You're listening to the Getting Salty Experienced podcast. We up back. That's right.
We talk off Monday, and we might take off every Monday in July.
Right roof. Oh yeah, yep, I felt. I welcome back
to the Getting Salty Experienced podcast, the only one that brings the firehouse kits
your table for that matter, the apparatus floor, the bunk room, the
TV room right to you right, not just to kitchen table. We bring
it all, bro, bring it all. We bring it up the Greenwood
Lake too. That's where Louis is right now, off Greenwood Lake. Well,
I would you blow up a spot like that? Oh look at that
man, that's like a little piece of heaven, little slice of heaven there.
Roof. I shine a bow, pure green grass right on the water.
Huh. What's your what's your rent? Like the whole neighborhood? So
they keep everybody away for that kind of money, Mikey, I guarantee he
might have rented the whole green with lake. I'm thinking I remember he was
a former Wall Street guy. Listen, you know what, I know it,
I know it, prob And what happened? Your mother in law came
up right? What'd she bring the meat balls. She what she made tonight?
Thereini a plant rolling team. She brought the sauce, so she made
the sauce. You brought the jaws souce. Every two years we make sauce.
So she had it the jaws right. You showed me how to do
that. I was doing myself. She brought it up. She made the
a plant roller TEENI a little Boston with it too. What Yeah, not
so many people he pasta anymore? Like me and my brone are the only
ones abody else East. So yeah, what kind of pasta? Jeff Greenie,
A couple of burghers and the ribs and stuff to the hole, even
living hot, living high on the hog there, Mikey, Cologne, isn't
it? God bless America's beautiful country in the world. It really is the
light, he added, though he did it, said he did. Absolutely.
We actually we're talking about well we were were, as I was saying
when we were off the air. We're past two thousand and five hundred views
for almost three thousand views or any for our episode Volume thirty nine are the
best of the bravest interviews with the ft Wise. We had a little podcast,
no idea what they're doing what you have to pay him, Mike,
Finally, what did you get him on the show? You had to give
him some money? Alf, We're paying him in spurts. You know,
a down payment was put down, so by the end of the year,
I'm thinking I'll have it paid off. Hopefully he's smart, you know,
yeah, indeed, indeed, indeed he's smart. I was just gonna say
something else if I got oh, so I told these guys. So I
go to the Yankee game last night, right, the whole family. I
take my wife, the kids, one of my son's friends games over.
I go to take a piss. Right, there's eight thousand guys that have
bathroom. I looked to my right and that's a guy giving me this hairy
eyeball right, I'm like, this guy has to watch the show. Bro
not done washing my hand? He comes off it. I watched the show
on from Orlando. Great show man. I love it. I love it.
He goes, uh, thanks, but I really appreciate it. Blah
blah blah. I go outside. He's like, dude, can I take
a selfie with you? I want to send them to the guys. I
should have got the guy's name that's my bed. Bro, I look out
a cormia. My wife's doing this. Oh my god, But did you
walk into a movie here the other day? You were telling us movies last
week? Yeah, crazy, crazy, I tell yeah. I mean,
I'm not that famous, so I can't. I can't say that's ever happened
to me. I'll trade the fame for final's money any day the week.
That's what I mean so far, Bro, what I'm saying. So we're
off every Monday this month. I think next Thursday we got who we got
next Thursday? Is it Timmy who? I'll former Lieutenant Kelly twenty he's the
twentieth. I think, oh, oh, you're right, a little two
weeks away. There you go. Advanced advertising have the whole the whole month
of bill. We got good guys for the month of July. So I
got the ninety year old guy from seventeen truck. Oh what I tried,
bro, ninety years old. He's gotta have some old stories, man.
That should be good, God blessed, and I hope he makes it.
We'll hit him with that line. Of course's the rest of the family with
it. You made the state stay outside. They're all downstairs. In the
yard, in the base and then the first floor. I'm upstairs. What
are you doing? You want to you know how we're gonna do a podcast.
If you could hear my mother in law screaming in the background in the
town. Right, does she bring like the Mary on a Half show with
her? Or no, you don't bring that with her? She leaves.
You gotta put one in the house to bless the whole house, right,
come with a couple of she had a time, a couple of times,
loaves of bread she had. She brings the whole a lot of bridgote,
all that stuff. Yeah, she's off the boat Italian. Oh yeah,
yeah, if you talked to me, you know, my first five seconds
I said that to my mother all the time. I said, I hadn't
been in this country for like thirty years. I still can barely understead.
Do you listen to fine? What are you doing? Lou You're my favorite
son in law, your only law. That's the way I'm my favorite.
Maybe your follow in law told you, hey, LOOI don't be a poop
poop party. You need a party, party, party poop excellent. All
right, Michael, let's do some commercials. Then we want to get in
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the National Falling Firefighter Foundation NICE and the old school health and safety tip for
today is twenty four. Believe it or not, Uh use your SCBA during
ovhaul. Your future self will thank you for the actions you'd take today.
That goes for call fives. Karao used to wear it. Call fives.
People used to make fun of him. Right, But I tell you the
stuff the ship that comes off the cause even in even doing ovahaul, Bro,
it's not the same stuff that used to breathe years ago, that woods
plastics. It's all out other craps. Though. Don't be a tough guy.
Use your SCBA, collect your pension for a long time. And that
is that? All right? That's it. Let's bring out Gueston, all
right, isn't he Well, he's I have many bosses at the firehouse,
but he's he's somebody I work alongside. Doesn't feel like a boss. And
I mean it as a compliment, Ladies and gentlemen. Out of the West
Haven, Connecticut Fire Department, our department. The story and retired Lieutenant Bill
Heffern There he is, Bro there, you know, living the dream in
his Hawaiian shirt. Bro. You know what I'm saying, oh, but
Jamaica, Oh, I want to take a bill to wait as soon as
you retire. That's the first thing you put on, is that shirt?
For he does we have flip flops? Where's your margarady? You got one
there? Next year? Away? Gatoradya got gatorady too. You're not drinking
today? Rough? M hm, yes, they hydra. Yeah, you've
been drinking a lot. I haven't, So I'll do drinking for the both
of you. How'd you like that? Excellent? Um? Fair enough?
Before we get it to it, I know the guys have been asking for
it. Let's do the right thing here. Let's give the five bells for
the two guys that we lost in Newark. You can bring up that pictures,
Mike, Rest and peace. Brothers. We say this all the time.
This job can humble you in a second. Man, careful, please,
you know it'll Humbia going into a ship. That'll Humbia. That's like
a floating subseller, bro, you I'm out, bro. We took that
maritime, that that shipboard firefighting in maritime. That was one of the hardest
classes. That think we overtook and I am out out out out you know,
after I woke up this morning. I was watching that. I was
just asking Kevin and the pre show. I remembered it and I forgot all
about it. I had gone to they had a ship fire in Staaten Island,
I think it was a Staten island, and we went as a squad
to support and the fire was out. It was all cars. It wasn't
multiple floors, I don't think, maybe just two floors, but we had
to go down to the to the bottom, right to the hall, I
guess. And when I got there, the chief said, you know,
most of it's out, do me a favor, you know, keep your
meter on, do this, do that, and we just don't do a
secondary. And when we got down at it was pitch black. Everything was
full of all. I mean, I cannot tell you about the oil right,
you could not even the cars were front taria, front tirea. They
had to be I don't know, a hundred of them on this level.
And then they were side to side just enough that you could barely walk barely
walk through there, and a lot of times they were too close you had
to jump up on the car. And everything was full of oil. There
was I mean, it was I couldn't even explained it to what it really
looked like. And everything was off steaming and it was just a mess.
And I remember I didn't you know, we didn't have our mask. I'm
thinking about that now. I'm like, we were slipping all over the place,
walking over the hoods of the car, and I was just like it
had to be. I can't imagine like going down into there if the fire
was actually still happening, you know what I mean. It was one way
in one way smoke from a car fight. Bros Out. Oh, I
think we have a picture of the vessel right now. Yeah, let's pull
that up. I mean it. And and it was so bad actually that
the ft and why I had to send, amongst other units, Rescue five
and Squad eight from Staten Island to go assistant a mutual aid. And here's
that boat just to give you an idea of how serious it was. You
can see an FDN Y Marine unit there in the foreground. This was an
extremely serious fire that unfortunately, very tragic consequences got to be like ten stories
there right at twenty fifteen at least. It is yeah to go down in
there. You know, I had heard that somebody had you know, the
guys were texting me and stuff that. You know, they sent other rescue
companies from other cities, you know, I guess in Jersey or whatever,
and uh, you know, those guys were running into trouble and given may
days. So that's as real as it gets. And unfortunately, uh,
you know, I think there's some other guys that are in serious critical situation
there too, so hopefully, you know, they come out of this thing.
But yeah, right, it's a it's a scary that's a scary fire
man. That's scary story. And these two guys, just to pull up
their picture one more time, Uh, they're both you know, the ages
respectively on firefighter exactly. Mister firefighter Brooks was almost fifty in firefight or a
cope. I hope I'm saying his last name correctly. If I don't,
I apologize sincerely. It was about forty five. So you can have a
lot of because I'm preaching to the choir here with the three of you,
you can have a lot of time on the job. It doesn't matter.
A situation like that, experience goes out the window. And unfortunately, if
the circumstances are that dire, it doesn't matter who you are, it'll kill
you. Yep. From the spot you go in. That's clear. When
you go straight down into you know, a hatch or a stairway or whatever.
You the only thing you could take as a search rope, right and
not only go so far. And if that gets jammed up, or if
it gets well, get anything now and it's gone, it's not. If
it's gone, get snagged up, You're not gonna be able to find.
It's gonna slip out of your hand. It's gonna get tangled up. It's
it's uh, the worst case scenario, man, it really is. Just
it's just very very difficult. I mean, the fact that the thing was
either I don't even know if it's out, if this put it out,
I don't even know. We like before we start talks about my band Bill
here, you gotta give the word of the day that Gonzo fucking blammed out.
I'm trying to see. I mean, let me see if I could
find it here because it wasn't typed up in the banner earlier. Hopefully it
is now and I apologe I'll tell you why we came up with this word
of the day. I'm looking I'm looking forward here my god, where is
it? Where did you put it? Gonzo? Here we go. The
word of the day is silly. And the only reason I said that is
because, oh he changed it the bill, You son of a god.
You change it the bill? It was. He came in and said this
William. I said, what do you want to prefer to be called William
or Bill? He said, oh, you called me Bill? I said,
don't word. By the end of this, well, I'm drinking so
much I'll be silly. I'll be calling you Willie bro Well, that's you
know what I'm ever missed you? Before you go only further we start talking
to mister Bill. We gotta do the pledge, please, all right,
Here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God,
indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Excellent, excellent, all right,
missed the bill. So you've been in the in the fire service quite a
long time. You joined um West Haven Hooking a loud up company. Number
one is a volunteer in eighty two. Give us a little of your early
days background. Where are you from? Why did you start what attract you
to the fire service? You have family in there? Whatever. Well,
I was born and raised in West Haven, Connecticut, and when I graduated
from high school, my father taught me and I quote, don't be an
Assho'll join the fire department. Didn't like I was a volunteer at West Table
Hooking Lotder. It's kind of funny. My father in law was deputy chief
in my department long before I got on UM. And I have a picture
from nineteen fifty seven, all the guys out in front of the firehouse and
my father and my father in law are standing right next to each other before
either my wife I were even born. Oh that's you didn't send that one.
Oh you should have said that one. So they knew each other.
Oh yeah, he was his bulls. Basically he was the deputy and joined
h I joined Hookian Lawder in eighty two, shortly after I get out of
high school. And uh, you know, guys, for my generation,
we did a lot of drinking and card plan you know, and then they
tricked you and they made you washing apperass and train and fight fires afterwards.
But it was very still is. It's a great company, very social.
All the guys know each other. Um. The funny stories. My father
was a school teacher, and when when he was younger and then hook and
lad or the chief would come down and say, listen, who wants to
be a firefighter. We need guys on the pay department. And he said,
well, for thirty thirty eight hundred dollars a year, I could be
a firefighter, or for four thousand, I could be a teacher at weekends.
The summer's off. So he became a teacher. Hey, you make
a mad choice a year, you know, it's like the summer is off.
Though. That's alluring, bro, that's all right. M that's what
do you teach? High school? Grammar school, high school. He's a
history teacher. A coincidence. Oh shit, that's when I was going to
be Bill. I was going to school to be a history teacher, and
then the flight apartment cold I went the other way though. Yeah, that's
I hung around for a while, and uh, I didn't get on.
I was I was one of the old guys. When I got on,
I was twenty nine, you know, forty year old guys. You know,
what's that? What you do before that? In the meantime, I
worked at a carpet company. I was an iron worker. I was tending
are and we have a main street in our town called Campbell Avenue. We're
a small town, about fifty thousand people. It's about thirty bars on it.
So I always saying where are you. We're out on the avenue,
you know. And uh my, my current chief and I got on the
job together, and we knew each other. We were both bartenders and and
he was thirty four when we got on and we said, you know we're
gonna get all we better get a real job. So we joined the fire
department. But back then, you know, we took a test against seven
hundred guys. It was it was quite competitive. Not it's a little different
these days. And I get your paramedic and you know they're dying for guys
to come on the job. Well that they can't get guys to come on
the page job. Really, listen, you put a test on, you
got twenty people take it. You know, it's how many guys are on
the on the firepointment. My department, I got fifty six, fifty six
guys. But you have volleys too, right, you work they worked with
you. Yeah, when they when this stations are man, it's we don't
have half the follways that we used to have. Its volunt terrorisms down too.
It's it's no one has time to do it, no one wants.
That's across the country that's happening. Yeah, that's not just us, man,
I don't understand. But the paid why guys wouldn't want to be a
paid fine? And I don't know we have guys quit quinn. I never
heard of the guy in the fire department before. Oh a loan. Maybe
maybe he didn't feel Yeah, maybe he's in the gym right, put a
couple more pads on. Let's get him all the job. That's all.
I'm getting paid a decent salary to not running into a burning building, and
on top of it, and also a complete dufus. So you don't us.
I haven't heard that along. That's not even your generation. That's a
mike. You gotta remember. Firemen are crazy, not because we run into
burning buildings when everyone's running out, but because we liked to exactly. I
never heard that I can see anybody to run into a burning building. We
like it. That is very true. I can't believe they can't get how
far is that from long Island. I'll get my son over there, and
twenty miles you go across the water. That's it. You take the ferry,
Mike. Is that the pizza capital over there? No, we're we're
adjacent to the pizza capital, pizza capital of course, being New Haven.
We're in west I don't know. I would put a couple of West Havens.
Uh pizza. What makes them the pizza capital? Dude? They got
great pizza there, old school. Because we have nothing else. We're sandwich
between New York and Boston. Let us have at least one thing. I
don't know. I'm just as kid. That's all over there. I got
that. Evens got mikes and new parties and we got yeah, that's true.
We are uh, we're in the capital, pizza capital world. Wow.
And now you know who wants to put an end to that? This
guy right here? Hold on a minute, where is it? Come on?
Man, No more pizza, no cold, no more cold, and
we're cold. I'll beat you could do a little sniffer in the White House,
but you cannot. It's been a great podcast, like thank you all
for walking this evening list, but you can't make no pitch pizza all right?
No, idea. What you're talking about the guy with a Hawaiian shirt
on? I like it. I don't know, all right, So how
many companies are there in New Haven? West An? West An right,
I'm sorry my bed, Uh, well, my my district. We've got
two engines, two rescues in the truck. So you have two engines,
two rescues and truck. What's the truck? The truck one is a volley
company? Right? Oh? That? How can I separate? I'm just
talking about the paid guys. Oh okay, So what do they have?
What kind of what kind of truck are they riding? What's the new truck
they just got, Mike, that's a uh it's suffering, Yeah we have.
Yeah, it's it's it's Reamouledgy, it's truck twenty two. Uh the
exact brand. I don't. I can't run the brand. What is it
a re amount or yeah, yep, there you go, remart with the
bucket. Yeah, we just got it out too long ago. Uh.
And it's a beautiful rig and the rescues For context for the audience out there,
it's not rescues like for example, in New York Rescue Company, we
call our ambulance our medical units rescues. So those are houses with yeah,
medical unions there you go. We gotta fire nothing like yours. What do
you guys want a majority of medical calls? Do you do a decent amount
of? Yeah? It was our our bread and butter as medical is now.
Unfortunately, if I shouldn't say unfortunately, it keeps everybody employed. But
we still have our share of fires and the regular regular stuff rescues and whatnot.
So if it gets if it goes to a second lamb or something like
that, you're getting we have automatic mutually. West Han's kind of unique.
We have three separate fire districts. In one town, we're only ten square
miles, so we pull units from the other two districts automatically if we if
we get a working fire, we'll automatically get an engine in another truck and
we call for a second or third after that. So on the page,
who how many guys are riding on the rigs? Four guys on the engine,
four guys on the truck. Two of those guys'll jump onto the medically
united depending on if there's a second medical call, two guys on. There's
three guys on the second engine and two guys on another medical unity on the
shift, so it's twelve guys on the shift. So it's four including the
officer and the driver up. Yeah, I'll tell you roofie. Every time
I hear that, I'm like, these guys are doing it with less man
because we're beating the ship out of it with manpower, and these guys are
showing up with fucking an officer. Some guy man the pump, two other
guys listen up. But so recently I worked in the out station my own
engine company. It was me and my driver. I did, okay,
you and your driver up first, just just stretching and you got the line
basically, and where is this west Haven, Connecticut? Right there? Primarily
the three story was we've got some some apartment buildings, probably four stories,
a couple hundred units, and some of them about it the three story.
Somebody wants out. Didn't west Haven have a line of duty depth this year?
A duty? That's what somebody said. Noah, he's confused. No,
we haven't had learned to do any last year. North Hand had a
line of duty we had recently, Noah, that would be uh Noah,
Noah, north Haven had a line of duty death yeah, he works.
Yeah, all right, so you get on paid and what you're ninety three
back in ninety three. Look at you, guys, Sharon and commons and
so. But you have one too. How many stations do you have one?
Everybody's headquarters runs an engine, the truck, and the two rescue units.
And now we have the outstation that runs one engine company. Oh that's
what you said before? The outstation you and you and one other guy.
Yeah, there's three guys. Now, I want to work in the outstation.
Dude, I want to work in the outstation in the world. Nobody
bothering you. There's only how many guys there? There's only two? Who's
the firehouse? You and another guy? That's five, right though, that's
fine? Straight up there? What's that? There's three? There's three of
them now they put a third guy on. Yeah, now before it was
just you and another guy? Was it just candle at dinners? And what
are you guys doing over there? How big? How big is the firehouse?
The there's only two of you guys, two bays. That's a typical.
Uh, it's got a hall upstairs and other type of an angling firehouse
Right now, I'm picking it back coogs. You remember we always said where
would your out of work ouse? I always I'm saying, I'm working in
west Haven, the outhouse. Bro, I want to do the outhouse.
Bro, you know what I mean. At the other day, you can't
think anybody's bulls. You gotta break your own balls. Ordering. Yeah,
way up there no no change in the ends up there. So it's just
an officer and the dude who drives, right, yeah, so you pull
off first two you are it like, oh, that's that's incredible. Brot
a third man. They made him a paramedics so we could do more medicals
up there. And but you don't have a you don't have a bus in
there though, right, you just have an engine. We just go on
the engine. But not even good at that. Now you got three guys,
right, at least it's somebody else to talk to, cause the other
guy pisches you off. Right, you talked to the other guy. My
chauffeur went out with a rotator cuff. So I trained a new guy and
he's now he's driving, and he's he's a new driver. He's up there
in the outstage with me. We got our own response area and uh,
Mike's Captain Jacob Urban was my pipe guy. He was the paramedic. He's
in a jump seat, and we got this apartment on fire, bad job
in the basement and black smoke, people throwing babies out the window, all
kinds of stuff. And we're on the way there and I'm trying to tell
the guy it was driving, you know, slow down a little bit,
don't kill us before we get there, because he never pumped a job before.
And then I realized there's this dead silence in the back seat, and
I said, Jacob, are you back there? Yep? Do you ever?
You know you ever on the pipe for a job? He goes,
I think I had a pot on the stove once, I say, Greg
playing a game. I got my pipe man has never putting fire. So
everything everything worked out for the best. But I'm like, what else could
go wrong? You had to look yeah, like he was quiet back then.
I thought. I thought we left him behind. We're making any noise.
Let me not laugh too much. I still want to have a job
tomorrow. So you're with me, kid. That's what everyone loved work with
me because they can never get in any trouble. It's always me you get
in trouble. I was known to get in trouble now and again that's another
road trouble, brom, you know what I mean? So what did you
do up there now that you know, Mike? Because you're retired now,
so what are you still doing? I am the department historian, so I
still maintain my office across the street from headquarters. And Mike, luckily is
our digital media specialist. Since I don't know how to do any of that
stuff, I give him all my stuff and say shoot this out on all
the social media, put it on Instagram and Facebook and he tastes caroll that
stuff? Did you media ex even have a business? Personal? Wow?
How did you find bike? Anyway? I don't know. The department hired.
I was very happy. See where I'm going with this roof salty?
What oh man? Yeah? Yeah, he's a good kid, the best.
What do you do with this storian? Now? I keep track of
all the history? I am? Hey, man, is that a paid
job? No? Should be? God damn it. I was gonna say,
this guy might be the luckiest guy in the world. First out house,
the out house, and now pay historian technical a vige on the part
of my TV shows. Better than Oh, that's where a break comes in.
Bro. I want to backtrack a little bit. Bro. So where
do you meet your wife and how do you make that connection that your father
and her father My wife uh uh an Irish Woman of the Year award,
Irishman of the Year award the Knights at Columbus. Actually I don't her since
we were little kids. But the first time I asked her out on a
date, they were honoring my grandmother who was Irish Woman of the Year.
And I'm standing in a corner with my cousin Kevin and my brother Danny,
and I said, hey, look at that girl in a green dress.
It's one of you. Two guys should go ask her to dance. Like,
oh, we're not doing that. It's come on, what's wrong with
what? Are you gay or something? Go on there, go get it.
They're like, we're not doing atis if you don't dance with her,
eye will And I did, and I'm still dancing with her, not thirty
one years later. Look at you. And he tried. He tried to
give it up to him. You know, they couldn't. They didn't push
him in the right direction. You know. It's being the older brother and
the older cousin. I figured, I try to try to give him a
little of my irishman married an Irish woman, and then what are the Irish
Woman of the year who is Yeah, but then you he's got a whole
punch of a once year bro. It's like two pages long, crying out
loud. He's probably an Irish Friend of the Year too. West Tavern Elves
five Fighter of the Year, Secretary of State Public Service a award Charles Davis
an Outstanding Community Service. So I would imagine that you're very active in your
community. Yes, unit citation your first job, when you first got on
the job, how long did it take you to go your first job?
Well, it's kind of funny because four of us got on. There's four
shifts, and I said, as long as I don't get on this certain
shift, I'll be okay. Because I got like six weddings and all this
stuff, and they all fell right there. And of course that was a
shift I got on. So my friend Jim O'Brien who's now the chief,
you know, he and I were rookies. I swapped with him all the
time. And listen, can you work Saturday? I got so and So's
wedding. Every time I did that, he caught a job. It took
me a long time before I actually go he was so he was he was
the block cloud bro. Yeah, and Billy silly will was the oh silly
Willie. Oday. I was gonna say like that, that's There's if you
missed a job when it's not your tour, that's one thing. But if
you mutual out of a tour and somebody catches the jobs, I don't think
there's anything worse than that. Like, while, Bro, that hurts you
for a while, dropping at the bit you want to get in there,
and especially when you're first starting out like you are, like definitely that and
then to give it to your friends who came out with you, and he's
going, yeah, dude, I just had three jobs thanks to you.
You know, you're just like, oh my god, I want to put
a forking my eyeball. You need officers on that. I'll work for you
against available now. Now, you guys, when you go in that night,
so if you're working in the house that has the engine and the ladder,
with you working in the ladder, you're going wherever they tell you to
go that night, wherever the captain a scientist. Oh what did you prefer?
I love working on the ladder. Like driving the ladder. We used
to fight over because you know, a lot of times you get an older
guy, one of the senior men, that's his spot. You know,
you don't you don't like when I got on, my friend Tommy was the
ladder driver. You never had a chance. You know, as long as
he was at work, you weren't driving. I think no one drove at
him. And then when he went on vacation, like me and Jimmy,
we arm wrestle, you know, as I want to drive. You drove
the last time. But that was that's where we always like to be.
And of course, you know the guys they're like being what they call on
the pipe, you know, they're they're sitting behind the captain on the engine.
When we started here, the guy who goes in with the line,
you know. So do you have an officer on the engine and the ladder
or just one officer for that shift captain? When I started, the captain
was on the engine and the lieutenant was on the truck. Okay, so
you have two office around now that the lieutenant is on the engine of the
captains on the truck. Really why they why did to make the switch?
I don't know. I think because the truck goes out less. So the
captain, God, yeah, one of them. But you really know everybody
in the department, I mean just from growing up in I mean, everybody's
from West Haven, right, there's nobody. Wow, what used to be
that way? Yeah, and now there's a lot of guys from out of
town. It was kind of funny. You talked about Long Island before we
you can't. We used to have residency like it years ago. You had
to live in West Haven to work there. And they said, I can't
do that. It's against the constitution or something. So they said, what
you do is you can can't have residency, but you can do a as
the crow flies, you know, you can live so many miles away.
So my chief put in a contract, you know, twenty or twenty five
miles. I forget what it was radius, and I said, you better
change that to be in the state of Connecticut because where we are. If
you make a circle, it's twenty miles big. You hit Long Island,
New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go right across the sound,
right right on Long Island Sounds there's a couple of guys in the chat
saying the load of you John, Uncle, Hey John? Who else coping?
Guys? I saw ye try to find all. It's kind of hard
to keep the track of the chat and this at the same time. But
to those guys that pop in, I'll try to get him in And thanks
you guys for watching tonight. So far, so good, nothing nothing consequential.
Yes, yeah. How far did you live from the firehouse when you
first got on the job? Uh? About three blocks walking distance walking distance.
It was funny because when I got I got transferred to the out station.
I gave my my chief Jimmy, it's a little shit, and I
said, you know, you just doubled my commute. It's like a whole
mile. Now, if you had your choice, would you go back to
the outstation? Would you go keephouse? Station? Is the one, right,
rof I always I always told him, lieutenant's the best job in the
department. And lieutenant at Engrew five, which was the outstation, is the
best job anywhere, absolute best spot that lieutenant refronto outstation five? How can
I help you who with some of the bosses? Do you remember who your
bosses wanted you really, uh like enjoyed working for? Who taught you the
job? Oh? God? You um. My first contain was George Scranton.
They called him the Book because he knew everything. He was the book
book of knowledge. I worked for a lot of great guys over the years
of John Patrie and Billy have Itt. We have it would ended up being
chief in department. The chiefs that I came on under, Chief William Johnson
would call the Whiggi Whiggie. Jonathan was one of the one of the last
of the great smoke eaters. He's an icon in the fire service. Where
we came from. And I always said, like we would go on to
go training, we'd be standing in the park a lot somewhere, everybody screaming
asking where are you from. I said, I'm from West Haven, Connecticut,
And I go, oh, do you want a Whiggi's boys. Ye
see, they all stood up a little straighter, and study was an all
Marina colonel. I mean, oh was he Wow? It was really it
was really something. He was a man who worked for that's for sure,
you know. But they he commanded that respect from people. And then they
stood up a little straighter, and you know, he still don't even know
they were doing it. You know, is wigg still alive now, unfortunately
passed away a couple of years ago. He was our first department storian.
I'm saying, that would be great if you whispered to somebody. I'm with
Wiggy also, So he shook kind of his you're in his shoes now,
basically am and the big shoes, big shoes. The fell, big shoes.
Baby. He was always the unofficial. His story and I mentioned before
to show it. His father was the chief. So he he goes back
generations and you know, seeing stuff with his own eyes. It's just it
was amazing. He would come on and tell stories to us, show us
all black and white photographs, and you know, it was a firsthand talent.
I was standing on a corner when this happened. We used to have
an amusement park in our town called Savin Rock, and you know, it
was all made of wood. It would burn spectacularly every few years. You
know, it's some of the greatest fires ever blown before my time. But
he was there for you know, his father was the chief. He thrown
in the car they drive down there and he tell us the stories about it.
It was just amazing to air him talking it. God now finally burned
down. Oh, they tore it down and at the end of the sixties,
I think it got dilapolated and that was the end of it. So
when you're working on stuff, when you look at through stuff, you see
like things that he's done already, Like you see his initials on something,
or do you see his work. Yeah, I got a lot of his
son's on the job, his son step in the chief. Now, he
and I went to school together at the same age. And you know when
when wig he passed away, he started cleaning out as far as closet and
his office and whatnot, and just the amount of stuff is just staggering.
Boxes and photographs and you know, old helmets and memorabilia. It's got the
whole whole history of our department went back whole West Table. Yeah, that's
cool. But yeah, did that department established eighteen eighty eight? That's pretty
early, man. Yeah, how many five stations back? I presume it
was all volleyed back then? Voluntary? Right, how many stations to have
it at any of those buildings still around? Yes, West Table Hooking Ladder.
Actually their their building goes back to eighteen ninety four. It's still there.
What is it now? It's it's it's still fire station. Oh isn't
really it's getting and it's getting kind of beat up because it wasn't built for
you know, motorized a brass. It was on and drawn or horse drawn
back in the day. And it's got a basement so it's probably got the
lolly columns in there. And oh yeah, all the current tables in the
bar used to be allegedly is probably really quick. I just somebody pointed this
out. I'd like to thank rich Decker for doing so, as well as
Brian Elliott who passed along thist information to me. Our current tower ladder truck
twenty two is a Pierce ascendant, so that's our current I had a feeling
it was a peers. I didn't want to state it because I didn't want
to be incorrect, But thank you to Richie and Brian or a watch tonight's
a peers to send a truck twenty two. And again, like I said
earlier, very beautiful Rick beautiful, ric beauty. I put too much a
point out. They bought that after I was retired, so that's why,
uh, what was it just we're talking about the old what's the other one?
How many is the other building still around the Uh No, there's a
firehouse on Spring Street that's still volunteer. But that's that goes back sens in
the nineteen thirties, I think, and our headquarters there's nineteen fifty nine.
So the only the only thing left that goes back to the eighteen hundreds is
Hooking Liners building. It's my inhibition to get a couple of million dollars making
museum out of it. But just having a trouble getting a couple of million
dollars. All right, guys, start with the stupid chat we've made.
We raised a lot for. Let's get somebody for Let's get some money to
silly Willie. Oh you yeah, Oh, I would like to buy it.
Making a house bro the house on a daily basis, how often are
you doing stuff with the historic and like, how often are you doing it?
Every day? Are you doing it? I go in there three or
four times a week. Maybe I just did a presentation over the weekend on
Saturday. Actually, Mike was nice enough to come down and videotape, so
I get a presentation for talking about the historical library and Also, we have
a a ladder wagon that was built by our volunteers in the eighteen nineties.
It's it's a model, a scale model of their hand pulled apparatus that their
kids used to pull in brains. And I had pictures of it and it
was missing for one hundred and twenty years. We figured it just you know,
somebody threw it away or it was lost of time. And I stumbled
upon it at a collector's house and space and we took it. We hadn't
refurbished, so I've been we just got it back wore so it was really
it's quite the story. If you guys had a couple more hours, i'd
tell you the whole thing. Um, you know, we gotta we gotta
refurbished, and it's it's beautiful. And I told the whole story on Saturday,
and I actually, you know, shout out to Jason Patton. I
know he was not on the show Fire Up and he saw it on Instagram
and right away it's you know, Firehouse Coffee would like to send coffee to
your event, and they did, as I called it, coffee with the
Historian, and that's pretty cool. They sent they sent me coffee, so
it was. It was really great. Well we'll have you know, listen,
we're not I know, we're not going to tell the full story like
you said, because it was in deep detail. But we're at about forty
three minutes, so there's time if you want to hit the key details of
that story as you talked about in your presentation, because you know, listen,
it is, it really is at the end a heartwarming story. Didn't
start out that way, but it had a nice conclusion. So feel free
to hit on those details if you want right now, because we got time.
All right, I'll do it. I'll do the reader's digest version.
But the James Graham Hooking Ladder was a company in the eighteen hundreds. They're
the only company that doesn't still exist in this day. They went out of
business in nineteen o two. And they're the members of that company built this
model wagon for their kids, and they would pull it in parades and at
conventions, and they were pretty well known for it. And I was at
a collector's house and I was I was talking to him. He was a
friend of mine, and we were making a deal on some memorabili or whatever,
and we got talking about the James Grahams. And I said to him,
I said, how do you even know who they are? You know,
you're not from west Haven, and he's from he's a volunteer in a
neighboring town. And apparently when these guys went out of business in nineteen o
two, they sold their actual apparatus to the East Haven Fire Department and that
was their first piece, the first piece of apparatus, And he had a
picture of it and on the bottom it said brought from the Grahams of West
Haven. And the James Grahams were kind of a hobby of mine because when
they disbanded, they took all their stuff with them, so we don't have
the records, we don't have any that stuff. I'm always looking for newspaper
articles and information on them. So then I said to him, I said,
you know, it's funny. They actually made a model for their kids
in a game. It is funny. Look, he says, I want
you to come downstairs in my basement for a minute. Well, no,
you go downstairs. And of course this base is like a museum. It's
full of stuff. And in the corner is this thing. It looks like
a pile of firewood. And it turns out it's the ladder wagon. It
was broken and half at all, but he had all the original ladders and
the stuff that went with How big is this thing? Long? Oh?
It is that big basement? Yeah? So, I mean it's not it's
not a model model. I mean it's it's it's you know, the fully
functional ladder wagon, but it's it's a scale model. You know what's crazy.
You could have You could have been in that guy's house and walked out
of there and not even realized how close you worked to that thing. Absolutely
un Listen. I'm probably the only guy in the world who would have recognized
that thing for what it was, because nobody knows who the James Rams are.
It's just one of my hobbies. You know. Even the guys in
my department have never heard of him. He went out of business one hundred
and twenty years ago, so we guard it from him, and I convinced
my commissioners to buy it, and I sent it up to a guy named
Andy Swift in Maine at Firefly Restorations, and he had it for a year
and a half and he put it all back together and I had pictures of
it. I passured pictures of the kids. And when I when I was
looking around for somebody to do the restoration, somebody mentioned him and they said,
listen, you could call him, but he's not going to do I
mean, this guy does real museum pieces and you know, horse drawn steamers
and all kind He's got the Lady Washington hand pumper from Manhattan from eighteen thirty
five's restoring all these things. He's like the best in the business. So
I sent him an email and I sent him pictures of the kids pulling the
thing in a parade, and he called me in a phoney of email.
Me backs Bill's I said, hey, he goes, we have to do
this job. I just talked to my people that can't wait to work on
him, like really about it. The kids sold its seeing those kids pulled
out thing. We have to do it. And he did a fantastic job.
I mean he took those pictures apart and he found all these details.
I didn't even see how much of it was did he have to improvise and
how much was there did he have to was the whole thing? A lot
of it was there, but we had to replace the lanterns. Its little
lanterns on there's a parade lantern that goes on top. He says, my
friend saw Damyers a metal spinner. So I said, what the metal spinner.
He goes, he's gonna fabricate the lanterns and the torches, the prey
torches. I said, oh, he goes, we got to do it
quick. Though he's eighty six. I don't know how long he's gonna la
actually created these uh you know, created these uh you know the lanterns and
the prey, the miniature of Parde torches and two small little extinguishers that went
on the side. What what year is this bill? What year is this
that you found it? I was made in the eighteen nineties. Now what
find it in the guy's basement? Uh? Probably twenty nineteen. And then
he got it back to you when just this past December. Oh wow,
man, you should have said pictures of app bro that would be great,
might find out on the internet. Will you come on, I'm looking for
give the background noise. I'm looking right now to see if we can find
Jane. And it was in your presentation too, which again the story behind
it. I'm glad you got into it. Is I'm like, we have
time and we should hear about it. You know, small world everything right
there, something like that. Absolutely, there's so many guys who collect this
type of memorabilia, like awesome. The thing went from being a you know,
like I said, almost the pilot fire it's it's now it's a priceless
museum piece really, and then not just that, but it's even more priceless
to us because it's ours, you know, our guys made it. Yeah.
Right, this is my captain, Jacob Urban. Thanks for watching,
cap. I appreciate it. Hope all as well. Did the James Grahams
have a fire dog? He wants to know. I don't think so.
Ah, question too, Where is the piece now? Bill? Uh,
it's it's actually in a firehouse on on Spring Street. I got it.
It's got a special crate that it goes in. And uh, it's parade
now in in West Haven, I believe in Spring Street we have that.
And we have a couple of spars too. We have an antique that we
bring out for parades and whatnot, but that one, yeah, I mean.
And also you know, also one thing that I think we should touch
on at some point when it's appropriate, Bill, is those helmets we were
able to get a hold of two besides the James Graham because those helmets we're
gonna get lost and we're gonna get sold. But we were able to get
them back. So I know, I think you're looking for the picture right
now, the hook and ladder. I thought I had one right right on
my phone, but it's in your presentation. I'll try to load it in
later if I can. But there's also the story of the helmets, if
you want to touch on that too. Oh yeah, you know, we're
always looking for stuff, and um, you know, I travel on a
lot of circles, you know, memorabilia collectors, badge collectors, old fire
department ratis and members of I go out to the New York City Fire Museum.
We have a couple of historical societies in Connecticut, and I'm the West
Haven guy, and everybody has their niche. My friend Steve's the New Haven
guy, my friend Brads from Albany, Gary's New London and Hartford. Everybody
has their little sort of expertise, you know. So when something pops up,
we call each other. And I got this phone call. It's listen,
there's there's an auction in Vermont and they have a whole bunch of stuff
from your department. So I went on. I looked, and sure enough
there's two of these these white chief helmets. Their old Carnes five a's from
about fifty years ago, and they belonged to Chief Howell, who was chief
from seventy one to eighty one in my department. So I got on.
I got a hold of the guy. I was in Los Angeles at the
time. I said, listen, you know you're gonna have a thing online
for this. He goes, Bill, I'm in a VFW in Maybury.
I mean, he's podun Vermont. There's no online here. He goes,
you can call him the phone. So I did a phone and I was
bidding on these helmets, and of course the call drops. By the time
I called back, they were gone. Oh that sucks. I told the
guy, I said, listen, can you give the guy who bought the
helmets my number? I'll buy him from him, you know or what I'm
making the deal, and of course called me. So about a few months
goes by, I get another call. Hey, tho's helmets run an eBay
Like no way, So I go up on eBay and the auction's gone.
So I get a hold of the seller. I said, what happened?
He goes out, I sold him privately. Somebody contacted me, like damn
it twice. So now a third time that happens again. And my friend
Steve calls me and he says, I know who's got the helmets. It's
this guy in California. He's a friend of mine. Here's his number.
I said, okay, So I called him and I ended up making a
deal with the kid, and I got the helmet. And as I'm going
back and forth with him, you know, I had an introduction. I
told him I'm the historian and the department, and he's being a little stand
office, you know, and we're trying to negotiate a price, and he
finally says to me, says, listen, how do we even know you're
a historian. I'm like, oh, all right. He thinks I'm scamming
him and that I'm going to try to get a deal on these things and
make a profit on it. When I was sworn in, they put my
picture on the front page of the paper, big article. So I sent
that to him, and his attitude changed like one hundred and eighty degrees,
you know, because in our circles when the collectors, if you're a historian
or if you're a curator, you're kind of an important guy. You know,
you come in a little bit of respect. And he was. He
was actually very happy. He made a deal and he found a second helmet
for me. Knew where it was. Got that and I got both helmets
and in our collection or my collection until I get reimbursed for him. I
guess I was gonna say to you, like, do you have your own
private collection and stuff that you collect? To Oh, I do, yeah,
Like what's that? What's some of the stuff that you collect? If
you look over my shoulder, I collect fire badgers, badges from just west
Haven or from all over. I concentrate on west Haven, New Haven next
door. I got some old New York stuff, a lot of Connecticut stuff.
But the two cases that around my wall here in the office, I've
got a badgel each state in the United States. I go from every state.
Oh, that's pretty cool. What all the stuff do you collect?
Sus badges? Well, anything that's west Haven? Um, you know,
I I said, my focus is badges, but I've got some prey belts,
I have some helmets. Um, you know, a lot of memorabilia.
My historical library that I'm in charge of. You know, we've got
ten thousand photographs going back to the eighteen hundreds, documents, and we keep
track of all the stuff that happens currently. You know, any newspaper articles
and stuff that goes on, we download and see those in our archives and
do nothing. You can't do nothing like with the mayor of this, you
know, like maybe they have a building that they would donate to, you
know, start a museum or something like that. Well, we had we
had what was called the Savin Rock Museum, and that was kind of un
that amusement park that I told you about. We had a firehouse and at
the amusement park Salvin Rock House, and we had our own little room full
of fire memorabilia in there. And they're in the process of tearing up,
building down and building something else there. So we moved everything into storage.
We do have another spot, we just need to do some work to it
and move a couple of walls and that type of thing. So the city
did give us space. That's good. The department is going to take a
little larger role. It's gonna be like half fire department and half art stuff
if I had my way, But they're gonna tad down the old firehouse.
Nah. It was. It was a city building, was a conference center,
but it kind of run down. We had the spot in the basement.
It was. It was. It was kind of one of those things
where you can go in from two different sides. It was like a duplex,
so like you walk straight into the basement on one side, straight into
the first floor on the inside. So we had the front basement park for
the museum. You know, It's funny. Since week we started the podcast,
now I get guys will will message us, you know, either on
Instagram or something Facebook, and they'll say, hey, listen, you know,
I don't know who if you wanted to get in touch with the firehouse.
But let's say fifty eight engine, there's a fire helmet on eBay for
sale from the FDN, Y right, guys, you know. So then
I'm like, all right, you know, So then I'll look it up
quick and then I'll call the firehouse. I'll be like, you know something,
I don't know who the guy is. I'm like, hey, dude,
listen, somebody just you know, message me what I used to work
on the job. I just want to let you notice a fifty eight fire
helmet, you know, take it for what it's worked. I don't know
if you guys are interested in buying it for the house or whatever. Just
I don't know whose it was. It's just on eBay if you're interested.
And every once in a while, the guy I'll text me back, or
you know, I'll swap numbers with the guy and he'll text me back.
So if you bought it or it or sold by the time the guys to
to get it, you know, sometimes there's not much time, you know
what I mean, Sometimes there's only a couple of hours left or whatever.
I get calls all the time and substance on eBay. But even at that
auction. Never mind it was the chief daughter, but all this stuff.
She must have been cleaning out the attic or something. Right, he passed
away a few years ago. It's like, why didn't you just call me?
My father in law was his deputy for years, you know, and
you know i'd met her, you know, I have kids, have friendly
with um. You know. It was just, uh, call the firehouse.
Well, you know you need money, we'll buy the stuff from you.
We'd rather have it, you know. Yeah, yeah, at home,
we say in the collecting circles, we want to bring bring our stuff
home. Yeah. Absolutely, So we're gonna do a show on. But
I don't know if you know the guys from Capital City who restore the fire
helmets, Uh, we'll pall the Connecticut from Harford had Shapiro family, the
Shapiro family, Shapiros. Yeah. So I brought my fall the helmet which
had a giant chunk of the leather out of it, to restore it.
We did a whole show on bringing it to them, and they're going to
film how they restore the helmet. But when I brought it to him,
my dad got out in nineteen sixties. But he told me that that helmet
was from my nineteen thirty. I guess by this something and saw it like
how could that be? But he said that sometimes when guys would turn the
helmets, they would recirculate the helmets. I don't know if you know anything
about that, Is that true or have you ever heard of that? Well?
I know like recently you know that. I say recently that the past
few years, Like you know, you can't hand your stuff down anymore.
It's it's got a shuffle off ten years or out. It doesn't matter if
it's in the bag brand new. And they started doing that with helmets,
and especially some guys on your job. It's like, listen, I'm wearing
my grandfather's helmet. You're not taking this freakan helmet. You know, you're
not giving me a new one. So I guess they kind of got grandfathered
in, so to speak. But a lot of guys that wear their father's
helmet or you know, some religis our helmets are. You know, I've
still got my helmets hanging out the wall in my office. You know,
you know you don't give that to anybody. I mean you can't now,
I mean unless your brand new or something. And then right, you know,
been an officer with a new helmet for a short time, but I
mean, you're not going to wear somebody else's helmet unless it was your dad
or something. When that went to the UH, to the fiberglass helmet,
did you turn your other one in? I don't. I bought mine,
so that was always mine, so I never had to buy it back.
It was mine, I used, I used, UH. We had gotten
the check for that for that helmet. I think I was one of the
last classes that actually bought the helmet, right so saying when they switched over,
did you ever did you have a go to Well, I didn't do
it right away. I didn't do when I first got the plastic I got.
I ended up getting the plastic because they could tell if you'd never picked
up the plastic, so I would get a letter, you know, the
chief would told me, you know, the whole deal, and uh So
I went and picked up the plastic, and then I had my new front
shield. That's why both I have two helmets with two front shields. So
I wore a plastic for a while. Then I went back to the leather.
But I'll tell you what happened. Was I guess after I stopped using
the leather for a little while, it fit on my head a little different,
you know, yea, And the plastic helmet was so comfortable. And
then by that time everybody was using the plastic. Everybody was using the brand
new stuff anyway, so it didn't you know, I kind of felt like
it fit perfect. You could ratchet it back on the mask real fast,
you know, I wouldn't lose my helmet. I never wore a ginch strap,
but the racket was pretty good, and you know, then I just
went. It was only like two years that I had the plastica. I
know, I know, CAUs had that machine that they used to measure your
head when you got into the job. And the thing would fit because I
put my father's helmet off and it wouldn't. I could bend over that way,
it wouldn't fall off my head. But nothing, no ratchet, no,
nothing was fit perfect from my head. I started. We had a
round Carnes, I don't I would just flipped down visor and we went the
Ben Franklin style or New Yorker style, and a couple of guys went out
and bought leather helmets on their own, and I got the composite one.
It's like, first of all, the leather helmet weighs like ten times more.
Oh my god, it's like you can't move your head and that hurts.
And the other thing was one of the guys guys helmet stalling, and
I was, oh, look at a leather helmets. Somebody ripped them off
shared out of the fire helmet. Now it's like two grand oh yeah,
so it's not if you can get one, right, We talked to guys
who sell helmets. They're so backlog, they're like a year behind. You
can't even get big business, big business. Before we continue, just to
tie up a loose sent from earlier, I was able to find the James
Graham hook and ladder because this was in an article courtesy I believe the New
Haven Registers, just to confirm if it was the Richter No, actually west
Haven Voice I stand corrected. That was able to also take photos of your
presentation, and here it is. This is the old hooking ladder that we
were able to get in our collection. That's cool. Imagine ryding jobs on
that bad point and awesome. And so's the green lantern, the green lantern?
Yea, yeah, yeah. Andy Swift was excited. He called me,
so I found a green lantern. I found a green lantern. So
again, even though his story and I said, what's the significance of that?
He says, there's a louder company before electricity. When you stood out
in the street back in the eighteen hundreds, the chief and looked down at
nighttime, and if you saw green and who was louder? If you saw
a red lantern, it was an engine and blew his hose. Of course,
I'm pretty all but I always had electricity when I worked, so we
didn't have to worry about that and what that would cost a story. I
was just gonna ask that rof what we can we tho, can we can
we divulge that number? You're looking at about twenty thousand dollars right there?
Wow, just to restore it. Huh. It's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work. He had it for a year and a half.
But I mean it's it's just the quality of the work he did and
the ante it's just as beautiful, absolutely well the arts. But he had
to fabricate some of the One of the brackets for the ladder was missing or
broken. And you know the guy who made those torches and the parade light
that's on the top of you fabricated those from scratch. You know, if
you want to sell out for Bill, if you wanted to sell it tomorrow,
I wanted to sell it. I'd never sell it. No, if
you if you want it, I don't. I don't even have no idea.
A lot more than twenty thousands, yeah, I would say so that
if you go to fire museums, pretty popular to find a scale model either
of a hand pumper or or some kind of apparatus like that, you know
from back in that time period. We have two of them in the FDNY
and at the Rock that I think they got one out. They have two
in the h they have two or three in the auditorium, and then they
have like two in the hole way now that they added a couple. Yeah,
but you know that I found a newspaper article and it said, you
know, I talked about that the guys made it by hand, and the
members of the company did it on winter nights. A lot of stuff that's
insane, treating a couple of points maybe you know what I'm saying, Mike.
A couple of points you got of course, of course, and the
type of another loose end from earlier. And I do want to get some
pictures of some jobs that you were on. Half. This is our truck
twenty two. This is a new one that we got not too long ago.
And again, beautiful rig I got the chance to ride on it,
not the jobs, just around a few times. I know. That's not
the odd house there, No, No, that's headquarters right there. Best
place to work. Love, That's how you work bike, and I love
coming to work every day man, or the days that I'm there, Man
me, Yeah, No, I'm in New Haven, I'm but I'm ten
minutes from the fireouse, I'm by by highway, I'm ten minutes and even
without the high about only about fifteen minutes from the fireout. So how'd you
get that job? Again? May have something to do with this show just
saying allegedly, perhaps, But the pictures I wanted to get to, amongst
many others, is this is a lot of roof ops. He of course,
and this picture was the thumbnail. So have you can take us through
each jobs. We didn't want to let this podcast pass without talking about fires
or jobs? Is the jobs? What's going on here? That that was
transmission shop fire. It's on the corner of David and Forest. There has
been any of you guys, but that was a hot August day. It's
probably the hottest day I ever worked, and the fire got into it.
Where I'm standing is the front. It's almost like the where you're going to
stand at the desk and do your business with the The people in the back
is where they actually did you know, they worked on cars and transmissions and
stuff. It got up in the roof and you know, we were up
there. My friend Joji at Quinto was with me. At one point we
were cutting holes in the roof. Um that you can see the bucket behind
me. That's actually Allingtown's. H Allingtown's one of the districts in town.
They came in mutual aid and the you know, he used their bucket truck.
But it was it was it was a hot day. It was really
hot. Guys were dropping from from the heat and dehydration. Just funny thing
about this, this particular fires. This was in two thousand and nine,
I think, and it was right about when social media was making its big
debut, and this was the first time that we had real time photos and
videos. And my son had just turned nine years old. It was his
birthday actually, and he was watching this either on television or on his computer
as it was happening. And we had never had that happen before. It
was always see the pictures afterwards and wait till the news, you know.
But because of you know, Facebook and that type of thing at the time,
and that that kind of almost changed the way we did things. Because
you know, God forbid, disaster struck and my kids watching me on TV.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I
never knew till I got homes Danny Danny say in television it went Now it's
impossible. It's enough. We're watching the real time. Uh yeah. As
a matter of fact, it is good job. We did good there,
we did. And then we got this one. Now that's say. Uh
that house was down right across from Long Islands one on the water. Um
you can see it was kind of boarded up, and I think, uh
at one point we put censors inside this house for the NFPA or somebody,
and uh we ended up burning it to the ground on purpose. Yeah,
but uh so I was up there pulling a pulling the boards off to get
it going. What do you mean, like a practice thing. Yeah,
we were doing that. They were doing some scientific study on So. I
don't remember exactly what kind of centers we put in see how hot it got
or something like that, but that was pretty much a control burn, though
I got Unlike Canada, you know, it didn't have the consequences that Canada
had with the controlled burn. That's neither here North here about that. Uh,
you know, shout out to our frens in Canada. Uh. And
then of course there's the third photo. What's going on here? Head that's
putting a new roof on my house? And disaster struck. Um. I
think where that was. That might have been down in the Haven, Mike
Haven. Um, they were tearing a bunch of houses down for for redevelopment.
It's kind of a very long, sad story. But the funny part
about that's me with the red helmet on. There was lieutenant and all of
a sudden, all the smoke started pouring out, or like, where the
hell is the smoke coming from? And I was leaning against a spotlight.
Someone turned a spotlight on it caught my turnout pants on fire sounds lovely.
Lou loves cutting holes and peak rus Right, Look, I don't mind it.
I was changing his mind all of a sudden. Look at him.
That's not true. Sorry. If you have eight guys show up to the
fire and seven of them are on the roof, then I have a problem
with it. Right, And no windows are taken, that's even more of
a problem. Huh. And those are taken? Yeah, yeah, nobody
takes any glass. Nobody said nobody. I just like busted his balls.
I got him, Mike So we had a time where it was like taboo
to break a window. I really my guy who broke that window and firefighter
and Keith was a very unimposing man. It was kind of a straight man
and you know very you know Stowick, and we had a bad fire in
the house and we're crawling around. Andy Bennett was with us, Uh,
Mike here, Lieutenant Bennett for he it was Lieutenant Bennett. We're calling around.
We can't find any It smokes down to the floor. So I turned
the Posner and I said, going into the living room and break every fucking
window you can find. If anyone says anything to you, you tell him
feutena Halfer had told you to break every fucking wander. We does and we
go. We find a fire was in the basement. We found a way
down the fire out. So we're having a critique and my nemesis was deputy
chief at the time, and he was running the critique even though he wasn't
at the fire, like, you know, who broke the livery room window?
Who broke the livery room window? And Keith Poser said that was me,
Deputy. He goes, why did you break them? To pitch your
window in the living room. He said, lieutena halford and told me to
break every fucking winder I could find. No we know what to do?
What had a problem breaking windows? Really as there was a thing for a
while I was, I don't break the windows. I'm like, the window
costs ten cents. The tourist companies gonna pin him in the window whether we
break it or not. To him, melted, I can't see. I
need you to ventilate, ventilate, break the window. You know. I
don't understand it, but that was that was the thing for a while.
I don't. Okay, well I understand going up there. You're not gonna
run up there and break every window if you don't have a line operation or
anything. But we couldn't. At the same time, if you gotta if
you're search it in your you know, from the fire, you gotta find
the way down to the basement home water back door. It was the wrong
way to go. What are you doing? What? I never know what
you're doing up there? How'd you like the red helmet? Hey? Yeah,
all right, helmets are great. Everyone knows who you are, all
right. That's a good way to stand down right, It's a good identifying
that maybe you can poke a chief in the chest and he would know who
you ought to right right of those, I love you. If we didn't
do it, you wouldn't know. I wouldn't love you. What do you
got, Mike? We got a picture I didn't mean interrupt my apologies.
We got a picture here of house the out housing question. This is this?
This is five headquarters where I got this? Right? Half? For
am I not? That's the one Stephen Hights, Stephen Hins, there you
going? You know, also in our district there's Engine twenty five, the
yep, yep, that's his home right there. It's either Greenwood Lake or
the outt house. That's what I'm saying. Easy set up. You got
guys on the engine, like Half said earlier, about three guys, and
we see them on the chart too, and they're not too far from us.
Half, what you know, they're about five minutes from from headquarters.
Yeah, short ride on over. They got to fly over and help us
out on jobs. They can really a lot of the guys that work there
also work at us the headquarters. To do you have everyone area response and
it's a lot of apartment buildings and stuff, so you know, they said,
go up to you know, we call it up on a hill.
I go up on a hill. It's nothing to do, I said,
until something that comes in and you're the first one there. No, it's
not just a three three story wood house. It's where's the connection, where's
the panel? There's some some of them still have the old hose closets in
them and all the standpipes, and you know, you have to know your
know your area, you know. So it's still a great place. You're
in charge. So it looks like you did almost what twenty seven years in
the paid YEP said, what'd you retell? You? It was just time
or I always said I wanted to do thirty years, but COVID reared its
ugly head. Oh. I was trying back and forth to Los Angeles to
work on the show, and California turned red. It was a red state
with COVID. And what happened was my department had a policy where if you
returned from a red state, you had a quarantine for fourteen days. So
I went out to California for a week. I come back. I got
to take two more weeks off. But I can't use my sick time because
I chose to go to California, so I didn't have enough time to do
to quarantine, go back to you know. I flew back and four three
or four times during the season, you know, and so I was out
of luck, and I tried to try to get time off. I tried
to take non paid leave, and there was just no way I could do
it. So I just put my papers and I had enough time, and
I called my chief Jimmy, you know i'd be great friends for years,
called it from the airport as less I'm coming home from Los Angeles and put
my papers in. He said, yeah, right, hung up on me.
You don't believe me. He goes, well, because you know we're
kind of t two jokesters, you know, and you know we've known each
other so long. But I did. I put my papers in, and
then I just went back to Los Angeles for the next three months in the
film, so I kind of made my decision for me, and I was
all maxed out my pension and there's really no reason for me to stay,
you know, right, So I didn't want to ask you about if I
could just interjected your real quick coops, because we didn't touch on this earlier
and we could touch on, of course, some of the other stuff that
you've done. He did go down to ground zero after nine eleven? Would
the other guys from West Haven? And I think some of the guys would
tell me earlier was you and a few other guys that you can name and
you can discuss. So were you were you working that day of the attack?
And when did you and the rest of the crew get down to the
trade center. Some of the guys went that night, you know, on
the eleventh. I didn't go down until a couple of days later. It
was the same day the president was there. I think we went down on
the fourteenth, so I think I was on ship. We were still working
three hund three off. But a funny story, our chief for better for
forbid, everybody from Gold he said, you know you'll be fired if you
get down it, and we're like, we have to go. How can
we not go right here? You know, it's the biggest thing that's ever
happened in the history of history. And of course there you know he's thinking,
workman's con I wonder if you get hurt and all that stuff. So
one of our captains called the news and said, I got a crew of
guys and we're going down to the ground zero to help the guys in New
York. And they called my chief for a comment, and it's the only
thing he could say was I would expect no less of my men. But
we went and uh the deputy chief. Some of us were leaving at like
five in the morning one day and the deputy chief from it from a neighboring
district was in the park a lot with the clipport and I told the guys
to listen, your chiefs over there, he's writing everybody's name down. You
guys are gonna get fired. We'll see about that. And when we left,
he went with us through. Are you how old you go down there?
For? I was only down it for a day? You know,
we was mile um. You know, it's almost think was it was.
It was horrific. It was like nothing ever saw it. You know.
We had a guy named Eddie Burrowell who worked in which is his town right
next to west Haven, and he was teaching at the academy and got a
job at the f d N Y. I don't think to nowhere where he
was stationed. But coincidentally we got down there and I ran into him.
He standing in front of the ten ten and just like we couldn't even talk.
You know, again, you got to call home. He had n't
called his house. Nobody even kne if he was alive, you know,
so you got to call your family, call your family, telling me everything's
all right. Just he wouldn't even wouldn't even speak to me. It was
just like the Thousand Yards Stare, you know. And it was just they
had lasers on the Millennium Hotel there and it would move and the alarms would
go off. Everyone run down the street and we'd run back. I was
with the demand who's the chief now? Jimmy O'Brien and I we were in
a bucket brigade and we went up the pilot, you know, you kind
of shifted around. When we got to the top, there was a couple
of New York guys and they said, you know, we're going over that
beam over there, and I guess it hadn't been cleared by the engineers.
So we just jumped over this beam, which was a size like a train,
and we're down in this hollow, this this crater, and there was
still furniture and pictures of people's families, all this stuff from the offices and
one guy I found a sawbox from rescue one or something, and all of
a sudden his guy comes up over the top of the beam with a bullhorn.
The assholes get out of there right now. And that's you know,
it hasn't been uh hasn't been cleared. I lost too many guys, know
there was anybody else, and what do you think you're doing? And the
guys are going, well, might there might be somebody down there? They
not get out. And then I saw the guy on Saturday get promoted to
I think he was second in command of the entire the entire FDNY, you
know, and he looked much better. It wasn't covered in third I think
uh his helmet his helmet shield was written a pencil or something. At the
time I told Jimmy, I said, listen, we're gonna get yelled at
somebody, you know, getting yelled at, but the number two guys FDNY,
it's not bad, right, So what else do you have? Might?
Before I dive into the no that was that, I wanted to touch
on that because of course, knowing you guys and knowing the toll at the
FDY paid that day and we have and funny thing is not funny in the
ha ha sense, but ironically enough at the watchdesk, Squad forty one gave
us a plaque about it. I guess a little bit after night eleven thank
in the West Table Fire Department for their work down there at the pilots.
So we have it there at Spot forty ones logo and all. So a
little piece of the FDNY is with us, the West Table Fire things we've
got. We felt we were doing something really good, and I went shortly
after that, I went to Randall's Island for a seminar and one of the
chiefs was up there and you know, of course everybody's devastated by the whole
thing, and he got up on stage and he just tore in everybody,
we didn't need your help, we didn't want your help. You guys were
in the way, and there's people from all over the world there. I
ran into the guys from San Francisco with the dogs, so I felt terrible,
like maybe we should have stayed home. Jesus, I never thought.
I thought we were going to help. About six months later, I saw
the same guy at another seminar and he just somebody must have said something to
him, because he was absolutely Thank god you were there, you know,
thank you for your help. We really needed it and your supported. Maybe
we do something wrong, we're firement, we're going down, or to give
your hand. Yeah, that's crazy. So I want to jump into you
to twenty seventeen actually to present and for guys who don't know, we were
talking about flying back and forth that way. So you helped create the TV
show Tacoma f D Right, and now you serve as technical advisor for all
four seasons forty on episodes. Give us a little walk through on how that
happened. I know your cousin is on the show, right, How did
he get involved? How that whole thing come about? Well, my cousin
did a movie called super Troopers and he was far by. He was the
crazy one of the crazy state policemen from Vermont, and when that movie came
out, I broke his stones. I just listen, you're doing a State
Troopers thing. State Troopers aren't funny. I want to do a thing about
firefighters, and it became a family joke every time I saw him doing a
firefighter movie. Yet you gotta do it. The state State police, and
policemen don't tell good stories. Firefighters tell the greatest stories. So about eighteen
years later they make super Troopers too, all right, and then the whole
team gets back together Broken Lizard and I start breaking the stones again. And
then right as that movie is about the premiere, I get a phone call
from him and his partner Steve Lemmy at my house and he says, it
finally happened. I said, what's that. You've got a call for a
man named David Miner out of New York. He wants to do a sitcom
on firefighters. I said, that's great. I told you. He goes,
can we pick your brain? He said, sure, tell us some
stories, and I went continue. So finally the floodgates open and we talked
for about four and a half hours. And David Miner is a powerhouse in
Hollywood. He say, when when David Minor calls, Hollywood picks up the
phone. And he did Brooklyn nine nine Scandal, A thirty Rock. I
think he's team a face agent. And so he had like, you know,
a cop show, a lawyer's show, a bad guy show. He
wanted a fireman show. And he called my cousin, so let's do it.
So I said to Kevin at the time, I said, listen,
anything ever goes on with this, if this gets off the ground, just
doing me a favorite. But you know, thank you, cousin, Bill
and the credits. He goes, this gets off the ground, we'll pay
you. I said, if you pay me, i'll come out to Los
Angeles. But we'll fly you out there. And they did, I've been
out there ever since first Class. Yeah, well that's only maybe season five.
We got season five. I got up my contract to first class.
They take good care of me, all right. But this is my my
uniform. You know, I'm the technical advisor. Where's a Waiian shirt?
You know? Because I say so, sunglasses, drives are convertible, and
they broke my stones something fiercely. We went out to do the pilot.
It was February. So I pull up. I'm in a T shirt,
got my top down, you got the radio. Go, and everybody's in
parkers and wool caps. That's what. Don't we filming this in wintertime?
He goes, Oh, Bill, I'm so sorry. It's never this cold
out here, dude, sixty five degrees. I just came from Connecticut.
It's negative seven. Everyone's looking at me like a insane you know. I
was like, who's the ass on a T shirt? Jesus, parents,
they're all running like inside, they got car they got their hoods up,
they got scarves on. So I had to had to get used to the
California when it's cold there, so it's kind of kind of a running gag.
They're wearing jackets. I got my little short sleeve Hawaiian shirt on all
the time. So the first I heard, I mean just the first before
you know, this week that I was hearing about this. It's been on
for fourth season. What does it you know, give us a little bit
about it, like, what's the story behind it? Where is it happening?
But we call it Tacoma FT And we picked the Toma even though it's
filmed in Los Angeles, because we did some research. We found out Tacoma
is the rainiest city in the country. And the gag is it rains all
the time, there's no fires. So we got a bunch of firemen in
the firehouse with nothing to do, and you know what happens in man to
jokes and pranks and all this stuff. And the missus, Steve Lammy is
the captain and Kevin is the chief and that's kind of based on me and
my friend Jim O'Brien was my chief. They're brothers in law. And the
girl, Hassi Harrison, we spoke about earlier. She's Kevin's daughter on the
show, she's the chiefs daughter and she's the first female guy. And coincidentally,
as this was going on or the filming the pilot, my department had
just hired their first female So that was easy to come up with stuff for
that. You know, because our headquarters is built in fifty nine by a
bunch of guys who just stumbled out of World War Two. We didn't even
have stalls around, so so it was great. So, you know,
I told Kevin and Steve in the beginning, I said, listen, you
guys don't know anything about the fire serves. But here's the deal. If
you're gonna do the show, it's a comedy. You have to laugh with
the firefighters, not Adam. It's not. It's not the three students.
You don't want to be making fun of the firefighters. These professional people who,
when the bell goes off, do a great job. They just have
too much time on our hands and getting all kinds of trouble. So once
we established those ground rules, everything just fell into place. And you know,
I work with the writers. I work with those people who decorate the
sets and the paint what color paint you on on this, the construction people,
every every department in the place, props, and I work with the
actors because they had no idea how to be firefighters. You know, even
four premiers on July twenty, it's on True TV Travel's plug. But you
know, in the beginning, there they are right now, they've they've been
together so long that it's hard sometimes I forget they're not firefighters. You know,
they do such a great job, and you know they've come so so
far, and in the four seasons that we've done, it's just fantastic.
It doesn't there you go. So we got Plymeovent from Plymovent. It actually
works, it's real. They put it in for free. But there's you
know, there's some of the cast where we're on the apparatus floor and I'm
giving them the lowdown. I don't remember exactly what we were doing at this
point, probably just telling jokes to each other. You know. Season three
and I talk about working with the writers. We called season three of the
season of the apparatus Floor because they could not stop calling at the garage and
even Steve over here to the right, you know, all you know we're
going to go out into garage. I'm like, you're going out onto the
apparatus floor. And then of course they didn't break my stones. I'll call
it the garage on purpose. But you know, you got a bunch of
guys who are great at writing, but they know nothing about the fire service.
So I had to send them the hierarchy. What's it mean when you're
a lieutenant? What's the chief to? You know? They pretty much started
scratch. But you know, now, you know, we got season four.
Hopefully we'll get season five. We haven't haven't found out yet. Usually
we'll wait till a couple of episodes of en air before they make that decision.
But everybody's right on board. Now. Sometimes the what's the one on
TV that they buttheads? You guys, I don't want to remember the name
of that fire show, Chicago Chicago File. Now, this is the comic
Chicago Fire is supposed to be. That's with Chicarrello from Chicago Fire. How
much? Right? Yeah? Not all. This is pretty much. This
is a comedy. It's like a spoof. Ye ask you a questions.
The stuff we do is real. That's my job. I make sure that
then goes correct. You know, the attire is correct and the stuff that
we do, and most of the stories come from me. The operations,
they get into the funny stuff that happens. Now, the humor of the
fire of the firefighter doesn't always translate to the normal person. So because my
wife will tell me all the time, by they say the firehouse, they
don't get it. You know, that's not funny. Yeah, yeah,
are you able to do you have to water down a little for the average
person to get it, or not a lot. I mean being a comedy.
I was told us a hunk and die. We can't have you know,
we can't have the death. We can't do this. We can't do
that. So you follow the parameters. But I make sure that everything's as
real as possible, you know, setting up the set, the kitchen,
the stuff that you would do, their their routines, the shifts you know
when they change, and stuff stuff that you don't think about. Uh,
great story. Filming the pilot, my wife came out She's sitting in a
chair watching on the monitor, and she says, you know, they're calling
Steve Eddie. And I'm like, well, that's his name. He's Eddie
Paneasy, but they're calling him Eddie. I'm like, I know, that's
his character. And then I did a really stupid thing and I started talking
slowly to my wife. I would never did, Oh, he's the captain.
I'm like, oh, right, right right, they never call him
by his Yeah. But you know, it's something that's so ingrained in us,
you don't think about it. You know, I'm watching, I'm looking
for obscure stuff. You know, ers are going to say, he'd never
do that, you know, And that's something that big got by me.
I had to go back and fix all the scripts. They were calling the
Chief Terry, you know, and uh with Stephen and Kevin, when when
they're together, it's Terry and Eddie because they're brothers in law. It's it's
like me and Jimmy, you know, my my, my chief. You
know, we've got that special relationship. But I would never say hey Jimmy
in front of the kitchen table, you know. And yeah, I mean
we had to kind of and and explain that to the actively to call him
by his first time or not because he's the captain. Something that as as
basic as that got by me, the technical advisor, because I never did
this stuff before. You know, it was just pilot. You know,
I called my brother chief even when I drove him, like I wouldn't call
Steve, you know, I would call it chief because so as soon as
you walk outside, though you don't ship hand its thickhead, you know,
whatever it is. But what about the uh I don't say the harshness,
but they're trying to get under somebody's skin, like that's what firemen are all
about? The sea again on the skin? Is that is that portrayed in
the show, like oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We got uh
Andy Andy Maiawani, the Hawaiian firefighter. Um they what did they do to
him in season two? And then they made him crazy? You know the
same thing. They did all the stuff to him and got all depressed and
you know, and the chief would say, listen, we'll go out and
have a drink and talk about it. And the chief would forget someone come
up and Andy be said all by himself. So we have stuff like that
all the time. You know, Uh, it's good. We did an
episode on Pure Support, you know, and they wanted to do this episode
and I said, listen, I'm gonna have to watch very carefully. You
know. I just got into that myself. But this is cutting edge stuff
and you can't really make fun of it. You can have fun with it,
you know, And that's trying to find that that line, you know,
Uh, it was sometimes you gotta be careful. You know, you
don't you don't want to. You know, you don't want to step on
anybody's toes or you know, the people in the industry, so to speak.
You know, you don't, you don't want to anybody. Well that's
not so much offending him, but make light of something that's so important these
days, you know. And the same thing. You know, I got
into a lot of this peer support and different things right before I retired,
and I still do some of it now. But when I was coming on
to job, like you guys, you know, you saw something bad,
Suck it up, kid, maybe the job's not for you. I have
a shot in a barrier, be okay. And that's just how you did
it. And you know, I'd say the same thing to the young guys,
and I like, Jesus, what am I doing? You know,
later on I felt guilty, I said, I did that. That's the
way I learned, you know, right, you know you got to stop
to the PTSD and the different problems that everybody's having with with with stuff that
you can see, and you know it was it was a big deal.
We did a good job on that episode. It was very happy with the
way it came out. It was still funny, but it was yeah,
we did it in such a way that it wasn't you weren't making fun of
the situation. You were, you were having fun with it as it was
very well done. Now I got to go back and binge watch Bill.
Oh absolutely, you know HBO max were on uh Hulu plus. I think
you know what it is. That's was HBO Maxes where I saw the thing.
Because I got HBO Max, I knew I saw it somewhere. Then
I go back and binge watch it there. Brother, So how oft are
you flying out to la now? Man? Well? Not now, if
we get season five, I'll go back out and we'll uh you know,
for for the shooting. We usually shoot for about fourteen weeks something like that.
So they'll shoot the whole season of fourteen weeks. Yeah, business one.
He's like, you ain't getting into my action, bro, just this
one. Yeah. It's funny because I would tell every once in a while,
I'll get into no fight. You know, I get my cousin Kevin,
and I listen, you can't do this. Well, you know,
no one'll know. I'm like, the guys in the armchairs are gonna revolt
if you do this, you know, and you know that was always my
threat. You know, all the guys, all the firemen and firehouses across
America are gonna say you can't do that. Now it's better, I say,
Jason Patton is going to green screen this show and I'm gonna be pissed.
He does to all the other ones, Oh my god, so funny.
But he hasn't done our show because even though we're economy, it would
take some liberties and we can get away with it because we're economy. But
all of our stuff is what happens in the firehouse every day. You know.
Kevin and Steve, after the first season, went on a a countrywide
stand up gig. You know, they toured the whole country and of course,
let me fire fighter in the world. Went to all the shows.
I had to be careful because they're telling them all their stories. You got
to use my stories. I can't talk. But the same thing. They
all said the same thing, And I said, you know, your show
is what we really do. You know, it's sometimes it's a little over
the top, but for the most part, it's it's what happens every day
in the firehouses across America, and it's hystericle. Yeah, it is funny,
probably, And there was sometimes I remember laughing at the firehouse and some
stuff, and I'm like, holy shit, man, you know you almost
laughed. Do you do you do you pass out? Some of the ship
is so and and and it's just so uh. The guys have such they
come up with ship that You're like, I can't believe that they came up
with something like that. Some of you plan a practical joke for three weeks
or something. Yeah, might pull out the picture age of the cash which
one is your cousin Bill all the way to the right. Okay, and
now who who what do they play on the show? Kevin's the chief right,
him is Marcus Henderson. There's Kevin Eric Marcus Henderson. He plays Granny.
He's he's the paramedic. Um next to him is uh Andy Maiawani,
which is uh Arrow. Next to him is Hassi Harrison. She plays Lucy,
the chief's daughter, and me, of course. Next to me is
Steve Lemmy. He plays Captain Eddie Panisi, who's really me in real life.
And then Gabe Hogan plays like Crystal. He's the he's the big strong
guy. Cheesy mustaches and the show. I say, I was gonna say
to meet cheesy mustaches. Look at it. So you want to hear a
great mustache story. Yeah, Stephen Kevin don't usually have mustaches, so they
grew him for the show. So now I'm at my cousin Kevin's house for
having dinner. Steve's there with his wife and he starts complaining on my mustaches,
my mustache that he says, you know you got a mustache, you
know, mustache forever? What do you do? I get stuck getting it
and super stuff and it's good. It's like a snack later on play the
table. So he's like, yeah, I always afraid my mustache smiles,
and my wife's not gonna lie to it. I said, listen, just
do what we all do. Steve, what sad is to take you tooth
brush, put a little toothpaste on it, Just brush your mustache, you
know, and it'd be munty fresh. And I just left it at that,
And he did it, and I don't know how long he was doing
it. But the next time I flew out to Los Angeles, he said,
ask you a question, said, sure, you don't really use a
toothbrush on your mustache too. I want to see if you were going to
do it. What matter? But he actually was. He was brushing his
mustache. Might be onto something there, he might be onto something. Never
did a whole new line. I could have to tell us mustache taste whatever,
wax or something. Somebody was saying, is it forgot? Who don't
know? Is it like that show Reno nine one one, but in a
fire department context? Yeah, sort of, yeah, I think excuse me,
Reno nine one one was almost a spinoff of like Super Troopers, but
it's the same. You know, we've got excuse me, um, you
know all the stereotypical guys. You got the Captain in the chief, you
got the big, strong and dumb guy. You got Granny the paramedic who
is he knows everything. He's a book of knowledge. You know. Um
Andy might want is the rookie, and then he's he's not the rookie anymore
because Lucy comes on. But she's the chief's daughter. She grew up in
a firehouse, so they try to get over on her. But she knows
more about the firehouse. And it's kind of like my wife. My wife's
father was deputy chief. She grew up in the firehouse. My daughter,
excuse my daughter grew up in the firehouse. She's married to one of the
fireman on my job now, and the same thing he was. He didn't
come from a family of firefighters. She knows more about it than him.
You know, it's kind of daunting sometimes when your wife more about your job
than you do, and I'm amazing details of your job. Yeah, I'm
amazed at the fact that she picked that up about you know, nobody calls
him by the first time you gotta call him by. It's like, I
got you know, I'd like to say I would have I would have tipped
that eventually. You know. The funny pot is my wife talks to me
like that. When I'm saying something, she'll go you know, the thing
you say, and then he's talked slowly like, yeah, I did,
didn't that's pretty bad? What else you got by? Anything else? Before
we do the old school tip of the day. Nah, nah. I
just wanted to give a shout out thanks, first and foremost a half for
making time for us tonight. I appreciate it's been great. And also to
all the guys at the West Tap and Fire Department, who I know,
most of whom are watching right now. I think we did a pretty good
job. I think I'll still have a job tomorrow. I just want to
say, I know they're gonna kill me for this because I'm gonna sound really
really corny. What I mean it had the job for a couple of months
now and half. You're great to work with. Really everybody the departments tell
my mom the other day there's not a single guy I dislike. You know,
I really love working never done this before. I love my job,
but it's great. I really do enjoy your job. So thanks guys,
and I'll see to marm. Don't forget under hire. Don't forget under him.
You know, I'm say, yeah, I got the towel right here,
so I'll take her again. That's good. Yeah, thanks for coming
on with the tie. And has Mike won the wife beata to work yet?
No, man, get very spefe. I think it's it's like I
wear the Haiian shirt. Yeah, it looks like Wall Street executive. Well
dresses up. They'll pay him as now you know, getting old beefy.
Yeah, that's very different show. We actually Captain Irvan just put something in
the chat before we go to the old school tip of the day. He's
referencing half the Smitty Story referring to him which one I don't know. He
just put Smitty Story in the chat. You'll have which one? There's too
many apparently if he puts in the chat, we can go back to it
later. But if you want to get to the old school tip of the
day, I guess we can do that now we can. But I just
want to say intriguing Korea, excellent fireman, and I like the whole um
historian thing and all the things that you collect and you look to collect and
now on with the TV show. You're a well rounded five five well well
rounded a human being. I've been a train. You all live in the
dream. Mister uh silly Willie, you are, oh willy word of the
day, folks word of the day, and Urban says, any hef any
any quick smitty story? Who's smittyr? It was Smitty Ransford Smith. Ah,
Yes, yeah, Smith unfortunately passed away. Yeah. I think the
stomach cancer. He was on the job and he was just one of those
guys that had done everything, you know, and if he did half the
stuff he said he did, it was amazing. You like that, but
I mean it was you know, I invented gas stations. But he was
president of his own ambulance company at one point, and it's a very well
rounded guy, and he was just he was a He was a gem to
work with, and he was funny and he liked the white women. Who
doesn't. Who doesn't. So we had we had two guys passed away right
in a row. Smitty Smithy had got cancer and then he went pretty quick.
And our friend Chris O'Keefe dropped out of a heart attack of forty nine.
He's on my shift and on duty. He was off on a vacation,
and we all responded at Dy's funeral and a wake he had his his
wife, his girlfriend is his ex wife, his other ex wife, his
other girlfriend. Club all knew each other, and they were all friends,
and they were all in a little coffee circle, coffee clatch, you know,
keeps funeral. H He had his ex wife who he was still dating,
i think, and his steady girlfriend and we kind of put them on
each side. And then the door burst open and the girl comes in.
Stara go like, what's wrong? What's wrong? Um, Chris's fiance say
Mary. I'm like, of course you are stating in a corner. And
then it happened again. Christie's for a day Andrew I'm like, oh,
I had like four more times, really, you know about these girls.
So he had Smithy on one side. Everybody knew each other, was friends,
not so much in a Chris o'keefeeling. Yeah, he was doing at
the Coincidentally, I can talk for three hours about O'Keefe's funeral. It was
an amazing firefighter funeral with all kinds of crazy stuff that happened. But we
based episode nine of season four that was just gonna say that to you.
I had to sell that. I had to sell that to Kevin and Steve.
I can't have a funeral, I just listen. There's things you have
to have a golf tourm at a wedding, a parade. Got what we
do. So I saw them on it after I told them the very long
and involved Chrystal Kee funeral star it's hysterile. So you can look for episode
nine. It stars me. I will be You see my ugly mug on
television. You have to get a thick card for that, bro, I
do I have one. Oh, you can't get into all the Hollywood parties.
Now there you go. Big card though, And they said that to
me at the end of March, and I paid my dues and I realized
expired the first day of April and they couldn't just wait and send it to
me three days later. It was well worth it. Good for you,
so we'll be seeing you. It was a great guy. He was.
He's probably the whitest black man you ever met. He was friends to work
with and the funny stuff that he would come out of his months is amazing.
That's great. Yell nothing back. Yeah, we messed him daily.
He's very good friends with Andy Bennett. It was it was. It was
a devastating bow he got sick. M Yeah, I think it's that time.
Yeah, before that though, we'll be seeing you. August fifth.
I hope yes, both of us, Yes, yeah, both of us.
You'll be seeing Yeah. No, I sweared it away. I said,
hey, listen, it's work. You gotta do what you gotta do,
and I'll be down there all right now. It might be that time.
You know what time it is. Yes, it's time for the old
school and me deep in my voice a little bit, the old school tip
of the day, day day, all right, half, it's all yours
and he just make sure the camera pans out to you. Take it away.
I feel like I'm at a horse race of the day. All your
young guys out there, go to work. Work, you're overtime, work
hard. Don't be afraid to come in and do things off duty on your
own time. If you ever win the Community Service Award, it's probably the
best award we give out. You can win the Medal of Valor and the
Medal of Merit. It just means you showed up for work one day and
a lot of bad stuff happen. Community service you have to give up your
own time and you need to go and volunteer and be in charge of something.
Join a committee, get involved in your community, get involved in your
department, don't just show up for your paycheck. Get in there, work
the overtime. It's not just a job, it's not just a career.
It's a way of life. I like it, probably very different, Michaeloge
You are correct, all star guest tonight. Thank you for pulling him out
of there the last and that's what coming on the last minute notice, mister
mister William Heffernan, hold on dry though I'm drying there you go. Thank
you a great time. Thanks for doing this. I'm gonna be looking this
up now. I gotta look it up now. You got a couple more
of view is he will pass it along. We'll pass it along to our
community. Um and uh any other shout outs? Broth you got anything,
buddy, No, it's just the newerk. Guys. That was it.
Well, you enjoy your time up there in Greenwood light Bundy, all right,
how do the little what's on? One day? That till Saturday?
Yeah, Sunday, I think Sunday, Sunday. The mother in law has
got to be making egg play palm one day. I mean tomorrow. She
made it today, but I mean the chicken palms. You're not making the
chicken palm. I'm kicking her out to she it's two days, that's it.
What do you think? Well? I want to who came up?
Do you know what? The other guy, Gino came up on Monday?
My sister was supposed to come up on Tuesday. My brow law came up
yesterday with my mother in law in the stain until he came up like this
stuff. You think I'm better? It's better it is? Yeah, you
know what? Bill? Did you get an invite? I must have lost
month coming man, I don't know what happened. It's only the up and
trust the up tut up a trust the up there. Yeah, all right,
Mike, take us out, bro. Do you think whatever it is
that you do so? Well? All right, well here's our outrow the
shortened version, all forty three seconds of it, explaining, of course,
another great show we did and where you can find us. We'd like to
thank you once again for tuning into the Getting Salty experience. As always,
if you think we're out of good content, far from it, of course.
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Rather be a spotlight on, rather be a cock Lofts and Cocktails, or
a brand new episode with a heavy hitter from the fire Service. Be sure
to do so. We thank you once again for tuning into The Getting Salty
Experience. I like that one version of mind pretty quick to the point excellent
than try my best, all right, And Roofie and I will not be
here on Monday again. It's only Thursdays for the month of July and then
we'll get back to UH when I come back from the Philippines. I think
sometime later August September will be going back to two shows a week. But
Roofie and I on Monday, twenty fifth anniversary of the creation of the Squad
Company party, so we'll be doing our things. And mister William, I
appreciate it. Just when I thought I found an interesting firefighter another one comes
along. Excellent job. I stick around half, don't don't stick by.
Yeah, we'll see goodye off their we'll talk off the air. Might bring
some donuts tomorrow something too. Will you have to tell from us? Tell
enough from the getting salty boys. Will you there's a there's a dunk of
donuts up the street tomorrow, pick it up for the boys, all right,
bagels or something brick some bagels with some ship. All right, rough,
having fun up there. I'll see you Monday night. I've party all
right, guys until then, stay low and yo, everybody will see it.
The big one on behalf of Kevin Coogler or Louis Frano and Bill Hefford,
and I'm like, coloone, have a great night and we we'll see
you next time.