Speaker 1: Disclaimer.
Speaker 2: We'd like to know before the start of this interview
Speaker 2: that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest
Speaker 2: of Tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the
Speaker 2: guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views
Speaker 2: of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 3: You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 4: A Hello, indeed, we are back. I haven't got a
Speaker 4: light show in a while. Right there it is Jose.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen that guy?
Speaker 1: Is it duck?
Speaker 5: It's the chicken.
Speaker 6: He's kind of wearing his shirt for too. It's kind
Speaker 6: of fitting.
Speaker 1: He knew back.
Speaker 4: If you get told these space pockets the only one,
Speaker 4: even if the lady steals it that brings the fire
Speaker 4: house kitchen table to you got a funny guy out
Speaker 4: tonight places.
Speaker 1: My face hurts already. We weren't even out of the
Speaker 1: pre show yet. I can't even film my face. I
Speaker 1: can't feel my face.
Speaker 4: That's for all the well wishes for the surgery. I'm
Speaker 4: feeling good not to stand up in a little while.
Speaker 6: It's getting If you guys haven't noticed, he's even taller
Speaker 6: in the chair.
Speaker 1: That's a little taller wish it was.
Speaker 6: A little bit.
Speaker 5: Wish it was a ball.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, he's definitely sitting on a pad or something.
Speaker 5: I'm not sitting on nothing.
Speaker 6: He's sitting on the ship ring.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: He's got the hemorrhoid ring going. He's like I see
Speaker 6: you in Harrisbury, like holy ship.
Speaker 5: His legs is straight now, no more horse legs.
Speaker 6: More walking over hyd you like.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a little weird. That's a long time
Speaker 1: with them crooked fuckings. You've got that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, indeed, Yeah, I saw in the chat. There's somebody's
Speaker 6: birthday today. Did you see that?
Speaker 5: No, whose birthday is it?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 4: You know there's Procacini's birth Happy birthday, husband, yeah, husband, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's I hope he gets a nice present tonight.
Speaker 1: I'll get something.
Speaker 7: John Albanize was asking for prayers too. We had a
Speaker 7: pretty big heart attack.
Speaker 1: Is it true that he was out? Like they brought
Speaker 1: him back to life?
Speaker 6: The little ones to.
Speaker 7: Me, you send uh sense prayers for John Albanize. He
Speaker 7: had he said it had a big heart attack.
Speaker 4: And man, Johnny, I see I'll put you on the
Speaker 4: rosey tonight. Johnny, stay away from the light, little buddy.
Speaker 1: Stay away from the light, but if you are on
Speaker 1: him and everything, so the light. I got compressions, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't.
Speaker 6: Do you still have to do. You have to do
Speaker 6: two of them depending on what you're doing. But I'm
Speaker 6: I don't want to do to anymore. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 6: Just give me a vapor barrier. We're good.
Speaker 1: Pok her up there, Koobie.
Speaker 7: I got a haircut, No, no, just's I'm letting the girls.
Speaker 7: It's growing a little differently. I got a little a
Speaker 7: little too much, I think today.
Speaker 4: But you know what, my girl, Cindy Drake, she's in
Speaker 4: there also also also, So let's get some prayers out
Speaker 4: the Hank senior dude Moley, he just had a heart surgery.
Speaker 4: He's on the man. He's doing well. He walked a
Speaker 4: mile today. So the senior man wishes all the leatherhead nation.
Speaker 4: Well let's say some prayers for Hank.
Speaker 1: Absolutely again.
Speaker 5: I found the heart on him.
Speaker 4: I told him it was like the grinches on middleriches.
Speaker 4: One was a tiny little one.
Speaker 1: That it grows. He had he had something with his heart.
Speaker 1: We made a big banner when he came back.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I found the cheesy. We put out a
Speaker 5: sheet I think I helped he made it actually.
Speaker 1: Get well soon.
Speaker 6: We're glad tiger and was a wizard of Oz if
Speaker 6: I had a heart, was it wow?
Speaker 4: Speaking of tigers on tonight on let me practice that.
Speaker 6: I don't have a damn cats sound effect. I need
Speaker 6: to get one. Don't work on one of the roads.
Speaker 6: Tiger ones and I talked.
Speaker 1: To him, you gotta get the cops the woo woo.
Speaker 5: You gotta ask South. He had the on his helmet.
Speaker 6: He he's laughing back there. Yes, yes, no, tell me, yes,
Speaker 6: he's yelling us like I could hear him not kidding.
Speaker 1: I would whooh woo, I would woo you. That was
Speaker 1: the honeymoons woo woo.
Speaker 5: Yes, I got commercials really quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, here we go.
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Speaker 4: And you know, going to be a new representative out
Speaker 4: in the Upper East Coast here right in Long Island
Speaker 4: for this guy.
Speaker 5: Am a tough bro like you are?
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Speaker 9: To fi?
Speaker 5: I to tell you all about auto? Well that look
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Speaker 5: other day, Wasn't I rough?
Speaker 1: Mike Kelly.
Speaker 9: Too?
Speaker 6: Mike Kelly, look at that guy.
Speaker 5: Gonna have him back on All right, Let's get to
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Speaker 6: Here we go.
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Speaker 6: Wonderful. Nonetheless, but not least.
Speaker 5: We'll do these that when we have nothing left.
Speaker 6: Let's just do the.
Speaker 5: The uh you know we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, here we go.
Speaker 2: The First Responders Center for Excellence is a not for
Speaker 2: profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of
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Speaker 4: I just went from MIA annual check up with Rob
Speaker 4: Brown Soup the nuts, bro, get the cardiac c T skin,
Speaker 4: get it all, learn about it early. You want time, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you want to collect that pension for a while. You
Speaker 4: don't want to be like my own man, right, your
Speaker 4: father died like three four years later, retired and then
Speaker 4: he died with my brother.
Speaker 5: Get out to gre yourself checked out all right, Roff ready.
Speaker 1: Yeah, coming to the stage, Lieutenant Salmrra.
Speaker 6: Going on, guys, welcome to the show. Brother, Thank you
Speaker 6: very much, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we used to run into each other all
Speaker 4: the time. We're just uh shooting. We're reminiscent about the
Speaker 4: time that he was at I.
Speaker 6: Wish I had a cat.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find him.
Speaker 6: Have No, I don't have a damn cat. I got
Speaker 6: a goat.
Speaker 1: I got forget about it. That's not really that's pretty Uh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good for him. Yeah, let's do that. Let's
Speaker 1: do the pledge first. Come on, Yeah, I got you,
Speaker 1: And then we're here we go.
Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
Speaker 3: of America and to the Republic, for which it stands,
Speaker 3: One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Speaker 5: This is not a tiger, is it, Casey?
Speaker 6: He says. Legend has it that his shadow once killed
Speaker 6: the dog?
Speaker 5: Is that true?
Speaker 6: Not a movie?
Speaker 1: I don't know. All right, are you ready? All we got.
Speaker 10: To Lieutenant saw Mara and remembers a lot of one
Speaker 10: twenty Good afternoon.
Speaker 6: My name is Lieutenant salvatoremier alat of one twenty. We
Speaker 6: we were at the firehouse when the alarm came in.
Speaker 6: We received a report of a fire in UH in
Speaker 6: the building behind me and UH. On arrival, we had
Speaker 6: multiple people advising us before we even got in the
Speaker 6: building that they were still a document trapped an apartment
Speaker 6: four Bravo. So we knew that we had somebody in
Speaker 6: there that definitely needed to get attended to. So myself
Speaker 6: and my inside team immediately ascended to the fourth floor
Speaker 6: where when we met in the stairwell. We came out
Speaker 6: of the stairwell in the fourth floor, we had a
Speaker 6: heavy smoke condition and we knew we had to get
Speaker 6: in there because, like we said, we knew somebody was
Speaker 6: in there and they were trapped. We made our way
Speaker 6: to the door. We forced the door to apartment four Boy,
Speaker 6: and upon initially doing our searches, once we passed the
Speaker 6: hallway by the kitchen area, we found an unconscious victim
Speaker 6: on the floor, which was the victim that people were
Speaker 6: referring to that was trapped. I immediately raid to the
Speaker 6: command post that we found a unconscious civilian and that
Speaker 6: we were gonna prepare to package the patient and remove
Speaker 6: the patient outside of the fire area, which later on
Speaker 6: one of our firefighters brought them down to EMS EMS
Speaker 6: transported to the hospital, and uh, we're just hoping for
Speaker 6: the most positive outcome that we can have, and I
Speaker 6: just want to say everyone did a fantastic job this
Speaker 6: is what we trained for. This was a live opportunity
Speaker 6: to practice what we trained for. And everyone's teamwork was
Speaker 6: the reason today was so successful. So I just want
Speaker 6: to commend the guys and girls that were here today.
Speaker 6: Everyone did a fantastic job. Wow, I didn't know you're
Speaker 6: so popular.
Speaker 1: I dude, I have to ask you before we even
Speaker 1: get started, like, how nerve wracking is that to do?
Speaker 1: Like with all of that stuff going on now, it
Speaker 1: were you like freaking.
Speaker 6: If you focus on the microphone, that's look at anybody else.
Speaker 6: We actually went back to the firehouse and the press
Speaker 6: desk gold and they said, you got to go back
Speaker 6: to the scene right away. Uh, national television media is
Speaker 6: there and they got to interview you and find out no.
Speaker 1: Way, so you have to think about it too.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, oh boy, what are they going to
Speaker 6: ask exactly? Oh? I have no idea, but are you
Speaker 6: ready to good? Did it look at you? I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, like I said, I'm like thinking to myself.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I just hope they're not. Like, you know,
Speaker 6: are you a hero? And what was the first question
Speaker 6: I asked? Do you consider yourself heroes? I'm like, how
Speaker 6: do you answer?
Speaker 4: That without being you say, here's nothing but a sandwich's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, heroes, what I put on my what do you
Speaker 6: mean like? So I tried to give appropriate answer, so,
Speaker 6: you know, to make it sound uh, you.
Speaker 5: Know it was even there. It was scary. Was that
Speaker 5: guy's helmet standing next to him?
Speaker 6: Holy shit? Man? I have another little clip here too,
Speaker 6: of totally twenty eight seconds here watch it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: what do you respond to being a hero? This is
Speaker 6: what we signed up to do. We do it every day.
Speaker 6: We do with pride, we do it with joy. We're
Speaker 6: here help the community, and we're happy to do it.
Speaker 6: It's another day in the office for us here, it's uh,
Speaker 6: it's it's our job, it's our life. So are we heroes?
Speaker 6: Some might say so, but to us, it's a job
Speaker 6: and we love doing it. We do it with passion
Speaker 6: and uh we come here every day to do it
Speaker 6: with with a smile on our face.
Speaker 10: Ah.
Speaker 6: That's question.
Speaker 1: That was See he didn't have to think about that.
Speaker 1: That bubbled right out.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, you see the chief behind time to time
Speaker 6: till this day. Hey, just another day in the office,
Speaker 6: you know, see the.
Speaker 1: Chief n there ain't nut you're gonna say that you
Speaker 1: ain't gonna hear for the rest of your life.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, how many phone calls you get on
Speaker 5: that one?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 6: I forgot, I can't. I went back to the fires.
Speaker 6: I had like fifty four messages, twelve phone calls, and
Speaker 6: like I said, I still get you know, you know,
Speaker 6: thats just another day in the office. I guess, Uh
Speaker 6: did the did the chief behind us say anything? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Say behind He was smirking when you said another day
Speaker 6: in the office. He kind of was holding back a chuckle.
Speaker 1: I thought that was perfect.
Speaker 6: That's yeah. When you said, like I said, I didn't
Speaker 6: know what they were asking me. So this is what
Speaker 6: I threw back at them.
Speaker 1: You know where you said that you guys packaging? Did
Speaker 1: that mean you grabbed them biting ankles and banged his
Speaker 1: head the whole way down the stairs? Is that that
Speaker 1: could have happened? Maybe it happened.
Speaker 6: Maybe what did you guys get for that? Anybody get
Speaker 6: a unit or you put in for a unit? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah about the whole unit. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, roofie, collective effort.
Speaker 1: Collect collective collective. There's no eyes, no iron team, does it?
Speaker 6: He and me? Though?
Speaker 1: You know, is iron unit, though.
Speaker 5: We gotta get before that man.
Speaker 4: Give us a little bit where Salvat grew up, where
Speaker 4: you grew up, why you became a fine man, what
Speaker 4: the childhood was like, your mom and dad, you brought
Speaker 4: us whatever?
Speaker 6: I originally uh, I was born and raised in Brooklyn
Speaker 6: for the no ship said by Brooklyn come on.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was. I was born in my Mamadi's hospital
Speaker 6: in Brooklyn. I was there in Brooklyn Ships at Bank
Speaker 6: till about nineteen eighty eight, and then we moved out
Speaker 6: to Long Island to Old Westbury and I basically lived
Speaker 6: there until I found my future wife at the time,
Speaker 6: who's down my wife obviously, and we moved to Roslyn
Speaker 6: and I've been here ever since. Now. I've never had
Speaker 6: any family on the job. I was first, first generation
Speaker 6: fire department. Always wanted to do it, always was interested
Speaker 6: when I was like a little kid, you know, like
Speaker 6: you know, I know a lot of people said I
Speaker 6: want to be a farman when I grow up, but
Speaker 6: I actually did and I did it, and I became
Speaker 6: a volley when I was seventeen in Roslyn and I
Speaker 6: still volunteered till till this day and still love it
Speaker 6: and the test came out and I took the test,
Speaker 6: and while I was waiting for that, I also got
Speaker 6: I got on EMS because they said that that was
Speaker 6: going to be like a sure way to get on
Speaker 6: at the time, because you know, if you didn't live
Speaker 6: in in the in the five boroughs, it was going
Speaker 6: to be difficult with the five points residency and all that.
Speaker 6: So I became an EMT and I wound up taking
Speaker 6: the open competitive and the promotional and I wound up
Speaker 6: getting on through the MS route in two thousand and three.
Speaker 6: And uh, well, you work in I worked at EMS
Speaker 6: in Corona, Queens h and I earned money an EMT,
Speaker 6: and I was assigned to Queens Corona in the area
Speaker 6: and I did that for two years before I got
Speaker 6: the academy. What you doing before you went to the
Speaker 6: m S though I was. I was twenty years old
Speaker 6: when I got on the MS, and I was literally
Speaker 6: I was a full time student at Hofstra.
Speaker 1: Oh is that way you got the itch? Like did
Speaker 1: you want to go to one thirty eight like to eighty.
Speaker 6: Nine eight Olive or not? When I was an EMT,
Speaker 6: I had a scanner in the rig and uh, anytime
Speaker 6: there was a job in the area, heading that way
Speaker 6: and hilly balls again, and uh, what what's going on?
Speaker 6: I knew that was a hot area, so I figured
Speaker 6: when I worked there as a flyman, it was it was.
Speaker 6: It was rocking and rolling.
Speaker 4: He figured, He figured, So, who how do you figure that?
Speaker 4: You just say, I'm gonna take a look at the
Speaker 4: draw or maybe Sally Box called somebody over there.
Speaker 1: You hang out, You hang out, you meet the guys
Speaker 1: over there at the park over there, the bach, you
Speaker 1: guys over there, and then you.
Speaker 5: Know what he saw on thirty eight he pulled over.
Speaker 5: He bought hup to Corona.
Speaker 4: Ice is the lemon Ice King of Corona, went to
Speaker 4: the spaghetti park over there, played a little bochi and
Speaker 4: they said, this is the time guy, you following the
Speaker 4: rig around?
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, uh I wound up going there, and uh
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 5: Wait you didn't wind up going there? How you keep
Speaker 5: missing it?
Speaker 1: He's going around, not even in the engine, in the
Speaker 1: engine right to the right to the truck.
Speaker 6: I was in the engine first, the engine, all right. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I was in the engine for four years and then
Speaker 6: I went to the try four years into it, and
Speaker 6: I did six years in the truck.
Speaker 4: Well, how did you get to again, he's he's bypassing you.
Speaker 6: Listen, how did you get to the end? I h
Speaker 6: through a family friend.
Speaker 5: That's that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: You don't right out when you know, shout him right
Speaker 6: out when you know. I I I reached out to
Speaker 6: a couple of people to try to get me there,
Speaker 6: and uh, thankfully it all worked out. And uh I
Speaker 6: got a sign there and UH.
Speaker 4: Called you called the fixer, that is what you did.
Speaker 4: I called so infinitely, he called the fixer. You go
Speaker 4: over to eighty nine, you bring the cake. Who is
Speaker 4: the captain there at the time.
Speaker 6: The captain of two eighty nine was Mike Delina, remember
Speaker 6: vaguely Mike Mike Delina character great, great guy, and uh
Speaker 6: he was Uh he was there for a while because
Speaker 6: he got promoted the chief. And then after Mike Delina,
Speaker 6: Dean Castor was the captain. Yeah he was the captain
Speaker 6: and uh, yeah he was there. And then after him
Speaker 6: was I believe Jimmy Gelss that's my commission. And then uh,
Speaker 6: like I said, four years later, I wanted to go
Speaker 6: to the truck.
Speaker 5: Slow down, slow, let's talk about the engine. Turn the
Speaker 5: page right on the engine.
Speaker 6: Right right, I was right, don't he gives the engine
Speaker 6: credit he turned the pig.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 6: Root, but then I went to the truck and then, uh,
Speaker 6: it doesn't really count.
Speaker 1: So what did you catch your first job? How long
Speaker 1: your first tour did you catch? How many runs did
Speaker 1: you go on your first tour? For godsakes? Over there?
Speaker 6: I think, uh, one weekend. I caught my first job there. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it was about it was about you know, first week. Uh,
Speaker 6: and then I caught a job. The way it worked
Speaker 6: in the engine over there is the senior guy in
Speaker 6: the groups got the nozzle. So I usually have backup
Speaker 6: or door. We were a five man company, so uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it always got to work your group though, right,
Speaker 1: If you worked your groups, did you get the nozzle?
Speaker 6: It was always a senior You had to be in
Speaker 6: your groups here at the nozzle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, obviously if everyone was on a mutual
Speaker 6: or the senior guy wanted to give it to you,
Speaker 6: that worked, But it was always senior guy in groups
Speaker 6: got the nozzle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was the same way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you wants to know if Rick Bruno was there
Speaker 6: Toy nine when you were there, Rick Bruno was definitely
Speaker 6: that he was a legend there there. Bro fixed yet
Speaker 6: he was a great, great boss. Nothing phased that guy.
Speaker 6: She could be hitting the fan and that guy was calm,
Speaker 6: cool and collective like nothing was going on. That's what
Speaker 6: you want, you know that, That's exactly what you wanted,
Speaker 6: like no matter. His famous saying was there's there's no
Speaker 6: problem and only solutions, and he lived by that, he
Speaker 6: really did all the time.
Speaker 1: Who does you say that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, guy, he kind of told me that no problem,
Speaker 4: the only solutions. Yeah, it's a great saying.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 6: That's a good house.
Speaker 4: So guys, for people you know who are in New York, Uh,
Speaker 4: it's it's a more of a ghetto house, you know,
Speaker 4: more of a Clinton type house. A lot of guys
Speaker 4: run the run and there were sponts areas huge, huge
Speaker 4: it is. Yeah, So did you were you the only
Speaker 4: program that went there when you went?
Speaker 6: No, I went there with uh with one other guy
Speaker 6: in the engine and one guy of the truck. So
Speaker 6: three of us from that class went to that house.
Speaker 6: So the other guy went to the truck. She had
Speaker 6: a bigger hook than you. What you said, right initially?
Speaker 4: Did the engine I asked you a question? Though he
Speaker 4: probably won't say did you put the trunk or the
Speaker 4: engine down first? When you asked your hook?
Speaker 6: No, I actually I asked to go to the engine. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: I wanted to start. Everyone told me start off in
Speaker 6: the engine. You'll you'll thank me later. And that's exactly
Speaker 6: what I did. I learned the engine and I did that,
Speaker 6: you know, for you know, a couple of years, and
Speaker 6: then before I went to the truck.
Speaker 4: Uh huh you get they get a lot of work
Speaker 4: over it. The heavily occupied over there, crazy, the amount
Speaker 4: of people living.
Speaker 1: Every type of every type of building too. They got h's,
Speaker 1: they got commercials.
Speaker 6: It was a very diverse uh makeup of buildings, which
Speaker 6: was very nice to uh to learn the job there and.
Speaker 10: You got there what two thousand and three? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: you learn the who teaches you that? I'm trying to
Speaker 10: a you gotta teach me.
Speaker 6: The Uh they have a little scratch pad in the house. Wash. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What about uh Tarantini over there.
Speaker 6: He was the best he was Uh work, Yeah.
Speaker 5: He's still working. He says he's getting ready to pack
Speaker 5: and putting a plan together.
Speaker 1: I talked to him today.
Speaker 4: Tiger one, Tiger, he's Tiger one, right, I remember you
Speaker 4: know was a tiger one when you got there.
Speaker 5: It was Mike, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 6: He called himself Taron Tiger.
Speaker 4: No but uhant.
Speaker 6: But what's his day?
Speaker 5: Was a senior man there in the truck, Mike Mike Bryor,
Speaker 5: Mike Pryor.
Speaker 6: Mike Pryor was senior guy when I was there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, who was the senior man the engine?
Speaker 6: Uh, senior guy in the engine was when I got
Speaker 6: there was Greg Benomi. They called him Babo and yeah,
Speaker 6: he was a senior guy. And Mike Mike Pryor was
Speaker 6: a senior guy in the truck who had the raspy voice.
Speaker 6: Who was the yeah we do was like this?
Speaker 11: He was?
Speaker 5: He was the union two for two eighty nine.
Speaker 6: Oh, Johnny Debo DeVoe deebo. I think of the movie Friday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my grandmama gave me that change.
Speaker 4: Tell us about a good job that he caught in
Speaker 4: two eighty nine before we turned a page to the
Speaker 4: truck again, bro, give us a good job that he
Speaker 4: had in to eighty nine.
Speaker 6: Uh, good job in two eighty nine. Uh, probably one
Speaker 6: of my uh first nozzle jobs actually in two eighty nine.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 6: And like I said that wasn't right away because like
Speaker 6: I said, you had to be in your groups in uh,
Speaker 6: in your groups working to get the nozzle and and
Speaker 6: be senior and being approbate. I didn't have any seniority,
Speaker 6: so uh, probably, I don't know, a month or two
Speaker 6: in and we had a rock and basement job and
Speaker 6: uh we were first due. Truck was first due, and
Speaker 6: uh it was like I said, it was probably one
Speaker 6: of my first, you know, first nozzle jobs, and it
Speaker 6: was a basement job. So all that all that together
Speaker 6: and I'm like, this is fucking intense, man, And you know,
Speaker 6: basement job. You know, it's probably you know, the hairy
Speaker 6: situation you'll be in in the private dwelling, you know,
Speaker 6: because there's only one way in, one way out typically,
Speaker 6: and uh you know those are those are probably the
Speaker 6: most dangerous in a private dwelling. So it was as
Speaker 6: much as it was dangerous, it was very exciting because
Speaker 6: you know, I'm full of pist of mintigar and this
Speaker 6: is exactly what I've been waiting for. And boom, here
Speaker 6: we go. You came out.
Speaker 5: Did you just stay just another day at the office.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was still learning the office at that.
Speaker 1: Ship. That's good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was your first nozzle jub what they
Speaker 4: do with they see your man give you the nozzle.
Speaker 6: Or uh no, I actually had the nozzle somehow. I
Speaker 6: don't remember. I was in groups, but I had the
Speaker 6: nozzle at that ah and you get your jump Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: it was. It was rocking and like, you know, like
Speaker 6: you get out of that, you know, and you're adrenaline
Speaker 6: is pumping and you're like that it was fucking awesome.
Speaker 6: Let's do it again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're like, you know, get a chance over
Speaker 4: there because they go they go to decent amount.
Speaker 1: Uh hey sound Did the guys know that you were
Speaker 1: a volunteer when you got there or no?
Speaker 6: Uh initially, but I think a couple of months in
Speaker 6: the word got out, you know nothing U I uh,
Speaker 6: you know, I told him They're like, are you a volley?
Speaker 6: I'm like I am, and they're like, all right, that's cool.
Speaker 6: I Meanwhile, there's a lot of bollegys in that house,
Speaker 6: which was cool, you know, and uh probably no bullshit.
Speaker 6: A third of the house was Rally's Wow and Jimmy
Speaker 6: Gills was Yeah. It was. It was like and you
Speaker 6: try to like secretly find out who are the volleys?
Speaker 6: And be like yo, you know, I me and you
Speaker 6: were in the same boat, you know. And uh, but
Speaker 6: then you had those people who, like, you know, if
Speaker 6: you had a Volley shirt on, they fucking crucified you.
Speaker 6: You know, they were anti Volley, hardcore union, like you're
Speaker 6: fucking taking away jobs. I'm like, I'm really not, because
Speaker 6: there's no paid farm in my department. So but you know,
Speaker 6: it was what it was. Like I said, I never
Speaker 6: regret being a valet. I still in the valley. I
Speaker 6: love doing it. And it's it's the way it is
Speaker 6: out here in Loyland. It is what it is, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who's chief?
Speaker 6: I think he's referencing to sal Chief over there. I was,
Speaker 6: Oh Jesus, he's leaving.
Speaker 4: Come I don't see that on here.
Speaker 6: It's not on it. Come on, come on, take it easy.
Speaker 5: Now, mirror.
Speaker 6: Did you cook over there?
Speaker 12: Oh?
Speaker 1: Did he hook?
Speaker 6: I did? I? I actually uh made a signature meal
Speaker 6: there called sal zones. Uh yeah, I made them in
Speaker 6: Walking Street too, related to seal zone. So uh basically
Speaker 6: it's a cow zone. But some of the guys alleged
Speaker 6: up my sweat from when I was sweating for a
Speaker 6: fusely dripped into the cow zones, which is what made
Speaker 6: them cow zones sell zones. But uh yeah, basically I
Speaker 6: made a cow zone and we made all kinds. We
Speaker 6: made sausage and peppers. We made ham pepperona d a
Speaker 6: whole bunch of them, and they were delicious. So once
Speaker 6: in a while the guys would be like, but we
Speaker 6: do some sal zones today says you got them, let's
Speaker 6: make them. And even when I got promoted, I didn't
Speaker 6: mind cooking once in a while, like it was fun.
Speaker 4: Still, you know, mm hmm. So you get the inst
Speaker 4: to go over to the truck. I did you made
Speaker 4: the movie?
Speaker 5: Would you just go to see the captain? I knew
Speaker 5: you wanted to go? Well, how long did you wait?
Speaker 6: Well? I actually, I'll be honest you. I was nervous
Speaker 6: to tell Jim Gills at the time, who was the captain,
Speaker 6: that I wanted to go to the truck because I
Speaker 6: feel like I'd let him down. But I called him
Speaker 6: at home one day and I said, hey, cap at Sally.
Speaker 6: He's like, what's up? Everything all right? I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 6: everything's all right, and I said I'm thinking about going
Speaker 6: to the truck. He's like, well, when you're thinking about
Speaker 6: doing it. I'm like now, he's like, oh right, okay.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, you know, I'm gonna fill out my
Speaker 6: paper and hopefully get it all signed, and I just
Speaker 6: wanted to get your blessing. He's like, no, by all means, listen,
Speaker 6: it's you know, it's a step in the right direction.
Speaker 6: He's like, I'm sure we actually you gonna want to
Speaker 6: study one day. And it was a it was a
Speaker 6: good move. And so I put my paper for the
Speaker 6: for the truck and I remember I walked it through.
Speaker 6: I got everyone's signatures from the captain here battalion and
Speaker 6: at the time we had four double groups wow wow,
Speaker 6: And it was about I don't know, six people with
Speaker 6: their papers and to go across the floor. And I
Speaker 6: walked it through and I remember going to see Chief Aserna,
Speaker 6: who was the Queensborough commander at the time, and I
Speaker 6: said the Chief, I just want to drop this off.
Speaker 6: This is my paper. He's like, south, do you know
Speaker 6: that there's like four double groups, six people looking to
Speaker 6: go that I've had papers in for years. He's like,
Speaker 6: this is not going to be for probably years and
Speaker 6: years and years. So I said, no problem, Chief, I said,
Speaker 6: I just want to put it in. Get the clock started,
Speaker 6: you know. And two weeks later I was in one
Speaker 6: thirty eight. You must yeah, robah, but they told me
Speaker 6: that's where I was working as a certain date. Two
Speaker 6: weeks later, yeah, that you can rob a bank with
Speaker 6: this guy.
Speaker 13: Bro.
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: But you were UFO. You went UFO. Obviously you were
Speaker 1: in UFO.
Speaker 6: No, no, I got I was assigned.
Speaker 1: Oh you were signed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 6: I gotta signed. So now I have five double groups
Speaker 6: and I had six people in the engine pissed off of.
Speaker 4: Me because I just said, the guy's probably hat now right.
Speaker 6: They did. But you know, they said, if you have
Speaker 6: a hook, don't don't waste it. You don't call him,
Speaker 6: use them, So we did.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 5: And this is the retiring theme in South Korea.
Speaker 1: That's a tough because you still got to live with
Speaker 1: those guys.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a tough, but but I get they're like, here,
Speaker 6: sal this is your dinner.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, the engines and mails, oh, Sally's
Speaker 1: working today.
Speaker 6: And the guys who were waiting to go, they were great.
Speaker 6: They gave me my own plate, like this is.
Speaker 4: Yours, this is your m uh so yeah, so night
Speaker 4: they're asked force in your pillow in the bunk room.
Speaker 6: But uh yeah it was Uh it was like I said,
Speaker 6: you know, I wanted to do it. I had to
Speaker 6: get to go to the truck and uh I did it.
Speaker 5: You know, did you have to go see Tiger one
Speaker 5: to get his blessing?
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 6: I had his blessing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Tiger One's blessing.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I spoke to the union guys in both
Speaker 6: companies just to make sure it was okay with them,
Speaker 6: and like I said, nobody had any objection. Afterwards, a
Speaker 6: couple of people weren't crazy about jumping, you know, certain guys,
Speaker 6: but like I said, you know, you don't know who
Speaker 6: has a hook who doesn't.
Speaker 5: Have a hook, and you know you gotta use it.
Speaker 6: Bro I wanted to do. You know, it's only it's
Speaker 6: your career, you know, so you're only uh hurt yourself
Speaker 6: if you don't use it exactly. Now, how how'd you
Speaker 6: like going from me?
Speaker 4: Because two eighty nine got a relatively small first to
Speaker 4: area to one thirty eight that you feel like you
Speaker 4: could be driving on the rate for like fifteen minutes
Speaker 4: to get to the box.
Speaker 6: It's crazy. I remember we had covering officers in one
Speaker 6: thirty eight from Brooklyn, and you know areas where they
Speaker 6: were so populated with engine companies and he's like, where
Speaker 6: are we going? And I'm like, second to box. He's like,
Speaker 6: we've been on the rink for eleven minutes. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: that's how it is over there. You had a lot
Speaker 6: of single engines over there. But the area for one
Speaker 6: thirty eight was tremendous. It was huge all the way
Speaker 6: out the flushing Yeah. Yeah, and then you got a
Speaker 6: special call a lot too. Man.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was just going to say, when when you
Speaker 1: had this is Queen Street to fall?
Speaker 13: Was he?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, god, he you can any one time. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He came to the firehouse all the time. And his
Speaker 6: famous thing he would be like, there'll be movement today.
Speaker 6: Miro like, w there are we going. He's like, I'm
Speaker 6: not sure yet, but they'll be movement. I'm like okay.
Speaker 6: But yeah. He came by literally every single day pretty much.
Speaker 6: And uh, you know, he was great to have as
Speaker 6: a friend because you know when he was on the radio,
Speaker 6: he took care of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh my god. Corona House of Fire.
Speaker 1: Corona House of Fire, take in phone alarm for two
Speaker 1: four six. Correction, this is Queen's too far, This is
Speaker 1: Queen Street to four.
Speaker 5: So tell us about some scary jobs in one thirty eight.
Speaker 6: Bro, come on already, you know what.
Speaker 5: God, let's go, come on through some of the old pictures.
Speaker 5: We're into the truck and throw some engine pictures.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he don't have any engine pictures.
Speaker 1: He didn't send an illion my god.
Speaker 6: Boy.
Speaker 4: Sorry, well sorry was all over him. Yeah, but you
Speaker 4: got the other he got the early pictures though Proby No.
Speaker 6: No, he had no Proby pictures.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 6: The only thing we have of him early, we have
Speaker 6: some early stuff. The one we have early is one
Speaker 6: of these. Oh boy, I know it was only a
Speaker 6: matter of times.
Speaker 1: Where was that? That was one thirty eight?
Speaker 6: No, so that was it made its way to one
Speaker 6: thirty eight that That was a bachelor party that I
Speaker 6: was at and we were actually in Las Vegas, and uh,
Speaker 6: somebody dared me to wear that, and I said, if
Speaker 6: you buy it, I'll wear it. So that's the story
Speaker 6: behind that. And guess what, the motherfucker came through and
Speaker 6: they bought it for me. So then I had to
Speaker 6: actually put it on and wear it for six hours
Speaker 6: and it was the most humiliating thing ever. I'm literally
Speaker 6: at a pool with like families around and like people
Speaker 6: stay away.
Speaker 1: From that, stay away from beefcakes.
Speaker 6: Becakes there and uh yeah that that picture that made
Speaker 6: its way around and uh they actually gotta there you go.
Speaker 6: They got a life size with those fat heads right
Speaker 6: then a life side version of being made up and
Speaker 6: hung in the in the firehouse kitchen in in Corona.
Speaker 4: And they hung it on the on the wall there
Speaker 4: have got it of these today, bro.
Speaker 6: The best. But yeah, and then when I went to Flips,
Speaker 6: that giant figure made it there and made it to Brooklyn.
Speaker 6: I had the commissioner tell me one day at at
Speaker 6: an event, He's like, you look much better with your
Speaker 6: clothes on. And I'm like, commissioner, wait, did you see
Speaker 6: the picture on the eighth floor. I'm like, oh, boy, boy,
Speaker 6: I feel like used. But it was definitely comical.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 6: I mean, the funniest thing about the whole Speedot thing
Speaker 6: is like I didn't give a ship like it was.
Speaker 6: I call it very European. Ye nah no, she she
Speaker 6: got a kick out of it. But the funniest thing
Speaker 6: is is every pictic guess what the guy's requested they
Speaker 6: want me to wear that thing, and I said, it's
Speaker 6: too slutty to wear that with the families around, right,
Speaker 6: you know, the kids can't be seeing that kind of shit.
Speaker 1: I got a shave or anything armful life, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: shaved the boys up, the the whole thing.
Speaker 5: You had the whole look going on there.
Speaker 6: Bro Oh yeah, yeah it was. It was funny, man.
Speaker 6: And I guess that you only live once, so you
Speaker 6: gotta do silly shit like that one.
Speaker 4: So when you're in one thirty eight, how do they roll?
Speaker 4: You don't get the roof for the ov right away, right.
Speaker 5: What do you give you?
Speaker 6: Honestly one thirty eight depending on the bosses. You know,
Speaker 6: we had one boss who he made the waiting list
Speaker 6: and you had zero involvement with what you wanted to work, uh,
Speaker 6: position wise for the tour. And then you had certain
Speaker 6: bosses who you know, senior guy in groups or you know, uh. Basically,
Speaker 6: once you got assigned the roof for the first time,
Speaker 6: you were on the roof for quite some time. Really, yeah,
Speaker 6: you were like the uh, the seated roofman, if you
Speaker 6: want to call it that, and which is good. I
Speaker 6: mean they want you to learn the roof because it's
Speaker 6: you know, an important position. But at the same time,
Speaker 6: no one's really like can I have the roof today?
Speaker 6: But you know, important position. But like I said, there
Speaker 6: was a learning position too, because they wanted the junior
Speaker 6: guy who is now able to take that position to
Speaker 6: really be well round the roof man, right, you have
Speaker 6: to be strong too. There's a little story behind that.
Speaker 6: You know. It's a you know, medium shirt, so it
Speaker 6: was a little tight. I actually had to get that
Speaker 6: altared at one time because my arms are bigger than
Speaker 6: the sleeve. Believe it or not, I was big at
Speaker 6: the weightlifting and uh, I might have gotten the length
Speaker 6: shortened a little too, if you notice the past h
Speaker 6: I Uh, I like showing them off a little. But
Speaker 6: I don't have those arms anymore.
Speaker 12: He still had his speed although yeah, still wear the
Speaker 12: speed up on occasion at home. Special treats special exactly.
Speaker 12: So I called eye candy for the ladies, you know.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 1: So, So who was who was some of the guys
Speaker 1: in in the truck that you kind of you know,
Speaker 1: gravitated to, like as far as the job was concerned.
Speaker 6: Yeah, uh, you know a couple of senior guys like
Speaker 6: I really, I really clicked well with them there. You know,
Speaker 6: I had Mike Pyre was a senior guy. Got along
Speaker 6: great with him. You know, he was around forever, pleasure
Speaker 6: to deal with, absolute gentlemen, and you know, UH loved
Speaker 6: work with him. He was in my groups. Uh, Steve
Speaker 6: Core hardcore remember him, Koobs, Yeah, Ri Founder, you guys
Speaker 6: remember him. He was great man. He called me Buffy
Speaker 6: and you know, I got he. He was a little
Speaker 6: rough around the edges, but he he liked me, which
Speaker 6: was good.
Speaker 1: So we got always good when the rough around the
Speaker 1: edges guys like you, whatever reason it is.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So he didn't like to me and I ran
Speaker 6: with it.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 6: And uh, he was definitely a good mentor to have.
Speaker 6: Chris Miller, who went up, uh get promoted and working
Speaker 6: next house over in Brooklyn. He was one of the
Speaker 6: other senior guys in my groups. He was seated chauffeur.
Speaker 6: He was great to work with and uh taught me
Speaker 6: a lot. And uh and and Joe Tarren Tiger, Joe
Speaker 6: Tarran Tager. We're gonna get him on the show.
Speaker 1: He's he's been there a long time, right, I mean
Speaker 1: how long he has.
Speaker 6: He's the senior guy then now and Uh, Jimmie and Joe.
Speaker 6: I still talked to him all time. He was he
Speaker 6: was a pleasure to work with man. And and he's
Speaker 6: like I said, he's a close friend of mine until
Speaker 6: this day. And I still talk to him and uh always,
Speaker 6: you know, not only about firefighting, but just life in general.
Speaker 6: And and uh he was an absolute pleasure to work with.
Speaker 6: Taught me a tremendous amount. I remember when I became
Speaker 6: a chauffeur in one thirty eight. He helped me with that.
Speaker 6: Let me drive my first tour. He's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: be in the backstep whatever you need, I'm here for you.
Speaker 6: And it was just like a nice reassurance to have
Speaker 6: someone like Joe uh working with you. And uh and
Speaker 6: Joe was Joe was like hardcore. Corona Tigers still is
Speaker 6: that guy you know leads Corona Tigers and he uh
Speaker 6: he he definitely uh has a huge part on on
Speaker 6: the success of that house till this day. I mean
Speaker 6: he's a senior guy now. And like I said, he
Speaker 6: he's done great stuff with the company and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: and and and and he really uh he really keeps
Speaker 6: it together over there, Like I said, he not only
Speaker 6: is he a phenomenal firefighter. He's he's a phenomenal friend
Speaker 6: and a person, he really is.
Speaker 1: If the senior guy is in on it, like, if
Speaker 1: he's into it, it trickles down to everybody, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 6: He does he sets the mood and and and he's
Speaker 6: still got that going there man. And you know a
Speaker 6: lot of people as Tom goes on, you know, he
Speaker 6: kind of like, I don't want to say, fiddles out,
Speaker 6: but they don't have that passion anymore. Yeah, he still does.
Speaker 4: How is it with the former members of the Retired Guys?
Speaker 4: They have a good basic guys who still turn out
Speaker 4: all the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we still go to some events. They actually do
Speaker 6: something which Kenny Gunter. You remember Kenny Gunter?
Speaker 1: I remember that, Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 6: He put together like it's called the Tiger Luncheon. And
Speaker 6: the last day of every month, which essentially for retired
Speaker 6: Guys's payday, we go out to Millerselle House in Deer
Speaker 6: Park every month. Anyone who's retired, promoted, are no longer
Speaker 6: basically working in Coronto is invited and it's it's a blast.
Speaker 6: We get to see each other. It's like being in
Speaker 6: the Flyhouse kitchen right out. You know, it's great.
Speaker 4: You know, what about what about one of your old
Speaker 4: Chief Steve was a former member one hundred and thirty eight.
Speaker 4: Always loved that place, Chief Steve Man. He would come
Speaker 4: back around there a lot to you guys.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he would come by. I remember, like you know,
Speaker 6: they'd be like Cooper's working, He's on his way and
Speaker 6: everyone's fucking running around to get black socks on it.
Speaker 6: He was gonna check the socks and.
Speaker 1: Was coming He's gonna check.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, everyone's grabbing shirts. Guys are wearing shirts
Speaker 6: that don't even have the right name on it.
Speaker 1: It's like he used to. He used to stop by
Speaker 1: off myre house too. And of course I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: I'd have look like you right now, right like us.
Speaker 1: I was just like, just like, when are you gonna
Speaker 1: shave a Frand I said, I shaved this afternoon. Chief.
Speaker 1: It's uh, I'm Italian, you know.
Speaker 5: Now I'm gonna have to say away right to the
Speaker 5: Chief Steve song.
Speaker 6: Yes, for the listeners who have.
Speaker 5: Not yet ever seen the Earth, this is early vintage.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is the fourth and we don't have the
Speaker 6: first version.
Speaker 5: We only have the fourth one level track down the
Speaker 5: other one.
Speaker 6: We do, we do have the one we all track down,
Speaker 6: the one with the socks.
Speaker 1: But you know, here we go, here we go.
Speaker 13: I'm Chief Steve back with another damn. I got a
Speaker 13: new ankle, so you could say, hot.
Speaker 6: Damn, it's my job.
Speaker 13: Maybe over I put it in forty plus. Now I
Speaker 13: think I'll go and try the yellow plus. Not just
Speaker 13: saying the bus, but a special one. Indeed, my little
Speaker 13: brother and he has special leads. I'll drive that yellow
Speaker 13: bus and buckle in his ass and tighten his helmet
Speaker 13: as he licks the freaking class.
Speaker 3: When I'm gone, don't be overtime looters.
Speaker 1: I'll hunt you.
Speaker 3: All down on my fucking scooter.
Speaker 6: You have not seen the last of me.
Speaker 13: Be sure I'll be hanging with these bigheads on the
Speaker 13: get Insulting tour cuz I'm cheap Steve.
Speaker 1: Classic, Classic, Classic.
Speaker 6: I gotta find the first one. We mentioned the socks
Speaker 6: because obviously that was a big thing.
Speaker 5: The socks was huge.
Speaker 12: Man.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, it was one thirty eight guy too, right, Yeah, yeah, yep.
Speaker 6: The captain of the truck.
Speaker 4: When you did you ever work with the guy who
Speaker 4: was the guy who was in the big Irish guy
Speaker 4: who was in a band or whatever.
Speaker 5: He was in the band. Wasn't he a big.
Speaker 6: John Maloney? Yes?
Speaker 5: Was he there when you were there?
Speaker 6: Yeah? He was, he was. He was a captain when
Speaker 6: I was in the engine originally, but when I when
Speaker 6: I went across the floor, he was already gone.
Speaker 14: Ah.
Speaker 5: He wasn't a fan of the squad.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, I know that. Anybody feel How did
Speaker 6: they feel.
Speaker 5: Over there one thirty eighth. You weren't there yet. He
Speaker 5: became a squad, right, you got there later?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you guys were already squad, yeah, right, right, right right?
Speaker 6: But I know, I know before me, I know a
Speaker 6: couple of guys didn't stay in two eighty eight when
Speaker 6: they became a squad and they went to one thirty eight, right,
Speaker 6: Oh did they? I didn't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Maybe they'd be great because they gave him wherever they
Speaker 4: wanted to go, so that would be a great.
Speaker 5: Move, right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think you guys had tryouts or something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: we did which ship and a couple of people were
Speaker 6: told that there will be no tryout for them. So
Speaker 6: I guess that's a nice way of saying, you're not
Speaker 6: staying here no matter what.
Speaker 5: I don't know, but I don't know, like he didn't
Speaker 5: know who was you know, I don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: That was uh Danny Schweiger. There was schwager Man.
Speaker 6: Now, yes, yeah, Danny Schweiger was uh one thirty eight
Speaker 6: when I was in the truck. Yeah, great guy. Love
Speaker 6: work with him. He uh he actually let me ride
Speaker 6: the front a couple of times when he was working
Speaker 6: when out right before I got promoted. So he was
Speaker 6: absolute gentleman. Is that what is from the rescue to Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's his brothers. Brothers, they're all big.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 6: The other brother wasn't one O three, I believe yeah
Speaker 6: with me, Yeah, big dudes.
Speaker 1: When did you uh when did you start studying? Like
Speaker 1: when did you start getting the uh?
Speaker 6: Uh I started studying. I want to say, oh, seven
Speaker 6: eight I started studying, and I believe the test was
Speaker 6: in nine. Yeah, the test was in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 6: So I started studying like two years to uh, you know,
Speaker 6: maybe eighteen months right around that to uh to take
Speaker 6: the test. And you know, I actually did pretty good.
Speaker 6: I got I went up writing a ninety on the test.
Speaker 6: But if you guys remember there was a slowdown with
Speaker 6: promotions because the whole lawsuit was going on with UH
Speaker 6: with the the Vulcans at one time, and they weren't
Speaker 6: putting enough probies in so they weren't really promoting a lot.
Speaker 6: So even though I took the tests at oh nine,
Speaker 6: I didn't get promoted un till thirteen. It took me
Speaker 6: almost four years. I mean it took a year for
Speaker 6: the list to come out, but then I still took
Speaker 6: three years, and with a score of a ninety, I
Speaker 6: thought it would be much sooner. But listen, I wasn't
Speaker 6: in a rush. But I literally got promoted ten years
Speaker 6: to the day I got on September fourteen, two thousand
Speaker 6: and three, And I got promoted September fourteenth, twenty and thirteen,
Speaker 6: ten years to the day I got promoted.
Speaker 1: That's a good time to get promoted ten years.
Speaker 6: Yeah, everyone's funny, and everyone said ten years is perfect time.
Speaker 5: And I literally to the you were in a great
Speaker 5: house and who kids.
Speaker 6: Yeah, as I said, I wasn't in a rush, but
Speaker 6: you know, when it came, it came, and it wound
Speaker 6: up coming, and.
Speaker 5: As soon as that came, it was a dis Yeah
Speaker 5: fix it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, you know you know where I'm going.
Speaker 1: Well, he could have been. I think he was already
Speaker 1: in the uh that that crew already, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So that doesn't hurt either when you're in
Speaker 1: the tree, president, president or whatever he was.
Speaker 5: But how do you get You get, of course with
Speaker 5: the name, you know, Salva Colombians.
Speaker 4: So he joined the Colombians and all of a sudden
Speaker 4: and now all of a sudden, he's the President of
Speaker 4: the Colombians.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: Yes, so I was. I started out, uh in two
Speaker 6: thousand and five in the Columbia Association. I was a
Speaker 6: Queen's trustee because I was working in queens and there
Speaker 6: was an opening, so I started doing that. I got
Speaker 6: very involved with them and uh, next thing, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm beating Goppa Ghoul having red Wine and Walls good Man.
Speaker 1: Mikey Smithwick was was part of that, right, he was
Speaker 1: a big was he the president, Big.
Speaker 6: Joe Joe Smithwick. He's half Italian even though he's got
Speaker 6: an Irish last name. He was there. Craig Sloveno.
Speaker 1: Had yeah, awesome, Keitho was uh, I forget about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah he was there, so uh yes, I got on
Speaker 6: the board as a Queen's trustee and I really loved it,
Speaker 6: and I said, this is great. It's like a like
Speaker 6: a little other club within the fire department.
Speaker 11: And uh, Frankie Demonto was big with the with that
Speaker 11: to the fish from and I wound up moving up
Speaker 11: and I wound up being president for the last couple
Speaker 11: of years that I was working, and uh uh.
Speaker 6: Had a great time. Met a lot of great people,
Speaker 6: got friendly with a lot of the staff chiefs and
Speaker 6: stuff like that. So I definitely was beneficial to don't
Speaker 6: hurt no bosses. And you know, I called a networking
Speaker 6: that don't working.
Speaker 1: Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 1: It's all part of the game. You gotta spend time,
Speaker 1: make time right the.
Speaker 5: Average day on the job, bro, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Just every day the job another day office. Yes, I
Speaker 6: had to run us through the phone call to how
Speaker 6: you get to one twenty.
Speaker 4: It's like, uh, Nope, don't want Nope, now, yes, I'll
Speaker 4: think four four battalion.
Speaker 6: Nice said there was an opening in one twenty and
Speaker 6: they asked me if I wanted and I said, sure,
Speaker 6: I'll go there. N It took me. It took me
Speaker 6: four years to get the spot finally.
Speaker 5: So you went to the fifteenth.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So so I got a sign to the I
Speaker 6: did flips. Uh, and then I got a signed to
Speaker 6: the fifteenth Division. You know, they asked you to pick
Speaker 6: six battalions you want to go to. When I picked
Speaker 6: every battalion in the fifteenth division. So I got it
Speaker 6: and was like a happy as a pig and ship man.
Speaker 6: And uh because the fifteenth Division as.
Speaker 1: A whole, there's almost you can't get a bed spot.
Speaker 6: No, no matter where you go, you're you're you're going
Speaker 6: to fires. The fifteenth Division is great.
Speaker 5: Bott three kind of peets out down there a little bit,
Speaker 5: is that true? What we all three? It peedees out
Speaker 5: a little.
Speaker 6: Bit down there, blows down over there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll quiet over that way.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So so I got I got assigned in. Uh
Speaker 6: my first tour out in the field was in October
Speaker 6: and uh my first uh, my first vacation was actually
Speaker 6: one forty seven.
Speaker 1: That's christ so awesome.
Speaker 6: Not a great commute, but the guys were phenomenal. There
Speaker 6: was fire duty and uh, I got into my first accident,
Speaker 6: which was pretty cool. Oh awesome. Yeah, So I didn't
Speaker 6: even you know, we it was actually Thanksgiving, it was
Speaker 6: November Thanksgiving and uh, we we we might have clipped
Speaker 6: the car with uh with with the with the tiller rig.
Speaker 6: I never worked in a tiller rig my entire career.
Speaker 6: So like down in charge of one and like it's
Speaker 6: literally a fucking eighteen wheeler that's flying through traffic, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, this is a crazy concept. I keep the
Speaker 6: guy in the driving in my mirror. I'm like, oh
Speaker 6: my god, this is crazy, and like we're just like
Speaker 6: we even in and out.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, uh oh do oh, so what happened?
Speaker 5: He didn't plug it in?
Speaker 6: I told some of them of them to plug it in.
Speaker 6: We'll just say we'll just about anyway.
Speaker 1: We'll just uh some pictures.
Speaker 5: Yeah, don sal Lane's is he? Oh he's back? But
Speaker 5: where is he?
Speaker 6: Dark? He's dark? Sal? Where are you are you there?
Speaker 1: Stay away from light loads, Stay away.
Speaker 5: From your light, little buddy three times on the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Well we have that's a big thing. Advice ice cream.
Speaker 6: Tell the CoA.
Speaker 5: I don't say ice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Italian ice. That's the big Italian ice called. Give
Speaker 1: him a hollow.
Speaker 6: See what he said.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna boot, give him a boot, tell him to
Speaker 7: come back. But anyway, get some more pictures up there.
Speaker 7: We got so he's got a he he sent a
Speaker 7: lot of twenty pictures. I have a good of a
Speaker 7: few amounts of twenty pictures. I'll show some of the
Speaker 7: ones we didn't get to because he didn't have he
Speaker 7: did what I showed you.
Speaker 6: It was the only one was that one picture with
Speaker 6: the muscle shirt of him at one thirty eight. What yeah,
Speaker 6: he said, this one here with the triple duce.
Speaker 1: It was only uh.
Speaker 6: That one.
Speaker 1: You got a little story behind that. You've got another
Speaker 1: one with the the.
Speaker 6: Now you this was the him ordering in one day.
Speaker 6: Oh now you are all right? So yeah, So so
Speaker 6: I was saying, So we wound up going to a
Speaker 6: job I was in one forty seven and like I said,
Speaker 6: we we definitely flipped the car going to this fire
Speaker 6: and the reports of kids trapped and I'm like, you
Speaker 6: know whatever, I didn't see it. We're going fires out.
Speaker 6: There was no kids trap. Rocking job. We wound up
Speaker 6: getting in there right away, fires out, and I hear
Speaker 6: on the on the radio one forty seven. Come to
Speaker 6: the command host and I'm like, I said, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: I said, Chief, you call him for me. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: did you guys hit a car? Coming here, and I says,
Speaker 6: we did. I told the guy to come to the scene.
Speaker 6: Is he here. He's like yeah. He's like oh, He's
Speaker 6: like I thought you guys left the scene. I'm like absolutely.
Speaker 6: I told the guy follow us. I said, he's the chief.
Speaker 6: He's like, yeah, he's right there. He's pissed. I says, yeah, yeah, Chief,
Speaker 6: I'll take care of it, no problem, I said, I'm
Speaker 6: glad he followed through and came here. Though he.
Speaker 1: Pretty quick. That's pretty I could have used that one
Speaker 1: a few times probably.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So, like I said, it was my first accent. I
Speaker 6: had no idea how to do the whole paperwork report
Speaker 6: and all that. The cops get there, they're like, what's
Speaker 6: the driver's name? I said, there's two drivers. He's like,
Speaker 6: what the fuck are you talking about it. He's like,
Speaker 6: I was there two drivers. I'm like, there's one in
Speaker 6: the front, r on the back. I said, uh. He's like, bro,
Speaker 6: I don't know how to put this in the in
Speaker 6: the paperwork. I said, just put one driver. I don't care.
Speaker 6: So whatever first accident, I got out of the way
Speaker 6: and I'm like, I guess this is the fifteenth.
Speaker 1: Division, right, Hang on for dear life, that's what you're doing.
Speaker 6: But yeah, but I had a great tour. The guys
Speaker 6: were great there. They made me feel really welcome and uh,
Speaker 6: like I said, I quest and work there, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: happiness can be. I'm like, this is this is like
Speaker 6: a blessing with fifteenth Division. He went five all the
Speaker 6: time and I'm like, what's in your room? Man? This
Speaker 6: is the home right there?
Speaker 5: No, you found it.
Speaker 6: So yeah. So then next vacation, the division calls me
Speaker 6: up and they're like, you're go into one twenty. I'm
Speaker 6: like one twenty. I'm like, that's like major leagues and
Speaker 6: the calling calling the upro Yeah, so I go. I
Speaker 6: called I go over there. I called the captain who
Speaker 6: was Chris iSER at the time. I says, hey, don't
Speaker 6: sell mirror. I'm I'm actually covering a vacation there. He's
Speaker 6: like I know. I'm like, all right, I took a
Speaker 6: pot to it. You're like, well, he's the one who
Speaker 6: brought me there, so I have him to thank for
Speaker 6: forgetting my foot in the door there. But uh yeah,
Speaker 6: so I wound up going there, and uh I wound
Speaker 6: up catching so much work there doing the vacation there.
Speaker 6: It was literally, you know, he'd be He'd be calling me,
Speaker 6: how was the job, and I'd be like, Chris, which job?
Speaker 6: I'm like, we were we were going to fires like crazy.
Speaker 6: That was one of my first jobs. Chris Bank a
Speaker 6: senior guy at the time, driving Johnny Mack, Andy Eckstein,
Speaker 6: Mike Carroll was catching worked like crazy and it was awesome,
Speaker 6: It really was. And uh, you know, the feedback was
Speaker 6: great from the guys to the captain and iSER basically
Speaker 6: kind of kept me there as the fifth wheel, and uh,
Speaker 6: any kind of vacation that was going on, he brought
Speaker 6: me back any kind of medically or anything long term.
Speaker 6: He he got me in the mix there. And I
Speaker 6: never you know, felt so welcomed as a boss in
Speaker 6: the firehouse like I did there. The guys who were,
Speaker 6: you know, so accommodating they were. It was a blessing
Speaker 6: that place. And uh, like the house runs itself, man,
Speaker 6: And I always said that, like the officers there were
Speaker 6: there for the ride. You know, that place runs without us,
Speaker 6: and where they had to have a shirt of the
Speaker 6: you know, the seat.
Speaker 1: To the show pushed a Teddy four button.
Speaker 6: That's it, that's it, and pay the guys and the
Speaker 6: rest is is on them.
Speaker 4: Man, did you feel a little bit intimidated in a
Speaker 4: place like that at Allso I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 6: I mean, uh, you know, my first tour there, I'm
Speaker 6: driving in and I'm like, should I have grown a mustache?
Speaker 6: I don't know, you know, look a little older something, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I should, I should I make myself look older or whatever.
Speaker 6: But I said, you know, I'm coming from a good shop.
Speaker 6: You know, I got promoted at Tude eight nine one
Speaker 6: thirty eight, like you know, a very respected house. And
Speaker 6: I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna go with the flow,
Speaker 6: get the feeling of the house, and and just like
Speaker 6: you know, just go with it. And like I said,
Speaker 6: the guys made me feel so welcome there, like I
Speaker 6: was part of them from day one. And uh, the guys,
Speaker 6: uh couldn't be more squared away. Man, that that house
Speaker 6: is like a well oiled machine from you know, uh
Speaker 6: the past grand alumni.
Speaker 1: I mean, they got great alumni. I say it all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 6: Man, A lot of heavy hitters came out of that house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we always competed with them obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: like to get the jobs and to work. But if
Speaker 1: I had a pick a company if somebody asked me,
Speaker 1: like a company that has a long history of you know,
Speaker 1: the guy the alumni staying together, doing the right thing
Speaker 1: all the time, I would I would definitely pick those guys.
Speaker 1: I would definitely seek.
Speaker 6: And uh, like I said, we were catching a lot
Speaker 6: of work, and you know, the captains always wanted to
Speaker 6: ask the guys, you know, how's he doing, how to
Speaker 6: do his job as a boss, and you know, the
Speaker 6: feedback was great and he kept me which was awesome.
Speaker 6: So you know, I have think I have to thank
Speaker 6: Chris Easer for forgetting me to get my foot in
Speaker 6: the door there and keeping me there. And uh, you know,
Speaker 6: he went up getting promoted before the spot actually physically
Speaker 6: opened up. So I'm like, shit, new captain's gonna come
Speaker 6: with new guys, and like I'm out. But the captain
Speaker 6: who came was Mike Thompson, another great guy. He's a
Speaker 6: chief now. He he kept me there, and you know,
Speaker 6: he was a man of his word, and he said, listen,
Speaker 6: I know Isaac was going to keep you here, and
Speaker 6: I'm going to do the same thing. And you know,
Speaker 6: he endorsed me ultimately for the spot when it did
Speaker 6: open up, which is. Like I said, it was four
Speaker 6: years of not bouncing up uh ufo covering before the
Speaker 6: spot actually physically opened up to get. But once it
Speaker 6: did open up, I got the endorsement, which was awesome,
Speaker 6: and I wound up getting the spot. Twelve people put
Speaker 6: in for the spot. Wow, twelve twelve people, so I
Speaker 6: had a eight percent chance. Yeah, that's Bill Billy Rogers
Speaker 6: one of his last tours I promoted and as uh
Speaker 6: you know, sad as it was for him to go,
Speaker 6: it was actually the opening for me to take a
Speaker 6: spot now. So I was happy for Billy, but I
Speaker 6: was also happy for myself, you know, secretly.
Speaker 1: Who's next to him on the left, I can never Hickey?
Speaker 1: Is that Hickey?
Speaker 6: That's Will Hickey? Yeah, Will. I've seen the guys and
Speaker 6: that's the famous chief Dean Martino, Danny de Martino eight
Speaker 6: guy too, do you know? Yeah? Yeah he was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I had an argument with him.
Speaker 6: The spot.
Speaker 5: He was so for a little while.
Speaker 6: Dad, he was a captain at soccer, I believe, Yeah, yep,
Speaker 6: so yeah he was. He was a character to work with.
Speaker 6: Oh he was so. Yeah. Once Billy got promoted, the
Speaker 6: spot opened up finally I put in four. It I
Speaker 6: got it, and uh, you know I had a cool
Speaker 6: people again. Ah and uh just to put a good
Speaker 6: word in and uh it was a done deal. It
Speaker 6: was a done deal. I think.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The only guy more weight than you might have been
Speaker 5: the captain there might have been Isaac Isaac, Yeah, got there.
Speaker 1: Probably.
Speaker 5: Oh wait he I think when do you go won
Speaker 5: twenty four as lieutenant.
Speaker 1: Uh he was six, He's been everywhere.
Speaker 6: Was lieutenant one twenty four yep, yeah, fireman in one eleven,
Speaker 6: one eleven, yeah, and then uh, captain of one twenty
Speaker 6: and now he's a chief in the five. Oh yeah
Speaker 6: he might. He might have had a little better fixing
Speaker 6: than you, bro. I think him those spots so so yeah,
Speaker 6: so uh yeah that was uh, what's another job we had?
Speaker 6: What's the story with the horns and the Superman thing?
Speaker 6: So the the Horns was actually, uh, I want to say,
Speaker 6: in the seventies around they they actually got permission, official permission.
Speaker 6: There's actually a letter in the on the apparatus floor
Speaker 6: that the captain at the time asked the commissioner at
Speaker 6: the time in chief of department, I believe, for per
Speaker 6: permission to put that on the on the rig and
Speaker 6: they got the the approval and they they kept it's
Speaker 6: been there since.
Speaker 5: Really, but is it you had any meaning or they
Speaker 5: just like a charge type of thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like, uh just's it's like a symbolic thing.
Speaker 5: And what about the Superman thing?
Speaker 6: Super that's I think that's from like they called super truck, okay,
Speaker 6: and uh they have the Superman logo and nobody but
Speaker 6: you will, you will, nobody were nobody, Nobody does it better.
Speaker 6: The mechanic used that line.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: He had a you know, this was before I was there,
Speaker 6: but I know one flipped the rig and then uh,
Speaker 6: Mike Thompson who was a captain at the time, had
Speaker 6: a major accident with uh with the rig and they
Speaker 6: took out about thirty cars and it was a real,
Speaker 6: real bad accident. And I remember the mechanic came by
Speaker 6: and he's like, I remember when you guys flipped your rig.
Speaker 6: He's like, now and you got this major wreck. He's like,
Speaker 6: you guys really live by that mottol Nobody does it
Speaker 6: better when it comes to fucking accidents? Do it good? Man? Like,
Speaker 6: I don't know if that's a good thing or a
Speaker 6: bad thing, but it doesn't sound too good.
Speaker 5: Oh, the guy's name was Will, the next to who
Speaker 5: was in one twenty at the time. Does that ring
Speaker 5: your bell? Will not Will Hickey? Will Hickey?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Byell's brother, a sister in law, brother in
Speaker 1: law something. He's married Byelo, Skinny by chubby Bison.
Speaker 5: Nobody likes the skinny Bizel right, nobody.
Speaker 1: Likes a skinny Bison.
Speaker 5: Can't get him on the show either, that's son of
Speaker 5: a bitch.
Speaker 1: No too Meig knows nobody likes a skin anybody else
Speaker 1: he's in there, and.
Speaker 6: Uh yeah, so, uh, like I said, I hit it
Speaker 6: off with the guys from day one, and uh I
Speaker 6: just waited it out. You know, I'm sure you guys know,
Speaker 6: to get a truck in the fifteenth division is not
Speaker 6: something that you could get in the in the year.
Speaker 6: You gotta kind of wait it out. This guy's already
Speaker 6: waiting for spots, so you kind of just gotta wait
Speaker 6: your turn, and you know, it is what it is.
Speaker 6: And uh, four years later it all paid off though.
Speaker 6: You know, I finally got the spot even though I
Speaker 6: was working there. You know, your UFO versus being assigned
Speaker 6: by two different things. You know, like once you get
Speaker 6: that front piece and you're assigned to one twenty. On paper,
Speaker 6: you're really part of the team.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, right, and you have like twelve bawl
Speaker 4: guys that hate you because you took the spot from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you get that nice new phrase piece or front piece.
Speaker 5: That wow.
Speaker 6: That I remember. I brought that to the quartermaster and
Speaker 6: he's like, are you kidding me with this? I'm like,
Speaker 6: that's why I came to get a new one. Brother.
Speaker 6: So that was that was night before and after.
Speaker 1: Talk about I remember, like even the chiefs in the
Speaker 1: fourth four. Uh, all those guys were freaking I remember awesome.
Speaker 1: For the most part, I think, who is that? Who
Speaker 1: is the guy from Long Beach Coubs I used to
Speaker 1: play volleyball with that. Can never remember his name. He
Speaker 1: was there a long time in the fourth four.
Speaker 6: He was a chief too, right, Yeah, he was a
Speaker 6: chief in the four four from Long Beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's from Long Beach somebody else, somebody will put
Speaker 1: it in there. And Scanlon was there, I remember Chief Scanning. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was the captain of one thirty six. Somebody will
Speaker 1: put it in the freaking I can't remember.
Speaker 6: Uh, well, the one of the chiefs in the fourth
Speaker 6: for Jimmy McNally was there.
Speaker 1: For long mcnowally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah he was. He was the fourth to
Speaker 6: fourth commander when I was there. He gave me the endorsement.
Speaker 1: He was, he was the commander. Huh oh yeah, Max,
Speaker 1: Yeah McNally was him.
Speaker 6: And then another he was a captain of one thirty
Speaker 6: six and it was who else long Beach so.
Speaker 1: Well, no, that was it was mcmallly, It was mcmally.
Speaker 1: It was jim mcnollill, okay, yeah, Jimmy mcnoll. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He was great twenty man for a long time.
Speaker 5: Mcbrian.
Speaker 6: Was he on one twenty or twenty three? Bobby was
Speaker 6: fireman a one twenty before I was there, but yeah,
Speaker 6: he was at one twenty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, we gotta get him on.
Speaker 1: He loved it. He loved one twenty. He always talked
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 6: Oh he he loved talking about one twenty.
Speaker 1: I had, Yeah, that could have been.
Speaker 6: No, I was good, yeah, I uh, it was funny
Speaker 6: right around. I don't know the end of the year
Speaker 6: beginning of fourteen, I was in between sequences and uh
Speaker 6: I just finished up at one thirty eight. I just
Speaker 6: finished up at one twenty I'm sorry. In like, there's
Speaker 6: like a couple of sets where your essay before the
Speaker 6: next sequence kicks in. So I actually on New Year's Day,
Speaker 6: I uh, I called the division to find out where
Speaker 6: I was working for the day, and they actually, and
Speaker 6: You're going to the fourteenth Division for the day. I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh really, I'm like that's cool. They're like, you know what,
Speaker 6: call the fourteenth division, find out where they're going to
Speaker 6: send you, and just let us know where you go.
Speaker 6: So I called the fourteenth Division and I said, hey,
Speaker 6: don't sell mirror from the fifteenth I'm going to the
Speaker 6: fourteenth Division. You guys are getting a body today. And
Speaker 6: they're like, yeah, you're going to one thirty eight. Yeah what,
Speaker 6: I'm like eight. I'm like this is like a dream
Speaker 6: come true. Like I'm a lieutenant. I just got promoted
Speaker 6: out of one thirty eight and and now I'm going
Speaker 6: then that was the that was the job we had
Speaker 6: that day. And so I call up Joe Tarantini's driving,
Speaker 6: which was great, right, oh I'm working there today. He's like,
Speaker 6: no shit. I said, yeah, so nine o'clock, you know,
Speaker 6: we're doing roll call nine oh four, tones go off
Speaker 6: fire Private dwelling, multiple calls, people trapped, and we literally
Speaker 6: pulled out of the fire house. We're going off the
Speaker 6: road and the whole fucking sky is black. And I'm like,
Speaker 6: we got a job nice And I said, Joe's like,
Speaker 6: we sure do. And it wound up being a face
Speaker 6: fire unfortunately, And like I went from the happiest moment
Speaker 6: at nine o'clock.
Speaker 1: I think I go back to that picture, go back
Speaker 1: to that picture.
Speaker 6: I think I was that.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the at the buildings. There was that kid.
Speaker 1: Two kids died at that building.
Speaker 6: That's exactly right. I worked. I was, we were we
Speaker 6: went went to that job that it was it was
Speaker 6: like street than Boulevard.
Speaker 1: Yep. We were to squad there. I remember we went
Speaker 1: into the top floor through.
Speaker 6: It was exactly right. The kids died, Yeah, the kid,
Speaker 6: the kids Like nine o'clock, I'm happiest gonna be to
Speaker 6: work in one thirty eight where I got promoted out
Speaker 6: of a nine oh four. Were, you know, pulling two
Speaker 6: dead kids out of a fire and I remember that
Speaker 6: more than I wanted.
Speaker 1: But they were there. We found out they were there
Speaker 1: with their I think it was three kids. They were
Speaker 1: there with their aunt or their grandmother or something. Yep,
Speaker 1: and the kids lit a fire in a fake fireplace, correct,
Speaker 1: in a fake fireplace, and the kids one of the
Speaker 1: kids got past the fire in the living room and
Speaker 1: the other two kids got call like right at the
Speaker 1: base of the stair.
Speaker 6: Absolutely horrible. One of the kids we found it. The
Speaker 6: We found them at the base of the stairs, and uh,
Speaker 6: you know, unfortunately they both passed. But when we pulled up,
Speaker 6: there was fire blowing out of every opening in that dolley. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you felt that he'd getting off the rig. I'm like,
Speaker 6: this is fucking we.
Speaker 1: Actually when we got there, we same thing. So because
Speaker 1: they get they gave the report of kids trapped and
Speaker 1: all that we got that. We turned out fast and
Speaker 1: that was pretty close. We actually shut up a ladder
Speaker 1: and went in because there was so much fire on
Speaker 1: the first floor, out the door and out the at
Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah, we actually went into the top and
Speaker 1: uh and then we heard the guys say that they
Speaker 1: had they had the kids at the base of the stair.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like I said, it was a terrible situation. And
Speaker 6: then uh, you know, we're packing up. You know, it
Speaker 6: was uh, it was it was nice to be back
Speaker 6: in one thirty eight for the day, even though it
Speaker 6: was just once four. But so fast forward a little
Speaker 6: at that job, you guys remember Chief spatafora Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He's like, where's one thirty eighth us? And I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh boy, I said, Chief right here. He's like, are
Speaker 6: you assigned to one thirty eight? I said, Chief, I'm
Speaker 6: actually a signed to the fifteenth division. I'm here essay
Speaker 6: for the day. He's like, what put all those tiger
Speaker 6: tails on everyone's helmet?
Speaker 9: What?
Speaker 6: That's what he's got?
Speaker 5: Tales the kids.
Speaker 6: Just died, and he's worried about a tiger tail. But
Speaker 6: he's like, why are they have tiger tails on their helmets?
Speaker 6: I said, Chief, I'm in the fifteenth division. I'm just
Speaker 6: here for the day. But I'm going to get to
Speaker 6: the bottom of this and find out what this. Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: I had too much before that. He's like, this is
Speaker 6: the stupidest thing I've ever seen. He's like, it's a
Speaker 6: hazard on their helmets. I said, Chief, No, no worries.
Speaker 6: I'm going to get to the bottom of it right now.
Speaker 6: So I go to the guys. That says, guys, the
Speaker 6: Chief doesn't like the tiger tails.
Speaker 1: You get on, get on the rig. Yeah, get them
Speaker 1: get on the rig.
Speaker 6: So so he he's actually, I said, you know, you
Speaker 6: gotta cut them off if you want you to cut
Speaker 6: them off, and like fuck that, we're not cutting them off.
Speaker 6: They're like, fuck you, soap. And then he's watching the
Speaker 6: guys to see if they cut him off, and he's like,
Speaker 6: here's me, lieutenant, cut them off now, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh boy, so listen. I'm like, I said, Chief, you
Speaker 6: got it. I said, guy, just cut him off. We'll
Speaker 6: put him back at the firehouse. When we get back,
Speaker 6: there's zip tied on. It wasn't the end of the world,
Speaker 6: but he literally washed us and he wanted to see
Speaker 6: the guys cutting the tigertails off. And I'm like thinking,
Speaker 6: I'm like, two kids just died, and like you're worried
Speaker 6: about tiger.
Speaker 1: Jaws and I'm not wearing those things forever.
Speaker 6: I mean that that wasn't like but the ironic part
Speaker 6: about it, he says, asking me, He's like, what the
Speaker 6: fuck's going on with these tigertails? And I'm like, I
Speaker 6: played it off. I don't know what I'll find out
Speaker 6: what's going on here. I'm gonna get to the bottom
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what what thirty eight is. When
Speaker 1: the hell?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I said, like there're the silly little things they
Speaker 6: have hanging on their helmets. I don't know. I'll find out, though, God,
Speaker 6: go back to that picture.
Speaker 1: Oh, hold on a second, fucking it, that's funny.
Speaker 4: Oh here, who was a big kid next to Tarantini?
Speaker 6: South Sarami? Sarami, that's what it is. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 6: signed to one thirty two.
Speaker 5: Now he got promoted.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he got promoted to lieutenant and he's a signed
Speaker 6: to one thirty two. Yeah, it was Uh, it was awesome.
Speaker 6: He was the baseball coach in myrack. His grandfather was
Speaker 6: my baseball coach.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, familiar that kid.
Speaker 5: He lived on the next block over from my house
Speaker 5: from sixtieth Drive.
Speaker 1: Oh that's all that's how Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah nice. And then yeah, so, like I said, uh,
Speaker 6: it was definitely cool to be back in one thirty
Speaker 6: eight for the day, even if it was at least
Speaker 6: of one tour. And it was great to you know,
Speaker 6: be back at home, like you know, and get that
Speaker 6: feeling again.
Speaker 14: Like that's great, that's awesome, and uh yeah it Tarantini.
Speaker 14: Tarantini was working yeah, it doesn't get better than that, right, No,
Speaker 14: he was right. Unless you made sal zones, that would
Speaker 14: be the cherry on it the time. I don't remember
Speaker 14: what we got, I'll be honest with you, but uh,
Speaker 14: I tell you probably went to Malmooks.
Speaker 6: Don't much the leish. But yeah, so that that was.
Speaker 6: That was my tour one thirty eight when I was
Speaker 6: a Boston Like I said, it was definitely uh cool
Speaker 6: to go back for the day.
Speaker 4: Everybody's got a story where they almost shipped the bed.
Speaker 4: They almost by the big one. You have a story
Speaker 4: where you almost when you almost bought it.
Speaker 6: Uh, well, you know it's funny.
Speaker 8: I uh.
Speaker 6: Back to go. You know, I was back in one
Speaker 6: twenty ufo and uh we we were actually calling back
Speaker 6: from a job and uh we were heading back. We
Speaker 6: were taking a couple of minutes time. Guys wanted to
Speaker 6: wash up once in a while.
Speaker 5: We had to do that.
Speaker 6: But another rock and job, like uh you know, by
Speaker 6: two eighty three comes in and we we look in
Speaker 6: that direction and the whole sky is black, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: that looks like a fucking good job. I says, you guys, ready,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna jump on this and They're like, uh, okay,
Speaker 6: you know it's you know, I know you want to
Speaker 6: wash up, but maybe this is a little bit better
Speaker 6: right now. So they're uh, they're getting people trapped reports
Speaker 6: and people trapped and they're asking them for a towel
Speaker 6: ladder to the front of the building. So I said, perfect,
Speaker 6: I said one twenty in Brooklyn with like ad one twenty.
Speaker 6: I said, we're right around the corner from that job.
Speaker 6: You want to send us a ticket that happens, you
Speaker 6: got it. We're not taking time anymore. We're on the box.
Speaker 6: We're gonna go take the front of the building. They
Speaker 6: want a towel adder. They got people trapped, reports of
Speaker 6: and what do you think happens?
Speaker 1: Get into an accident.
Speaker 6: We got into a major fucking action. Well he does
Speaker 6: it better, but the senior guy one twenty al Getz
Speaker 6: was driving me and we literally wrapped a fucking car
Speaker 6: around a telephone pole, and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 6: The worst part about it, I'm not even thinking if
Speaker 6: this lady's a larv or not right now. But thankfully
Speaker 6: she had minor injuries. So that's the only reason I
Speaker 6: could joke around about this now. But I had to
Speaker 6: tell Brooklyn where I was.
Speaker 5: That wasn't around the corner.
Speaker 9: It was around the.
Speaker 6: Corner, just not the corner. I told him.
Speaker 1: I'm get.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, ah shit, and I don't even have
Speaker 6: my phone on me, Otherwise I would have called them.
Speaker 6: So I get on the radio. I said one twenty
Speaker 6: to Brooklyn. They're like one twenty, go ahead, I says,
Speaker 6: we're involved in a major accident at the location of
Speaker 6: East New York Avenue and Tomas Boiling.
Speaker 9: Do it?
Speaker 6: So I hope that that's it, and you know where
Speaker 6: I am and leave it alone, right Brooklyn to one twenty,
Speaker 6: where are you? Oh my god? Deep down, I'm like, Brooklyn,
Speaker 6: you know where I am? I just told you, don't
Speaker 6: you know?
Speaker 1: You know what's going on here? You know what everybody does?
Speaker 1: We all lie, We all lie, we all lie.
Speaker 6: So I'm like one twenty we're on East New York
Speaker 6: Avenue and Thomas Boiling, and I'm trying not to be
Speaker 6: so loud. So it's like if that was gonna help,
Speaker 6: But they're like one twenty, all right, we're gonna put
Speaker 6: you out of service, and uh, well, we'll have a
Speaker 6: we'll have an engine see a far and the truck
Speaker 6: come to your scene. So now we're out of service.
Speaker 6: We got to this accident. We're checking on this, lady,
Speaker 6: I hit one seventy six, jumping on this. They're like
Speaker 6: one seventy six. You want to send us to the fire.
Speaker 6: They're like, one seventy six go to one twenties accident.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, dude.
Speaker 6: Well that wasn't it.
Speaker 13: That was that?
Speaker 6: No, No, that wasn't mine. That was the other accident
Speaker 6: though that The mechanic was breaking my tops about He's like,
Speaker 6: you got it, I got it, I got it ship.
Speaker 6: Let me see if I can find it. Then then
Speaker 6: I thought that was it. I'm like, man, I got
Speaker 6: look in the first show. No, no, no, that wasn't
Speaker 6: a that was another action. But so now one seventy six,
Speaker 6: who wanted to go to this fire, Now they're coming
Speaker 6: to us. I'm like, oh my god, this just can't
Speaker 6: keep it getting worse and worse. Thankfully, the ladies okay,
Speaker 6: she's a little banged up. We're okay. But all day
Speaker 6: I was getting messages to like, what corner are you
Speaker 6: around that you got so far? Launched to East New
Speaker 6: York and Thomas boiling and I'm like very funny, and
Speaker 6: you know, you know, everyone's listening to the radio and
Speaker 6: like that's the last thing that's like the worst thing that.
Speaker 1: Can possibly the scenario that could happen, you know, like.
Speaker 6: You know, you're trying to be proactive and telling me around.
Speaker 1: The corner, and everybody does it. Everybody does it.
Speaker 5: I listen to the old all the time. I can't
Speaker 5: one O three does it all the time.
Speaker 6: We're on the corner. That send it's a dickt. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so you know, you jump on the box. You're just like,
Speaker 6: all right, all we need to do is get from
Speaker 6: point A to be nothing in between and then boom
Speaker 6: shit And I'm like this is this is bad.
Speaker 1: But listen, thank God, like you said, thank nobody got
Speaker 1: uh nobody got service enough.
Speaker 6: Uh it did because they're the windshield cracked. But they
Speaker 6: fixed that in the firehouse and uh and we were
Speaker 6: all good.
Speaker 1: There's not a worse I'm thinking about it now, like
Speaker 1: you're so hyped up to go your you responded to
Speaker 1: a job, Like there's no worse feeling than having to
Speaker 1: get on the radio and say you or just the
Speaker 1: fact that you can't respond anymore, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: the job's going on, and then people are jumping on
Speaker 1: the box and they're going to the job and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get left out.
Speaker 5: I mean, sitting on your birthday cake.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's so bad. Especially then you got
Speaker 1: like sal was saying, like to have to do paperwork
Speaker 1: and comfort bid somebody got hurt, really hurt or something
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, you don't want that shit to happen,
Speaker 1: but it has.
Speaker 6: And like you know, you feel horrible, but like I said,
Speaker 6: what the luck of God, don't really got seriously hurt.
Speaker 6: And we were able to, uh to you know, continue
Speaker 6: on after the RG got windshield fixed and you know,
Speaker 6: lesson learned the mark is still on the bumper till
Speaker 6: this day. And you know, yeah, you know, snappy quick
Speaker 6: one for that one though, huh all words of this.
Speaker 1: One, bro, Like you said, you got to do uh,
Speaker 1: you got to keep your cell phone. Well, now I
Speaker 1: think all the rigs have cell phones. Now I don't
Speaker 1: even know I think they do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, every every officer actually has a phone. Now
Speaker 6: they want you to carry while you're on the rig.
Speaker 6: The event of God forbid, you need to call someone,
Speaker 6: you know, whether it's a b I matter or some
Speaker 6: other you know, you got to call the chief speak
Speaker 6: to some you know, privately, not on the radio. Every
Speaker 6: officer has a phone now, which is pretty cool, which
Speaker 6: they did, which was one of the you know, positive
Speaker 6: things that they did for the officers going forward. So yeah,
Speaker 6: but like I said, lesson learned. But you know, listen,
Speaker 6: everyone does it all the time in the fifteenth Division.
Speaker 6: I don't tell you, and I'm sure you know ninety
Speaker 6: percent of the time you'll get away with it. And
Speaker 6: my fucking ten percent. Yeah you gonare it happens.
Speaker 1: We're right around that.
Speaker 5: They're way back sin that was Sweens and Brooklyn.
Speaker 6: Did you have to adapt to the I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: sure what thirty eight had a good turnout, but not
Speaker 6: what you know. It's funny like a couple of guys
Speaker 6: who were actually in Brooklyn at one time and worked
Speaker 6: in one thirty eight they told me, and I have
Speaker 6: to agree with him, being in both now, is that
Speaker 6: nine thirty eight is almost like a Brooklyn firehouse.
Speaker 5: I really a lot of guys have said that on
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, you go to certain parts
Speaker 6: of the fourteenth Division, I can tell you it's not
Speaker 6: like Brooklyn. Yeah, but to eighty nine, one thirty eight
Speaker 6: as a whole has that Brooklyn vibe and it's there,
Speaker 6: you know, hard chargers into the job and the fire
Speaker 6: duties there. It really is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, always has been. Man, it's always a busy place.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But I will say the nice thing about like one
Speaker 6: thirty eight is the other truck is not on top
Speaker 6: of you like it is. And no, and you know
Speaker 6: one twenty one oh three, one twenty one, seventy six
Speaker 6: we're pulling up at the same time, where one thirty
Speaker 6: eight was like you know you were going.
Speaker 1: Six drive backwards. Yeah, you could drive backwards and get
Speaker 1: there first, you know what I mean, what's seventeen fifty
Speaker 1: four thirty six? They all had huge areas, right and no,
Speaker 1: definitely one.
Speaker 5: I mean thirty eight goes all the way down Queens Boulevarts.
Speaker 6: You run over with one fifty one, don't They said, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: one fifty one, you know, one thirty six, one fifty four,
Speaker 6: one twenty nine going towards Flushing huge. They had the
Speaker 6: first two.
Speaker 4: Boxes and Maspiths around the back of Maspith one thirty
Speaker 4: eight would be yeah crazy.
Speaker 6: So uh yeah, it was just uh, you know, but
Speaker 6: like I said that the whole fifteenth divisions, you know,
Speaker 6: like that, and that's the the you know, I don't
Speaker 6: have to tell you we're f you know, to ninety
Speaker 6: one on three. I remember I worked in two ninety
Speaker 6: a couple of times being those guys are on fucking
Speaker 6: two wheels flying it, you know. I remember it was funny.
Speaker 6: Uh one of my first tours essay in two ninety,
Speaker 6: I was like so nervous about, you know, turning out
Speaker 6: and getting on the rig. And we had a we
Speaker 6: had a project run, my first run into ninety and
Speaker 6: I actually carried the stampipe bag into the fire apartment.
Speaker 6: So all I'm thinking is, you know, apartment sixty sixty sixty.
Speaker 6: I gotta get there. I gotta get there. And all
Speaker 6: of a sudden, my control man is in the apartment
Speaker 6: with me. He's like, oh, Lou, I need that bag.
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh yeah, I'm like, what an asshole. I'm
Speaker 6: so tounle visions to get to that apartment. I'm a
Speaker 6: brand new officer. I'm trying to prove myself that I'm
Speaker 6: not a fucking idiot.
Speaker 1: That's That's it.
Speaker 6: I got the stanmdpipe bag in the apartment with me, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, that's uh, that's a lot of times. That's
Speaker 1: really the key is, especially when you're even though you
Speaker 1: had ten years on the job as a new lieutenant,
Speaker 1: right especially in the covering companies, and you know, you're
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure where you're going to be,
Speaker 1: but you want to make a good impression if you
Speaker 1: have a job all at so you're constantly it's in
Speaker 1: the back of your mind and you can make it,
Speaker 1: you know. I think the first time I came back,
Speaker 1: I I had I used to wear a baseball hat,
Speaker 1: you know, and I got off the rig with my
Speaker 1: baseball hat because I thought I had my helmet on,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because it was something was
Speaker 1: on my head, you know what I mean, you saw something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you just gotta uh.
Speaker 6: And by the way, that STAMPI bag in two ninety,
Speaker 6: I don't know what the fuck is in there?
Speaker 1: Well, there was definitely probably a couple of five They
Speaker 1: used to put extra you know, five pound plates in there,
Speaker 1: just because they had so much shit in there for
Speaker 1: every listen, they had, for every scenario that could happen.
Speaker 1: If you get up there and it doesn't have the wheel,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have the stem, it doesn't have this, doesn't
Speaker 1: have that. They had a wrench for this, a wrench
Speaker 1: for that, a wheel for this, grip, you know whatever
Speaker 1: it was. But the guys would suck und.
Speaker 5: Don put that together.
Speaker 6: Yeah A Dominic Carrino Carina, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they used to put like if a guy ever
Speaker 1: complained or said anything, they would put five pound plates in.
Speaker 6: There, just you know, not in a bad way. But
Speaker 6: I asked the guy, he said, what's in this that
Speaker 6: it's so heavy? He's like, we got two of everything.
Speaker 6: I'm like, he also need two hands to carry it,
Speaker 6: and like, you know, guy, he told me, he's like,
Speaker 6: you gotta you gotta be on the rigs super quick.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 6: I remember the tones went off that door. You guys
Speaker 6: had red fucking guy. So not only am I bleeding
Speaker 6: like the dog, it's all you guys told me to
Speaker 6: get on the rigs super quick. I did that, and
Speaker 6: the dog just.
Speaker 5: Now he's dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unavailable for all the time.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I did not.
Speaker 1: Read that.
Speaker 6: Was there when I was there. That was Duke my dad.
Speaker 6: My dad owns a butcher shop, So they said, you
Speaker 6: got any bones for Duke? So I found this fucking
Speaker 6: dinosaur bone and he carried that thing everywhere. The thing
Speaker 6: was tremendous, but he loved it. A lot of meat
Speaker 6: on that thing.
Speaker 1: We talk about Sally before we forget talk about Captain
Speaker 1: Higgins in the engine there.
Speaker 6: So he he was the assigned captain when I started
Speaker 6: covering in one twenty. He was that guy is like
Speaker 6: a warrior, you know, school old school lieutenant there. Captain there,
Speaker 6: awesome man, you know, And and he was a lot
Speaker 6: of times always a smile on his face, you know.
Speaker 6: I remember I remember one of my first rough nights
Speaker 6: in Walking Street. We probably did about twelve thirteen runs.
Speaker 6: After midnight, I'm fucking shot and I'm like drinking coffee
Speaker 6: in the kitchen and you know, guys started to come in.
Speaker 6: Higgins is there, and I remember one of the guys
Speaker 6: went to Higgins. He's like, what's up. Cap? He's like,
Speaker 6: what's up? And uh, He's like, how is the night?
Speaker 6: He's like, uh, not bad? Not bad? What the fuck?
Speaker 6: I make the same night with you? And I did
Speaker 6: thirteen runs and you had thirteen runs plus? Yeah, what
Speaker 6: does this guy talking about?
Speaker 1: Not bad?
Speaker 6: I didn't say a word. I kept it to myself.
Speaker 6: I'm like and what the fuck is a good night?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's one of those things you don't want to
Speaker 5: speak out loud.
Speaker 1: No, he would that guy would never complain. I know
Speaker 1: I worked, but I worked in the truck and I
Speaker 1: felt bad a few times him running out the door
Speaker 1: for im. I mean, one after the other, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 6: He was an older guy's you know, yeah he was,
Speaker 6: but but like like a warrior, like nothing faced him, like,
Speaker 6: he kept going and running and running and running. He
Speaker 6: loved it.
Speaker 1: And you said he was a lieutenant there he came
Speaker 1: back for more punishment as a captain, right, he loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 6: A lot of times, you know, guys get promoted, they're like,
Speaker 6: all right, now I can slow it down. He wanted,
Speaker 6: he wanted to come right back into that you know,
Speaker 6: uh ruling uh running around again. And like I said,
Speaker 6: he wasn't a young guy who was an older guy
Speaker 6: but cut from a different cloth man like.
Speaker 1: Old never complained.
Speaker 6: Never, Yeah, and I still see him. He still turns
Speaker 6: out to everything. What an absolute gentleman, that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said he was a sweetheart. I remember he
Speaker 1: stuck out to me like uh and then his he
Speaker 1: played hockey because I used to play hockey in other Uh.
Speaker 6: Nobody. His son was a Ranger, I believe was.
Speaker 1: A Canadian, a montre Canadian, and he played for the
Speaker 1: Rangers for a short time. And I don't know where
Speaker 1: if he's still on, if he's still in the NHL now,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know.
Speaker 6: But yeah, he still comes to all the events and
Speaker 6: stuff like that. I see him with an absolute gentleman.
Speaker 6: He really is.
Speaker 1: What about the squid?
Speaker 6: He still comes around Calamary. He's pure entertainment to talk to. Man.
Speaker 6: I didn't get to work with him because, like I said,
Speaker 6: Chris Isigen was the captain when I started covering in
Speaker 6: Walkin Street. But he still turns out to all the
Speaker 6: events and he is entertainment one, you know. Dealing with
Speaker 6: people in the project, My god, have me in tears
Speaker 6: the stories that I hear about how we talked to
Speaker 6: people and and the.
Speaker 1: Calamary and uh oh my god, we had a list
Speaker 1: when he had him. I think he did three hours
Speaker 1: when we had.
Speaker 6: Ye.
Speaker 4: Where do you think he enjoyed it better as a
Speaker 4: fireman or as a as an officer?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 6: I mean I got as a fireman, I I uh,
Speaker 6: I felt more as like uh like a kid like
Speaker 6: like a kid, like being a kid in a family,
Speaker 6: like almost like you know, you can kind of do
Speaker 6: what you want and have fun and goof around and
Speaker 6: stuff like that. But then when you become a lieutenant,
Speaker 6: you're almost like a parent. Now you know, we're like
Speaker 6: you could have that fun, but you also got to
Speaker 6: have that little fine line between you and the guys.
Speaker 6: I love hanging out in the kitchen. Like you can
Speaker 6: ask anyone on Walker Street. I loved hanging out in
Speaker 6: the kitchen. I loved being part of the ball, breaking
Speaker 6: the kitchen atmosphere. I would have stayed there all night
Speaker 6: if I didn't have to, you know, shut it down
Speaker 6: for a little bit. But uh, I loved being in
Speaker 6: that mix and hearing everything going on and the gossip,
Speaker 6: the rumor mill. I loved it all. And you know,
Speaker 6: part of me still wanted to be one of the
Speaker 6: guys where once in a while I'd be like, all
Speaker 6: right now I gotta go upstands in the city time
Speaker 6: or or you know, lieutenant duties and yeah, b I and.
Speaker 1: Yants.
Speaker 6: Louis doesn't know about we mentioned it, but listen, I
Speaker 6: I uh I'd love you know, like I said, I
Speaker 6: love being a fireman. Being a boss was great because
Speaker 6: you know, I was able to instill a little knowledge
Speaker 6: into the younger guys and give them some you know,
Speaker 6: training tips and little tactical tips at jobs. Walking Street
Speaker 6: was a very young house. Guys didn't really stay there
Speaker 6: past ten years. That was a huge promotion house. You know,
Speaker 6: guys always studied, they always had tremendous amounts of people
Speaker 6: on the promotion lists, and guys always always got promoted.
Speaker 6: I mean, I remember one of the senior guys told
Speaker 6: me when I got there, They're like, you could probably
Speaker 6: do ten years max here and then you're gotta be like,
Speaker 6: I gotta move on. I gotta do something else, whether
Speaker 6: we get promoted, retire. You know, some guys go to
Speaker 6: SOCC but you know, ten years in Walking Street, they said,
Speaker 6: was enough to so cold, you know, get promoted to
Speaker 6: lieutenant or go to rescue two, or go to a
Speaker 6: squad or you know, whatever it is to move on
Speaker 6: was you know, it was it was time to make
Speaker 6: roo for the next guy. And it's it's a very
Speaker 6: you know, physically demanding house. No different than like you
Speaker 6: know one O three you were there. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: you're in a ghetto truck as they call. You know,
Speaker 6: you're in a busy, busy area with a lot of
Speaker 6: coal volume. You know, every run you're doing something stuck elevator,
Speaker 6: it's a BS run, but you're physically getting off the
Speaker 6: rig and you're going up there and you're walking up
Speaker 6: and you're doing something. But it also teaches you so much.
Speaker 6: And that's why like young kids going there, you know,
Speaker 6: they learned so much from from being there because the
Speaker 6: experience that they got from the coal volume, which was
Speaker 6: in the fire duty, you know, it was really beneficial.
Speaker 6: And then then if they if they went the promotion route,
Speaker 6: they were a well rounded firefighter forever wherever they went.
Speaker 4: And how did they get along with the soccer units?
Speaker 4: One twenty uh for the most part not bad.
Speaker 6: I mean Rescue two really wasn't on top of us
Speaker 6: till you know, the last couple of years when they
Speaker 6: moved on to uh Bergen uhlie go for Bergen onto
Speaker 6: uh Stirling. So when they moved they were kind of
Speaker 6: right on top of us, you know, similar to like
Speaker 6: what one twenty three had to deal with for years
Speaker 6: now one twenty had to deal with and you know
Speaker 6: they you know, for the most part, we got along,
Speaker 6: you know, uh well with them. You know in the
Speaker 6: beginning there was a little you know, growing pain here
Speaker 6: and now, but nothing that wasn't resolved, you know, right away.
Speaker 6: And you know we, uh we had respect for them,
Speaker 6: they had respect for us, and you know we uh
Speaker 6: we we had a good understand working relationship.
Speaker 1: Got to beat them in that's it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we we But like I said that, you know,
Speaker 6: it was tough when they were right around the corner.
Speaker 6: You know, we had our certain ways of going to
Speaker 6: certain boxes. And now they're they're new to the game,
Speaker 6: you know, not new to the game where they're on
Speaker 6: a box now, but they're much closer than they were,
Speaker 6: so they're gonna get there that much sooner. So you know,
Speaker 6: it kind of.
Speaker 5: From to whiche which way they coming, you know, another accident.
Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot oft even more accident may yeah, but yeah, no,
Speaker 6: like I said, it all worked out. They had their
Speaker 6: means sorro affairs that they usually try to stick on
Speaker 6: and stay with, and so we kind of knew on
Speaker 6: certain boxes where where they'd be popping at them, so
Speaker 6: we knew that they were coming and stuff like that,
Speaker 6: and uh, like I said, it all worked out. You know,
Speaker 6: we got the job done.
Speaker 1: And so talking about pick Avenue like that fucking like,
Speaker 1: have you got fire on that block?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: It's just always some ship going on all the time
Speaker 1: on there, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Those uh not that I was there for a
Speaker 6: tremendous amount of time, but when I first started covering
Speaker 6: in one twenty to towards the end, that Pickin Avenue
Speaker 6: became so ridiculously congested. If if you got a fire
Speaker 6: run at three in the afternoon, it was unbearable to
Speaker 6: get through traffic.
Speaker 1: It was horrible.
Speaker 6: It was like it was it was just no one moved,
Speaker 6: no one could even go anywhere, like you were literally
Speaker 6: at gridlock. And it was so frustrating because you know,
Speaker 6: you get multiple calls loading up the box and you're like,
Speaker 6: we can't fucking move, we can't go anywhere, and it
Speaker 6: was it was very frustrating. But you know, Pickin Avenue
Speaker 6: you gotta fire and Picking Avenue those buildings were fucking
Speaker 6: death traps, man, dude.
Speaker 1: I had a few jobs on Picking. It was always,
Speaker 1: you know, some shit going on, like this door was
Speaker 1: locked or that door. You know, everywhere you went like
Speaker 1: it was just always just yeah, took off everywhere. It
Speaker 1: was just always some situation.
Speaker 6: All the time we had they had they had a
Speaker 6: you know, unwritten rule, you know, no more than ten
Speaker 6: minutes if we're not making headway, we're out. We're getting
Speaker 6: out of the building. The modifications that were done on
Speaker 6: some of these buildings feel plating. I mean talk about overloaded.
Speaker 1: Always something, always something, And.
Speaker 6: A lot of these windows have still placed behind them,
Speaker 6: exits are welded shot like it's just it's a death trap,
Speaker 6: it really is. And you know, like I said, we
Speaker 6: had a thing. If ten minutes we weren't making headway,
Speaker 6: we were getting the fuck out because we were gonna
Speaker 6: be a fucking problem there, getting fucking ourselves in a
Speaker 6: bad situation. And that was the last thing we wanted
Speaker 6: to do. But Pitkin Avenue, you know, whether it was
Speaker 6: traffic that you couldn't get through or the death traps
Speaker 6: in these buildings, it was definitely, uh, definitely a challenge
Speaker 6: for the most part. That's uh. Those are the three amigos.
Speaker 6: That was one of my last tours. So obviously that's
Speaker 6: me on the left and the guy to my right
Speaker 6: is Al Gets He's the senior guy. His right is
Speaker 6: Chris Perdicone, and uh, we were known as sal Al
Speaker 6: and the the Pal. They nicknamed U sal Al and
Speaker 6: the Pal and Uh. Chris was like a little tag
Speaker 6: along with us and Uh. We were being al both
Speaker 6: in Group twenty four. So he was my seat at chauffeur.
Speaker 6: We worked a lot together. We always had a great time,
Speaker 6: and he was a senior guy in UH in one twenty.
Speaker 6: He's got twenty two years now, I believe. And his
Speaker 6: plan is to be the longest ever latter one twenty
Speaker 6: firefighter in the history of Walking Street. So he's and
Speaker 6: I think that I think that that ear mark is
Speaker 6: thirty one years if I'm not mistake.
Speaker 13: Wow.
Speaker 6: So he wants to do like thirty one years in
Speaker 6: one day in in Wakin Street to have that that
Speaker 6: championship belt, you know. Wow. Oh yeah, And like I said,
Speaker 6: you know, ten years is a lot walking Street. He
Speaker 6: wants to do thirty one.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, dude.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So that kid, that kid, Pardicure, was his father
Speaker 5: on the job.
Speaker 6: I No, I don't think so. No, No, Chris product, No,
Speaker 6: I don't believe so. But yeah, So that was Sally
Speaker 6: out on the palle Man and whatever were working. They
Speaker 6: used to h think it was very cute. They're like
Speaker 6: Sally out on the pallet.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Uh, we we definitely had a lot of laughs.
Speaker 1: Great, great guys, man, I'm trying to remember who I
Speaker 1: was calling from one to try and get him on
Speaker 1: Larry Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's oh that was Uh.
Speaker 6: One of the schools pulled up. They're like, we're having
Speaker 6: an event at the school. We want to know if
Speaker 6: you can bring the fire truck. I'm like sure, I'm
Speaker 6: like what time. They're like now, So we go up
Speaker 6: that's on Sutter Avenue. I remember we were going down,
Speaker 6: uh mother guess and we went down Souder and we
Speaker 6: see animals fucking running around the street. What is going on?
Speaker 6: I'm like these animals are like no, can you get that?
Speaker 6: Like a little fucking horse running around. I'm like, what
Speaker 6: is this? So we got the thing on the sidewalk
Speaker 6: and we're like, let's take a group picture if you
Speaker 6: can see we're holding it, and uh we took a
Speaker 6: quick shot with the with the horse and uh it
Speaker 6: was a lot of laugh man. The kids get one
Speaker 6: on the fire truck and we did a little community relations.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure what the animals were for, because, like
Speaker 6: you know, I don't know if the kids were riding
Speaker 6: on them or what the hell was going on. But
Speaker 6: the whole thing was bizarre.
Speaker 1: It wasn't very well, I'll tell you what. Thing even
Speaker 1: in the fire department nothing you know, any way you
Speaker 1: work in the fight apartment, I would say, nothing surprises here, right,
Speaker 1: but even over there, like it's it just amped up
Speaker 1: a little bit more that nothing would surprise you. Like
Speaker 1: it's just like when you're in the Get. It's just crazy.
Speaker 5: What the wild West?
Speaker 1: Yes, a wild West. It's just absolutely insanity.
Speaker 6: But I'm like, I'm like, I'm telling the lady. I says,
Speaker 6: just like animals walking in the streets, Like now we
Speaker 6: got that for the kids. I'm like, I understand that,
Speaker 6: but I think they're supposed to be like something, they
Speaker 6: gotta get hit by a car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Christ it was.
Speaker 6: It was. It was pretty funny.
Speaker 5: It's like bizarro world out there.
Speaker 6: Bro, it really is, right, this is yeah, okay, it
Speaker 6: really is. To make sure you got the group shots.
Speaker 5: And what makes you want to pack it in then?
Speaker 6: So honestly, I was. My plan was to probably do
Speaker 6: close to twenty five years. And I went to go
Speaker 6: see Al Connolly just for you know, curiosity, and I
Speaker 6: had a lot of overtime, like my overtimes through the
Speaker 6: roof because they were down in the lieutenant Frank and
Speaker 6: I had over twelve hundred hours. Wow, wow, you know.
Speaker 6: He went over my numbers and they were talking about
Speaker 6: mass promoting lieutenants, which are actually doing right now. They're
Speaker 6: they're flooding the ranks. They're doing sixty four lieutenants at
Speaker 6: a clip, you know, back to back to back to back,
Speaker 6: so that they're they're getting rid of all these vacancies
Speaker 6: because the overtime is astronomical. I mean, you have lieutenants
Speaker 6: making more money than a safe chief and like, I
Speaker 6: don't think Downtown was happy about that. So I ran
Speaker 6: my numbers and like you know, Al asked me a question.
Speaker 6: He's like, are you are you ever going to be
Speaker 6: Like I told him, I'm not ready. I'm not sure
Speaker 6: I'm ready to go now, And exactly what I said
Speaker 6: to him, He's like, are you gonna be ready in
Speaker 6: five years? I'm like, I'm not so sure. I don't
Speaker 6: think I'm ever going to be ready. He's like, so
Speaker 6: you got to ask yourself if you're not going to
Speaker 6: be ready today and you're not going to be ready
Speaker 6: in five years. You're not gonna be ready in ten years.
Speaker 6: What's what are you waiting for? Like to get hurt
Speaker 6: and gossa and never be able to work again, gosam
Speaker 6: and get killed like so, you know, I had my hours,
Speaker 6: but my final salary was astronomical. And I'm like, you
Speaker 6: know what if I could lock this in and and
Speaker 6: lock it in for life and I'm still healthy, I'm
Speaker 6: in my forties, like I did twenty three years total,
Speaker 6: I did twenty one with the fire too, with the
Speaker 6: MS which I bought back, I did twenty three years.
Speaker 6: My kids are still young. I says, I can make
Speaker 6: this really, you know, work for me and right and
Speaker 6: run with it. And you know, I like, you earned it.
Speaker 1: You didn't earn it. Did think about how many run
Speaker 1: if you if you got paid by the run with
Speaker 1: that money. I think you're losing money.
Speaker 6: But but that's just it, you know. And uh and
Speaker 6: and I kept telling myself that, I says, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: be Like, as much as it sucks to have to
Speaker 6: cut the cord now and leave the fire department, that
Speaker 6: feeling is always going to be there. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 6: gonna ever not be there in five years. If I waited,
Speaker 6: all I did is I pushed the envelope further down.
Speaker 1: And you might only have two hundred hours.
Speaker 6: Then that's exactly why. And and Al said that. He's like,
Speaker 6: if if they start getting rid of the overtime, you
Speaker 6: might wind up giving money back. And I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 6: what are you giving money back back? He's like, if
Speaker 6: you're if you're if you have two hundred hours now
Speaker 6: and next year you have four hundred, and the year
Speaker 6: after that you have three hundred, your average just went
Speaker 6: down astronomical, you might be giving back thirty to forty
Speaker 6: grand I'm like, whoa, I'm not doing that. I says,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna do it. I'm gonna do it on my terms.
Speaker 6: And and I did, and and uh, you know, do
Speaker 6: I miss the Firehouse? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I missed the guys.
Speaker 6: I popped in there a couple of times just to
Speaker 6: say hello. But the reality is is there's always something
Speaker 6: going on that brings you back to that feeling of
Speaker 6: being part of that crew again. You know, whether it's
Speaker 6: the show yeah, whether it's like the show sorry me
Speaker 6: to cut you off, I'm trying to work in the
Speaker 6: show here a little bit. It's what we're doing. You
Speaker 6: catch your table, you know. Sorry, whether it's whether it's
Speaker 6: promotions where I'm gonna hang out with the guys, whether
Speaker 6: it's uh, Chris. Every time I go up to one
Speaker 6: of these events, it's like I never left. I pick
Speaker 6: up like where I left off, and the same guys
Speaker 6: are there and the same conversations, and I'm like right
Speaker 6: back in the mix, and it's like I never left.
Speaker 6: The only thing that's different now is I don't have
Speaker 6: to wake up in the morning or wake up in
Speaker 6: the middle of the night to go on a stuck
Speaker 6: elevator or you know, or or another run.
Speaker 1: Listen, say that all the time, So think about how
Speaker 1: that until you retire, right, you never think about how
Speaker 1: long you're going to live. You know, when you're on
Speaker 1: the job, you know, you know, you never think about that.
Speaker 1: You had all your bunk of gear on all the time,
Speaker 1: nobody gave a shit about you know, none of that stuff.
Speaker 1: As soon as you retire now you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, if you wait until you
Speaker 1: was sixty three or whatever, it's it's it's a little late,
Speaker 1: you know, what I mean. I think, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love the job and I wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: but I also want to have some time to enjoy
Speaker 1: my te you know, maybe it all Christmases and all
Speaker 1: the fucking track meets and everything. You know.
Speaker 6: I was I'm super close to Bobby Sarno.
Speaker 1: Never heard of it.
Speaker 6: He was on your show, and like, yeah, that guy's
Speaker 6: he's a fucking legend too. That guy's a warrior. And
Speaker 6: I remember he really me one day in two eighty
Speaker 6: three in the morning, He's like, how was the night?
Speaker 6: I said, fucking horrible? I said, we ran all night long.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I don't know how you do this shit,
Speaker 6: and like we did CEPR three times in the middle
Speaker 6: of the night, three times an hour clip. I said, bom,
Speaker 6: this this is like a torture chamber here, And like,
Speaker 6: I gotta give him a credit. Man, that guy stayed
Speaker 6: till the end. He did.
Speaker 1: That guy loves it. You love it, I love it,
Speaker 1: Coops loves it, Gonza loves it. That guy loved it.
Speaker 6: He did. But the funniest thing about Sarnos, I remember,
Speaker 6: I'm like, what do you got plans for retirement? He's like,
Speaker 6: I'm finally gonna get my hip done. I'm like, say
Speaker 6: that what you look to the requirement? I can't wait
Speaker 6: to get my hip replay? Like you should have done
Speaker 6: that while you were working, man. But like that's what
Speaker 6: I say, is like I wasn't a medical leave guy.
Speaker 6: And actually, as a matter of fact, I never tapped
Speaker 6: out as a lieutenant. As crazy as that sounds, I
Speaker 6: know people are gonna say that's anti union, whatever it is.
Speaker 6: I never tapped out as a lieutenant. A few times
Speaker 6: as a fireman, I did. They actually put me on
Speaker 6: medical leave because I had COVID during during the COVID
Speaker 6: you know, pandemic, and uh I I had to go
Speaker 6: out for that obviously, But I never tapped out, not
Speaker 6: saying I never got hurt, but you know, it's just
Speaker 6: I love going to work, hurt DHS game, I love
Speaker 6: being able to go to work, go to fires, fucking
Speaker 6: rock and roll. Yeah, And you know, and like I said,
Speaker 6: I didn't get three quarters. I retired regular and the
Speaker 6: money was a little bit of a lot, a little
Speaker 6: bit most of the incentive to pull the trigger. But
Speaker 6: I gotta tell you, the feeling of going down to
Speaker 6: handle my paper and was probably one of the worst feelings.
Speaker 6: Every ducked and I felt nauseous as a matter of fact,
Speaker 6: like I wanted to throw up because like as much
Speaker 6: as people would kill to have this job, I'm actually
Speaker 6: I'm quitting basically.
Speaker 1: And it's a.
Speaker 6: Crazy concept, but everybody has to pull that court eventually. Everybody,
Speaker 6: whether it's because of a medical injury, you voluntarily retire,
Speaker 6: everybody has to cut that court sooner or later. How
Speaker 6: you justin it's good, Listen. I have two young kids.
Speaker 6: I have an eleven year old and a thirteen year old.
Speaker 6: I'm literally going to every single event that they have,
Speaker 6: whether it's a track need or lacrosse game or flag football.
Speaker 6: Like it's awesome. I'm not missing a second of their
Speaker 6: childhood that has some value to it.
Speaker 1: It really does, has all the value exactly, it really does.
Speaker 6: And like you know, they're gonna be eighteen, they're gonna
Speaker 6: go off to college and go their own way, and
Speaker 6: then they're not gonna want to know me. But at
Speaker 6: least for the next five to seven years, you know,
Speaker 6: with the eleven and thirteen year old twenty four to seven,
Speaker 6: a part of their childhood, part of their you know,
Speaker 6: extracurricular activity, sports or you know, I haven't missed a
Speaker 6: single thing since every time for them. I went to
Speaker 6: my son's art show the other day. My daughters tracked me.
Speaker 6: I can't tell you. I don't have to tell you
Speaker 6: guys that. You guys know, I miss so much shit
Speaker 6: because I wanted to work over time. I wanted to
Speaker 6: make money. I wanted to do this. It was all
Speaker 6: good intentional stuff, you know, But you can't have both.
Speaker 6: You can't be at the track meet and work over
Speaker 6: time in when twenty It just doesn't work.
Speaker 4: And don't get that.
Speaker 1: If you right, if you stay to sixty three right
Speaker 1: before they kick you out, you miss everything, that's right.
Speaker 1: They wrote the song about that, The Cats and the
Speaker 1: Cradle and the Silver Spoon, right, you know you missed.
Speaker 1: My boy was just like me. You know, you miss everything.
Speaker 1: So what's what's worth that money? Nothing?
Speaker 4: Know what I appreciate it is the everyday stuff, getting
Speaker 4: up in the morning and having breakfast with my g
Speaker 4: my boys, you know, every being home when they come
Speaker 4: home from school, the simple stuff. Not only the track
Speaker 4: me eats and and all that other ship, but the
Speaker 4: every day ship that you didn't have.
Speaker 6: I just I just hit a year out now. I
Speaker 6: retired March one of twenty four and I just hit
Speaker 6: a year this past a little while.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more to get used to it,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I have dreams once in a while that I
Speaker 6: miss it. Time time, bring ahead time. Ask the question
Speaker 6: single guy.
Speaker 5: I was gonna ask you, do you have the dream
Speaker 5: when you miss a.
Speaker 6: Run all the time? And I'm like, I asked my
Speaker 6: wife and can't finde your boots that I missed the run.
Speaker 6: They left without me. I'm like, fluck, and I just
Speaker 6: go back to bed. But you know it's funny. I
Speaker 6: just I went for a physical not too long ago
Speaker 6: with my doctor and I lost twenty pounds since last
Speaker 6: physical last year. I lost twenty pounds since I've been retired.
Speaker 6: And like, I didn't change anything with my eating habits.
Speaker 6: I'll be honest, I just don't go to the firehouse
Speaker 6: and eat all that delicious doughnuts and cakes. Like I
Speaker 6: remember one day my wife said, she's like, how are
Speaker 6: you fat? She's so healthy at home, Like she makes
Speaker 6: fucking kin wa grilled chicken. Like She's like, how are
Speaker 6: you fat? We don't have any bad food in the house.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, it's not really here that I'm eating bad.
Speaker 6: I go to work and like, you know, I ate dinner,
Speaker 6: and then so it'll be like, oh, someone just dropped
Speaker 6: off a crave case and I'm like, I gotta try
Speaker 6: those cheese bater and like there's no filter, and I'm
Speaker 6: at the firehouse and like no routine, you know, in
Speaker 6: all different times, and you're eating at night, late at night,
Speaker 6: late at night, late at night, you're up all night,
Speaker 6: you're running around you know, uh, Walking Street was notorious
Speaker 6: for having tons and tons of ice cream in.
Speaker 5: The Fruze ice cream freezer.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 6: So I'd go help myself to that. And then they
Speaker 6: got Lemon, They got a tough from Lemon ice Can
Speaker 6: and and that was my thing. I loved Isis loved them,
Speaker 6: so you know, so you basically when I retired, I
Speaker 6: took all of that out of the mix. Now and
Speaker 6: whatever my wife makes for dinner now is what I'm eating.
Speaker 5: And Speedos again, bro.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're coming out. That was my last tour. Man,
Speaker 6: what an unbelievable turnout. And I couldn't thank these guys enough.
Speaker 6: They literally all came out, you know, to uh to
Speaker 6: be part of my last tour. And uh it was.
Speaker 6: It was an awesome, awesome night. And I couldn't thank
Speaker 6: these guys enough, you know, from day one, from making
Speaker 6: me part of the Waking Street family to the last
Speaker 6: day that I worked to uh you know, to to
Speaker 6: my last run with these guys, like you know, they
Speaker 6: were the absolute best and there was a privilege to
Speaker 6: be their officer. These guys made me shine every day
Speaker 6: and you know, I really I couldn't have been more
Speaker 6: fortunate to work with these guys. That was my last
Speaker 6: roll call, and uh, you know, I told these guys
Speaker 6: you know how you know, every day is a learning experience,
Speaker 6: you know, and to to take in as much as
Speaker 6: you can because you know you you will only learn
Speaker 6: and become a better firefighter bye by doing things, by
Speaker 6: asking questions, by learning bye bye by your mistakes unfortunately
Speaker 6: sometimes and that's what will make you a good firefighter.
Speaker 6: You know. The tradition in Wackin Street is like no other,
Speaker 6: It really isn't. And uh you know that's why a
Speaker 6: lot of their fathers have their sons working there.
Speaker 13: Now.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of legacy kids there because their father
Speaker 6: witnessed first tand how wonderful that place was. They wanted
Speaker 6: the kid to have part of that that that uh
Speaker 6: you know experience. Yeah, that was it, man. That was
Speaker 6: when I hung it up. And like I said, I
Speaker 6: couldn't have been you know, more thankful to have, you know,
Speaker 6: Chris iSER bring me in there from day one to
Speaker 6: try me out. You know, he's that he's a tough
Speaker 6: cookie man. You gotta really impress him to stick out.
Speaker 6: And I guess I made the cut, made the cup.
Speaker 6: Bro you know, he left, like I said, unfortunately, Mike
Speaker 6: Thompson was the next captain. He you know, kept me there,
Speaker 6: which was awesome.
Speaker 1: You know, he was great.
Speaker 6: He was a captain there for a few years. Then
Speaker 6: Danny Kudlack, he was my twenty four partner. I was
Speaker 6: opposite the captain, so I always worked my twenty fours
Speaker 6: around the captain, you know, me and him. So Danny Kudlack,
Speaker 6: he's a chieftain. He was a captain for a little bit.
Speaker 6: I had four captains while I was there, and Scott
Speaker 6: Coin Scotti Coyne was a lieutenant there. You guys probably
Speaker 6: remember him, and he went back there as a captain.
Speaker 6: Great guy, man, what a what a wealth of knowledge
Speaker 6: knows that area like no other. His father was in
Speaker 6: Walking Street. He's he's an awesome, awesome guy, Captain die
Speaker 6: Hard Walking Street. You know, he was a lieutenant there,
Speaker 6: knee engine at first. Then he went to the truck,
Speaker 6: got promoted, made his way back because that's how much
Speaker 6: that house meant to him, and it was it was
Speaker 6: great to have him back, you know, as a captain.
Speaker 6: When I was peers with him as lieutenant Billy Rodgers,
Speaker 6: great lieutenant. You know, did a lot of time. They
Speaker 6: did about ten years there. I took his spot when
Speaker 6: he got made, so he was great. And then I
Speaker 6: had the other two lieutenants that were there when I
Speaker 6: was there, Donnie Gleason and Danny Quinn, both the lieutenants
Speaker 6: when I was there pretty much for the majority of
Speaker 6: the time during my stay in Walking Street, and those
Speaker 6: guys were great. I don't know if you guys know,
Speaker 6: I was kind of a minute man with my relief.
Speaker 6: I always wrote it out. I always wrote it out.
Speaker 6: I always rode till the bell. But I also didn't
Speaker 6: always get to work. Merlin. I got there, you know,
Speaker 6: I wasn't really late, but I kind of got there
Speaker 6: five thirty and the night tore and eight thirty in
Speaker 6: the morning. But a lot of the guys wrote it out.
Speaker 6: But I just want to say those guys for for
Speaker 6: waiting for me for all those years when uh, when
Speaker 6: I was coming in for the tour. But uh, like
Speaker 6: I said, I wrote till the end every day because
Speaker 6: that's how much I loved being there and you know,
Speaker 6: hoping there was a lot of a lot of last
Speaker 6: minute jobs right before the end of the tour. I'm
Speaker 6: sure you guys experienced those, you know, like it paid
Speaker 6: to ride it out, you know, not only you know
Speaker 6: whether it was for the late run over.
Speaker 1: Time you know you would get if you worked in
Speaker 1: those companies. You were getting a late run.
Speaker 6: Whether it was a stuck elevator you're gonna get a
Speaker 6: late run on or a job. You know, that's what
Speaker 6: you really that was the golden goose if you if
Speaker 6: you got a job at five point thirty because you
Speaker 6: wrote it out, you know it was it was definitely
Speaker 6: a bonus cash baby belt to bell, belt to bell. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so uh it was, Uh, it was definitely good. And
Speaker 6: those yeah, those busy companies late runs were notoriously bigs.
Speaker 6: We finally got them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, great career, great story.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it a lot of runs too many.
Speaker 6: Time.
Speaker 8: Why you know why you ten? Because I was on
Speaker 8: the boat cruise, I went solo. I won't even ask, Yeah,
Speaker 8: yes it is that time. It is this time for ohuddy,
Speaker 8: take it away.
Speaker 6: So yeah, So my old school tip of the day is, uh,
Speaker 6: you know. I I would advise every you know, firefighter
Speaker 6: who's uh you know on the job to uh never
Speaker 6: short change yourself. One thing I regret, you know, although
Speaker 6: it was a lieutenant, I I wanted to make it
Speaker 6: the captain eventually, and unfortunately I did pass the test,
Speaker 6: but not high enough where I was in promotable range.
Speaker 6: And I just want to from experience tell you that
Speaker 6: if you are ever thinking about going up through the ranks,
Speaker 6: give it one hundred percent. You know I didn't. I
Speaker 6: didn't give the captain test enough time that it deserved
Speaker 6: and I got the score that I deserved. But no
Speaker 6: fault except my own as to why I never got
Speaker 6: promoted to captain. So you know, I always hear stories
Speaker 6: of guys like you know. I wish I would have
Speaker 6: studied harder. I wish I would have taken that test.
Speaker 6: I wish it had went to sock. If you want
Speaker 6: to do something on this job, do it, go all out,
Speaker 6: do one know one hundred and ten percent, put your
Speaker 6: mind to it. If you want to take that next test,
Speaker 6: whether it's lieutenant, captain, chief, study your ass off, rock
Speaker 6: the test. This way, you're not in this limbo area
Speaker 6: like I was in for the captain's test. Where am
Speaker 6: I going to get promoted? Am I not going to
Speaker 6: get promoted? You want to go to the squad, you
Speaker 6: want to go to rescue, Don't let anyone talk you
Speaker 6: out of it. Don't don't let anyone you go to
Speaker 6: work with those guys. This is your career. This is
Speaker 6: the only person that matter to is you. Don't do
Speaker 6: things in your career because other people are telling you
Speaker 6: to do it. Do it because you want to do
Speaker 6: it and make yourself happy. You only got one shot
Speaker 6: at this and the one shot has to count. So
Speaker 6: if there's ever something that you want to do, whether
Speaker 6: it's you know, go to another company, whether it's want
Speaker 6: to go to SOCC, you want to study, you want
Speaker 6: to get promoted, do it, do it, don't let anyone
Speaker 6: talk you out of it. Do it and do it well,
Speaker 6: and do it right, and you will get that next
Speaker 6: step when your career, like whether it's promotion or whether
Speaker 6: it's you know, special, start to work, special training, do
Speaker 6: it because this career will come and go so quick.
Speaker 6: And I can tell you firsthand. You know, I didn't
Speaker 6: do thirty forty years. I did twenty three years and
Speaker 6: that one quick. You know, they tell you in provary
Speaker 6: school your career is going to fly by, and I
Speaker 6: can honestly tell you that it flew by. It flew by.
Speaker 6: I am so thankful that I got to work with
Speaker 6: the people I did and the companies I did. From
Speaker 6: Corona to walkin Street, I worked with the elite of
Speaker 6: the elite man and I am so grateful for it.
Speaker 6: And I have zero regrets with my career. Was I
Speaker 6: hoping to get promoted to the captainy Absolutely, but it
Speaker 6: didn't work out. But you know what, by not getting promoted,
Speaker 6: I got to say walkin Street. So that's kind of
Speaker 6: a blessing within itself, you know. And like I said,
Speaker 6: go after it. Don't let anything prevent you from doing it.
Speaker 6: You want something, go get it, Go out and get
Speaker 6: it and it'll be yours and you'll thank yourself at
Speaker 6: the end because the way that you got there is
Speaker 6: the way that you deserve to get there, and you
Speaker 6: will be very grateful that you could look back one
Speaker 6: day and be like, you know what that paid off
Speaker 6: of gled I did that it was beneficial not only
Speaker 6: to me, but the people I got to work with,
Speaker 6: the people that you bring your knowledge to.
Speaker 9: You know, you go to socc it's not you know,
Speaker 9: it's other people who you were going to work with
Speaker 9: are not going to benefit from your presence there because
Speaker 9: you have a wealth of knowledge that you bring with
Speaker 9: you wherever you go, you know, And that's what makes
Speaker 9: this job awesome, you know, is the the colleagues that
Speaker 9: we work with, the peers that we work with. Everyone
Speaker 9: brings something to the table. And when everyone brings something
Speaker 9: to the table, you have a table full of knowledge,
Speaker 9: a table full of experience. And that's what makes this
Speaker 9: job so special. And the teamwork all pays off in
Speaker 9: the end because of everyone's level of experience, level of knowledge,
Speaker 9: and what they have to offer, and the fact that
Speaker 9: we work together is.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 6: And the FD and Y has never been able to
Speaker 6: not get something accomplished, and that's because of everyone's dedication,
Speaker 6: everyone's hard work, everyone's commitment, everyone's desire and it pays off.
Speaker 6: And that's why this is the greatest fire department in
Speaker 6: the world is because of all this and it shows.
Speaker 6: And I'm glad that I could tell everyone that I
Speaker 6: ever meet who doesn't know that I was part of
Speaker 6: the fd and Y And you know, I hope I
Speaker 6: left an impact there was. It definitely left an impact
Speaker 6: on me. So I thank them. Amen, and thank you guys, Sally.
Speaker 5: Guys like you is what makes this job perfect.
Speaker 9: You.
Speaker 1: Dennis Smith to his uh he said on the show
Speaker 1: with us, What did he say? Cool? He's like, I
Speaker 1: could do anything because I am f d n Y trained.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's never been a scenario that we couldn't overcome
Speaker 6: or get through. No ever. Yeah, we make shit happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not doubt. That was a great, great line
Speaker 1: that he had.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's true, and that's it.
Speaker 5: Any shout outs we got.
Speaker 6: We have Harrisburg. And you're gonna do anything for friends
Speaker 6: of firefighters?
Speaker 5: Yes, put that up for a friends of firefighters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, here we go.
Speaker 4: We'll put the description in the link below having the
Speaker 4: chili cookoff. Thanks for the support, guys, it's helping them
Speaker 4: out a lot. But we still need to give more
Speaker 4: to keep those doors open. So save the date Friday,
Speaker 4: May sixteenth, six to nine night down. You left the
Speaker 4: chili cook off, we'll put the guns. We can put
Speaker 4: that in a link.
Speaker 6: Below right in the It's ready in the chat now
Speaker 6: and here it is here.
Speaker 4: Excellent give border, so yeah, excellent. They need to help, guys,
Speaker 4: definitely need to help. But it's well worth it. And
Speaker 4: of course Louis and I will be in Harrisburg. We
Speaker 4: will not have a show next week. We will be
Speaker 4: in the Harrisburg. Come down and see me and the
Speaker 4: rough Apotamus. Save the date the sixteenth and the seventeenth.
Speaker 6: Down in the Armors country. Love.
Speaker 4: They come with their pagers and their suspenders. Come and
Speaker 4: see me and Ruffie. We'll be down there. I'll be
Speaker 4: gimping around. ROUFFI be doing most of the work. So great,
Speaker 4: career man, glad you so much for having me.
Speaker 6: It was a pleasure.
Speaker 5: Guys excellent, gods you look great, tanned hands.
Speaker 6: I'm trying really quick. Did we have a couple of
Speaker 6: l O. D. D's or somebody passed away? Was it
Speaker 6: the captain from Edge Company eight?
Speaker 1: I don't know, or we did that. We did the
Speaker 1: fives for him we did yeah, I blink.
Speaker 4: So if not, we'll get it together. We'll do it
Speaker 4: the next show. Yeah, all right, tans Aponamus so great
Speaker 4: job man, your.
Speaker 1: Retirement, Yeah, enjoyed.
Speaker 7: Just uh, let us know when you wake up and
Speaker 7: you can't find your gear. Okay, one thing missing a run,
Speaker 7: let us know about the gear.
Speaker 4: Alright, guys until next next week, following week, stay long
Speaker 4: and go hi.
Speaker 1: Everybody will see it the big one. Thank you again, sal.
Speaker 7: Thank you all right, guys, thanks son, thanks for everybody
Speaker 7: tuning in, and we'll see you soon. Remember we're rolling
Speaker 7: heavy down here in South Florida, baby,