:53:29.840 --> 01:53:31.319
I mean you can act as anything. I've been assigners. A squad

1900
01:53:31.359 --> 01:53:34.079
achieves a stretch of lines, so
I do you know, whateverything, whatever

1901
01:53:34.119 --> 01:53:38.720
he asked for, we do.
But it wasn't a hard transition at all.

1902
01:53:38.920 --> 01:53:43.840
I had actually was part of the
founding group that started the Northern Brookhaven

1903
01:53:43.880 --> 01:53:47.920
Technical Rescue Team test force back in
ninety two or three, which was because

1904
01:53:47.920 --> 01:53:51.079
all the small fire departments along the
north shore of Long Island none of them

1905
01:53:51.119 --> 01:53:55.199
can really afford the men a full
technical rescue team. So what we did

1906
01:53:55.319 --> 01:54:00.720
is we got the talkt and Stony
Brook and Outside and Sound Beach Miller Place,

1907
01:54:01.960 --> 01:54:04.560
and we all got together and formed
this group. And this group's gonna

1908
01:54:04.560 --> 01:54:06.319
get this. This, We're going
to get this this, We're gonna get

1909
01:54:06.319 --> 01:54:09.760
this. So you can initiate a
rescue just like a squad, right,

1910
01:54:09.960 --> 01:54:13.359
We can initiate a rescue with the
amount of equipment we have and the support's

1911
01:54:13.399 --> 01:54:15.920
coming behind us. There's additional rescues
and squads, right. So that's the

1912
01:54:15.960 --> 01:54:20.159
way we kind of worked it on
a moment. So I had the knowledge

1913
01:54:20.199 --> 01:54:23.760
of this. I still had to
go to our rescue school, of course,

1914
01:54:23.800 --> 01:54:27.840
which was great because it just freshed
everything up and I loved it.

1915
01:54:27.920 --> 01:54:29.840
You remember the rescue school and it
was all way in the back in those

1916
01:54:29.880 --> 01:54:31.600
trailers. Yeah, the trailer,
Yeah, in the vacant lot in the

1917
01:54:31.640 --> 01:54:35.039
back of the bills back a long
way. Now they certainly have look at

1918
01:54:35.079 --> 01:54:39.439
that place now, it's beautiful.
Yeah, it is amazing. They did

1919
01:54:39.479 --> 01:54:42.399
a good job. Yep. So
two poin fifty two was a blast.

1920
01:54:42.439 --> 01:54:45.960
I absolutely loved it there. The
house is clean. We always keep kept

1921
01:54:45.000 --> 01:54:47.800
it clean. We drilled all the
time. Matter of fact, when when

1922
01:54:47.800 --> 01:54:51.520
we got the bailout rops, I'm
when they issued the bailout ropes after Black

1923
01:54:51.600 --> 01:54:56.520
Sunday. Yeah, well before the
before Black Sunday, I had actually asked

1924
01:54:56.560 --> 01:55:00.800
every man in the company to get
fifty feet of seven millimeters rope with some

1925
01:55:00.960 --> 01:55:03.359
kind of descent device in the Caribina, and we're gonna work on doing descent

1926
01:55:03.600 --> 01:55:06.319
now. We would use anchor points, whether it be a hog or how

1927
01:55:06.479 --> 01:55:11.119
And even you're SCBA, you could
take your SCBA and put it underneath the

1928
01:55:11.159 --> 01:55:14.640
window ztone because it comes up in
ninety and ninety you get it's necessary to

1929
01:55:14.920 --> 01:55:16.720
mass stays there and as you're descending, you're looking up and your mask comes

1930
01:55:16.760 --> 01:55:20.960
right off your face. Then you
just keep going. So Black Sunday comes

1931
01:55:20.960 --> 01:55:27.000
around, we finally have years later, we finally get our bellout ropes and

1932
01:55:27.079 --> 01:55:29.239
we go to the rock. So
I asked what they're going to train and

1933
01:55:29.239 --> 01:55:30.159
they said, yeah, we'll be
around, we'll train this. They had

1934
01:55:30.199 --> 01:55:35.960
the engine where wor all came down, so I called them two three times

1935
01:55:36.000 --> 01:55:41.399
and they don't come down. So
we had that towel in the back that

1936
01:55:41.439 --> 01:55:44.960
wouldn't town in the back that we
used for special training. Now we're using

1937
01:55:44.960 --> 01:55:48.359
it for balouce. And a year
later they called back to the rock and

1938
01:55:48.640 --> 01:55:51.119
no big deal. I'm not thinking
anything about but once they take our ropes

1939
01:55:51.159 --> 01:55:55.000
from us, I know we're in
trouble. So they called me up on

1940
01:55:55.039 --> 01:55:58.159
the carpet and I got like Theatian
chief captains, the tenants, firemen.

1941
01:55:59.119 --> 01:56:03.039
They said, you used your rope. You used your rope, yeah,

1942
01:56:03.479 --> 01:56:08.000
and we mean and you're not supposed
to use your rope. And so I

1943
01:56:08.039 --> 01:56:10.079
said, you guys said you're gonna
come around and training. You said you're

1944
01:56:10.079 --> 01:56:11.840
gonna be there, You're gonna train
this, you're gonna do this and that.

1945
01:56:12.000 --> 01:56:13.319
I said, my men need to
want what to do. And I

1946
01:56:13.359 --> 01:56:15.880
said, you can't expect anybody to
go to a PowerPoint session for four hours.

1947
01:56:16.000 --> 01:56:18.199
And then do six slides and know
what they're doing three months, four

1948
01:56:18.239 --> 01:56:20.319
months, six months down the road. You can't expect that. You have

1949
01:56:20.439 --> 01:56:24.760
to train. So my men have
hundreds of slides, hundreds of slides.

1950
01:56:25.119 --> 01:56:27.800
So anyway, they send me back
out and they call me back in at

1951
01:56:27.800 --> 01:56:30.399
the end of the day and say, says, if we give you ropes,

1952
01:56:30.439 --> 01:56:31.319
we stop using your personal ropes.
It says, that's all I want

1953
01:56:31.399 --> 01:56:35.359
something to train with. But they
be every month for every tour, day

1954
01:56:35.399 --> 01:56:39.960
too and night tour for six months
at least, we would go out and

1955
01:56:40.039 --> 01:56:43.159
do ten or fifteen slides every single
tour, day too, and night too,

1956
01:56:43.199 --> 01:56:45.319
and night to a day tour always
because that's how you're gonna get good

1957
01:56:45.359 --> 01:56:48.159
at it. So we were slides, and then we would do things like,

1958
01:56:48.199 --> 01:56:50.119
okay, what if here you go, Oh that's perfect, what if

1959
01:56:50.159 --> 01:56:53.119
you have to bail out? All
we all have to get out the window

1960
01:56:53.119 --> 01:56:56.159
in a hurry. So we just
bail out to everybody bounds out the window,

1961
01:56:56.159 --> 01:57:01.720
one after the other after the other. And I love putting two fifty

1962
01:57:01.760 --> 01:57:06.399
two together. Help me put it
together, because that camp started rebuilding that

1963
01:57:06.479 --> 01:57:11.359
company was probably one of the greatest
things I did. I just absolutely loved

1964
01:57:11.399 --> 01:57:13.600
it because all they wanted to do
was throw. All they want to do

1965
01:57:13.680 --> 01:57:15.439
is hit better. All they want
to do is be a better fireman.

1966
01:57:15.920 --> 01:57:18.680
Who can ask more than that?
I want to be better than they are

1967
01:57:18.720 --> 01:57:24.119
today, right, Yeah, more
than that? And how many guys did

1968
01:57:24.159 --> 01:57:26.840
you need on the roster when when
you got there you still need the decent

1969
01:57:27.800 --> 01:57:30.760
I used to keep twenty five twenty
six guys on the roster because it was

1970
01:57:30.760 --> 01:57:33.319
always somebody like. Matter of fact, one time we went to one of

1971
01:57:33.319 --> 01:57:36.960
those captains meetings and Norman said,
bring the roster's down in twenty two.

1972
01:57:38.520 --> 01:57:41.680
So I've let it go and I
called Phil Rublow. I asked me if

1973
01:57:41.680 --> 01:57:43.520
I can come over there, and
I says, you've been in the command

1974
01:57:43.560 --> 01:57:45.520
of a long time. I'm kind
of a short time in here. What

1975
01:57:45.600 --> 01:57:46.560
are you going to do about the
roster? He says, I'm keeping it

1976
01:57:46.640 --> 01:57:49.199
just the way it is. I
said, okay, that's fun with me,

1977
01:57:49.319 --> 01:57:53.359
and that's what I did. I
kept it that way. Yeah,

1978
01:57:53.359 --> 01:57:56.119
because there was always people moving around. Who's going to technical schools, who's

1979
01:57:56.159 --> 01:57:59.840
going to school, who's going to
chauffe's on vacation, who's on the chauffeurs

1980
01:58:00.159 --> 01:58:03.079
or whatever, and those criteria when
you were looking at guys to come over,

1981
01:58:03.840 --> 01:58:06.439
how to set criteria. Well,
you've got to remember that in the

1982
01:58:06.520 --> 01:58:12.399
beginning we needed people, you know, there just wasn't a lot of guys

1983
01:58:12.439 --> 01:58:15.960
come on. I mean I was
looking for people like Mike Parone or pieces

1984
01:58:15.039 --> 01:58:18.119
like Bonse Eye or or keat Lee
or Schwager. I was looking for They

1985
01:58:18.119 --> 01:58:21.079
weren't really getting the cream at the
crop. But I don't want to say

1986
01:58:21.119 --> 01:58:25.079
it that way, but you were
getting younger guys. Let's say I was

1987
01:58:25.119 --> 01:58:27.560
getting guys with two and three years
on the job, right, they weren't

1988
01:58:27.560 --> 01:58:30.239
even first grade five in some of
this christ when its first araid did buy

1989
01:58:30.279 --> 01:58:36.319
the meal, so they But I
got these guys coming in. I can't

1990
01:58:36.359 --> 01:58:39.600
explain it. It's an attitude they
have, it's the heart they have,

1991
01:58:39.720 --> 01:58:42.520
It's that drive they have. You
know, before they actually paid you to

1992
01:58:42.600 --> 01:58:45.079
be in special operations. That's why
they were coming in. They were coming

1993
01:58:45.119 --> 01:58:46.279
in for the love of the job
and because they loved it in their heart.

1994
01:58:46.520 --> 01:58:49.960
That's why everybody came to special operations
originally. Now people come from the

1995
01:58:50.039 --> 01:58:54.960
money. And the Chief Norman said
that we're going to get a twelve percent

1996
01:58:55.079 --> 01:58:57.359
raise because of special operations. I
said, that's gonna be the end of

1997
01:58:57.359 --> 01:59:00.560
special operations as we know it.
PEP. We're gonna come money and not

1998
01:59:00.720 --> 01:59:04.680
for the desire in their heart.
I can't explain. The military guys always

1999
01:59:04.680 --> 01:59:09.319
got a preference because I'm a military
guy. Military guys have a certain discip

2000
01:59:09.359 --> 01:59:12.359
incindem but even the non military guys. But I had to go through a

2001
01:59:12.399 --> 01:59:14.560
lot of guys. There were guys
who were able to come in, bullshit

2002
01:59:14.600 --> 01:59:17.680
their way past me and then once
into the aptitude. I had another remember

2003
01:59:17.720 --> 01:59:20.439
the cement playing from one on one
truck I was talking about. I had

2004
01:59:20.479 --> 01:59:25.920
this other place over on Irving and
we'd go in the ladder. We go

2005
01:59:25.920 --> 01:59:28.279
into the building. I come down
and it's a mechanical door there. So

2006
01:59:28.319 --> 01:59:30.720
I take my school driver, I
take everything apart, and I take the

2007
01:59:30.760 --> 01:59:31.600
wires, and the wives are just
hanging there. I go, tap,

2008
01:59:31.840 --> 01:59:35.039
the door goes up, Tap the
door goes down. It's perfect. I

2009
01:59:35.239 --> 01:59:38.359
bring the apparatus in there. I
close the door. We can drill in

2010
01:59:38.399 --> 01:59:41.119
there all day long. We drolled
a lot of hours when we first started

2011
01:59:41.119 --> 01:59:43.479
because we had a lot of young
guys. I'd say we're going out for

2012
01:59:43.600 --> 01:59:45.720
drill to ten. We'd come back
at four and sometime in the afternoon they'd

2013
01:59:45.720 --> 01:59:47.640
be likeyeah, we're gonna eat today, and I said, you guys want

2014
01:59:47.640 --> 01:59:53.760
to eat too. They kind of
nicknamed med' drill not. You know,

2015
01:59:53.800 --> 01:59:56.880
I didn't mind at all because we
needed that kind of drilling. And by

2016
01:59:57.159 --> 02:00:00.239
putting the guys through the emotions like
that, these guys show the they had

2017
02:00:00.279 --> 02:00:02.720
the capability, aptitude, and attitude
necessary to stay in that type of an

2018
02:00:02.800 --> 02:00:05.640
environment. And those are the guys
who stayed. Matter of fact, one

2019
02:00:05.680 --> 02:00:10.159
guy called me up once and he
wasn't really well liked in the firehouse,

2020
02:00:10.199 --> 02:00:12.279
but he calls me up after he
retires and he says, I just want

2021
02:00:12.279 --> 02:00:15.039
to thank you for keeping me.
I said, I kept you not because

2022
02:00:15.600 --> 02:00:19.199
of your personality. I kept you
because of your talent. That's why I

2023
02:00:19.239 --> 02:00:23.119
says. If you couldn't do the
fire duty, then you wouldn't be here.

2024
02:00:23.279 --> 02:00:25.279
I says, just because you're in
the kitchen and you're breaking balls and

2025
02:00:25.319 --> 02:00:27.720
somebody doesn't like it, doesn't mean
you're not going to stay. Right,

2026
02:00:27.800 --> 02:00:30.359
he had talent. There's other guys
who are we to turn in, but

2027
02:00:30.439 --> 02:00:32.039
didn't have the talent, and I'd
be like this, I'm sorry, You've

2028
02:00:32.039 --> 02:00:34.680
got to go back, come back
into two three years, three years when

2029
02:00:34.720 --> 02:00:36.239
you get more experience, and guys
to be like, well, what are

2030
02:00:36.239 --> 02:00:39.800
your talent? I said, Thoma
captain sucks. I don't care if they

2031
02:00:39.840 --> 02:00:46.039
think about me, guys, but
we had some really really terrific guys.

2032
02:00:46.079 --> 02:00:49.800
I mean all guys thanking me for
putting them into the Special Operation, for

2033
02:00:49.920 --> 02:00:55.039
bringing them into the Special Operations Command
and giving them the opportunities that they had.

2034
02:00:55.600 --> 02:00:57.800
And I mean there's a lot of
guys from two fifty two outs.

2035
02:00:57.840 --> 02:01:00.880
A matter of fact, Jason Bressla
told I think you sold my son just

2036
02:01:00.960 --> 02:01:03.720
recently that two fifty two puts more
guys in the rescues than any other squad

2037
02:01:03.720 --> 02:01:12.600
out there. I say, followed
eight of course very much. No would

2038
02:01:12.640 --> 02:01:15.840
you say you would go to a
decent amount of work there? We did,

2039
02:01:15.000 --> 02:01:18.079
We did, We was Italian truth. Two fifty two was probably the

2040
02:01:18.119 --> 02:01:21.880
slowest company that was worked in.
We were only doing about twenty four to

2041
02:01:21.920 --> 02:01:25.439
twenty five hundred alarms a year.
That's a bun, you know, I

2042
02:01:25.520 --> 02:01:28.680
mean, you know, from seven
thousand and forty two to I don't know,

2043
02:01:29.159 --> 02:01:32.720
maybe forty five five thousand in nineteen
and about that in one fifty seven,

2044
02:01:33.239 --> 02:01:35.439
twenty five hundred runs is a bun, matter of fact. One guy

2045
02:01:35.439 --> 02:01:39.119
answer once, would I ever leave
two fifty two? I thought about a

2046
02:01:39.199 --> 02:01:42.600
minute, I says. The only
place I'd leave two fifty two four is

2047
02:01:42.680 --> 02:01:45.319
rescue three. It's a wide rescue
three, I said, because they do

2048
02:01:45.399 --> 02:01:49.840
less work than they do one when
the one's got a great run to work

2049
02:01:49.960 --> 02:01:55.680
ratio too, squad one, Yeah, great run to work ratio. I

2050
02:01:55.720 --> 02:01:59.239
don't even think they two thousand runs, Yeah, yeah, all right,

2051
02:02:00.079 --> 02:02:01.479
five hundred runs a year. We're
still getting two hundred and forty or so.

2052
02:02:01.800 --> 02:02:04.680
Oh, I know. So it
was. It was a decent range

2053
02:02:04.720 --> 02:02:09.560
of about ten percent of all runs
were fired. Right, that's a good

2054
02:02:09.600 --> 02:02:12.520
percentage. Yeah. Yeah, you
didn't work at every one of them,

2055
02:02:12.560 --> 02:02:15.720
but you've gone through the mall of
course. Not Now about I got to

2056
02:02:15.720 --> 02:02:19.039
give you the busiest night I ever
had August third, two thousand and three,

2057
02:02:19.319 --> 02:02:25.159
the Blackout. Oh my god,
I went to if I'm correct,

2058
02:02:25.239 --> 02:02:30.359
that went to eleven jobs and that
fifteen hour night tour. Right, and

2059
02:02:30.479 --> 02:02:32.239
Chris Gola and Charlie Marshall were working
at day too. I think they went

2060
02:02:32.319 --> 02:02:36.760
to nine more. Wow, that
was a busy, busy tour. Boy,

2061
02:02:38.319 --> 02:02:43.439
imagine what the summer seventy seven was
like. I wouldn't even imagine.

2062
02:02:43.479 --> 02:02:46.560
Oh my god, they had more
fight than they can actually have fire rangines.

2063
02:02:46.560 --> 02:02:48.720
I think you know, they were
guys working there, guys working there,

2064
02:02:48.760 --> 02:02:54.119
guys taking work structure. I was
off that night year seventy seven.

2065
02:02:54.920 --> 02:03:02.439
I was no in uh two thousand
and three seventy seven, I was Eddie

2066
02:03:02.439 --> 02:03:06.760
Curley one all three got a medal
that night for me in two thousand and

2067
02:03:06.800 --> 02:03:11.600
three in one three. Yeah.
Yeah, it was fire all over the

2068
02:03:11.600 --> 02:03:14.319
place. Man. Actually, at
one point the guy said because it was

2069
02:03:14.319 --> 02:03:16.800
a hot night, and the guy
said we need we need five minutes.

2070
02:03:16.800 --> 02:03:19.359
I said, got a problem.
We sat on a curve that says whenever

2071
02:03:19.399 --> 02:03:21.359
you guys are ready, and just
let me know. They hurt the ten

2072
02:03:21.399 --> 02:03:24.840
seventy five. We were in the
court for about five minutes. Eight minutes

2073
02:03:24.960 --> 02:03:27.000
they heard a ten seventy five.
I looked at them and says, let's

2074
02:03:27.039 --> 02:03:29.960
go. They got up in randon
and said, okay, I'm in there.

2075
02:03:30.039 --> 02:03:32.800
You go, yep, fan,
I want to say aim way over

2076
02:03:32.880 --> 02:03:35.399
time, guys, I'm sorry,
that's all right. I want to say

2077
02:03:35.479 --> 02:03:41.640
poorly. Uh, yeah, you
know what. Let's let's say that we'll

2078
02:03:41.720 --> 02:03:45.119
talk about the old school health and
safety tip I'll tell I'll tell him,

2079
02:03:45.159 --> 02:03:46.760
all right, we could do that. We can do guys about was there

2080
02:03:46.800 --> 02:03:50.520
anything else you want to Was there
anything else that you had that you definitely

2081
02:03:50.560 --> 02:03:54.600
wanted to talk about with fifty two? Anything else? Let me tell you

2082
02:03:54.680 --> 02:03:58.039
something. I can go on and
on. I know I'll give you.

2083
02:03:58.039 --> 02:04:00.760
The last thing I'll talk about with
two fifty two is now I get hurt

2084
02:04:00.760 --> 02:04:03.199
and they're retiring me, which is
sudden, and I mean my live was

2085
02:04:03.279 --> 02:04:06.199
quivering when Juliani told me I'll never
go back to full duty. And I

2086
02:04:06.319 --> 02:04:10.560
had the chief. I was up
at the headquarters on Metro Tech and they

2087
02:04:10.600 --> 02:04:12.199
were trying to get me to run
to the rescue school, and I was

2088
02:04:12.239 --> 02:04:14.359
like, I don't want to drive
back to Ford to MANHATI five days books.

2089
02:04:15.119 --> 02:04:19.039
So Andrewdinkle right in Rescue one he
got to medal himself or picking somebody

2090
02:04:19.079 --> 02:04:23.720
off for the stories in the air, he wants to like an interview to

2091
02:04:23.840 --> 02:04:27.159
me for the website. And one
question he said to me, do you

2092
02:04:27.239 --> 02:04:31.119
have any regrets. I didn't think
about that a little while, and I

2093
02:04:31.199 --> 02:04:34.800
said something along the line of,
like this, things that I might not

2094
02:04:34.960 --> 02:04:38.359
have done had I had a chance
to think about it the second time.

2095
02:04:38.840 --> 02:04:42.399
But the things that I did wrong
also form the person I am today,

2096
02:04:42.399 --> 02:04:45.039
as well as the things I've done
right. So if I change that,

2097
02:04:45.119 --> 02:04:46.239
that might change who I am now. And I like who I am now,

2098
02:04:46.520 --> 02:04:50.079
so realistically, I don't have regrets. Other things I would change probably,

2099
02:04:50.399 --> 02:04:53.119
but could if I had to go
back and do it again, I

2100
02:04:53.119 --> 02:04:56.880
wouldn't change it because it created the
person I am today, and I credit

2101
02:04:57.279 --> 02:05:00.520
I can't even go through all the
names, Amiel Marauda and on the Alba,

2102
02:05:00.600 --> 02:05:02.399
and I credit so many of these
people, Richie Mills, Neil Taylor

2103
02:05:02.840 --> 02:05:08.000
with making me the fireman I am
today, molding me and watching them and

2104
02:05:08.319 --> 02:05:10.439
and wanted to be like when I
go up, I want to be like

2105
02:05:10.560 --> 02:05:13.920
that guy. But it was also
guys out there whose names I won't mention

2106
02:05:14.000 --> 02:05:15.119
when I looked it over, and
I say, like Dwayne Marsha and I

2107
02:05:15.159 --> 02:05:17.479
worked a lot together and studying the
firehouse together, I says, if I

2108
02:05:17.520 --> 02:05:19.600
am to do something like that,
just kick me in the balls. Well,

2109
02:05:21.119 --> 02:05:25.359
that also formed me those guys you
know you need, but it also

2110
02:05:25.479 --> 02:05:28.079
forms who you want because you're like, I don't want to do that.

2111
02:05:28.479 --> 02:05:30.439
I would never do that if I
was a you know, if I a

2112
02:05:30.560 --> 02:05:33.159
chief, I'm never doing that.
If I'm a captain, I'm never going

2113
02:05:33.239 --> 02:05:35.680
to do that to my guys.
You know, I had a chief once

2114
02:05:35.720 --> 02:05:41.039
in Flatbush on the subway. You
know, the in the subway flat wishes

2115
02:05:41.079 --> 02:05:44.239
the end of the line and this
conduit running up there right. So I

2116
02:05:44.319 --> 02:05:46.000
gave my report and this chief comes
out talking around. I'm not gonna mention

2117
02:05:46.039 --> 02:05:48.760
his name because he was a little
pompous, and he goes walking around and

2118
02:05:48.800 --> 02:05:53.880
says, uh uh for one to
ah got him shut down a cat Mary

2119
02:05:53.960 --> 02:05:59.119
Lions. I'm standing at go like
this and go cat Mary Lions. He

2120
02:05:59.239 --> 02:06:00.439
goes, what are you all that, Lieutenant? I said, I call

2121
02:06:00.520 --> 02:06:13.359
that can do it? Cheef.
What does he ride the air track?

2122
02:06:15.439 --> 02:06:17.600
Because I was fuff you know,
he was buff, so he was bling

2123
02:06:17.600 --> 02:06:23.520
for working out and stuff. So
that's what I'll talk about. With that

2124
02:06:23.600 --> 02:06:26.680
stuff, I can go on and
I will say one other thing, which

2125
02:06:27.159 --> 02:06:30.399
just pique my interest. The fact
that you're happy with who you are now

2126
02:06:30.479 --> 02:06:32.119
a lot of people can't say that
about themselves, so that says a lot

2127
02:06:32.159 --> 02:06:35.439
about it, you know, like
taking everything good and bad, and you're

2128
02:06:35.479 --> 02:06:39.520
happy where you are today and the
person you are. And I'm not perfect,

2129
02:06:39.720 --> 02:06:43.079
far off from perfect, believe from
it, yea off from it.

2130
02:06:44.239 --> 02:06:45.479
I'd love to I'd love to chip
and chat more because I can tell you

2131
02:06:45.479 --> 02:06:50.560
about the time I shot down the
Buckeye pipeline and all three airports called.

2132
02:06:50.960 --> 02:06:57.640
They called for a part after you
moved down to Maryland. Uh your phone.

2133
02:06:58.960 --> 02:07:01.199
I could turn my computer show you
my house is a wreck. Once

2134
02:07:01.279 --> 02:07:10.239
you get once you get well.
I guess that's the character that I actually

2135
02:07:10.279 --> 02:07:14.560
got into the books on that one. I said to a chief, we

2136
02:07:14.680 --> 02:07:17.640
had a fire and tires store and
he's pulling everybody out. I come out

2137
02:07:17.680 --> 02:07:20.079
of the building. I says,
Chief, give me three minutes I can

2138
02:07:20.119 --> 02:07:23.760
get there. And he looks at
me. He says, three minutes,

2139
02:07:23.840 --> 02:07:26.279
Danny Butler. I says, really, Chief, three minutes and I can

2140
02:07:26.359 --> 02:07:28.479
get this. Just give me a
line of three minutes. He says,

2141
02:07:28.520 --> 02:07:30.319
you got three minutes. And I
go in and sure enough, and first

2142
02:07:30.359 --> 02:07:32.640
we had to pass out pain soils. I don't want to go into it.

2143
02:07:32.760 --> 02:07:34.840
Go ahead. I don't want to
go to it, but I do

2144
02:07:36.399 --> 02:07:41.079
all right, God the health and
city. So I love the job.

2145
02:07:43.960 --> 02:07:45.960
Remember remember that guy who said,
what are you going to tell him?

2146
02:07:45.960 --> 02:07:48.239
When you're old? Week and slow? Right? That's why I feel now.

2147
02:07:48.279 --> 02:07:50.279
If I could go back to Joe
tomorrow, I do it. But

2148
02:07:50.399 --> 02:07:53.600
I'm old the week and slow and
hopefully when I asked me what I did,

2149
02:07:53.680 --> 02:07:55.760
I tell him in New York City, fine, and it'll be enough.

2150
02:07:55.960 --> 02:08:01.600
It'll be enough. That's a quick
right, here we go fill play

2151
02:08:01.640 --> 02:08:07.079
the let's come and give it a
second. There's a little Yeah, the

2152
02:08:07.840 --> 02:08:11.279
streaming ARGs be giving us a little
trouble with the with some of these ads

2153
02:08:11.279 --> 02:08:13.439
as a delay. Yeah, that's
what I was talking to Mike about the

2154
02:08:13.520 --> 02:08:18.199
email stream you arg. The First
Responder Center for Excellence is a not for

2155
02:08:18.319 --> 02:08:22.880
profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives
and livelihoods of first responders. Their education

2156
02:08:22.960 --> 02:08:28.960
and research initiatives aim to bring greater
awareness and understanding the challenges to the health,

2157
02:08:28.319 --> 02:08:33.039
safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first

2158
02:08:33.039 --> 02:08:39.199
responders too. They are an affiliate
of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation. We're

2159
02:08:39.239 --> 02:08:43.960
gonna go all a little off script
tonight. We're gonna take a personal note

2160
02:08:43.039 --> 02:08:48.920
from a CAP here we talk about
health and safety tip. We talked about

2161
02:08:48.039 --> 02:08:54.319
early identification. Uh so CAP had
said, and appreciate. I mean that

2162
02:08:54.800 --> 02:08:58.439
that's the only reason you're alive today, right because what you had a medical

2163
02:09:00.119 --> 02:09:03.359
else the story now because we preach
it all the time, early detection.

2164
02:09:03.960 --> 02:09:05.560
I was. I was getting three
medicals a year, two from the job

2165
02:09:05.640 --> 02:09:09.720
and one from my valley house.
And about every four months, I was

2166
02:09:09.760 --> 02:09:11.680
getting a medical. And I was
fine one day, and then I go

2167
02:09:11.720 --> 02:09:15.359
to next medical and I get a
phone call from the medical office. You

2168
02:09:15.439 --> 02:09:18.039
go see a doctor right away.
And I don't remember exactly how the rating

2169
02:09:18.039 --> 02:09:22.640
of prostate cancer goes, but out
of a on a scale of one to

2170
02:09:22.760 --> 02:09:24.359
ten, I was probably an eight, maybe a little over. So I

2171
02:09:24.439 --> 02:09:28.239
go to the doctor and the first
doctor's pots. I changed doctors, and

2172
02:09:28.319 --> 02:09:30.000
I asked the doctor if I'm going
to live A dine and he says,

2173
02:09:30.000 --> 02:09:33.840
I don't know. So I make
a plan. I plan A, I

2174
02:09:33.920 --> 02:09:35.960
live, we continue our life.
Plan B. I'm not gonna live.

2175
02:09:35.000 --> 02:09:37.840
I build my own coffin and I
have my funeral before I die. So

2176
02:09:37.920 --> 02:09:43.720
I can enjoy the party. But
the bottom line is that that's say,

2177
02:09:43.840 --> 02:09:46.159
the job saved my life because of
those medicals. You know, I mean,

2178
02:09:46.319 --> 02:09:48.680
all right, I had the symptoms
of prostate cancer, but it wasn't

2179
02:09:48.720 --> 02:09:52.319
registering. I'm like, you know, it's just it'll go away. You

2180
02:09:52.399 --> 02:09:54.840
know. It's say, the job
saved my life by diagnosing me and giving

2181
02:09:54.880 --> 02:09:58.319
me the operation and doing what they
had to do to me to make it

2182
02:09:58.359 --> 02:10:01.479
happen. Listen, it wasn't easy. I shriveled up, I got complete,

2183
02:10:01.520 --> 02:10:05.479
almost bold with white hand. But
I'm alive because of those guys in

2184
02:10:05.760 --> 02:10:09.760
a medical office. My medical saved
my life. You go, so early

2185
02:10:09.880 --> 02:10:15.119
detection, early detection, even when
you're retired, making your business to continue

2186
02:10:15.159 --> 02:10:18.000
to go to the Trade Center medical
and even get a medical on your own.

2187
02:10:18.079 --> 02:10:22.000
Roofies going right, You go and
see what I was just saying.

2188
02:10:22.079 --> 02:10:24.920
We were talking with the cap like
you said in the pre show. I'm

2189
02:10:24.000 --> 02:10:26.520
like, you know, I'm going
twice a year, I go, you

2190
02:10:26.600 --> 02:10:30.960
know, January February with Rob Brown, and then I go, you know

2191
02:10:31.359 --> 02:10:35.319
whatever, August with the job for
the World Trade Center Medical. So I'm

2192
02:10:35.359 --> 02:10:39.359
thinking that six months I'm good.
Here. You are doing three, you

2193
02:10:39.479 --> 02:10:43.560
know, and in between a four
month freaking checkup, like imagine if you

2194
02:10:43.600 --> 02:10:46.960
know, knock on, would imagine
if you weren't going, you know,

2195
02:10:46.239 --> 02:10:50.880
doing that like Holy marcl like and
prostates. You know, if you're going

2196
02:10:50.920 --> 02:10:54.560
to get one, that might be
the one you want, you know what

2197
02:10:54.600 --> 02:10:56.159
I mean, you know, the
lesser of all the evils, right,

2198
02:10:56.399 --> 02:11:00.680
it's uh, you know, the
most survivable obvious, see if you catch

2199
02:11:00.720 --> 02:11:05.039
it early enough. So I mean, thank god, you know everything is

2200
02:11:05.560 --> 02:11:09.039
working out well for you, right, I mean, everything's good. Look

2201
02:11:09.079 --> 02:11:13.720
at Paul mcmaaman from two fifty two
main cancer and to watch him just lose

2202
02:11:13.920 --> 02:11:18.439
everything about him. I sat with
his wife, Jennifer, and when we

2203
02:11:18.560 --> 02:11:22.680
talked, and she said the hardest
part of this was that he wasn't my

2204
02:11:22.800 --> 02:11:24.720
Paulie anymore. She called him Paulie. He wasn't my Paulie anymore. He'd

2205
02:11:24.760 --> 02:11:28.720
say things and that he would never
ever say, you know, and she

2206
02:11:30.279 --> 02:11:33.199
just had to see too that because
like the old saying, like the old

2207
02:11:33.279 --> 02:11:35.479
man that goes to visit his wife
in the hospital dementia and they say to

2208
02:11:35.600 --> 02:11:37.479
him, why do you go visit
her? She doesn't even know who he

2209
02:11:37.560 --> 02:11:41.560
wants is, But I know who
she is. That's what Jennifer was.

2210
02:11:41.800 --> 02:11:45.359
Jennifer knows who Paul is, even
though he's going through this horrible thing in

2211
02:11:45.399 --> 02:11:48.039
his own mind. She knows to
Paul that she loves and she was never

2212
02:11:48.399 --> 02:11:52.520
going to give up on him.
Very sad story. No, I'm just

2213
02:11:52.640 --> 02:11:56.079
going to tell my quick story too
with Paul, because I knew him from

2214
02:11:56.840 --> 02:11:58.199
you know, special art when he
was two fifty two, right, and

2215
02:12:00.439 --> 02:12:03.520
and when I was in two eighty
eight, and then when I got hurt

2216
02:12:03.560 --> 02:12:07.359
and I was getting my operation and
all that, I went back to uh.

2217
02:12:07.760 --> 02:12:11.600
I went to Socck Island, right, And he actually made a move,

2218
02:12:11.640 --> 02:12:15.000
I guess, you know, later
in his career to drive the chief,

2219
02:12:15.319 --> 02:12:16.479
the sock chief, right, So
he had like the best job.

2220
02:12:16.520 --> 02:12:20.920
He was like a battalion aid,
you know, and he just got to

2221
02:12:20.960 --> 02:12:22.840
go to fires, you know what
I mean. So we were in the

2222
02:12:22.960 --> 02:12:26.680
same group together, like over there
they did the ABCD, So we were

2223
02:12:26.720 --> 02:12:28.920
in the same group. So I
used to see him every twenty four straight

2224
02:12:28.960 --> 02:12:31.000
twenty four as we did. And
I used to see him all the time,

2225
02:12:31.600 --> 02:12:37.000
and we became kind of close.
And that morning he was supposed to

2226
02:12:37.039 --> 02:12:41.840
be coming in and you know,
I was the officer on duty whatever,

2227
02:12:41.920 --> 02:12:46.239
and I'm like, you know,
anybody talked to Paul like he was usually

2228
02:12:46.319 --> 02:12:50.800
in by a certain time, right, So people started reaching out. And

2229
02:12:50.880 --> 02:12:54.920
then we found out that he had
gotten up to go to the bathroom and

2230
02:12:54.439 --> 02:12:58.159
I guess fell in the bathroom.
I don't know all the specifics, but

2231
02:12:58.359 --> 02:13:01.600
his wife found them and uh,
you know, ran him to the hospital

2232
02:13:01.640 --> 02:13:05.960
and they started doing tests and again, like you said, one day he's

2233
02:13:07.720 --> 02:13:11.119
going to fires and then the next
day, you know, he had a

2234
02:13:11.199 --> 02:13:15.319
brain tuma. Do we have his
picture? Gons No, you know you

2235
02:13:15.359 --> 02:13:16.920
don't have it. I think I
have it on my Facebook page because I

2236
02:13:16.960 --> 02:13:24.199
remember if you find any group pictures
over there, he's the guy that's usually

2237
02:13:24.239 --> 02:13:26.319
standing next to me. Makes me
look like a hobbit, tall guy,

2238
02:13:26.439 --> 02:13:33.199
bald fur me see. Uh nope, not in there. Uh it's eighteen

2239
02:13:33.840 --> 02:13:39.439
there he is. That's him behind
the captain. Okay, he's six foot

2240
02:13:39.880 --> 02:13:43.920
mots of him? Man, really
were Yep, you got Chris Goldrap,

2241
02:13:45.079 --> 02:13:46.840
Dave Rodriguez camera on peak and Mike
over in that picture as well. With

2242
02:13:48.880 --> 02:13:54.039
your theory, two fifty two cents
of most guys to rescues. Yep,

2243
02:13:54.199 --> 02:13:56.640
yep, And uh, like I
said, see that's a call with no

2244
02:13:56.800 --> 02:14:01.960
license plates. Don't puck you call
the street no license it's gonna become convertible.

2245
02:14:03.199 --> 02:14:07.880
Not what goes around bro. Oh
yeah, when passed away and I

2246
02:14:07.079 --> 02:14:11.199
was, uh that you know,
guys have passed away on the job,

2247
02:14:11.279 --> 02:14:13.399
and you know, you know people, but uh, that one bothered me

2248
02:14:13.800 --> 02:14:16.439
like a whole lot. He was
the sweetheart of a guy. Another line

2249
02:14:16.439 --> 02:14:20.920
of duty debts related to nine to
eleven. Yeah, so guys, please

2250
02:14:22.479 --> 02:14:24.520
well Nick mccuser didn't die from that. Nick MacUser, former of our union

2251
02:14:24.600 --> 02:14:28.520
boss, just died this week also, and somebody else just died. I

2252
02:14:28.560 --> 02:14:33.000
think it was from the Bronx,
wasn't. Oh I forgot the name was

2253
02:14:33.039 --> 02:14:35.640
like two weeks ago, right,
yeah, it was a couple of weeks

2254
02:14:35.640 --> 02:14:39.600
ago, yes, Nick, So
listen, for guys that are on the

2255
02:14:39.720 --> 02:14:43.239
job still, you go see Rob
Brown, or if you're retired, we

2256
02:14:43.399 --> 02:14:50.279
heavily recommend that you go see Robbie
does an extensive work up if you knows,

2257
02:14:50.279 --> 02:14:54.199
especially if he knows it even down
you know, at the pile.

2258
02:14:54.199 --> 02:14:58.239
So just get the medicals, bro, stop early detection and keep blasting it

2259
02:14:58.319 --> 02:15:01.920
over the air here, so you
gotta keep doing it. We do it

2260
02:15:01.000 --> 02:15:07.279
every year. Yea cap you're moving
out tomorrow. Huh yes, all right,

2261
02:15:07.399 --> 02:15:11.239
So when you get all settled,
give us a shout and we'll get

2262
02:15:11.239 --> 02:15:13.760
you off for round two. And
today is my grandmother's hunting ninth birthday.

2263
02:15:13.920 --> 02:15:18.720
Issue is still lot happy birthday,
Grandma nine. I still celebrate my parents

2264
02:15:18.760 --> 02:15:24.960
and my grandma's birthday. Nice it
was one hundred and eight. You would

2265
02:15:24.000 --> 02:15:31.640
never know it, right, use
some of the look I like you.

2266
02:15:33.039 --> 02:15:35.319
I like it. So Monday is
a little up in the air right now.

2267
02:15:35.359 --> 02:15:37.720
I'm working on a couple of guys. Roofie's working on. So will

2268
02:15:37.760 --> 02:15:43.720
surprise you over the weekend and working
on a few guys. That's maybe that's

2269
02:15:43.760 --> 02:15:46.600
how you work. Go ahead,
we finally got you on. Yeah,

2270
02:15:46.880 --> 02:15:50.079
yeah, thank you, thank you
for inviting man. I really appreciate it.

2271
02:15:50.199 --> 02:15:54.079
We'll have you back again to come
back again. Got like I said,

2272
02:15:54.439 --> 02:15:56.279
I can tell you about the time
I shut down at the airports.

2273
02:15:58.399 --> 02:16:01.479
You know we can do because we
even doing squad by squad, we get

2274
02:16:01.560 --> 02:16:05.800
like three or four guys from the
squads and maybe we'll get back calf in

2275
02:16:05.039 --> 02:16:09.520
a couple of the seventy and we
did too eighty eight, So maybe we'll

2276
02:16:09.560 --> 02:16:11.359
do it two fifty two. We
guys. Yeah, like that's a good

2277
02:16:11.399 --> 02:16:13.960
idea. I'd love to have a
couple of old guys with me. Tommy

2278
02:16:15.039 --> 02:16:20.520
Rogers the time he killed three animals
in one day. Tommy Rodgers is a

2279
02:16:20.560 --> 02:16:22.359
go to guy. He is a
go to guys, a great guy.

2280
02:16:24.319 --> 02:16:28.560
We might have to go find Norton
and revive him. I'm not We're not

2281
02:16:28.680 --> 02:16:33.479
dealing with Norton because he was tortured
with the technology part. It was.

2282
02:16:33.959 --> 02:16:37.440
I'm not doing it. He lives
right down there. Maybe I'll have to

2283
02:16:37.479 --> 02:16:39.040
come to my house. He lives
right down the plot. He was horrible.

2284
02:16:39.200 --> 02:16:43.760
He's not doing it. Horrible.
Guys. So we'll see you on

2285
02:16:43.879 --> 02:16:48.959
Monday. Have a great weekend.
Until then, stay low, go all

2286
02:16:48.040 --> 02:16:50.079
right, everybody, we'll see it
the big One. Thanks again, Cap,

2287
02:16:50.520 --> 02:16:52.600
Thank you. All right, guys, have a good night.