Speaker 1: Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this
Speaker 1: interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the
Speaker 1: guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of
Speaker 1: the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the
Speaker 1: views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, roofies out there worries by a shout out
Speaker 3: hello to the Marianna Half Show.
Speaker 4: We can tell when you show show them that share.
Speaker 4: Let me see that chair.
Speaker 5: Ship about it?
Speaker 6: Maybe Jesus room you go through. You gotta give about it.
Speaker 5: He already had my You know what I had? You
Speaker 5: have pasta and saucer, Jimmy pul macaroni.
Speaker 6: Model's all right, man? What did you have the cookies afterwards?
Speaker 4: Too?
Speaker 5: No, I had a necktarready.
Speaker 6: Well listen, we finally tracked this guy down. Bro, you
Speaker 6: want a storytelling. We got a guy who remember ship
Speaker 6: that happened forty years ago. I don't remember what I
Speaker 6: have a breakfast, but he remembers stories from forty years ago.
Speaker 7: If I had a nickel for every time we had
Speaker 7: to tell him, don't tell them.
Speaker 6: Basically, yeah, we have.
Speaker 5: A lot of nickels.
Speaker 6: You guy's got more stories than rookies, got the dead
Speaker 6: things hanging on his walls, got a lot of story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we will definitely not get to them all tonight,
Speaker 4: that's for sure.
Speaker 6: So let's sen I don't think we're the young guys,
Speaker 6: keep the trap shut and listen to a guy probably
Speaker 6: maybe one of the most premier trucks on the job
Speaker 6: right in the seventies and eighties doing it.
Speaker 4: Maybe a little bit before.
Speaker 5: I've mentioned it all in the shows.
Speaker 6: No, no, that name never comes up.
Speaker 4: No, no nuthouse, nor Bobby.
Speaker 6: No, and not the guy from the eighteen b A
Speaker 6: eight fool rackets.
Speaker 5: Got a sad card, Now, yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 4: A big, big time movie guy, big shot, big shot
Speaker 4: should get us on. Guess A said card.
Speaker 5: Let's go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll tell you what movies that he's in. Just
Speaker 6: don't get up to go to the bathroom because you
Speaker 6: might miss him. He's in. He's like the mother if
Speaker 6: I came.
Speaker 5: On the show his head back.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that peppered me up. I waited for this, and yeah,
Speaker 6: we got a lot of shout outs, and I too. Unfortunately,
Speaker 6: a couple of guys do that towards the end of
Speaker 6: the show. But let's jump into the commercials really quick,
Speaker 6: do it? Advise commercial Little Baison Vince, Oh yeah, let's
Speaker 6: go here we go.
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Speaker 6: Cherry Red Ferrarie. This is sorry, look at this. Kemal
Speaker 6: and Bobbios has been one of the most mentioned on
Speaker 6: the podcast Bobby to.
Speaker 4: Figure out who he is?
Speaker 6: Yeah, all right, let's jump into the uh because I
Speaker 6: gotta tell Louis little something right after this next commercial
Speaker 6: here we love it.
Speaker 1: The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for
Speaker 1: profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of
Speaker 1: first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring
Speaker 1: greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety,
Speaker 1: and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first
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Speaker 6: And there you go. So I went to Rob Brown
Speaker 6: this week, ruffinoes Rob Brown the Extended Medical WTC Extended Medical.
Speaker 6: So I'm practicing what I'm preaching. Get out there, don't
Speaker 6: just do the basic baseline. Get as much as to
Speaker 6: have the offer. It's free, for free, free, free, and
Speaker 6: there's plenty of states around the country that do it too,
Speaker 6: so follow up on it. He's the part I didn't
Speaker 6: tell Roofie. I talked to Rob Brown, and he's gonna
Speaker 6: be at the hockey game, the fire Police hockey game,
Speaker 6: and we're gonna do his tiny little interview that they're
Speaker 6: gonna put on the jumbo tron in Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 6: The boss interviewing him about what he does six minutes minutes.
Speaker 4: That's not a shorty thing. Man got a nice script.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well he's in there. I'm on the treadmill with
Speaker 6: no shirt and he's filling me. I'm like, what are
Speaker 6: you doing with this for? He's like, well, I gotta
Speaker 6: put this on the jumbo tron. I'm like, really, I
Speaker 6: don't have enough guys breaking my balls that you're gonna
Speaker 6: put He's got me doing it too. Blah blah blah
Speaker 6: blah blah. Bro all right, Ruffie, let's bring this guy in.
Speaker 6: He he was on, he was off, he was on,
Speaker 6: he was off. He's up. Now we got him. He
Speaker 6: can't and he was almost off, and he was almost
Speaker 6: off as of yesterday. I have to talk some sensitive
Speaker 6: him and I told him the podcast at night, you
Speaker 6: got a furnace of delivery coming, like you got a
Speaker 6: what is levit still deliver at night?
Speaker 5: What's PC? Richards?
Speaker 6: All right, he's a funny guy. I'm ready, you're right, my.
Speaker 7: Fate, my face hurts already coming to the stage. Here
Speaker 7: he is on Legend one eleven b A Bobby Austin.
Speaker 8: I want to know there he goes, thank you, gentlemen.
Speaker 5: Thanks, looking forward to it play.
Speaker 8: Before we ask any questions, A couple of things I
Speaker 8: want to mention.
Speaker 5: First losing it ready.
Speaker 8: First, I want to mention the passing of UH fireman
Speaker 8: Edgar Edward J. Stephens mentioned two fourteen the other they
Speaker 8: spent forty two years in the backstep. Eddie was actually
Speaker 8: on the job, got drafted, went in the military, came
Speaker 8: back to the job. One of the best nozzlemen UH
Speaker 8: that I've ever known. Im insight Taylor, right up there
Speaker 8: with George day Hard if I feel from two eighty three.
Speaker 8: So may he read in peace? Yeah, A good friend
Speaker 8: of mine. Second, I want to go on the record
Speaker 8: to say I was very lucky to come on a
Speaker 8: job when I did October fourteen, nineteen seventy eight. Worked
Speaker 8: where I worked engine Company two three to zero and
Speaker 8: a lot of Company one to eleven. And the most
Speaker 8: important part was working with the people I worked with.
Speaker 8: I had a tremendous privilege to work with probably not
Speaker 8: only some of the best fiemen in New York City,
Speaker 8: but probably the best fireman in the world. And if
Speaker 8: I had the time to mention each one by name,
Speaker 8: it would use up this whole time. So I've been
Speaker 8: very privileged to be a part of something to me
Speaker 8: that is still very huge. So thank you.
Speaker 6: Let's thanks patriotic really quick, forget it. The pledge.
Speaker 5: Here we go.
Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
Speaker 2: of America and to the Republic, for which it stands,
Speaker 2: One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Speaker 6: God bless the ftmy, That's what I say, bro Amen
Speaker 6: to that. All right, So we already told us he
Speaker 6: got on in the early seventies. What wait, give us
Speaker 6: a little early background to ba, I mean the late
Speaker 6: seventies to a little early background. Where did you grow up?
Speaker 8: I grew up in town, Long Island. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 8: have a town of White Kettle, you know, basically Irish Italians.
Speaker 8: Uh Levet House. My dad was the second owner. My
Speaker 8: dad was Korea level. Town was built for World War
Speaker 8: Two veterans and we moved from Queen's when I was
Speaker 8: born in Cambria Heights. Lived there until I think it
Speaker 8: was three or four. Still remember the ID just won
Speaker 8: eighteen forty eight to twenty seventh Street, so we went
Speaker 8: back every weekend, you know, moved a let of town
Speaker 8: grew up in eleve of Town. I went to school
Speaker 8: there and my high schools Lovetown's Division, which was a
Speaker 8: rough school. It was seven to twelfth grade in one school.
Speaker 8: So I got there in sixty seven. So you are
Speaker 8: a twelfth grader mixed in with guys that are eighteen
Speaker 8: years old, you know, who could drink, and we're going
Speaker 8: to Vietnam. So they didn't give a fly fuck hard
Speaker 8: to believe, but I was in honors classes. It was
Speaker 8: for what after high school? Actually, my mother got rest
Speaker 8: of the soul. She wanted me to be a vent aaran.
Speaker 8: That was the role. And she didn't realize it's ought
Speaker 8: to be an event here and that I had a
Speaker 8: goal doctor, but she wanted me to me to be
Speaker 8: event here.
Speaker 7: And and.
Speaker 8: After two years of pretty mad, I realized I'm not
Speaker 8: going to be event areing. Maybe a nurse, but I
Speaker 8: wanted to. My senior in high school nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 8: I was in a I could have graduate lived grade,
Speaker 8: but I was in a special program called integrated Studies,
Speaker 8: and it was you know, for seniors that really did
Speaker 8: have to be there. And we had gotten an assignment
Speaker 8: that you had to do a paper about a career.
Speaker 8: So my father was a printed for New York Post
Speaker 8: and he had been there for many years. I'm not
Speaker 8: gonna write about it from dinner, but my dad had
Speaker 8: a very good friend. His name was Jerry Stell, who
Speaker 8: was like an uncle, one of those uncles. You know
Speaker 8: you call him uncle, but I really don't do. And
Speaker 8: he was in New York City fireman and I knew
Speaker 8: that about the FDN so and he was a New
Speaker 8: York City fireman in a latter one nineteen So my
Speaker 8: dad said, why you got tact Jerry, maybe you can
Speaker 8: go back him. So I called him and he said, yeah,
Speaker 8: we'll bring you into the fireas one night. And that's
Speaker 8: what I did, so I'll never forget to day. It
Speaker 8: was October seventeenth, nineteen seventy three, and he brought me
Speaker 8: into the fires for a night to it. And I
Speaker 8: remember most of the guy's names that worked that night,
Speaker 8: and they they went with to eleven and back then
Speaker 8: they were a pretty busy company. I don't know about
Speaker 8: busy companies, but and H I ran the engine, and
Speaker 8: I remember Lieutenan's name was Lieutenant Who's Tony Dio was
Speaker 8: the chauffeur Doub Callahan and Tommy Barbek running back and
Speaker 8: I spent the night there and uh that named Jack Tide,
Speaker 8: which I'm sure you heard about. He was in the
Speaker 8: truck he cooked and winning white clamss. I spent a
Speaker 8: night tour with them and they had about sixteen runs,
Speaker 8: one job of one fire about four in the morning,
Speaker 8: and that was it, and my uncle drove me back home.
Speaker 8: I walked into my house and I told my mommy
Speaker 8: that I'm going to be in New York and I
Speaker 8: don't think my father has ever talked to well he
Speaker 8: passed awaymn here and my parents were like, horrifight. I said, no,
Speaker 8: I want to be a New York City finman. And
Speaker 8: that was it. That was and found you.
Speaker 6: You found your thing in life.
Speaker 8: Yes. And the funny thing is, five years later, almost
Speaker 8: to the day, I was sworn into the job on
Speaker 8: October fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight. Wow. Probably one of the
Speaker 8: greatest days of my life. So I went on a job.
Speaker 6: Well, we got a picture of you waiting to get
Speaker 6: inside to take the test, don't we.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, that you know. So what happened was I
Speaker 8: went to college for two years. Boom, yeah. Danny Potter
Speaker 8: that's Danny Potter right in the middle.
Speaker 6: Where in the middle of what it's like eighteen thousand
Speaker 6: guys did what were you looking?
Speaker 5: Guy looking with the hat.
Speaker 8: The striped shirt, Well, that's me. I ran next to him,
Speaker 8: was Danny Potter then and I go back a long ways.
Speaker 8: So we worked in the ambulance service, many bus so
Speaker 8: I decided to be in New York City fireman. But
Speaker 8: let me tell you, nineteen seventy five things for great.
Speaker 8: They had the layoffs since seventy five. So I was
Speaker 8: gonna go to Stony Book, but Mike Toumb wasn't high
Speaker 8: enough to go into the pro I had a three
Speaker 8: at six and it just wasn't high enough. So I
Speaker 8: got a scholarship to go to Delphi for nursing. Uh
Speaker 8: but anyway, full ride, but then they would have men. Anyway,
Speaker 8: Eventually Finmanus test came up, and uh but I was
Speaker 8: going to del Hay's. You know back then he went
Speaker 8: to Delany's. I was taking That's why I met Danny Potter.
Speaker 8: I was a volunteer fireman and Brentwood and I had
Speaker 8: an uncle, My uncle John Colligan was the chief of
Speaker 8: brekn So we finally had some common ground and and
Speaker 8: then uh, I was taking the New York City course.
Speaker 8: You go in to city so so, but in Intrim,
Speaker 8: I took the Niarssau County Police Department test. I took
Speaker 8: that on October thirty first of nineteen seventy seven. He
Speaker 8: two thousand guys. Thirty thousand guys took the test. And
Speaker 8: then I took the Fireman's Exam on December third and
Speaker 8: nineteen seventy seven, and I wrote the same grade on
Speaker 8: both tests. Ninety seven. I took my physical agility on
Speaker 8: March twelfth of nineteen seventy eight. The FDNY eighty six
Speaker 8: point six ninety seven are written and my list when
Speaker 8: my list number came out in May of seventy eight,
Speaker 8: I was forty one on the firemans, but I wasn't
Speaker 8: a veteran, so guys took their veterans credits. So the
Speaker 8: amended list I dropped it two twenty three wow. So
Speaker 8: I was investigated for the first class. So so that
Speaker 8: January I went on the fire patrol. Fire patrol too.
Speaker 8: I had taken Tesla three years earlier, and I got
Speaker 8: cold in January seventy eight, and I went on a
Speaker 8: fire patrol too on West Third between Thompson and sull
Speaker 8: great experience. It was only at ten months, but I
Speaker 8: worked with great guys Jimmy, Crispeck, Taylor, Mannie Riley. I
Speaker 8: stayed in touch with Jimmy, Uh, Lieutenant Pearl Line, Sergeant Ostader,
Speaker 8: and I spent ten months there and I wondered too,
Speaker 8: right uh beef he was there, Yeah, fireman u Eve
Speaker 8: and sergeant later on Tommy O'Kaine, if you remember Tommy
Speaker 8: o'caine Cocaine Okaine. But you know great guy. Yeah, uh great,
Speaker 8: Uh Tommy, but Tommy great man so and Colrade and
Speaker 8: Patty Brown, uh, who was in probably school at that time.
Speaker 8: He he hung out a lot number two. He was
Speaker 8: from number one. Patty Brown went to Vietnam. He was
Speaker 8: in number one. Went to Vietnam, came back. I think
Speaker 8: Patty did two tours and he came back and worked
Speaker 8: in five patrol one until he got called for the FDN.
Speaker 8: Y and uh. He used to stay in the firehouse
Speaker 8: a lot and uh number two, and we got to
Speaker 8: be very good friends. And Patty and I were very close,
Speaker 8: and losing him, uh was a little rough. But Patty,
Speaker 8: you know, you know the certain guys. As you guys
Speaker 8: know that, you know from day one there's gonna be something,
Speaker 8: you know, which I'll get into in private school.
Speaker 5: So Bobby said it all the time, Yes, all the time.
Speaker 8: So I go on a job less than ten months
Speaker 8: later from the day I take the written jam take
Speaker 8: the written his zam December third. I'm on a job
Speaker 8: October fourteenth, seventy eight. You will never see that again, No, never.
Speaker 8: I'm in the second I gotta investigated first class, but
Speaker 8: I go into second class. Okay, a lot of big
Speaker 8: So the funny thing is most of the guys in
Speaker 8: that class with veterans. They used their veterans points. So
Speaker 8: there's only twenty of us that weren't veterans, which was
Speaker 8: a little tough because the marching old shit. But that class. Sorry,
Speaker 8: Tommy Galvin was in that class. Well, I just saw
Speaker 8: the other day.
Speaker 5: He didn't do much.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I saw Tommy, Yeah, I saw Tommy. Captain Steve
Speaker 8: b Rui's Black dedication the other day. Paul Harshaggen another.
Speaker 4: Y never heard of that.
Speaker 8: I never heard of it, walk, Mike Poos, Dannis Gordon,
Speaker 8: Bobby West so.
Speaker 5: Me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like the stars right there man who knew.
Speaker 8: They were going to move up. I was in the
Speaker 8: second plume, first squad, number thirteen. My my squad believer
Speaker 8: was kept was Carl Evans thirty four, great man, the
Speaker 8: man who was oh god, lieutenant. Uh let's see his
Speaker 8: face now, yes, the end of his son a job.
Speaker 8: It'll come to me from Harlem anyway, So go to
Speaker 8: Probate school six weeks and a way could and uh
Speaker 8: the instructors, I look back with terrific sobi school.
Speaker 6: Then Bobby how many weeks?
Speaker 8: Six weeks? Six weeks and they basically told this. Remember
Speaker 8: this is the year after the blackout. Black Guy was
Speaker 8: seventy seven. They they hired guys off the old list.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: It was good. When I got to thirty, it was
Speaker 8: guys in their thirties. Uh, they had the mercy hiring
Speaker 8: off the old list. They hired like eight hundred guys
Speaker 8: and they dropped Promam school for six weeks. So when
Speaker 8: I got there in second class, yeah, first last like
Speaker 8: guys like Bobby Turner. Actually, Bobby Turner was a great
Speaker 8: friend of mine.
Speaker 5: Uh that was slacker.
Speaker 8: Bobby Turner was number one on the list. He wrote
Speaker 8: the highest written. He had a very high written grace,
Speaker 8: but he had the highest physical jilly if you remember
Speaker 8: that was the physical agility to test that. All the
Speaker 8: women sailed.
Speaker 6: They allote the poll had to hanging pull off the
Speaker 6: wall of the legs.
Speaker 8: The yeah, the bent arm hang uh wrecked a lot
Speaker 8: of guys. I remember to take the we get attesting you.
Speaker 8: I wigh ae hundred about fifty pounds, and the bent
Speaker 8: arm hang eliminated a lot of guys. Where you started,
Speaker 8: you had a butt and it was until you were
Speaker 8: fully extended, you're out. And you had all these guys
Speaker 8: like juiced up and ship and they jumping said down.
Speaker 6: The guys make me.
Speaker 8: One hundred and fifty pounds were hanging like a fucking bat.
Speaker 8: You know, you had to do a minute. If you
Speaker 8: didn't do a minute, you're out. You get a zero.
Speaker 6: Wait.
Speaker 8: So and it was the first thing was the uh.
Speaker 8: They had a dummy carried to carry a one hundred
Speaker 8: twenty poundummy up and down the stairs and everything was tied.
Speaker 8: And I still have the sheet actually uh got away carried.
Speaker 8: And then you had h the bent arm hang uh.
Speaker 8: The wall. That was another thing they made. The you
Speaker 8: gotta go along walk eliminated a lot of girls the
Speaker 8: ledge walk and eliminated a lot of women. Those of
Speaker 8: the rest, you know, they couldn't get close to the ledge.
Speaker 8: Women did a mask. He had the obstacle course and
Speaker 8: what else do we have something else? I forget, but
Speaker 8: it was tough. Oh you had you had a mile
Speaker 8: running at the end, and I remember I ran four
Speaker 8: point five minutes in the mile. I was running like
Speaker 8: a fucking.
Speaker 6: This was like you run like a motherfucker, and you
Speaker 6: like a running like yeah, well whatever.
Speaker 8: But and then I get my grade and there was
Speaker 8: only one hundred guys that got over in ninety. When
Speaker 8: I make the friends Greg mcconi, he got over ninety
Speaker 8: old and I ended up in eighty six point six
Speaker 8: with a ninety seven coming thing. I end up forty one,
Speaker 8: eventually to twenty three list. So now I'm in Provably
Speaker 8: school and I'll never get this. Well. I had gone
Speaker 8: to my angel Swias a couple of times. So one
Speaker 8: day I'm in Provably School and there was a little
Speaker 8: tent name Deal Lieutenant Deal in a lot of winning team.
Speaker 8: Who's an old school, tough guy. And you know he
Speaker 8: knew me as a kid. When I came to my
Speaker 8: angle Swas and I'm sitting I'm sitting at the table
Speaker 8: one day for lunch, I said, well, Bucky Bobby Wedstead
Speaker 8: of scoring the old guys, and Lieutenant Deal walks in.
Speaker 8: This guy's an old school guy from twenty six truck
Speaker 8: nineteen and they were doing the safety honesty, the old
Speaker 8: safety honesty. And he sits down next to me. He
Speaker 8: sees me and he says to me, this job. He
Speaker 8: had this rough on this job. That's great.
Speaker 9: The bi him in a fucking barrel. And my friend
Speaker 9: just got up and left and I'm sitting there and
Speaker 9: he took my hand, goes good for you. So so
Speaker 9: that's it.
Speaker 8: So I'm there about a week before graduation and they
Speaker 8: had a promotion ceremony up there. So when I was
Speaker 8: taking the city courses, there was a lieutenant teaching it
Speaker 8: in Manhattan. His name was Lieutenant Paranelo and he was
Speaker 8: a lieutenant engine sixty five. So I was going to
Speaker 8: the courses once a week and I took the train
Speaker 8: home a couple of times, and uh, we kind of
Speaker 8: hit it off. You know, you could tell how I
Speaker 8: was into the job and I was it. So while
Speaker 8: I'm in Provy school, they have a promotion and same
Speaker 8: thing them at lunch one day and they promoted lieutenants
Speaker 8: and captains, and Paranelo seized me and he walks over
Speaker 8: to me and he says, remember me, you believe and
Speaker 8: he shakes my hand. He says, congratulations. I knew you
Speaker 8: would get on this job. Now. I did have a
Speaker 8: little juice. I was good friends with Louis Garcia. I
Speaker 8: don't know if you ever heard of Louis came to
Speaker 8: mar Yeah, well, Mois started two eleven, laid off seventy five,
Speaker 8: and he went to Hountital and I knew him as
Speaker 8: a kid, and he was going to be my juice.
Speaker 8: So he says to me. Paranl says to me, I'll
Speaker 8: never forget this. He goes, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 8: be the captain Avengine two Para Neal never covered a day.
Speaker 8: I'm going to be the captain of Engine two thuty,
Speaker 8: which I knew about, being the fire patrol and it.
Speaker 8: He goes, if you want this unit, I'll bring it in.
Speaker 8: So I said, thanks, cat, but I'm going to World two.
Speaker 8: I'm in fucking probably school and going to World two.
Speaker 8: You know, Okay, that's it.
Speaker 6: So but later thanks cap Yeah.
Speaker 8: Plus graduating, and I get a letter to the bag
Speaker 8: in Prova School from Captain Parallelo and he says, if
Speaker 8: you want this unit, I'll still get you one of
Speaker 8: everybody's going and everybody's going to engines. Remember the first
Speaker 8: couple of classes went to EUS engines that were doing
Speaker 8: over four thousand runs a year. Now like two ninety
Speaker 8: one oh three, they were doing eight nine eighty two
Speaker 8: thirty one. And that's when any change and full schedule.
Speaker 8: So he says to me, nobody's going to trucks. Okay,
Speaker 8: I want to go to hunt to Nobody's going to trucks,
Speaker 8: all right, So I want to go to Tour nine.
Speaker 8: Tour nine was the four minut engine. That's why I've
Speaker 8: been trump make a long story short orter comes down.
Speaker 8: I got an engine two thirty, and the day day
Speaker 8: order came down two and I went to a five
Speaker 8: minute engine. So Tommy Donald and Kevin Rice out of
Speaker 8: my pro school went there. I go to two thirty,
Speaker 8: the great houset man. Believe me, I got lucky. I've
Speaker 8: always said I was lucky to get on a job
Speaker 8: when I did. In October fourteen, ninety seventy eight, worked
Speaker 8: where I worked engine two three to zero and latter
Speaker 8: one eleven and worked with the guys I worked with,
Speaker 8: and that was the most important thing. So I go
Speaker 8: to two thirty and Arthur J. Parmeranello whose daughter works
Speaker 8: in the Comack nine to eleven place. He's my captain.
Speaker 8: So I get there as a probably and Lorett the
Speaker 8: cams groups and he was tough, very tough captain. But
Speaker 8: I looked back years later a great captain. So you
Speaker 8: got to so guys. When I got to two thirty,
Speaker 8: the day to was we had bells and the voice low.
Speaker 8: Fortunately I was better at counting the bells. Yeah, there
Speaker 8: it is because in control too we had the bells
Speaker 8: voicel in Manhattan, so I got pretty good counting the bells.
Speaker 8: So you sat assist in the house watch and it
Speaker 8: was write a book with him, you know, and you drilled.
Speaker 8: But he was he was tough, but he was very fair.
Speaker 8: So when I first came to the fire, when I
Speaker 8: got to two thirty in nineteen seventy, I got there
Speaker 8: in November. Other than the guys from the seventy seven list,
Speaker 8: they hadn't gotten a probium in years, so I was
Speaker 8: the youngest guy it was twenty two to get to
Speaker 8: to thirty in fifteen years.
Speaker 5: You were kid.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, And I worked with two guys that fought
Speaker 8: in World War Two.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 8: Frank Chucchio was the chauffeur. He survived the first wave
Speaker 8: of Regima as a marine. Joe Russo chauffeur. They both
Speaker 8: came on in nineteen fifty five. Joe was drove Sandy
Speaker 8: Magioe great as he was in the Navy, survived the
Speaker 8: Battle of Midway, and then a bunch of Vietnam guys,
Speaker 8: you know they Fletcher, Uh, Bobby Lawrence got the rest
Speaker 8: of the soul other guys.
Speaker 7: To be careful with those guys, Bob. They're always panicking
Speaker 7: at the drop of a hat. You know, yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 7: so awesome.
Speaker 6: You gotta be wrong. You wake up with a bowie
Speaker 6: knife at your night.
Speaker 8: Solid, solid guys, I remember, Billy Ah just last awake
Speaker 8: of your own suspenders. Dennis wa Cola, Bobby Larrence, Phil
Speaker 8: boyco H, Jimmy Jones, Uh, Harry Harry Gumm and maybe
Speaker 8: the tich That's what Yeah, I was broken by. I
Speaker 8: was broken in by Bobby Lawrence got a rest of
Speaker 8: the salt diideline to do the eighty five. That is
Speaker 8: what I called it. Bill aarn and Ormond Samuel's one
Speaker 8: of the showers. Uh. And I was the other thing.
Speaker 8: You know in probably school, they're gonna go to fire,
Speaker 8: We're gonna break your balls. Didn't break my balls. They
Speaker 8: were terrific because they hadn't gotten new blood in a
Speaker 8: long time. But I remember the day I had a
Speaker 8: report there. You had to get your ship. I go
Speaker 8: to two thirty. I walk in the door and I
Speaker 8: get met. I get met by Nicky Rocco. I don't
Speaker 8: know if you ever heard about Nicky Rock.
Speaker 5: Nicky Rocco, he lives to judge his check book lived in.
Speaker 8: The basement of two thirty. It's almost showing there. And
Speaker 8: I go in the back in the kitchen and were
Speaker 8: and the lieutenant was a guy named Eddie Collaboro who
Speaker 8: had like one hundred thousand years on the job. And
Speaker 8: I walk in. I say, you know, well my folder.
Speaker 8: I walk and I go, you know, profession fireman houstin
Speaker 8: reform of duty, sir so Collaboro. He's got his tie on,
Speaker 8: which is not tied. He got his stab, fixs his
Speaker 8: glass up. He goes give me a folded kid. So
Speaker 8: he goes through the fold and he goes, oh, wow,
Speaker 8: that's impressive. He graduated high in your provary class. So
Speaker 8: I'm like, yes, sir, I was. I was number twenty
Speaker 8: two and one hundred and twenty five. And he folds that.
Speaker 8: He throws across the room and he goes, that don't
Speaker 8: mean fucking ship done.
Speaker 4: He goes, I knew that was coming.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I'm and trooky air and all these billy
Speaker 8: hang u that's what. And I'm like, fuck, and you
Speaker 8: like to eat? And so they had lunch while I
Speaker 8: was there for about two hours. They had about twelve runs.
Speaker 8: Oh my, I didn't go out on the runs. They
Speaker 8: wouldn't let me ride. Uh yeah, they went mostly false alarms,
Speaker 8: you know. And that was it. And I went home
Speaker 8: to my parents and I felt like I died and
Speaker 8: went to Avon and uh worked with great guys, just
Speaker 8: terrific firement over there.
Speaker 7: Bob, How long are you take you to catch your
Speaker 7: first joble.
Speaker 8: My thunder my first night to I think it was
Speaker 8: actually my first run. We relocated to eighty. They had
Speaker 8: all hands. We got back my first night too. We
Speaker 8: had two old hands. Now we didn't wear a mask.
Speaker 8: Back then my first night tour, captain put me on
Speaker 8: the mask maybe the mask man, but two guys rod
Speaker 8: in the back step and I was in the back
Speaker 8: of man and mass man rode behind new officer and
Speaker 8: hook them in, rode behind the chauffeur and actually, when
Speaker 8: I was thirty, he had a phone on for a fire.
Speaker 8: They stretched a line to the front door, just automatically.
Speaker 8: So yeah, my first night we had two old hands.
Speaker 8: Uh second do them both? Uh? I remember? I remember
Speaker 8: I got off in the morning, I went home. I
Speaker 8: was little. My parents up most of the night and
Speaker 8: my dad worked for the New York clost You know,
Speaker 8: I got home, my dad was up, and you know,
Speaker 8: I had just got my locker, and I went home
Speaker 8: and worked close and my dad sitting and I was
Speaker 8: kind of dirty still, and my dad was like, how
Speaker 8: was your first night? I go, I made a big
Speaker 8: mistake coming on this job. You know, I thought, like
Speaker 8: you went to the fire people came out and gave
Speaker 8: you a cour fee the ship at us, I said,
Speaker 8: I made a big mistake coming on his shot, and
Speaker 8: I gotta go back to tonight. And I went back,
Speaker 8: and you know what it was. It was the greatest thing,
Speaker 8: and I talked to Dennis Murphy about this a lot.
Speaker 8: His first ain't coming by the year after me. And
Speaker 8: I remember the first time getting on a rig and
Speaker 8: going out the door saying, yeah, I'm here. I did
Speaker 8: it and I'm here, and uh it was two thirty.
Speaker 8: Was a great company, a great company, Lieutenanta Great Eddie Collaboro,
Speaker 8: Sandi Maggio. He called him his immenseness, his immenseness, huge guy,
Speaker 8: could move like a baby, Eddie Thomas. He was there
Speaker 8: a short time. Uh, he was there a long time.
Speaker 8: He transferred Atlanta one oh six, and then my lieutenant
Speaker 8: got the rest of the soul, Cordy Simon, and there Lieutenant
Speaker 8: Gordon Simon. Uh, one of the best firefs since I
Speaker 8: ever worked. But and he came there and I worked
Speaker 8: with him until I went to one eleven. Yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 8: To the left, Greg Dacny, Bobby Bobby Kennedy, myself in
Speaker 8: the middle, John Banbury, and Dennis walk Cole.
Speaker 5: He always had that mustache.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 8: Oh. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if you
Speaker 8: know the story about his brother Mike and Mike Well,
Speaker 8: Dennis was a sign of ninety three Engine and Mike
Speaker 8: was in two thirty and they actually did a mutual swap.
Speaker 8: You could do that back then. And and Dennis came
Speaker 8: to two thirty and on, and I worked with Dennis
Speaker 8: in his groups, him and Bobby. Uh have we gone?
Speaker 8: They were just great, a common Granado. And like I said,
Speaker 8: when I got there's a probe, they treated me like
Speaker 8: old They really cat mo stuff. Take quick story about
Speaker 8: paranlettle bit Uh. Dennis his brother Mike Walkol. So this
Speaker 8: Mike made lieutenant and he went to five trucks and
Speaker 8: he was working. He worked the Monday four nine to eleven,
Speaker 8: and it was the last tour in the job. He
Speaker 8: was retiring at a nine hundred September eleventh. So he
Speaker 8: had his party this thing, and I guess the box
Speaker 8: came in about way a fifty something was five truck.
Speaker 8: He goes to get on the rig his release and
Speaker 8: and lieutenant says, Mike, what are you crazy? You know
Speaker 8: you're done. He goes, fuck it, man, my last job
Speaker 8: is going to be the best, you know, not knowing
Speaker 8: and he was killed. Oh my god, yeah he was killed.
Speaker 5: I don't think I ever heard that story.
Speaker 8: Yeah either, Yes, he died. He died anyway, let's make
Speaker 8: true toplot. So yeah, I worked with Dennis great nozle Man.
Speaker 8: But as I said, these guys in war Mass Billy Ahern,
Speaker 8: who wants suspended. He just passed away a couple of
Speaker 8: years ago. His father was Harry Aharan from twenty six truck.
Speaker 8: But just great, great people.
Speaker 5: So hey, Bob, just one one quick thing I wanted
Speaker 5: to take sure.
Speaker 7: You know what amazes me, Like you just said they
Speaker 7: had sixteen runs or whatever they had in a couple
Speaker 7: of hours there right, Like when you look at that
Speaker 7: area like two thirty to all those single engines in
Speaker 7: the area, right, it's around one eleven, how much work
Speaker 7: like all of those companies there right to twenty seven.
Speaker 5: Like, it's just incredible how much those guys were doing.
Speaker 8: You know the good thing you know, one thing is single.
Speaker 8: I can tell you some about two seventeen. One thing,
Speaker 8: especially one eleven. Uh, we ran to within a majority
Speaker 8: of single engines.
Speaker 5: So you got a lot of work that way, man.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, but we went got to the job because
Speaker 8: I guess those engines to thirty two seventeen they stretch
Speaker 8: the line for a phone alongn for fire even not
Speaker 8: was showing they stretch a line to the front door,
Speaker 8: which sounds ridiculous, said to take it off, but that's
Speaker 8: what they did, and we rolled in and most of
Speaker 8: the time, you know, they already had the line in place,
Speaker 8: and uh, they just wait first to pop the door.
Speaker 8: But if they were able open the door, you know,
Speaker 8: they make it moves. Uh. Seventeen with Sister Engines, we
Speaker 8: did our company party with them, We did our company
Speaker 8: picnic with them, the shawtball team with them. We were
Speaker 8: in the five seven together and we had ninety four boxes.
Speaker 8: That was it.
Speaker 5: First, it's such a small area.
Speaker 8: It's Chris second and Reserve, you know, Reserve Engine. I
Speaker 8: think TO seventeen had about sixty and they were doing
Speaker 8: like five thousand runs a year, you know, and we
Speaker 8: were doing such we were on the schedule inter change
Speaker 8: every third night. We went to two twenty four and uh.
Speaker 8: But TO seventeen had a manual door. We had well
Speaker 8: see back then in seventy eight, Louisue there was a
Speaker 8: lot of work. So we we had a button so
Speaker 8: that we went out the door, hit the button that
Speaker 8: shut the door. TO seventeen had to go out and
Speaker 8: roll the door down.
Speaker 5: Crazy.
Speaker 8: Certain boxes like six nine oh too Blasky. I've got
Speaker 8: six ninety one. Uh uh, Dick Calvin Summon.
Speaker 5: He still remember the boxes because they came.
Speaker 8: In a thousand times a day. So we were rolling
Speaker 8: in and this could be a job. We'd be rolling in,
Speaker 8: you'd see a job. If we saw to seventeen coming,
Speaker 8: rights were bouncing, we would give them the fire. We
Speaker 8: don't wearing cowards, but it was they were first too gentlemen,
Speaker 8: because you know what, we're gonna have our one later,
Speaker 8: and we would and they would stretch, and then naturally
Speaker 8: we'd stretch off there were and we got along grave
Speaker 8: with them.
Speaker 5: Was Derek Allen there, Bob at that time? That Eric Allen?
Speaker 5: Was he there?
Speaker 8: Or yeah?
Speaker 5: He came way later, Yeah later.
Speaker 8: I was in one eleven when he got to seventeen.
Speaker 8: But weren't you to seventeen? Getting detailed? You either work,
Speaker 8: Sarah's the other thing. You stayed within your battalion, you
Speaker 8: worked over the time, or or got detailed in your battalion.
Speaker 8: And I remember, like, you're like, you don't really you're
Speaker 8: like spoiled. You don't realize there's all other job out there, right?
Speaker 8: Was it until he started doing DIVISIONI details or borrow
Speaker 8: details or citywide details. You realize that, whoa man, it's
Speaker 8: all different world. Yeah, when we detail that worked over time,
Speaker 8: it was always in five to seven. So you either
Speaker 8: went to two thirty five to seventeen, one eleven or
Speaker 8: two fourteen and yeah, excuse me, and you know that's
Speaker 8: what you dealt with. And work were great guys, you know,
Speaker 8: but the engines down there and the area we worked in,
Speaker 8: you know, Brownstone small frames, if you remember, they're engine jobs.
Speaker 8: They're mostly engine jobs, you know, the truck, especially with
Speaker 8: an engine pulling the first two the fires at the door.
Speaker 8: You're not you're not doing much, you know, you go
Speaker 8: move with the line. Maybe the ov is gonna make
Speaker 8: a moving But yeah, a lot of engine jobs, a lot,
Speaker 8: say with Bushwick, uh two thirty head, a fair amount
Speaker 8: of vacants. We didn't. I remember when I first got there,
Speaker 8: Oman SAMUELSSS. It was the show for there two thirty four,
Speaker 8: two ninety and one day we we went the troop
Speaker 8: and bought with He said bring a camera in one day,
Speaker 8: Hey kid, bring a camera. So I bought a camera,
Speaker 8: you know, a little puzzled, and we stood on the
Speaker 8: corner troop and bought. There's a lot of buildings, you know, vacance.
Speaker 8: And he said take a picture. And he said, when
Speaker 8: you leave here or you retire, take the same picture
Speaker 8: in the same spot.
Speaker 6: That's a great idea.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 8: Four years later, I'm going to one eleven, which is
Speaker 8: all nother story. Uh, And I go to the same
Speaker 8: spot and take the picture.
Speaker 5: Before left.
Speaker 8: Nothing left like fucking rice patties in Vietnam. There was
Speaker 8: no buildings left and we were good, no shot. Everything
Speaker 8: was gone, all burned down. So and that was it.
Speaker 8: So I I it was in two thirty love the place.
Speaker 8: But you know, you start, you start to get the
Speaker 8: itch to go to the truck. And the reason why
Speaker 8: I went to the truck, well the reasons like I
Speaker 8: didn't like the truck. Later, when you're an engine, you know,
Speaker 8: you get a run but nothing happened. You know, you
Speaker 8: pull up to take a hydriene. The truck guys always
Speaker 8: get off the rig and do something right cast league,
Speaker 8: quarter league. So when you're a young guy, you want
Speaker 8: to do something years let you go, fuck this, I
Speaker 8: should project for sending. So I decided I want to go.
Speaker 8: Oh so you couldn't go to a truck until you
Speaker 8: had a year on a job when I went on
Speaker 8: a job, so after year you were allowed to go
Speaker 8: to truck. So I was on a job a little
Speaker 8: over here and I get a call one day and
Speaker 8: two tari from a guy named George Lee who was
Speaker 8: a lieutenant won seventy five. Now my dad wasn't on
Speaker 8: a job, but he was a friend of my dad
Speaker 8: through the Mason's and he was a lieutenant one seventy
Speaker 8: known guy worked and rescue two Now one seventy five
Speaker 8: was on New Jersey Avenue.
Speaker 6: Back then, yeah, by themselves in the one on.
Speaker 8: Seven's old quarters and tell her by themselves with all
Speaker 8: senior guys. And it was the endity at the borrow.
Speaker 8: You remember everybody was driving in that. You know it
Speaker 8: was popule, And no twenty fourths. Nobody worked twenty fours.
Speaker 8: You know you work twenty four when you got overtime
Speaker 8: twenty four hours. And back then you can go to
Speaker 8: five old hands. So you know twenty four is blood money.
Speaker 8: And I told you get a hundred fifty bucks. I
Speaker 8: used to bought them make a hundred seventy five. I
Speaker 8: wouldn't work night to us. So he calls me one
Speaker 8: day in two thirty schools. He goes, Bob, it's George Lee.
Speaker 8: Oh how you doing, mister Lee? He goes, listen, would
Speaker 8: you like to come to one seventy five? And I
Speaker 8: really know much about the place. And I said, well,
Speaker 8: I don't know. You know here three years and he goes,
Speaker 8: I'm here a year, you know. Just why don't you
Speaker 8: stop by for lunch? Okay, So in between my night tours,
Speaker 8: I take it right over there to a single truck
Speaker 8: at the end of Hint to borrow with all senior guys. Fuck, no,
Speaker 8: how do I get this? I get there. The guys
Speaker 8: were great. I had launched them, went on a couple
Speaker 8: of runs with them, and that was it. And I
Speaker 8: went back to two thirty for the night tour. And uh.
Speaker 8: I called him a couple of days later and I said, uh, mister,
Speaker 8: you know, mister Lee. He says, call me George. I
Speaker 8: should have call him low And he says, I said, look,
Speaker 8: I'm not really ready to leave engine two thirty. He said, well,
Speaker 8: anytime you want to come here, I'll have you. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 8: they had the old. They had the old, you know,
Speaker 8: they had the they had the flywood over the over
Speaker 8: the camp. You know, like one hundred and eight had
Speaker 8: an open cab, you know, and uh he said give
Speaker 8: me a call. But I stayed there, and uh stayed
Speaker 8: there for almost four years. So I'm starting to not
Speaker 8: that I want to leave to oh so go back
Speaker 8: to Parallel. I remember. So when I came on a job,
Speaker 8: we had a two year on probation. One year. The
Speaker 8: guys in the seventy seven list, Roger Richie's, Greg Samin Eira,
Speaker 8: you know, all those guys who came right before me,
Speaker 8: they did six months probation and then turned fourth grade firemen.
Speaker 8: So after six months they got their front piece, two
Speaker 8: thirty front piece. So when I first came to the
Speaker 8: fireas first night, Joe Russo comes over to me and
Speaker 8: he goes, give me two dollars. I'll give him two dollars.
Speaker 8: Commissary with two bucks and a dollar for the third
Speaker 8: of lampuol, I give him two dollars. He gives him
Speaker 8: my two thirty front piece. Let's put it in your
Speaker 8: locker until you get a probation. Okay. So working there,
Speaker 8: we had guys six months come by and the guy's like,
Speaker 8: hey kid, he gone. The Aaron was, hey kid, you
Speaker 8: can take your prov shield off. Now you know it's
Speaker 8: six months. So I'm like, well, I don't know if
Speaker 8: I should. You know, I was in the captain school. No,
Speaker 8: it was a it was a gordious schools. When the
Speaker 8: captain came in between. You know, I don't know you know,
Speaker 8: blah blah blah. You know now, no kid, you can
Speaker 8: you could take your proper shield off, So okay, take
Speaker 8: it off. You see you guys tell you to take
Speaker 8: it off. So I'm working. Noidently, gotten parallel comes in
Speaker 8: for night to it sees my helvet on the back
Speaker 8: and the hosband. You know I was bad year back,
Speaker 8: you know, run the back step now, asked have my
Speaker 8: boots and he goes in the kitchen get a cup
Speaker 8: of coffee. Comes back, sees me and he goes. He
Speaker 8: points to the thing. He goes, what's this ship? I said, well, Cap,
Speaker 8: the guys told me I can take my proper shield off.
Speaker 8: He says to me, the guys don't tell you what
Speaker 8: to do. I'm the captain. I tell you what to do.
Speaker 8: I tell you when he proba shield because you got
Speaker 8: a value it between every three months. I said, okay, Cap,
Speaker 8: because I'll tell you what I'm gonna ask you one
Speaker 8: question about the rigs, and if you get it right,
Speaker 8: you can keep your pubble shoe on. Now, guys, I
Speaker 8: knew this fucking rig inside out. I should tell you.
Speaker 8: I could tell you that the butts were made. I said,
Speaker 8: guy had cap. Sure exactly, He says to me, go
Speaker 8: get the boost of line, span of wrege. I didn't
Speaker 8: even know we had one. I just want. I just
Speaker 8: went upstairs, took the prob.
Speaker 6: Shield off, took the public shield back on, and.
Speaker 8: He showed me where it was. It was under the
Speaker 8: show to see in this big thing with all this fittings,
Speaker 8: you know, and it's this little tiny wrench and the
Speaker 8: boat boost line was hand hand crack, wasn't. I just
Speaker 8: put my thing on and that was waiting.
Speaker 6: Another six months.
Speaker 8: Six months later, right with Gordy Simon. Six months later,
Speaker 8: go for my fourth grade medical combatment October fourteenth, nineteen,
Speaker 8: and I had got my first one of citation, believe
Speaker 8: it or not. Uh with the learning those guys. About
Speaker 8: three months before I went information with another story, but
Speaker 8: a great fire with great guys, and we got a unit.
Speaker 8: I get a use citation. Where's the prob? So six
Speaker 8: months later, Hey, kid, you can take the pro shield off.
Speaker 8: You know you better take it off. You know, I
Speaker 8: don't know. Captain like man, I kid, don't worry about
Speaker 8: it again a lot put the two thirty thing on.
Speaker 8: Who comes in that night, Captain Arthur j P. I
Speaker 8: have this conversation already, and here's my helmet.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 8: Then you're in the back my boots. He goes in
Speaker 8: the kitchen, comes there, e sees me. He goes, what's
Speaker 8: this ship?
Speaker 4: I said, did you get them the span wrench? At
Speaker 4: least this time.
Speaker 8: It's the greatest part. It shows you how he was.
Speaker 8: It was tough and fair. So he goes, Bob, the
Speaker 8: guys don't tell you what to do. I'm no one
Speaker 8: who tells you what to do. I'm the one who
Speaker 8: grants you ten here. But he says, I'm going to
Speaker 8: ask you one question and if you get it right. No,
Speaker 8: you can keep your boot. You can keep your two
Speaker 8: thirty shield on. I said, god cap. He goes, go
Speaker 8: get me the boost line spanner. Ah, if there was
Speaker 8: one fucking thing on that rig, I didn't know to yet.
Speaker 8: I got shook my hand and said, you're off probation.
Speaker 8: Welcome to engine two thirty and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 6: Wow, it was a tough story man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was tough. It was tough. But I look
Speaker 8: back forty some years later and when I see Gina,
Speaker 8: his daughter with the Night of the thing, you know,
Speaker 8: at the medicals, I always telling uh, and I don't
Speaker 8: he made deputy chief. I always ask her, how's the
Speaker 8: captain doing? Oh, and be honest with you. I look
Speaker 8: back and it was a great experience to have him
Speaker 8: as my captain. Is he still around, Yes, he's he's
Speaker 8: retired deputy. Oh God, I mean I'm going to be
Speaker 8: sixty nine in July. He's got to be. I asked
Speaker 8: you to lately. I think he's eighty one, eighty two.
Speaker 8: You'll make captain very young. Here's from one twelve as
Speaker 8: the flyman, but tough but fair. And he showed you
Speaker 8: the way and and you know, things are different. You
Speaker 8: know back then you sat assistant house watch. Everything done
Speaker 8: in the book was a certain way. But anyway, So
Speaker 8: I start to get the age to go to the
Speaker 8: truck and by then Greg Laconey had come there, and
Speaker 8: Greg Pacconey is one of my best friends in the job.
Speaker 8: Louis Paccone's son from one away and he gets there
Speaker 8: and we right away two young guys. I got there
Speaker 8: about a year before you did, and two young single guys,
Speaker 8: and we hit it off right away, and we are
Speaker 8: two fucking assholets and we get nicknamed. I'm Kid Rat
Speaker 8: and he's kid Snake, and we cut doing everything together.
Speaker 8: So we would just talk about this the other day.
Speaker 8: So our first Patty's Day, I had just gotten my
Speaker 8: first unit citation and it shows you out when you're
Speaker 8: a young guy. So Gordon Simon, uh was a lieutenant
Speaker 8: where and it was Patty's Day and we were having
Speaker 8: breakfast in a fi ass well in uniform class and
Speaker 8: I remember, God, he sidon come over to me and
Speaker 8: give and gives. You know. Now you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 8: I but that's the way it was. And I'm like,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm off the charts now. So you know,
Speaker 8: we go to city, do what thing. I look back,
Speaker 8: I'm like twenty five years old, twenty four right, He's like,
Speaker 8: and we do the gamut and nice all night out.
Speaker 5: Can't fiel my face.
Speaker 8: So now we take the brain. Yeah, we took the
Speaker 8: train in and we take the train back to two thirties.
Speaker 8: Quarters take the jay. We get off at Broadway and
Speaker 8: Gates at one o'clock in the morning, in beeavastives and
Speaker 8: in uniform, trunks monkeys, and we're walking arm in arm
Speaker 8: and we are cursing everybody out in the street. How
Speaker 8: we didn't get shot, I don't know. So why don't
Speaker 8: we get to the fires We walk in and the
Speaker 8: Captain's got his car parked cat parallels there. He's in uniform.
Speaker 8: He must have watched and like maybe it was eleven
Speaker 8: o'clock or twelve, I don't know. So we walk and
Speaker 8: John Bambury, capt Bury was covering the spot.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 8: We eventually got to touch great man, great guy. So
Speaker 8: we walk in arm in arm with two years on
Speaker 8: a job hammade, and we salute Captain Bambury. How you doing? Cap?
Speaker 8: He goes, good boys, and we look at the captain
Speaker 8: Taraneoua and go hey, author, hey author, and his face.
Speaker 8: So he had his car parking in the fire ass
Speaker 8: and he didn't let anybody park us. So Cony says.
Speaker 8: He says, hey, author, watch it. And he was supposed
Speaker 8: to transfer to one nineteen. He was going to one thing.
Speaker 8: He goes, hey, are why are you parking the fire ass,
Speaker 8: so says somebody. I didn't want anybody screw with it,
Speaker 8: So I said, well, author go parking on Hoopah Street.
Speaker 8: We don't watch him anymore, and we leave and we
Speaker 8: go to college for him and hang out, and I
Speaker 8: ended up seeing over his parents' house and we live
Speaker 8: bubbles of So three days later I come in for
Speaker 8: my day tours and well, no, no, worse, it's not
Speaker 8: on the desk. So I walk in. I'm in the
Speaker 8: bathroom and Patoni comes out of the bunk room and
Speaker 8: he is as white as a sheep. I thought he
Speaker 8: was going to pass out. And he comes in. He goes,
Speaker 8: I go, what's the matter with you? He goes, He's
Speaker 8: still here? What are you talking about? He's still here?
Speaker 8: I said, what the fuck are you doing? He's still here.
Speaker 8: He didn't transfer transfer water came down. Captain wasn't on it.
Speaker 8: Wah wah'd I'm dead.
Speaker 5: I'm dead, you know what.
Speaker 8: He never said anything, he didn't do anything. We both
Speaker 8: we both figured I would been better transfer thinking, I
Speaker 8: figured he was. He was terrific. He took it as
Speaker 8: a joke, so M.
Speaker 5: A little while later over indulged.
Speaker 8: Oh you know what well, you know he was he
Speaker 8: loved his Proby's When when we all turned grade, we
Speaker 8: had a big party at Dave Johnson's house. You know
Speaker 8: remember two thirty, nineteen seventy. I got there with Mike Thompson,
Speaker 8: who actually texted me today about this. Uh. You guys
Speaker 8: advertised that I got a million calls in the least
Speaker 8: couple of days. Uh. We came together and every every
Speaker 8: six weeks we got a probably in two thirty and uh,
Speaker 8: I remember when we all turned first grade, we had
Speaker 8: a big party at Dave Johnson's house at East and
Speaker 8: cant Paranila came out. He was already a chief and
Speaker 8: he brought a big sheet cake with all our names
Speaker 8: on it the dates that we came on a job.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, Uh we were his boy. You know. He
Speaker 8: was proud of his probablys and uh he was tough,
Speaker 8: but he was fair.
Speaker 5: But uh, sometimes you have to look back at those things.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 8: And a little in my career when I was breaking
Speaker 8: guys in, you know, I always tell people in the job,
Speaker 8: you will break guys in the way you were broken.
Speaker 5: Yeah, some of those broke the balls.
Speaker 8: And we're broke your balls and did stupid ship to you.
Speaker 8: But you're gonna do that to younger guys. If the
Speaker 8: guys show you the way you know and help you out,
Speaker 8: I mean, it's tough on you. That's the way you're
Speaker 8: gonna teach your kids. You guys learned and that's you know.
Speaker 8: And let's face it, you know of this job his experience.
Speaker 8: Like I said, when I went to probably school six weeks,
Speaker 8: they basically told us, look, we're we're not going to
Speaker 8: teach you much here. You know, you're gonna learn the
Speaker 8: basics when you go to the field. You'll learn the
Speaker 8: job one day. And probably Schill never get this. We were.
Speaker 8: They tell us, one day, bring your lunch tomorrow because
Speaker 8: you can buy lunch in all right. So the next
Speaker 8: day get there. They put us on these school buses
Speaker 8: and they bring us up to the South Bronx nineteen
Speaker 8: seventy eight up by eighty two and thirty one, which
Speaker 8: I knew nothing about.
Speaker 5: The Bronx is burning.
Speaker 8: We get up there and we had put tools in
Speaker 8: the rig in the bus. We get up there and
Speaker 8: grew up and live in town. Even though it's looking
Speaker 8: from Long Island. I get off the bus, like a
Speaker 8: lot of us are it looked like Europe. It looked
Speaker 8: like in nineteen thirty four, like holy shit. And we
Speaker 8: took the tools and we went into these vacant buildings
Speaker 8: and they taught us how to pull ceilings, how to
Speaker 8: uh kind of rose windows, yeah, trimming windows. I mean
Speaker 8: Mike Bradley is from rescue. One was when he lieutenant,
Speaker 8: when he struck this great guy. They nailed doors shut.
Speaker 8: Remember one day that day we were forcing the door
Speaker 8: and he heard noise. Turns out there was dogs in
Speaker 8: the room. You know, vacant buildings. You always said these
Speaker 8: dogs around. He wouldn't listen there because the dogs would
Speaker 8: attach you. But you learned how to pull. That was
Speaker 8: a great experience. But we got up there. I was
Speaker 8: like there was blocks and blocks of vacd tenements and
Speaker 8: I was like, holy ship. But uh, you learned a lot.
Speaker 8: But as I said, going back, so, uh, I'm ready
Speaker 8: to go to chuck and up and hunt the mountain skiing.
Speaker 8: You know, I had eleven years on the job and
Speaker 8: to get married. So at the ski house, at the
Speaker 8: house and Hampton's, I Boar attended tonight's I'm living life.
Speaker 8: You know, I've got to show you guys something I
Speaker 8: went through some ship and I found my first paste up.
Speaker 8: I don't know if you'll be able to see it.
Speaker 5: I'll spend it all once fun.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't know if you can see.
Speaker 5: It, Come on, you pick it up up. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I took home three hundred, three hundred, nineteen dollars and
Speaker 8: seventy eight cents every two weeks.
Speaker 6: That ship three hundred dollars every two weeks, you know.
Speaker 8: And I was living at large. No really, Uh, I
Speaker 8: found it the other day. I didn't looking for pictures
Speaker 8: like you know.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: Anyways, bought then. So I'm living a life, you know.
Speaker 8: But anyway, So up at Hunter Mountain with Greg Paconi
Speaker 8: and uh Audie work, I worked in five patrol with Artie. Yeah,
Speaker 8: it's gonna be a long show, Lartie, how do you
Speaker 8: ask me to mention nine things? Now? Break my So
Speaker 8: we're up at Hunt Mountain and with skiing with Joe
Speaker 8: brus O Captain Bruz Kampa one thirty two. Who is
Speaker 8: Greg Pecconi's godfather, his dad Luis Paconi legend? And Joe
Speaker 8: says to me and Greg, would you guys like to
Speaker 8: come to one thirty two? Now, I didn't know much
Speaker 8: about one thirty two, But would you like to come
Speaker 8: at one thirty two. I'll have you here. Yeah, there
Speaker 8: we are, Me and Greg. He said, I'll have you
Speaker 8: here next week. Wow, okay, okay, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 8: A couple of days later, Greg Peconi was stretching for
Speaker 8: a job in the projects, the forty projects. He I
Speaker 8: got an ozly he comes off the backstep full Safferson
Speaker 8: blows his knee out. That's it, he's fucked up. Put
Speaker 8: the fire out, it's it boomed. He ends up. You know,
Speaker 8: six months, get surgery. The Ashley came back to the job,
Speaker 8: which very odd, but in the intrum, I figure he's
Speaker 8: not coming back. I'm ready to go to truck. I
Speaker 8: want to go to hunt and too. I always want
Speaker 8: to go on.
Speaker 4: Still over that company, I still haven't figured it out.
Speaker 8: I want to go on. And the big thing on
Speaker 8: hand and two is at that time the kind of
Speaker 8: had to have as a sponsor. So Captain was Harry Rodgers,
Speaker 8: Jerry Barber was a Lieutenant rest of soult Lieutenant do
Speaker 8: Letto and Lieutenant Dennis Cross rest of And you need
Speaker 8: a sponsor, so Jerry Lambert, Frankie Robos Dave Island. Those
Speaker 8: guys they like. So I make the move. I go
Speaker 8: over there in Class a's see Captain Rodgers. You go
Speaker 8: over in Class a's go in, make the phone call
Speaker 8: Mind and Bob and I come in, sit down with
Speaker 8: Captain Rodgers and tell him what I want. He says, okay, great,
Speaker 8: put your paper in, we'll bring out. Thank you. That's it.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 8: Oh the other thing is the Batian command was the
Speaker 8: chief name Jim Jim Duffy, if you ever heard of him.
Speaker 8: I worked with his son in the fire patrol. Billy
Speaker 8: and Chief Tuffy knew me when I was young guy.
Speaker 8: So about two weeks after I put the CD thirty in,
Speaker 8: Chief Tuffy comes to the fires so roll call come
Speaker 8: out and he comes over to me. He says, he
Speaker 8: hands me to CD thirty. I put World two in
Speaker 8: and ext all the other boxes out right. He comes on.
Speaker 8: He says, what's this ship?
Speaker 5: You gotta put more, you gotta put everyone.
Speaker 8: I put it for one hundred and two. Chief he goes,
Speaker 8: you're not going on hundred two. It's not happening. So
Speaker 8: I went to see Captain Rodgers and he goes, you can't.
Speaker 8: You got to put other companies in. Okay, so I
Speaker 8: put companies in. I put companies in. I'm never gonna
Speaker 8: go to rescue two, rescue three, rescue four, you know, one,
Speaker 8: and my last choice is one eleven. Come on, nobody's
Speaker 8: going to one eleven. Guys, who's on the sixty day
Speaker 8: detail from Nobody's going to one eleven. You know. At
Speaker 8: that time, the count was Tom Brown, and nobody's going
Speaker 8: to put one eleven. I give it to him. That's
Speaker 8: it here, it is Chief. Two weeks later, go to
Speaker 8: so I'm working on lificant. I'm working over time in
Speaker 8: engine two thirty five, and the chief was Ray Brown.
Speaker 8: If you ever heard of Ray Brown, I grew up
Speaker 8: with his son Ray. He's from eleven Town. So I
Speaker 8: grew up in Ray junior lieutenant one to thirteen. You know,
Speaker 8: I'm sure you heard it, Ray Rescue one. His two brothers,
Speaker 8: Tommy was in twenty six and the youngest kid, Brian.
Speaker 8: He became a cat. But anyway, so I'm working hoteam
Speaker 8: two thirty five and it's like ten o'clock at night
Speaker 8: and he comes down. He goes Bobby, Chief wants to
Speaker 8: see upstairs. Okay, I didn't do anything wrong he's up
Speaker 8: in your office. Jef Brown, who when he got the
Speaker 8: Spotify seven I actually called me at home said anything
Speaker 8: you need, I'll be the five seven. You know, because
Speaker 8: I grew up, I knew HI when I was a kid.
Speaker 8: So I walked in the office. I said, old Chief.
Speaker 8: He goes, you get something, congratulately. He goes, congratulations, you're
Speaker 8: going to ladder one eleven. So I'm like what. He goes,
Speaker 8: You're going to one eleven. I go, no, Chief, I'm
Speaker 8: not going to one eleven. I'm going hundred to two.
Speaker 8: So he says to me, well, according to Department Order
Speaker 8: one eleven whole nine hundred hours Thursday, August sixth you
Speaker 8: were assigned to Ladder one eleven truck. I can't go that.
Speaker 8: Those guys are nuts, buddy, that's where you're going. Congratulations.
Speaker 8: So now I'm like, shit, I don't know. I'm thinking
Speaker 8: about it right my regulator Friday at the last minute,
Speaker 8: you know, party uh all one eleven. Get Lieutenant Peter
Speaker 8: Rice on the phone at the time. Oh yeah, you're
Speaker 8: going to group. So so you know what, So you
Speaker 8: come in Tuesday. All right, they gave me like ninety six. Okay, great,
Speaker 8: I feel I'll bring my gear over and that's it. Okay,
Speaker 8: I'm going to one eleven. Uh, I'm like, I can't
Speaker 8: believe I'm going to one eleven. So that's it. So
Speaker 8: I was bought, you know, So that's Sunday.
Speaker 5: Oh on, Bob, did what happened with the Captain of
Speaker 5: World two? Did he say anything? Like?
Speaker 8: Did he Harry Rogers?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 8: It came down.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm seeing guys in the street, you know,
Speaker 8: I had one more tour left in two thirty, and
Speaker 8: they're like, you like, what happened?
Speaker 5: I go?
Speaker 8: I don't know. And it took me years to find
Speaker 8: out why I went to one eleven. Uh, well I
Speaker 8: was put there. I didn't. I didn't put it. Well,
Speaker 8: I did with zummies, but I didn't want to go
Speaker 8: there because those guys were nuts. They were great fireman
Speaker 8: don't and you know when I was in two thirty,
Speaker 8: we didn't run in with that much. You know, we
Speaker 8: didn't go down south that far. We ran a hundred
Speaker 8: two eight one once in one one night team and
Speaker 8: they were great companies, you know, hundred two great companies.
Speaker 8: I mean, yeah, I believe a little fireman there. Uh,
Speaker 8: I could probably mention every guy in.
Speaker 5: Oh, you can mention every guy you know.
Speaker 8: I mean when I gave to Charlie Dmaza was still
Speaker 8: the chauffeur and had the open cav rig, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and Pokie Sullivan was They used to sometimes they came
Speaker 8: down Broadway to Park Avenue and that tiller was not straight.
Speaker 8: But anyway, I worked to day they had the accident, uh,
Speaker 8: which put Soki out of the job. But anyway, so yeah,
Speaker 8: so one eleven and I forget I was bought tenner.
Speaker 8: So that's Sunday. Sunday, I get the water comes down
Speaker 8: to six. I'm doing on a Tuesday. So the Sunday
Speaker 8: I'm bought tenner and I wears one. So my manager
Speaker 8: from the bar worked in was getting married and they
Speaker 8: had a been going to the wedding. He was marrying
Speaker 8: the daughter of the guy who owns Helme and Cold
Speaker 8: and Eyeglasses. So it's in King's point in his unbelievable mansion.
Speaker 8: So make Alom's so short. I party a lot with
Speaker 8: the guys. We go out and I end up getting
Speaker 8: back to my apartment about five thirty in the morning
Speaker 8: in my three piece suit and I fall asleep. Oh, no,
Speaker 8: and then nine thirty the phone rings. Oh no, I
Speaker 8: get a phonego hello, Oh yeah, is this fireman Western? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Who the fuck is this? He goes, that's your new captain,
Speaker 8: Tom Brandon speaking cap we're gonna do. He goes, well, Son,
Speaker 8: I don't know where you came from, but we started
Speaker 8: at nine o'clock on handtocky and I had a new Camaro.
Speaker 8: Ye know, I'm telling you I'm living a life passed.
Speaker 8: I'm in my suit. He says, take your time. So
Speaker 8: I dropped my car and I tried to the fire ass.
Speaker 8: I pull up my Camaro and I get a standing
Speaker 8: ovation from all the guys lined up in front of
Speaker 8: fire Ass. Sometimes you know, I to rest his soul.
Speaker 8: Kenny Connolly, Bobby Johnson, mister Jay, and I get a
Speaker 8: standing ovation, and I'm in a three piece suit with
Speaker 8: no fig fire gear, and I come out the first thing.
Speaker 8: Johnson comes over. Mister Janey goes, listen, kid, before you
Speaker 8: see the captain, you got to go around the corner there.
Speaker 8: You gotta cross the street and see that Jewish guy,
Speaker 8: and you got to pick up something. So he tells
Speaker 8: me what to pick up, one on one one for
Speaker 8: your first day and when for being late. That's it.
Speaker 8: Now we're talking. Now it's like eleven o'clock. I haven't
Speaker 8: seen the captain. So I get back, and I said,
Speaker 8: and he walked me get mister Jake. He held my
Speaker 8: hand and walked me to the corner. He said, this
Speaker 8: is as far as I go. Come back. I go,
Speaker 8: mister Jay, Well, I knew these guys. You know guys
Speaker 8: an Arab.
Speaker 11: He's Jewish, he said, the list on my head to
Speaker 11: go there, kid, he was Jewish. You bet there was
Speaker 11: a jew there. You better go up and see the captain.
Speaker 11: So now I go upstairs, knock on the door, come
Speaker 11: on in.
Speaker 8: I walk in. I'm in a three piece suit, still hungover,
Speaker 8: and an hour, almost two hours late to meet Tom Brennan.
Speaker 8: And he gets up, shakes my hand. He goes, how
Speaker 8: you doing, Tom Brennan. I came in fire a roster,
Speaker 8: report of duty. He gets, shakes my hand. How you doing, kid,
Speaker 8: Tom Brennan. He says, listen, three things. Uh. Number one,
Speaker 8: senior guys are not going to talk to you. Number two,
Speaker 8: we don't wear masks in his company. And number three,
Speaker 8: we don't cough on the fire floor. Coughing on the
Speaker 8: fire floor, you'll be out of here. Get the that's it,
Speaker 8: Get the fuck out of my office.
Speaker 6: We don't call for the fire floor. That sounds like
Speaker 6: a shirt, bro, Dude, that does sound like a shirt.
Speaker 8: That sounds like a shirt, and that picture what's classic
Speaker 8: about that? So I work in his group with Kenny Conwley,
Speaker 8: Dougie Simes, unbelievable fire me and I'm a lunatic. I'm
Speaker 8: just a funny guy. I guess, I don't know. And
Speaker 8: I remember we had two jobs that day. I had
Speaker 8: the can, I borrowed cloak work, I borrowed turnout here
Speaker 8: I'm in a three piece. Oh so what happens is yeah,
Speaker 8: so we get done with that. So now it's like
Speaker 8: twelve o'clock the lunch, and now guys like, come to
Speaker 8: the yard, let's go hang out in the art. Kid,
Speaker 8: I don't know. I come on in the yard, you know,
Speaker 8: some in the yard doing what we did in the yard.
Speaker 8: And the old man comes down. He walks in the
Speaker 8: back yard and sees me with the dude Mike leave
Speaker 8: me and he says, what are you doing with this?
Speaker 8: They give you right up and the dudes like, O,
Speaker 8: no cap this palking kad. You know he's with me,
Speaker 8: Michelive he said, so, so, hey, hey, Bobby, I heard you.
Speaker 8: You don't want to come, and you want to go
Speaker 8: on the do you know now I'm back, I'm feeling
Speaker 8: I go. No, I don't want I said, I put
Speaker 8: in for an engine and wanted to her in the
Speaker 8: truck of the East Meadow. And Brennan's over the table
Speaker 8: to kill me. And that was it, and and uh
Speaker 8: and somehow so we went and I stayed right with him,
Speaker 8: and I can tell you and my first toe was
Speaker 8: with him, my second toe with Jim Basil, And I
Speaker 8: can tell you right now and again I could tell
Speaker 8: you the serial number on the heel of their fucking boots,
Speaker 8: you know, their their shoes, because that's all I saw.
Speaker 8: You were just grabbed on to their foot and you
Speaker 8: went with them. Uh. But great teachers and and Brennan
Speaker 8: and I we ended up becoming. He loved me for
Speaker 8: some reason, he just him and the Duke Kenny Connolly
Speaker 8: loved me. He was one of the biggest ball breaks
Speaker 8: in the fire house and for some reason he just
Speaker 8: took me under his wing. He taught me a lot.
Speaker 8: But so.
Speaker 6: Duke Bobby, he was the duke you know the firefloor.
Speaker 8: Yeah, this guy won in his career. He won the
Speaker 8: the the Bennett Medal, the Cane Medal. Uh. In another
Speaker 8: class street he won the what's the one you get
Speaker 8: every three years metal?
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 8: He was just an amazing fireman. Uh, traumatics could take it.
Speaker 8: There's three types of guys in this job. There's a
Speaker 8: guy who can take the beating and he gets respect.
Speaker 8: Take the fucking beat. Uh. That is goodn't make a moves,
Speaker 8: but take a beat. Then you have another guy that's
Speaker 8: can't take a beaten like the other guys, but he
Speaker 8: knows his moves. You know, he's smart, you know what
Speaker 8: I'm saying. Then you get the guy that can take
Speaker 8: his beating the moves. So those are the Bobby Chasers.
Speaker 8: Those are the Kenny Connollys, the Dennis Conways, you know, uh,
Speaker 8: the Tommy Craig. These are the guys.
Speaker 5: Eric seemed to always be in the right spot.
Speaker 8: Dude. Eric is another well Eric had Eric had a
Speaker 8: lot of instinct and he you know, let's face it, though,
Speaker 8: you know, I made a million searches. I mean he
Speaker 8: pulled some people out, But you make a million searches,
Speaker 8: take a beat and never pull anybody out.
Speaker 5: I got somebody like that guy was always in the right.
Speaker 8: Spot man, Yeah yeah, and pulled Eric out a couple
Speaker 8: of times. Oh yeah, Well he'll tell you.
Speaker 5: I mean, how many legendary guys were in that place.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: The other thing, Louis is, and I've always said this too,
Speaker 8: there's guys that the whole job knows their name. The
Speaker 8: Tom Leary's all right, the Jack Pritches, Patty Brown's, Larry Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 8: god rest, the whole job. But the whole job knows
Speaker 8: their names. But then there's a ton of guys that
Speaker 8: nobody knows their name out of the battalion, and they're
Speaker 8: great fireman, you know. Like I said, Tommy Craik, Billy
Speaker 8: ches need to work in the place. I can mention
Speaker 8: Charlie Williams. I mean the guys that I worked with
Speaker 8: that were phenomenal firemen, but outside of the battalion, nobody
Speaker 8: knew them. And and that's how the job is, you know.
Speaker 8: And not only that, you know, you never hear about
Speaker 8: great engine. You know, everybody in the truck. You know.
Speaker 8: I work with George Day uh right now, he's two
Speaker 8: thirds he's one of the guys that broke I'll never
Speaker 8: get When I first got to two third, George Day
Speaker 8: laid it right out. He says, hey, kid, here's how
Speaker 8: it works, all right, this is easy chopping. Well, we
Speaker 8: get a run, you jump on the back of the pump.
Speaker 8: You don't have to know where you're going. You know,
Speaker 8: you guys know where he's going. We got when we
Speaker 8: get there, and we got a job. See them big
Speaker 8: guys over there in the truck. They get there, they
Speaker 8: break the door, they break the windows, they go in,
Speaker 8: they find the fire, They get the people out. When
Speaker 8: they find the fire, they call us up. We go
Speaker 8: with the hose, We hit the red shit. When the
Speaker 8: red shit goes out, we put those back in the rig.
Speaker 8: We go back to the firehouse and wet lunch. And
Speaker 8: he said, that's in New York City. Fire uponent And
Speaker 8: he was right.
Speaker 6: It's very simple, you know.
Speaker 8: And George was another legend in the job.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: One of my first fires with him. Uh, we had
Speaker 8: a job at one hundred and eight road frames. I
Speaker 8: didn't know what the row frame was. I think it
Speaker 8: was my second tour they tour. Uh, didn't know what
Speaker 8: the row frame was. Didn't know where exposure was. So
Speaker 8: we go there's the reserve engine kept there. It's like
Speaker 8: two sixteen and two eighteen. So so we pull up
Speaker 8: and his fires blown at his building and he tells
Speaker 8: the stretch of line into the building exposure for it.
Speaker 8: I don't know what it was, stretch a line in
Speaker 8: the building next door. So we stretch the line. We
Speaker 8: get the top floor and there's a truck up there.
Speaker 8: I think it was one forty. I think it's we're
Speaker 8: up there. You know, we got no masks, you know,
Speaker 8: uh you know, now's the man back of them in
Speaker 8: don't wear a mask. Third man has a mask, mask man.
Speaker 8: So we're up there and George got a cigarette now,
Speaker 8: and you know, it's like a little hazy and shit.
Speaker 8: So now he started pulling the ceilings and the fires burning,
Speaker 8: but it's not bad. So he says, hey, kid, get down.
Speaker 8: You gotta get down. So I'm like, mom, okay, George.
Speaker 8: You know this is my third day and two thirty.
Speaker 8: I'm okay, George, Now, kid, get down, get down in
Speaker 8: Delbi not judge. I'm okay, all right kid. He opens
Speaker 8: that lineup, it's like fucking lights out. I hit the
Speaker 8: tack and I am calfing my balls off. He's on
Speaker 8: his haunches, you know, knocking fire down and he puts
Speaker 8: it out pretty quick. But it is I'm on my
Speaker 8: belly half in my ass off and he lets me
Speaker 8: wash down and he turns around. He goes say, kid,
Speaker 8: I said, don't worry about it. What have you whatever?
Speaker 8: You know, but another kind of legendary guy.
Speaker 5: You know, who is the guy that you felt like
Speaker 5: you latched onto?
Speaker 8: Sorry?
Speaker 5: Who is the guy you latched on to in one eleven?
Speaker 5: Right away? Like? Who did you finish?
Speaker 8: I you know, I didn't really latch onto everybody.
Speaker 12: I just.
Speaker 8: I just followed what they told me to do. Like
Speaker 8: I said, Kenny Connley took a big liking to me
Speaker 8: from the beginning. Brandon, I can tell you me, Brandon.
Speaker 8: Uh you've heard of Tom Brandon. I mean, you know,
Speaker 8: so every day two o'clock I had to take the
Speaker 8: rick to take the bucket up and practice with the bump,
Speaker 8: even though I'm probably not going to see the all
Speaker 8: the years, but.
Speaker 6: Up in the bucket.
Speaker 8: So I'd be up in the bucket. So I would
Speaker 8: come in the yard and dub Simes's I know from
Speaker 8: eleven time? Great? Uh, you gotta pull. So they pulled
Speaker 8: a rig out, you know, and I'd be up there
Speaker 8: and uh later on. One of the ways I trained
Speaker 8: my problems with the bucket was I used to get
Speaker 8: a broom and tie the broom to the basket, and
Speaker 8: they had to keep the broom on the on the building.
Speaker 8: That was like my idea. But anyway, so I'd be
Speaker 8: out there doing what I had to do, and there
Speaker 8: was certain things you had to learn. So I had
Speaker 8: to be there at two o'clock. And so one day
Speaker 8: two o'clock comes and hey guy, you know, Duke's in
Speaker 8: the back and hey, Ken, could you put the rig
Speaker 8: out a puck bad asshole. We're not doing that today.
Speaker 8: You know, don't worry about it. You don't have to
Speaker 8: do that. Look, I gotta be out there, you know.
Speaker 8: If the captain, you know, don't worry about a kid,
Speaker 8: sit down, have a dreak, you know, I gotta be
Speaker 8: out there. So, you know, two minutes after two, he
Speaker 8: don't need a bucket. He comes into the back squad
Speaker 8: and he's like, what are you doing? And I'm like,
Speaker 8: and of course they're like, yeah, cop, we don't know
Speaker 8: what the deal is with this kid. We can't.
Speaker 6: Hang it out.
Speaker 8: You know, they give you up right away.
Speaker 6: Right under the right, under the bucket, I swear to christ.
Speaker 8: So one day, not a time, I'm doing things that
Speaker 8: if I but I always I didn't cough with Brent,
Speaker 8: you know, I mean I did.
Speaker 6: And Uh.
Speaker 8: One day I'm up in the bucket with Rudy Winler.
Speaker 8: I don't know if you ever heard a Rudi Uh.
Speaker 8: And we're practicing. You know, I always want my radio
Speaker 8: that was in this way. So we're practicing the bucket
Speaker 8: and I take the you know, bucket up to the
Speaker 8: window and just keep the bucket below the window and
Speaker 8: all the ship. And Brennan's in the office and he's
Speaker 8: on the phone with his back to me. So I
Speaker 8: come into the window and I crawled and I ran
Speaker 8: him by the collar and I pulled him off his
Speaker 8: chair and I get in the radio and I called really,
Speaker 8: I said, one eleven o feet what eleven? I need
Speaker 8: help with me. I got a big fan funk. I'm
Speaker 8: pulling bread and and he's trying to hit me with
Speaker 8: the phone receiver. The phone gets pulled out of the
Speaker 8: wall and I dragged him to the window. And you
Speaker 8: know what, he loved it. He just he loved it.
Speaker 8: But I did that was that was kind of crazy.
Speaker 6: Find a picture of what eleven and two foot a picture.
Speaker 8: Of Brennan and me. Brennan had a broken finger. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so his finger was broken, so it was always point
Speaker 8: So when I would worked on bending my finger like
Speaker 8: him and I got it to work. So he would.
Speaker 8: He always had a drill right after fire and he would.
Speaker 8: One day he was pissed off at me about something
Speaker 8: and he's pointing at me and he gets I go, hey, Cap,
Speaker 8: you're talking to me or murphy, because now you pointing
Speaker 8: me a murphy And he just put his hands up
Speaker 8: and walked away. Yeah, look at you.
Speaker 6: You're looking down at his finger.
Speaker 8: Bens oh, one of the I worked with great fire officers.
Speaker 8: But he was But so another thing with him, I
Speaker 8: was habitually late. I would guess when I worked with him.
Speaker 8: So I was late. And then one day he tells me,
Speaker 8: if you're late one more time, I'm going to kill you,
Speaker 8: all right. So one day we're working. We had a
Speaker 8: couple of jobs, so he's getting off from inn yard
Speaker 8: with Kenny. We're getting off duties. So the Cap comes
Speaker 8: in the backyard. He says, what are you doing now?
Speaker 8: And I had a date that night and he says,
Speaker 8: what are you doing now? I says, well, I have
Speaker 8: a date tonight. Cap. He says, well, you know what,
Speaker 8: you're coming with me. My brother Billy, who's the retired
Speaker 8: first grade detective, is bartendant. I know he is a
Speaker 8: big name bartender. So we're going to white Stone. You're
Speaker 8: gonna meet my brother Billy, I said, CAP. I get
Speaker 8: a take. So the duke, they could a Parker Captain both.
Speaker 8: You gotta go to drink and you go with him? Okay, No,
Speaker 8: we go to white Stone and his brothers told cops.
Speaker 8: So make a long story short. We're drinking the whole
Speaker 8: night's going on. So I'm calling him Cap all night
Speaker 8: and he says to me, hey, kid, you don't have
Speaker 8: to call me Cap. You call me Tommy. All right,
Speaker 8: he's you call me Tommy now, Cat, I can't do it.
Speaker 8: You call me Tommy from now on, all right, CAP.
Speaker 8: So that's it. So we leave it like three in
Speaker 8: the morning. We're both working. Next day. He drives to
Speaker 8: the fire Asse. Not me, like an idiot. I drive
Speaker 8: back to Leventown. That's it. Go to sleep, get a
Speaker 8: call about quarter quarter to ten. It's the Duke hey
Speaker 8: kid out with the Parker Capitol last night and he's
Speaker 8: here and you're night. He's going to kill you. You're not.
Speaker 8: You're not he's going to kill you. So I drive
Speaker 8: it and I pull up. He's on the apron and
Speaker 8: I used to do a great brand and imitation. You
Speaker 8: get his then, sperver they're hiding behind a rig. Rudy
Speaker 8: Windler and Kenny Connley a behind the rig looking because
Speaker 8: they think he's gonna kill me. I walk up to him,
Speaker 8: I grab him and I kiss him on the cheek
Speaker 8: and I go, hey, Tommy, I had he just went
Speaker 8: upstairs and that was it. And I don't balk. I
Speaker 8: believe it, and I got away with it.
Speaker 7: You gotta have like a special to be an officer
Speaker 7: in a place like that. You gotta really it's you know,
Speaker 7: the guys love you and they respect you, but they
Speaker 7: do crazy things.
Speaker 8: Right well, you know, Uh, the reason why we got
Speaker 8: away with what we got away with, and I'm not
Speaker 8: saying is because uh they did We did our job
Speaker 8: and uh and uh the chiefs. I remember Alco my
Speaker 8: computer one time saying, uh, you know when we went there,
Speaker 8: three seven. He says, you know, you guys are painting
Speaker 8: my ass, but I love it when you turn the corner.
Speaker 8: You know, the guys, they were profound, They were good
Speaker 8: and a tremendous lineman. You know, I always tell people
Speaker 8: I went to work every day, UH, trying to be
Speaker 8: like those guys, knowing that I never will be there.
Speaker 8: He is, there's Dennis.
Speaker 5: So I don't know if you notice Bob, but that's
Speaker 5: that's Coobs and I that's that's our guy.
Speaker 8: Dennis Murphy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was the one who taught us a lot
Speaker 5: of stuff.
Speaker 8: Dennis Murphy is one of the greatest firemen I've ever
Speaker 8: worked with.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 8: We became great friends in Hancock Street. We had house
Speaker 8: and Hampton's together, ski houses. Great firemen. UH worked with Dennis,
Speaker 8: and you knew that Dennis was going to be somebody
Speaker 8: in the job. And I remember when he was talking
Speaker 8: about going to rescue too, and he had asked me
Speaker 8: and Dennis Conway about it. And I remember one day
Speaker 8: he grabbed me and he says, you know, I'm thinking
Speaker 8: of going to rescue too. What do you think? And
Speaker 8: you know there's three ways you leave one to eleven,
Speaker 8: you retire, you die, where you get promoted. That's the
Speaker 8: only three ways. That's what Jimmy Basel said. He wanted
Speaker 8: to go to rescue too. What do you think I
Speaker 8: should do? And I said, you know what, Dennis, absolutely
Speaker 8: your career path. You're going to move up in this job.
Speaker 8: And believe me, say he went there. Had he not
Speaker 8: failed the Battalion Chiefs test, I think he would ended
Speaker 8: up taking over, like right down his job or whatever.
Speaker 8: He would have been in charge of rescue services. I
Speaker 8: mean to eighty eight. As you know, Kevin Pete Cans
Speaker 8: he told him he's going to eighty eight. And in fact,
Speaker 8: Vinnie and Garrow, well I broke Vinnie in. Yeah, Vinnie
Speaker 8: one day when well what happens? So we're in the
Speaker 8: yard one day, you know, doing that thing, and Vinnie
Speaker 8: comes in he work with He goes, yeah, you know,
Speaker 8: can we go over the roof? Roll like Vinnie, it's
Speaker 8: it's three o'clock.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 8: It's because I want to go over with you because
Speaker 8: I used to talk teach my guys to tie it blindfold,
Speaker 8: and I could tie a blindfold. So all right, go
Speaker 8: get the fucking ropes. So we go through the evolution
Speaker 8: does a great job. All right, you can pack it,
Speaker 8: you know time and that's it. Two days later it
Speaker 8: makes your roof for a rescue unbelievable. Uh I didn't
Speaker 8: know Giro made Oh yeah, not only.
Speaker 5: What he hould him back up?
Speaker 8: Uh yeah, allegedly, Well no they did. I mean he
Speaker 8: broke the rules because after the first questionon he pulled out.
Speaker 8: He used the same roplan shits in the finn and said,
Speaker 8: but yeah. So when that was I studied with Vinnie,
Speaker 8: my first time studying full lieutenant, and the guys thought
Speaker 8: I was going to do well in the tests. And
Speaker 8: a week before the test came, I said, you know what,
Speaker 8: I'm not taking the test and I wanted to be
Speaker 8: a lieutenant. I worked the other time. People were shocked.
Speaker 5: I worked the overtime.
Speaker 8: I didn't want it. And then I started again, and
Speaker 8: at that time it was serious and Basil said, if
Speaker 8: you make lieutenant, you got my tenants. Pause, but you
Speaker 8: never wore. And I took the the highly protested test
Speaker 8: and I wrote a sixty eight. For twenty one years
Speaker 8: on the job, I'm in a couple of medals. So
Speaker 8: all he had to do is pass. Passing was turned
Speaker 8: out seventy. I got a sixty eight and I had
Speaker 8: a sixteen answer changes I didn't.
Speaker 5: Get one, get one of them.
Speaker 8: Ellen McNair got all sixteen. But I'm not going up.
Speaker 7: I'm sitting here thinking, who how many guys I know?
Speaker 5: I got?
Speaker 7: You got Donnie had you got, you got Jimmy Ellison,
Speaker 7: you got Rayed Strong, Jakomovic. I mean, I can't even
Speaker 7: think about how many guys that came out of that.
Speaker 8: Then, Oh, Chris Iza my problem.
Speaker 5: Welcome Malcolm.
Speaker 8: But anyway, so I'm glad I didn't make Lieutenant was
Speaker 8: you know, for one reason. I can never be a hypocrite.
Speaker 8: I would I wouldn't stand for the guy. When I
Speaker 8: was a boss, things I did, uh, But I didn't
Speaker 8: really have a desire. But I told them my problems
Speaker 8: to study. And I used to tell them like, after,
Speaker 8: here's what I said to do, would be a job.
Speaker 8: You know, Kevin prophet with p cancy prolific right right right? Yeah,
Speaker 8: Scottie civid Chrissa story about that with his father.
Speaker 6: So I.
Speaker 8: Used to add, the fires knockdown and they'd be pulling
Speaker 8: ceilings and I tell them take a break a minute. Now.
Speaker 8: I want to show you something. See them two tenants
Speaker 8: over there, what are they doing? They're bullshitting about how
Speaker 8: they got sucked out of an overtime. And then what
Speaker 8: did they do is they take the flashlight and they
Speaker 8: point to a spot and tell you to put a
Speaker 8: hole there, and then you go back and then more
Speaker 8: and the only do starry flashlight. So it was just
Speaker 8: what you want to do. And you know, the young guys,
Speaker 8: they don't want to be the senior man, you know.
Speaker 8: And I used to tell I was a senior man
Speaker 8: in one of eleven almost seven years and I didn't drive,
Speaker 8: but and.
Speaker 4: I used to tell, as you were rough, well that
Speaker 4: was I was on.
Speaker 8: I was at the job. Then I was coming home
Speaker 8: from from rehearsal because I worked as after now and
Speaker 8: I was coming from rehearsal and Manhattan. But I used
Speaker 8: to tell the guys, you know, you become a senior man,
Speaker 8: I said. Everybody leaves. They do like they either retire
Speaker 8: or they die or they get promoted. You know. It's
Speaker 8: not like they take you downtown and go you know,
Speaker 8: Santa puts the sorda in your shoulders, go, oh, you've
Speaker 8: to senior man now, so study and and they all did.
Speaker 8: And Pekancy's the captain, Kevin's Chris Isa when he was
Speaker 8: at remember right right fires terrific are.
Speaker 5: Still doing it. He's seventy years old.
Speaker 8: Yeah, just you know, all all my officers, nine of
Speaker 8: them were terrific. You know, I was in Basis group
Speaker 8: for eleven years. Uh, Jimmy, Uh that's a whole nother man,
Speaker 8: a whole nother story. Uh. Oh god, you know he was.
Speaker 8: He was a marine and surviving frozen, frozen, chosen hunter
Speaker 8: two truck you know, never wear masks.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: Just a tough guy. But yeah, all our officers, Eddie
Speaker 8: kill Duff came there for about a year. Oh yeah,
Speaker 8: chief killed Uff, but I forgot who left. Oh Chris,
Speaker 8: Chris Lehanna got out, So they killed Duff camp and
Speaker 8: he was a young guy. I mean he came on
Speaker 8: a job right before I did. But he he came
Speaker 8: on and I think December seventy seventh, Uh yeah, and
Speaker 8: I came and follow So he came to one eleven
Speaker 8: covered U foll and Uh, young guy but great guy.
Speaker 8: Oh great fire. I worked and went through a lot
Speaker 8: of fires with him.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: Just a tremendous fire officer. Great and you know he
Speaker 8: learned a lot and uh but what happened is he
Speaker 8: got bumped ah by another guy, Kaylish Storman Norman. Kaylish
Speaker 8: a legend. And as much as we loved Daddy could
Speaker 8: love that Storman. Uh. You know, Eddie probably had about
Speaker 8: forty points and Storman probably Stormy Norman probably had about
Speaker 8: five thousand. Uh Like Eddie ended up only twelve, you know.
Speaker 8: And then he went to the Three Edits. Betan you
Speaker 8: so just a great uh great dig grade fire officer
Speaker 8: and it was a real pleasure to work with him.
Speaker 8: But we had terrific courses over there that came to
Speaker 8: the ranks. Uh, great teachers. You know. You guys a
Speaker 8: lot there right Uh yeah, you know, informal drills kind
Speaker 8: of like you know, you came back from a job
Speaker 8: and you always talked about it, you know. Uh. Brandan
Speaker 8: was big, like in the street, asking you a questions
Speaker 8: right away, what do you do? What you do there?
Speaker 8: Famous my radio. We caught a job in Kingsboro Walk
Speaker 8: and I had the old day. I'll tell you two
Speaker 8: great over stories. So get there and report of a
Speaker 8: guy trapped on the fourth floor or whatever. So I
Speaker 8: jump in the bucket, take off, take the window, and
Speaker 8: it's like the kitchen in the bedroom going and the
Speaker 8: guy's laying right there. So they're banging on the door
Speaker 8: and they're not getting burning was offtually and they're having
Speaker 8: trouble getting in. So I pulled a guy out through
Speaker 8: him in the bucket, you know, drap, and I actually
Speaker 8: crawled open the door for them. It wasn't that bad,
Speaker 8: So dropped the guy open the door. Hey, you know,
Speaker 8: I'll tell you what happens. So we get to it's
Speaker 8: all we get the street. So bred little drill sore said, hey, uh,
Speaker 8: I was calling you on the radio that we couldn't
Speaker 8: get in. Why the fucking answer, I go, I left
Speaker 8: my radio back of course, cap what you know? I said, Well,
Speaker 8: I pulled. I couldn't. I couldn't give you ten for
Speaker 8: I said, I let my radio back into FLA asks
Speaker 8: you were a weigh your radio every day till you die.
Speaker 8: I did I read it? When you ask anybody, I
Speaker 8: never took my radio off to that day. Oh this
Speaker 8: picture this somebody sent me this years ago. I don't
Speaker 8: remember the street. I think it was Hot Street, but
Speaker 8: I'll tell you exactly what happened here.
Speaker 5: We had it.
Speaker 8: It was the top floor. I went in the window
Speaker 8: from the bucket and there was hot street and you know,
Speaker 8: making my move, and it started to get soured real quick.
Speaker 8: So naturally, you know, you guys know what the towel letter.
Speaker 8: You get chased out a lot, and it was gonna light.
Speaker 8: You know, your clock is going in your head, all right.
Speaker 8: I got fifteen seconds up and I went out the
Speaker 8: window winter the bucket and I blow the window and
Speaker 8: I pulled the bucket away and it just lit up.
Speaker 8: And the first time that happened to me. We caught
Speaker 8: a job on I forgot where it was down by
Speaker 8: Reida Avenue and Kenny Connley was driving. So they teach
Speaker 8: you to keep the bucket below the window right so
Speaker 8: that if you find somebody load and plus you stay low.
Speaker 8: So we caught this my first time in the over
Speaker 8: eight we caught this job. It was in a four
Speaker 8: story tenement. If I was on the third floor, never
Speaker 8: forget it on exposure two side at full sight. So
Speaker 8: I jump in the barking take off. I'm on my
Speaker 8: way up to the third floor and five blows out
Speaker 8: the windows. All right, So where do you go? Now?
Speaker 8: You know your job's done? You know, guys don't understand
Speaker 8: the OVM is real main job is the vent uh
Speaker 8: So where do I go? Should I go above the fight? Well,
Speaker 8: it's blown out the window, so I go to join
Speaker 8: top floor apartment. I go crawl back and you go
Speaker 8: on the top floor and it's I'm in there and
Speaker 8: I left my hook by by the bucket, but I
Speaker 8: didn't have the bucket blow the window enough. It was
Speaker 8: up about a foot and it's starting to get bad
Speaker 8: and I gotta go. And I ended up going out
Speaker 8: the window and Jimmy Peppy was driving. He said the
Speaker 8: flames were at your feet. So I land in the
Speaker 8: bucket back then the stick was straight up. I had
Speaker 8: no gloves on. Sweeny wear gloves and I'm trying to
Speaker 8: reach the choice thing to get me out of here.
Speaker 8: Said cause burn the ship. And I'm trying and I'm
Speaker 8: on the bitch bock going due Teddy was dry. Don't
Speaker 8: get me out of here.
Speaker 10: You know I'm burning.
Speaker 8: He goes park your let us all the bucket ball window.
Speaker 10: And leaves me up there for like two minutes and
Speaker 10: I'm playing on my hands on my head like and
Speaker 10: then I got to the street and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 10: and true story that was that was my first time
Speaker 10: in the OVIM.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: That's a tough position to learn, you don't.
Speaker 7: You know what I remember one eleven when I when
Speaker 7: I first got on the job, when I still sit
Speaker 7: to Brooklyn was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it could be a fire in Coney Island, and
Speaker 5: I would hear Warren.
Speaker 7: Say, yeah, we haven't take that, and UH like, yeah,
Speaker 7: well I would send you to every fire.
Speaker 8: George. Yeah, George Bunch and I have great friends because
Speaker 8: we're in five patrol together. Uh one if you and
Speaker 8: George Bunch probably the two best fire ump dispatches in
Speaker 8: the city's history, you know, just great guys. Just knew
Speaker 8: the job, you know. I think they both, between the
Speaker 8: two of them knew. Ever, your long box number.
Speaker 7: Four, My god, he would take you off boxes, like
Speaker 7: if you would go somewhere, he would take you all.
Speaker 5: You got a job coming in the wan, Yeah, one
Speaker 5: of three State Service.
Speaker 8: You're like guys, so back in ninety nine, I got
Speaker 8: detailed in three seven time for a year. Uh, Gene
Speaker 8: think it was the time Commander Bobby Gleason is in
Speaker 8: front of mine who was up there, and they wanted
Speaker 8: a senior guy up there for for a year. I said,
Speaker 8: you know what, I'll take it sounds like a lot
Speaker 8: of fun, and it was. I had a great time
Speaker 8: so well. One of the I've had two famous radio
Speaker 8: transmissions in my life. I was working the Night of
Speaker 8: the Millennium in the three seven and the three seven
Speaker 8: had the last old hands of the twentieth century and
Speaker 8: the first second alarm of the twenty first century. So
Speaker 8: I was driving that night. Jizink he was the officer,
Speaker 8: and we catch a job first too, and I'm giving
Speaker 8: a size up on the radio, you know. And it
Speaker 8: turns midnight and George Bunch, a friend of mine, he's
Speaker 8: on a radio saying, this is now the year two thousand?
Speaker 8: Is it? And jazink it gives me to this transmitted second,
Speaker 8: I get a radio, go three seven time of Brooke,
Speaker 8: an urgent goes go ahead. I go at box six
Speaker 8: Sat five transmitted second ALMP. Happy New Year, George. You
Speaker 8: got only down town and they were they would peak.
Speaker 8: Antsy was the chief and they heard about it Manhattan.
Speaker 8: I threw was getting in trouble and uh but uh
Speaker 8: so I did a year there, came back and then
Speaker 8: when I got hurt uh in the job, uh a
Speaker 8: school bus woo who red lighted fifty miles an hour.
Speaker 8: I had the old I never drove. Uh.
Speaker 6: I was gonna ask you what why not?
Speaker 8: What you want to What happened was back in nineteen
Speaker 8: eighty five. Uh, they started this company qualified thing because
Speaker 8: Chauffe's had a tough time making mutuals.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 8: Of course the city looked that opinion over so they
Speaker 8: you could become company qualifying. So you had to drive
Speaker 8: five hours with do so and we had a stand in,
Speaker 8: uh standard shift. So Cat Brennan, you know, Uh, I
Speaker 8: drive the rig five times makes everybody company quali, right,
Speaker 8: that's it. So I come into work one day. They
Speaker 8: to her and how even asking how the rest of
Speaker 8: his soul? Great fires? Uh great comman. He says, you're
Speaker 8: driving today? Okay, I knew how to you know? So
Speaker 8: all right? So I had my Camaro and I was
Speaker 8: parking front Quarters by the hydrot There was a parking spot.
Speaker 8: We always parked there. You know where this is going now, right?
Speaker 8: So this the show has always told me, when you
Speaker 8: make a left out of Quarters, always watch the bucket
Speaker 8: because it tracks, you know, and you get the wall.
Speaker 8: So we get a run ten minutes after nine, I
Speaker 8: jump in the rigs started up, put the second gear,
Speaker 8: come out. I'm I'm looking to the right, make sure
Speaker 8: the bucket clears, and bam, I hit something and I
Speaker 8: stole the rig. I looked down. I hit my own car.
Speaker 8: So when ask he goes, what the funck was that?
Speaker 8: I go, and I go, It's okay, lo, I hit
Speaker 8: my own car.
Speaker 6: We'll do that later.
Speaker 8: This is the best. So I start the rig up again.
Speaker 8: The Netsky reaches open to his hand on my chest.
Speaker 8: He goes, Austin, you're out, maloney, next man up, And
Speaker 8: I never drove again. So every time. Oh so that
Speaker 8: night I'm working hot that night and Greg Evans, great fireman.
Speaker 8: Uh he didn't have a driver's license because we didn't
Speaker 8: get in seventy seven, and they made him come in
Speaker 8: to qualify the engine. Jimmy Basil, So I moved my car.
Speaker 8: Jimmy Basil had bought a brand new car. Jimmy Bazil
Speaker 8: used to come to work with the worst looking cause
Speaker 8: you have seen your life. I mean one time he
Speaker 8: had a pipe holding the back of his driver's seat.
Speaker 8: So he buys this new car. I don't know what
Speaker 8: it was. So he's parking spoty works, the engine gets
Speaker 8: in the RS box and out the door to go
Speaker 8: and and boom we here an explosion all in the yard.
Speaker 8: We all go running out and two fourteen ran over
Speaker 8: the front of his car and it hold it. But
Speaker 8: Jimmy was a million. They took care of it. So
Speaker 8: the next morning I'm in the bathroom and Bobby Shaffer walks.
Speaker 8: Now you've heard about Bobby Shaef who said three words
Speaker 8: to me in three years. He walks in, shuts the
Speaker 8: bathroom door. He says, they kid, I heard you were
Speaker 8: driving yesterday and your fucking car. I said yeah, And
Speaker 8: he goes the kidney engine pulls out. Of course it's
Speaker 8: Jimmy's car and takes you off the hook. That's what
Speaker 8: he called this place, the fucking nuthouse.
Speaker 6: And he walked and I was like, holy shit.
Speaker 8: So I had about eleven or twelve captains. And every
Speaker 8: time I get a new captain, especially when the time
Speaker 8: of a job, listen, uh, you want to send a
Speaker 8: show for school now. I don't want to go to
Speaker 8: show school. Captain, Now, we're gonna send you now. And
Speaker 8: I'd say, cap, let me tell you a story. And
Speaker 8: I would tell them what happened. He goes, all right,
Speaker 8: who's after you? But the fine thing was, Bruby, you're
Speaker 8: just who can't do it as a captain. I remember
Speaker 8: when he's a probe two twenty two. Great guy. So
Speaker 8: you know, I had twenty nine years on the job
Speaker 8: on the back step. And not that I was getting
Speaker 8: tired or not that I was thinking of my duties,
Speaker 8: but you know the guys once you drive, so Scotti
Speaker 8: see it was, you know, one of my probies. You
Speaker 8: So I thought, you know what, maybe I will So
Speaker 8: I spoke the captain Bruby, Uh one day and UH said,
Speaker 8: you know, I'd be interested in going to show school
Speaker 8: and the guys will give me. He was absolutely, Bobby,
Speaker 8: we'll get you in next clix. So two nights later,
Speaker 8: I'm working and I had stopped cooking, and I cooked
Speaker 8: a little time, but went young guys cook said that
Speaker 8: night I had a cook who's no talent. Eric was working,
Speaker 8: Oh can you can boil water? And Uh, we're working,
Speaker 8: and uh, I guess it was about six thirty morning,
Speaker 8: and uh we had two jobs or a job, and
Speaker 8: we get a round about six thirty in the morning,
Speaker 8: and we go out the door and and I forget.
Speaker 8: We made a right out of the quarters. I little
Speaker 8: figure it up and go where are we going? And
Speaker 8: they had the over and they said smoking the church
Speaker 8: on Troop Avenel. I said, hey, holy smoke, and we're
Speaker 8: in the corner summer and Hancock and I looked to
Speaker 8: the right and bam his school bust de bonbus and
Speaker 8: that was it. And I went to Uh it took
Speaker 8: me to Bellevue and uh that was it. It was
Speaker 8: on my minutes later. So I never made it to Shouffa.
Speaker 6: A couple of questions in here. Somebody, I'm sorry, somebody
Speaker 6: asked if who brought the alligator in the captain if
Speaker 6: you mentioned.
Speaker 8: It's an alligator into one eleven.
Speaker 6: No, I think he was talking about one seventy six.
Speaker 8: An alligator.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a lot of animals over there.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Over there, Yeah there's another one. Does Bobby have any
Speaker 6: good Patty Concannon stories?
Speaker 8: Yeah? No, uh yeah One seventy six had. I'm an
Speaker 8: are Yeah they were. You know. That was the other thing, like,
Speaker 8: especially when I went to one eleven years ago, there
Speaker 8: was no competition between companies. You know, everybody did their job.
Speaker 8: Nobody was trying to beat people in. Everybody went to
Speaker 8: whit It's supposed to be. One thing about one eleven.
Speaker 8: I will say one eleven was always a position truck.
Speaker 8: Uh you got to be in a position. You know
Speaker 8: what I'm saying. Sign you know, and you know, I
Speaker 8: mean sometimes things would happen. But uh oh So another
Speaker 8: thing I remember, I had just gotten one eleven and
Speaker 8: one night this is a lesson I taught my probes.
Speaker 8: I had just gotten there and it was like my
Speaker 8: third tour and they had to give me the roof
Speaker 8: that night because we had two details from whatever. So
Speaker 8: I get the roof. So Doug Simes and Kenny Connolly
Speaker 8: and Stella to give me the roof. Trail you know,
Speaker 8: eight seconds, I kid, here's what you do. You pull up.
Speaker 8: If you can't use that, you know, pull up, You
Speaker 8: use your joining building. If you can't use your join
Speaker 8: the building, use the bucket. If you take your joining
Speaker 8: building course in the front, not in the rear. Blah
Speaker 8: blah blah, do this. Okay, that's it. You got it.
Speaker 8: Two minutes after, you know, two minutes later, boom six
Speaker 8: seventy six box comes in Washington Pulasky fire on the
Speaker 8: top floor. People trapped. Okay, we jump and we take off.
Speaker 8: We get there and I see a hundred two aerial
Speaker 8: to the top for I get off the ring. I
Speaker 8: take the adjoining building. I had a hook, had the
Speaker 8: hook and hawlgan my right hand. I take the adjoining building.
Speaker 8: Get up there, come out of the scuttle and the
Speaker 8: fire is blown out the bulkhead. I've never seen this,
Speaker 8: you know, being an engine hook. And I'm so messment.
Speaker 8: I run across the rear and I fall in a
Speaker 8: four story chaft. Did you do that?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 8: My left hand caught the parapet, my right hand hit
Speaker 8: the wall. Who had the tools? I broke my finger
Speaker 8: and now I'm hanging four stories up but not warm.
Speaker 8: You know, remember when you did the eight foot wall
Speaker 8: and probably you know when you were taking a test.
Speaker 8: I walked up that wall and rolled over onto the
Speaker 8: roof and I'm laying there like holy shit. So I
Speaker 8: had the fire and there's nobody on the roof. I'm
Speaker 8: the first guy. So the fire has blown out the
Speaker 8: window at the folk door. So oh, I take the
Speaker 8: skylight but I'm sure, and the bucket comes up with
Speaker 8: the dou You got the sword and I must have.
Speaker 8: I found out later. I'm just standing there shaken, and
Speaker 8: the dude comes over and he goes, well, the pucks
Speaker 8: no matter, you ass, Oh what are you doing? And
Speaker 8: I pointed to the shaft and he said to me,
Speaker 8: we'll talk to you later. And after the fire was out,
Speaker 8: we cut a hole and we got back to the
Speaker 8: firehouse and Doug Sims and Kenny Connolly and Side Taylor
Speaker 8: ripped me a major who ass They really did, to
Speaker 8: the point of they said, you know, if you fell
Speaker 8: in that shaft and you were dad, we would have
Speaker 8: just left you there.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, very nice.
Speaker 8: Serious, there's no sympathy half. But that was one of
Speaker 8: the points I would teach the young guys. You know,
Speaker 8: cross in the front, standing belly, U's your hook. But
Speaker 8: you know I was young, I was new, and you
Speaker 8: know you get mesmarly ship, you know. But that was
Speaker 8: another lesson.
Speaker 5: I where did they come up with the peanut bob?
Speaker 8: What I heard was, uh came up from back in
Speaker 8: the day to well, when I got there, they ate
Speaker 8: a lot of peanuts. And our original patch was designed
Speaker 8: by Lieutenant Willy Malone's daughter Mary Uh and the job
Speaker 8: turned it down because there was a hole. It was
Speaker 8: supposed to be two crazy guys. Oh god, what would
Speaker 8: be the names? When I Kim and the job turned
Speaker 8: it down because there was a hole in the boot.
Speaker 8: So yeah, so see the hole in the boot. They
Speaker 8: turned it down because of that. Oh god, yeah, well
Speaker 8: who were crazy guys back then? Napoleon? The one eleven
Speaker 8: guy was Napoleon, I forget. So the job turned it down,
Speaker 8: so the it was Dennis Conway. Ashley said let's do
Speaker 8: the peanut man, and uh yeah, and that was perfect.
Speaker 8: You know. By the way, Dennis Conway, you're a great
Speaker 8: friend of mine, great fireman. He's in hospice. Yeah, I
Speaker 8: go to see him. We all go to see him
Speaker 8: quite often. Great fireman. Tell another story with Dennis. A
Speaker 8: tough guy, very tough. One night I was new there.
Speaker 8: I hope I'm not taking too much time? Up?
Speaker 5: Are you good?
Speaker 8: We interchanged every third night. I remember when I retired
Speaker 8: in South Asanto in front of mine retired my badge
Speaker 8: and I didn't have quite thirty years. If you have
Speaker 8: thirty years, your bed can be retired automatically. But if
Speaker 8: you have under thirty years, the only chief department can
Speaker 8: retire it. So today I was getting out there's any thing.
Speaker 8: It was called up anyway, so he retired my bed.
Speaker 8: But so and he said to me, you know, you
Speaker 8: realize that you're probably the last guy to leave this
Speaker 8: job that worked on the last two scheduled interchange companies.
Speaker 8: When I got to two thirty in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 8: we were on scheduled interchange. We interchange when Injine two
Speaker 8: twenty four, so every night that every third night we interchange.
Speaker 8: We had to leave the guy back because twenty four
Speaker 8: is a form an engine. And then we went to
Speaker 8: two twenty fourth quarters and then there was a little incident,
Speaker 8: uh I guess that happened, and then we ended up
Speaker 8: started sentence to two well six, which you know was
Speaker 8: way out no way, you couldn't get any trouble. And
Speaker 8: then when I went to one eleven, you're on schedule
Speaker 8: interchange with latter one fifty nine every third night. So
Speaker 8: uh so one night we were on interchange in latter
Speaker 8: one fifty nine. So when you interchange, you're that unit.
Speaker 8: It's not like you relocate. You're not one eleven acting
Speaker 8: one fifty nine. You're one fifty nine, and one fifty
Speaker 8: nine is not acting one eleven. They were one eleven,
Speaker 8: so we relocate. Then we're back, I mean we go there,
Speaker 8: we get there about we're there about an hour, and
Speaker 8: we get sent back to relocate to one eleven. Well
Speaker 8: one twenty was the night time, he and uh, I
Speaker 8: forget uh, I'm not sure. No, they sent us back
Speaker 8: because there was one twenty a quarter in one seventy
Speaker 8: five quarter, a really hairy fire in Bushwick and there
Speaker 8: was metal you know, guys made rescues, It's crazy, and
Speaker 8: it was another job on Hancock Street going so the
Speaker 8: interchange company won fifty nine went there, so they sent
Speaker 8: it us back to one eleven. So we're about easton
Speaker 8: Parkway and just one.
Speaker 7: Eleven acting one eleven, well acting one fifty nine, who's
Speaker 7: acting one eleven?
Speaker 8: But we're not at we're one fifty nine, so we're
Speaker 8: not one eleven. So the dispatcher, it might have been George,
Speaker 8: or it might have been on He Jimmy was, Basil's
Speaker 8: the officer, and Conway's working, you know, Doug signs and
Speaker 8: Dennis head the hat, the ions, I'm the camp man,
Speaker 8: you know, broken the ladder one fifty nine. What's your location?
Speaker 8: So Jimmy says, we just crossed Easton Parkley. All right,
Speaker 8: go in eight three to zero box. Uh, first to
Speaker 8: a three old browery. Can hear your first two truck?
Speaker 5: We yeah, take it in.
Speaker 8: Well, no, we were legit at Easton Parker. But there's
Speaker 8: so many, so much working. So we roll into this
Speaker 8: thing and this place is going it's a frame. So
Speaker 8: two fourteen ended a first do there. So I got
Speaker 8: the can. I run for Dennis Conway and I'm jacked
Speaker 8: up and were masks, you know, And we get up
Speaker 8: to the five floor and it's burnt through the door
Speaker 8: a little bit, and I started with a can. So
Speaker 8: I'm like, you know, come on, Dennis, let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 8: Come on, I'm ready to go. He goes, you want
Speaker 8: to go in there? Kid? I go yeah. He opens
Speaker 8: the door, fire blots out our friends. Look, he shut
Speaker 8: to do you want to go in there?
Speaker 4: And go?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 8: No, our wait for me. But he knew what he
Speaker 8: was doing.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: But yeah, so we were so as we're going through
Speaker 8: the fire, the job on Hancock, the handy talkies, I mean,
Speaker 8: so we're here in the basils any talkie three seven
Speaker 8: and one eleven, So Jimmy answers it eleven he goes, yeah, uh,
Speaker 8: one eleven, you might want to help. Uh, there's a
Speaker 8: job around the corner, you know, but we're basinss is, no,
Speaker 8: we're here ready. It was just crazy that night. But
Speaker 8: I'll never forget Dennis opening that door of me, and
Speaker 8: uh you really he was, he was. They were all tough,
Speaker 8: Bobby shape, they were all tough guys. Like I said,
Speaker 8: you went to work every day trying to be like
Speaker 8: them and knowing you never will be.
Speaker 5: That's the best line ever.
Speaker 8: Yeah never Uh. And as they said, guys got made
Speaker 8: out of there, you know, guys like myrph uh. You know,
Speaker 8: just I was very lucky to work with these guys,
Speaker 8: I really was. You learn a lot from them, and
Speaker 8: you you pass it on, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 8: Like the young guys, you're supposed to do yeah when
Speaker 8: you're Yeah, when you're a senor guy, they look up
Speaker 8: to you. And I used to tell them, you know,
Speaker 8: show them stuff.
Speaker 5: I go.
Speaker 8: I didn't make this up. I just learned from the
Speaker 8: older guys that showed me. I'm not a genius there.
Speaker 8: This is what I was taught to do and how
Speaker 8: to do this and how to do that. And I
Speaker 8: always like they told me, and like I told me,
Speaker 8: young guys, if you make a mistake, it's okay, it's
Speaker 8: gonna happen. Just don't make the same mistake twice, you know,
Speaker 8: and always remember that. You know, you have guys that
Speaker 8: depend on you. Just do your job, and you know,
Speaker 8: I mean that's how it is. The job, like you said,
Speaker 8: is ninety percent experience and ten percent knowledge.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we say a lot like on the show that
Speaker 7: you know, especially guys like yourself. You know, you can
Speaker 7: make a mistake at you know, eight o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 7: and by nine thirty you could be.
Speaker 8: I've always said that, You're right, Louis. I say, when
Speaker 8: I first got there, you can screw up at eighteen
Speaker 8: hundred hours, but then twenty hundred hours, you know, eight
Speaker 8: o'clock you could do better because you had the next job,
Speaker 8: and six in the morning you got even better because
Speaker 8: you know, another story I can think of. I don't
Speaker 8: know if you guys ever heard of Bobby Grayber Jethrow
Speaker 8: or whatever, you know, Jetro. Every time Jethro worked in
Speaker 8: the truck, we got a rasts kick.
Speaker 5: So actually I was one guy he was in the
Speaker 5: he was an engine guy.
Speaker 8: Always stayed in the engine. But when he get detail
Speaker 8: work outing in the truck and I worked with mine,
Speaker 8: I wanted to go home, you know. I would tell
Speaker 8: you also, I'm going home. I don't want to work
Speaker 8: when this kid's working, We're gonna get killed. So I
Speaker 8: actually was at the promotions area a couple of weeks
Speaker 8: ago and UH and the Chief department Uh esposito his
Speaker 8: first thing, Yeah, Joe right. So I went over to
Speaker 8: shake his hand. I said hey, chief, and he goes,
Speaker 8: you're be right met those kind of life, yes, sir,
Speaker 8: And he says, I remember you when I was in
Speaker 8: the battalion covern and they had this fire and it
Speaker 8: was so smoky and nobody could see and you direct
Speaker 8: the rigging. And I said it was on Brooklyn Avenue
Speaker 8: and he goes, yeah, And I'll never forget that fire.
Speaker 8: So we had a job of Brooklyn Avenue and Bill
Speaker 8: Chesney was the irons guy, and Gregory was cam in
Speaker 8: and Dennis was driving, and I had the OVA and
Speaker 8: I had just started agetting the OVA and we pull up.
Speaker 8: You can't see the building. Cannot see the building, there's
Speaker 8: so much smoke. So but I didn't know they had
Speaker 8: taught me like, line up, because I got to go
Speaker 8: in the windows, and I got to go on the
Speaker 8: top floor. You go in the top floor, you know,
Speaker 8: and I'm lining the windows. So I get in the bucket,
Speaker 8: I take off. I can't see the build, can't see shit.
Speaker 8: I go up. Bam, I hit the building. I got
Speaker 8: it back off and I got to the window. So
Speaker 8: I take the window, clear it out. I go in
Speaker 8: as clear as about up there. Clear's about my tough isiness.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: Well eleven over on the one eleven and how even
Speaker 8: excuse you off? And he's caught in his bulls over here?
Speaker 8: All right, I go listen, I'm on the top floor. Uh,
Speaker 8: primary is negative. This is no smoke up here. Tommy
Speaker 8: gets in the radio. Yeah that's great. I'm getting the fire, bove.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 8: I swing over and now we're going to the top floor.
Speaker 8: No man ask, you know. And I'm like, oh, this sucks.
Speaker 8: So after the fire is out, cut down the street
Speaker 8: and Dennis, you know, comes over and he puts his
Speaker 8: arm around. He works me away from he goes is
Speaker 8: some kid, it's okay to fuck up. It is, but
Speaker 8: when you do, don't tell the fucking world that you Yeah,
Speaker 8: but Uh. But yeah, you know, you learn a lot.
Speaker 8: You know, I missed the job. You know, seventeen years
Speaker 8: I'm out.
Speaker 7: Did you ever take like what would have happened if
Speaker 7: you went to one O two instead?
Speaker 8: Uh? I you know, I don't know the area on
Speaker 8: had two change. Oh yeah, I finally found out how
Speaker 8: I ended up at one eleven years and years ago.
Speaker 8: I don't know if you remember Chief Duffy, Jim Duffy,
Speaker 8: he became the first Chief of Rescue Services. He was
Speaker 8: Tom Brand's captain actually wonder for he was a legend
Speaker 8: of the job. And I worked with his son Billy
Speaker 8: in the five Patrol and he knew me when I
Speaker 8: was a young guy. And so he's the guy I
Speaker 8: told you when I put my paper in and he said,
Speaker 8: you know what's this? And uh so, uh, I'm at
Speaker 8: his retirement. He was retiring. And I went there with
Speaker 8: Jimmy Bazil and Dennis Cross and all these guys and
Speaker 8: and I Chief Fuffy was there, and uh finally, you know,
Speaker 8: at the end of the night, I went over to
Speaker 8: him and I said, Chief, I gotta ask you, how
Speaker 8: do I end up at one eleven? And he said,
Speaker 8: I put you there? I was the guy who put
Speaker 8: you there. I said what he said, because one O two,
Speaker 8: as great a company is, the area was going to change.
Speaker 8: I said, in one eleven it'll always be the same.
Speaker 8: And I found out he's the one who put me
Speaker 8: in one eleven and he told me you got to
Speaker 8: do twenty years there. So when I had twenty years,
Speaker 8: I called him at home and then I got Missusduffy
Speaker 8: on the phone and said, can I speak to the chief.
Speaker 8: He gets on the phone to go, well, Chief, I
Speaker 8: got twenty years, now get me out of here. He goes,
Speaker 8: you got another ten to do it?
Speaker 12: What?
Speaker 8: He hug the phone, uppy. But yeah, that's how he
Speaker 8: put me there.
Speaker 5: How are you doing now? They still working there? The
Speaker 5: neighborhoods changing there too.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I saw it in the tail end of
Speaker 8: my time. I mean it used to be the drug
Speaker 8: dealer walking down Lewis Avenue with a rotwaller. And then
Speaker 8: you started seeing like the couple from Wisconsin. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 5: They love it. I don't understand it. They love it?
Speaker 8: Are you people lost?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 8: We live on mon Road Street. Yeah. But and you know,
Speaker 8: Charlie Williams got rested, so great, great guy he had
Speaker 8: bought a lot of buildings down there. That was another
Speaker 8: unknown guy throughout the job. Charlie Williams, Uh, great fireman.
Speaker 8: Uh Fort Vietnam. Uh yeah, Charlie, Yeah, I remember when
Speaker 8: Desert Storm happened.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 8: Charlie was in the reserve state in reserves and they
Speaker 8: were sending guys over and he got sent to sent
Speaker 8: to Fort Vietnam and he got sent over there. He
Speaker 8: was a mess sergeant. Yeah, for us Carster. So I'm
Speaker 8: driving to work one day and Scott Shannon and w
Speaker 8: P LG Is you know, telling people you can dedicate
Speaker 8: a song. So I get to the firehouse and I
Speaker 8: go to pay for and I start dialing a number
Speaker 8: and I get through. I couldn't believe it. And I
Speaker 8: get Scott channel and you're on a delay. So I said,
Speaker 8: he goes, what you like do? I said, listen, I
Speaker 8: want to dedicate in next swunk with my buddy Charlie Williams.
Speaker 8: He's in New York City, fireman here in bepist lives
Speaker 8: in the last twenty years. Uh. He fought in Vietnam
Speaker 8: sixty seven sixty eight. He's over in the rack right
Speaker 8: now as a cargo master. You know, and I want
Speaker 8: to dedicate it long as Scott Shannon said right on it.
Speaker 8: It wasn't I'm sure in here he goes holy shit,
Speaker 8: and uh yeah, I got to bring in the kitchen.
Speaker 8: It was up and we put it on and they
Speaker 8: mentioned his name. But when Charlie passed away, it was
Speaker 8: he died from who came here for nine to eleven?
Speaker 6: Uh Lieutenant forty one too, I think right.
Speaker 8: You know Charlie he was he was a show for
Speaker 8: one eleven. He's on the back a long time. He
Speaker 8: worked with Conway and Schaeffer. They broke and he went
Speaker 8: through a helmet the year he got on seventy seven
Speaker 8: tough fire. His his father, Willie Jackson, was a fireman
Speaker 8: one eleven.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 8: But Charlie, yeah, glass guy. Just just a great guy,
Speaker 8: A great fireman, a great teacher. You know, they old
Speaker 8: the older guys who are great teachers, you know they
Speaker 8: is the one thing I learned with certain guys, especially
Speaker 8: Tommy Craig, when he told you something, don't tell you
Speaker 8: tell him. I know that, Hey, you do this, Oh,
Speaker 8: I know that. Never say that because they'll never tell
Speaker 8: you again.
Speaker 6: We've had a couple of people say that, Yeah.
Speaker 8: But you know, uh, just you learned a lot from
Speaker 8: these guys. And like you said, Louis, you got to
Speaker 8: practice it. You know what I'm saying. You got to
Speaker 8: put your mouth.
Speaker 5: If you think about your time there, it had to
Speaker 5: be like the perfect.
Speaker 8: Time to be there, right h Like I said, very
Speaker 8: lucky to work there and work with the guys I
Speaker 8: worked with. And let me tell you something. You know,
Speaker 8: guys come and go. You know, you saw guys walk
Speaker 8: in the door theill, you know, and before you know what,
Speaker 8: they were gone. You know, if I it was a
Speaker 8: tough kitchen too, you know, or a tough backyard, you
Speaker 8: had a pretty thick skin. U. But overall all, uh,
Speaker 8: like I said, the senior men, Brendan was wrong. The
Speaker 8: senior men did talk to you, and they showed you
Speaker 8: the way as long as you had an interest. And
Speaker 8: as I said to my ProBiS, uh Chritsiza, I'm working
Speaker 8: with Tommy Burke.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, we forgot about Norton.
Speaker 8: About Norton, Tommy Burke was an amazing fireman. Uh. Tommy
Speaker 8: Burke and Kenny Ross with the two fastest roofman I've
Speaker 8: ever seen in my life. I really think that Burke
Speaker 8: had a cape and float. You know, he could get
Speaker 8: the roof up and do his thing. He's down to
Speaker 8: refresh game and pulling ceilings with the guys right away,
Speaker 8: you know. And uh, and Tommy and I had logs
Speaker 8: next day. But Tommy was always Tommy.
Speaker 5: And uh, well he's perfect in the lighthouse.
Speaker 8: You can write a book about him.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 8: I remember when you worked with Pampalone. I got put
Speaker 8: in the captain's groups. Uh, I'm gonna get into why.
Speaker 8: And uh, Tommy and I worked together, and Tommy would
Speaker 8: always get in trouble and the captain called the stairs
Speaker 8: the ripping when the ass and and then he would
Speaker 8: say something. I'm like, oh, you've got burke, I mean.
Speaker 8: And one day he told me, he said, this is
Speaker 8: the difference when you and Bark. Pamp Alone he's dead now.
Speaker 8: He says. Bark is like a knife one. It's like
Speaker 8: him sticking a knife in me. And the cane is temporary.
Speaker 8: He says, you are like a boil on my fucking collar,
Speaker 8: and you're just irritated all the time. And so Tommy
Speaker 8: and I Tommy to take me with uh. So one
Speaker 8: day we catch a job Tommy's went we called a
Speaker 8: job we go down a winners back eight and you know,
Speaker 8: Tommy and I were in the backyard drilling like he
Speaker 8: always do, you know. And uh we get there and
Speaker 8: we're liked their truck and really didn't have to do much.
Speaker 8: So we're hanging out and the aid comes over me.
Speaker 8: He said, BA, the chief wants to talk to you.
Speaker 8: I'm like, oh, shure. So I learned about social distancing
Speaker 8: way before. So it's George Isa. So I worked with him.
Speaker 8: You got a number, the three three offices in one twelve.
Speaker 8: I mean once when he four three lieutenants, Pete, Nancy,
Speaker 8: George Isa, and Jim Elson had three sons went to
Speaker 8: one eleven. So I walked up and said, yeah, what's up, Chief,
Speaker 8: And he goes, what's the ba. He goes, my son's
Speaker 8: a probably school. Oh great, he goes, uh, he's getting out.
Speaker 8: I'm putting them on eleven and you're going to break
Speaker 8: him in. I said, okay, Chief, anything else and he
Speaker 8: goes yeah, And I turned on Tommy. He said, let's
Speaker 8: make let's make like sheep and get the flock out
Speaker 8: of here. And the kid came there. He went to
Speaker 8: his first day. He caught a really good job and
Speaker 8: he did a great job. Somebody just said a thing
Speaker 8: about to mention two people. One was Bob Daily.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, and Danny Danny.
Speaker 8: Uh you talk about from eleven time you talk about
Speaker 8: a man that has no fear, Danny Perella, I mean
Speaker 8: absolutely no fear. When he would drive, I mean, great chauffeur.
Speaker 8: When we were coming back down by I don't know
Speaker 8: if you remember Louie, but you gotta to go to
Speaker 8: Louis Avenue. You gotta cut in under the L and
Speaker 8: then make time. He would make copeful speed you you know,
Speaker 8: when we were outside. Uh Bob Daily, which I wanted
Speaker 8: to mention another guy outside of the area, nobody would know.
Speaker 8: Bob Daily was one of the best toughest ov men
Speaker 8: I had ever seen in my life. Uh. Bob Daily
Speaker 8: started in one O three, two ten years, in one
Speaker 8: O three, two ten years and one seventy six, Wow,
Speaker 8: ten years and one eleven on the back step.
Speaker 5: Uh Bubba, he's still around.
Speaker 8: He passed away a couple of years ago.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: I learned a lot with him, So I always tell
Speaker 8: the story. One night, Wow, we were sitting there and uh,
Speaker 8: I'm like, hey, Buffalo were still in Buffalo, I said,
Speaker 8: man you know what are you gonna do?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 8: How much he was sitting to watch, you know, uh Ga,
Speaker 8: they got strong. You know what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 8: I want you want, b A. I'm never gonna leave
Speaker 8: this job. Never. Well, we go to job on Bainbridge
Speaker 8: Street that night, uh or we have. I came and
Speaker 8: it was horrible, a really tough job I had. I
Speaker 8: had to camp Ruddie Richard at the Auions and Bubba
Speaker 8: had to go on the time. I remember we pulled
Speaker 8: up and the stuff's coming. The stuff was coming out
Speaker 8: of the top floor windows so bad. Not only did
Speaker 8: the edges on it. I always said it had to
Speaker 8: word Anderson backwards in the smoke's help and he's on
Speaker 8: his way up in the bucket. You know, we're we're
Speaker 8: forced to do with no mask and I'm telling you,
Speaker 8: I tell guys, it comes out even with the word
Speaker 8: Anderson backwards. And he went in that ship so and
Speaker 8: it was a screw up fire. We had a tough
Speaker 8: time with the guy to do that. And after the
Speaker 8: fire was out, we go back to quarters and he's
Speaker 8: sitting there in the kitchen and he's coughing and he says,
Speaker 8: b A, I'm done, and two weeks later he put
Speaker 8: his paper in really so oh yeah, so it was
Speaker 8: his last tour. Was New Year's Eve came out? What
Speaker 8: year was I was dating my wife at the time. Now,
Speaker 8: but I was dating my wife and we'd gone after
Speaker 8: New Year's Eve and I said, we weren't dating that long.
Speaker 8: And I said, listen, we have to go into the
Speaker 8: fire ass tonight, so you can come or out. She goes, why,
Speaker 8: I said, well, a very good friend of mine was
Speaker 8: retiring and I wanted to see him. So I went
Speaker 8: in to the fire ass and she came to see
Speaker 8: Bubba and gave a bottle of the Cardi doc rum,
Speaker 8: which he loved and to you know, push him lots
Speaker 8: of luck. And I loved him. And yeah, he passed
Speaker 8: away a couple of years ago. But another one of
Speaker 8: those guys nobody outside of the outside of the borrow,
Speaker 8: let's say, or outside of the mission. I didn't know
Speaker 8: his name.
Speaker 5: You imagine how many times tonight you've said.
Speaker 7: Incredible officer of tremendous fireman, Like how many if I
Speaker 7: had a nickel right.
Speaker 8: Like, I'll tell you what I mean. I was surrounded
Speaker 8: by great guys, you know, you know listen, ninety five
Speaker 8: percent of the guys on his job do their job,
Speaker 8: you know, five percent. I'm not going to get into it,
Speaker 8: but ninety five percent of the guys in his job
Speaker 8: they give their heart and souls into it. They love
Speaker 8: the job. Yeah, I always just I used to say,
Speaker 8: it's a couple of things the city hates about fireman.
Speaker 8: Number one, it's the only job in the city where
Speaker 8: you can actually get paid to sleep, you know, not
Speaker 8: that they do. Uh you o? The do is they
Speaker 8: they realize, well, the guys worked the second job, you know,
Speaker 8: and the third thing years your friends with your boss.
Speaker 8: You know, they don't like that, you know.
Speaker 6: The captain.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm having a barbecue in my house, but I
Speaker 8: don't like that.
Speaker 5: Didn't do that.
Speaker 4: Stop.
Speaker 6: They worked, and they're like.
Speaker 8: Their bosses suck, you know. So but yeah, I mean
Speaker 8: to work with the guys I worked with.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: It's just, uh, do I owe my life? Did they
Speaker 8: keep me alive when I was young? You know? Uh,
Speaker 8: they looked over you and they taught you the way.
Speaker 8: And you know, Eddie Stephan's passing the other day was tough.
Speaker 8: Going to Captain Rubies.
Speaker 5: I knew Steve when I.
Speaker 8: Was twenty two. Ste Steve Steve I broke Steve Gaertty
Speaker 8: into one eleven and he went to my group's great
Speaker 8: got knew his ship. His brother Eddie was one of
Speaker 8: my best friends and heart to uh and uh that's
Speaker 8: why I want to go on hard to you know,
Speaker 8: work with Eddie. And when Steven came back to my captain. Uh,
Speaker 8: probably I've had good captains, h I always said Steve Garertty,
Speaker 8: which probably the next best captain I had since Tom Brenan. Wow.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, Stephen. Funny story with Stephen. So his last
Speaker 8: night as a captain, he caught a job on Folk
Speaker 8: Street and uh, which leads him to other stuff. So
Speaker 8: he's getting made. He got made, but you know it
Speaker 8: takes effect. I guess what on the whatever. So he
Speaker 8: caught a job on Full Street, good fire. I had
Speaker 8: the lions, so we do the thing. So because he
Speaker 8: grubs a cigarette off me, because I have a picturemoke,
Speaker 8: I was sitting there smoking. So I turned around, look
Speaker 8: at my watch, and I go, well, cap had nine
Speaker 8: hundred dollars. You become an asshole. Who's standing right next
Speaker 8: to me? By me? Dave Jacobowski, you.
Speaker 5: Know he was coming in right after him, right. Oh.
Speaker 8: Him and I did not get along, which is ironic
Speaker 8: what happens. So I said, you become an asshole. So
Speaker 8: he said what I said, We're gonna be a chief
Speaker 8: most assholes. So Jackabowski comes around. He goes, hey, ba,
Speaker 8: you call me an asshole. I look him right hereys,
Speaker 8: I go, well you're a fucking chief, right. He goes yeah.
Speaker 8: I said, well you're a fucking asshole too, and I
Speaker 8: walk away. Ardy says to me, He goes, I can't
Speaker 8: believe I four hours left and I'm gonna have to
Speaker 8: hook you up.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 8: The strange thing is when I went to the division
Speaker 8: light duty, and believe me, I got hurt March ninth
Speaker 8: of two thousand. I was at a job December seventeenth,
Speaker 8: in two thousand and seven, almost not just none than
Speaker 8: nine months. How how quick do you see guys get
Speaker 8: out that quick? So when I I was a medically
Speaker 8: for four months, I was pretty busted up. So they
Speaker 8: go like duty and I never had to go downtown.
Speaker 8: So Danny Butler, vision man, who Danny will come? He
Speaker 8: wanted me to come to the fifteenth Division. They wanted
Speaker 8: to see you guy, you know, to drive right to
Speaker 8: light do the job. So I went to fifteenth division.
Speaker 8: But that oh Wayne Cott, great guy. It was Wayne Cott, right,
Speaker 8: Danny Butler, Dave Jacobowski and Mike uh oh kid his
Speaker 8: kid was in one eleven four. Mike, it'll come to me.
Speaker 8: So they go to the fifteenth division. So Butler says,
Speaker 8: you're gonna be driving Jackobowski, I said, chief him and
Speaker 8: I do not get along. What do you mean he
Speaker 8: wants you to drive? Well, I said him, and I
Speaker 8: don't get along, I said, I called him an asshole,
Speaker 8: little fire. Once he goes well, he wants you to
Speaker 8: drive him, okay, whatever. So the first Tory work comes
Speaker 8: in working, you know you work twenty four was there
Speaker 8: and takes me to lunch, and uh we hit it
Speaker 8: off really well.
Speaker 5: I swear I tell you the truth. Nobody would believe
Speaker 5: it because he was just so weird or tough at
Speaker 5: the job.
Speaker 8: Louis, he was all in act.
Speaker 5: He was an actor.
Speaker 8: I know it. And the way you got them is
Speaker 8: go right back at him. One day you off for
Speaker 8: smoking and you weren't allowed to smoke, and your offers
Speaker 8: and he says to me, BA, what's our smoking policy
Speaker 8: up there? I said, the policy is with my time
Speaker 8: and the job, I need to do whatever the fuck
Speaker 8: I want. Listen, I went. I went to the division
Speaker 8: with twenty four hours of over time, and he was
Speaker 8: a drudgery over time and he was strict. I went
Speaker 8: out with four and seventy five months later for great
Speaker 8: care of me.
Speaker 6: Hit the brother up.
Speaker 8: He did, they did. They were great chiefs over there.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna tell you this one sort of a division.
Speaker 8: I might get choked up there. Ah So, my last night,
Speaker 8: my last night I was working, was the Thursday. It
Speaker 8: was it was a Thursday. I think it was around
Speaker 8: the fifteenth whatever. So, and the guys in two eighty
Speaker 8: three were tremendous, great guys. Uh Tommy Boyd, Tommy Boyd,
Speaker 8: who was the senior man. We got when I left,
Speaker 8: I got a note my locker was a letter from
Speaker 8: Tommy Boyd saying how I helped the younger. Just a
Speaker 8: great letter. I still have it somewhere. Uh So, Anyway,
Speaker 8: my last tour bringing me all in, you know, steaks,
Speaker 8: lots of tales, h Jacko's working, Wayne and Danny and
Speaker 8: Mike all coming from home. All three deputies come in
Speaker 8: from home for my last door and which to me
Speaker 8: was unbelievable. So cooking doing the thing, and we're just
Speaker 8: about to eat and voice lum comes out and says
Speaker 8: engine engine two, Wait three, Division one to five, and
Speaker 8: I'm like, you gotta be shipping. You've got to run here,
Speaker 8: and they say, stand by for a department message. Then
Speaker 8: they come back. All units in the bar of Brooklyn
Speaker 8: stand by for a department message. And they came on
Speaker 8: and the CEO UH congratulated me on my last tour
Speaker 8: in the FDNY. I congratulated and said, you know my career,
Speaker 8: you know, one to eleven and I had to acknowledge it.
Speaker 8: They said, you know, acknowledge and I was choked up
Speaker 8: when I got wilam. So that was it. So we
Speaker 8: had a meal, it was good night. We caught a
Speaker 8: little job.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 8: I can probably mention this now because I'm out of
Speaker 8: the job. So go to job at two thirty four,
Speaker 8: a little ship thing we're process of taking up in
Speaker 8: the Captain two thirty four whence mentioned his name, but
Speaker 8: you know it is, and he's out on the stoop
Speaker 8: and I'm walking by and he says, hey, cap When
Speaker 8: he goes, yeah, here you go. You know it's amazing
Speaker 8: all the years I've been down there, and you're still
Speaker 8: want to fucking stoop you don't go in the building,
Speaker 8: and and you know what it is. And yeah, Jacko
Speaker 8: turns around and looks at me. He goes, are you
Speaker 8: out of your fucking mind? I got twelve hours left.
Speaker 8: They can't get the charges in, so.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 8: So we couldn't. So about two o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 8: we get a run down by Flatbush and we're on
Speaker 8: our way in and we're a couple of blocks away
Speaker 8: and we any talking rate. They can't find the fire,
Speaker 8: have a lot of problems running out of the air
Speaker 8: all shit. Good companies, you know. So on the way in,
Speaker 8: he says to me, listen, uh he he would use him,
Speaker 8: let the battalion run the fire. But he's I'm out
Speaker 8: of Joe Callon Junior. I worked with his dad when
Speaker 8: he is he was the chief, great guy. But you
Speaker 8: know he was gonna help Joe. He says, do what
Speaker 8: you gotta do, all right, So we get there. I
Speaker 8: go out of the car. I got my helmet boarding.
Speaker 8: I go over there. It's a semi attached private dwelve
Speaker 8: and fives in the first one, but you can't find it.
Speaker 8: So I tell the aid take it. I go to
Speaker 8: the rear. There's nobody in the rear. I'm in the
Speaker 8: rear with a clipboard in the helmet and the window.
Speaker 8: I hit it with my helmet. And then now so
Speaker 8: I'm going out. The deputy's coming to the rear. Dave.
Speaker 8: I go, Dave. They got a piece of cake. He goes,
Speaker 8: transmit a second. All right, so we transmit a second.
Speaker 8: That's it. They put the fire out. Do the great job.
Speaker 8: So I'm getting ready to make We're gonna take up.
Speaker 8: So I get on the radio, get my final you know,
Speaker 8: had second limbox one say whatever uh in the process,
Speaker 8: let rescue two go and that, and I said, also, Brooklyn,
Speaker 8: I just want you to be advised. I just want
Speaker 8: to tell the brook And as I have the Pumber radio,
Speaker 8: I just want to thank the Brook brook And for
Speaker 8: that tremendous tribute. Give me a voice long. I love
Speaker 8: this job. It's the greatest job in the world. I
Speaker 8: will miss it tremendously. And they say there's life f
Speaker 8: T F T N Y, but mine will never be
Speaker 8: the same. Division one, five ten commander, And that was it.
Speaker 6: That was the end of my career and fabulous career
Speaker 6: it was.
Speaker 8: I got a lot of calls about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, Well you get to teach, you get
Speaker 6: to teach one more time, all right, Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 6: all got a minute. We got to set you up.
Speaker 6: You know what time it is gone?
Speaker 4: No, I don't miss I do. Hold on one second.
Speaker 4: I got a little caught up here. Wait we went
Speaker 4: way to hell too long?
Speaker 5: But you know who cant. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 6: I'm just playing around.
Speaker 8: Ray Strong used to say, you know, b knows a
Speaker 8: lot of ship, but you've got to listen to him
Speaker 8: for another hour. Day in one eleven job on Bedford Atlantic,
Speaker 8: really bad fire and we're going down the block and
Speaker 8: I turned around the Ray and go walcome the beakmastives and.
Speaker 4: Somebody was asking if you work with him?
Speaker 6: So yeah, it's this time.
Speaker 4: All right, it's time for.
Speaker 6: The old school tip.
Speaker 8: Kay, okay, here you.
Speaker 4: Go, brother, bring me bring it right in.
Speaker 8: I will.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: What I taught my Proby's was remember and I don't
Speaker 8: get Bill and got the rest of He always said
Speaker 8: the whole job eventually will be mass coordinated. So I said,
Speaker 8: tell me, probs, God forbid if your mask runs out
Speaker 8: of air and you're in a bad spot, Cruel to
Speaker 8: the wall. Get your nose on the floor where the
Speaker 8: wall meets the floor, and they'll be aired there for
Speaker 8: you to breathe. It will be great because smoke rolls,
Speaker 8: it doesn't go square, and you'll be able to get
Speaker 8: enough air to keep crowing to the next window and
Speaker 8: then take the fucking window. So that's my tip of
Speaker 8: the day.
Speaker 5: Wow, I never heard that.
Speaker 8: Nobody ever heard that because I made it up. I heard.
Speaker 8: I kind of taught myself, but I taught my my
Speaker 8: probies that. And you know, you hear guys dying with
Speaker 8: masks on. I mean, I think if it says one
Speaker 8: guy's ass, it's weird.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, I gotta tell you, mister Austin, it was worth
Speaker 6: the wait. You are fine and fine, and.
Speaker 8: We waited. You know, I was about my career there
Speaker 8: for a while, and uh things are quiet and I
Speaker 8: just had the cancer and doing better though. But uh,
Speaker 8: Pat leaves like the flobblets. Yeah, but gentlemen, it was
Speaker 8: a pleasure. I appreciate you putting him on the show.
Speaker 8: I think you guys are doing a great job. Uh well,
Speaker 8: I do remember working with you many years ago. Kevin
Speaker 8: unfortunately never got a chance to work you. But if
Speaker 8: you were not squad And remember what the squad is,
Speaker 8: right you know what squad is right there, it comes
Speaker 8: an engine with a fucking root for rop. That's thank
Speaker 8: you very much. And I'll tell you quick, Vine and
Speaker 8: Garo what happened. They were him in a truck. He
Speaker 8: was supposed to get one seventy six. He came to
Speaker 8: fires one day all pissed off. I said, call Murph
Speaker 8: and Urt's going to be the catin two eighty eight.
Speaker 8: And that's how you got Vinnie was a great fireman.
Speaker 6: Great great old had great hair, too, good hair.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but the Duke used to blow smoke.
Speaker 6: Tang him. He's a good wrestler.
Speaker 5: He was a good grappler. Adam photographer. He always pictures all.
Speaker 8: Those guys, you know, Hancock Street. You know I can
Speaker 8: get into Mark Gregory.
Speaker 6: We didn't even talk about it watching it before.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, stand by.
Speaker 6: We got to get through a couple of things and
Speaker 6: then we'll get back to it.
Speaker 5: I want to go first. I gotta shout out you.
Speaker 7: I want to mention uh, Deputy Chief the third Division Commander,
Speaker 7: Joe Causton, Chief call, but.
Speaker 5: He had a stroke. I think he's doing a little
Speaker 5: bit better. But he's he's fighting. He's got a lot
Speaker 5: of rehab ahead.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, he was.
Speaker 5: He came on the boat ride with us. He follows
Speaker 5: the show, he loves he loves.
Speaker 8: Him to watch the show more often. I don't really
Speaker 8: do it.
Speaker 6: Chief, All right, gods, we got two shout outs?
Speaker 4: Right, we have three. Well we'll start with uh.
Speaker 6: Yes, from one fifty nine. The guy reaches out to
Speaker 6: be the Actually he's working covering in twenty seven tonight.
Speaker 6: They're all watching it. It's a Jeff Warmer seven. He's
Speaker 6: twenty seventh tonight. Remind you about retired five fighter Rob
Speaker 6: o'corn from Taolada. One fifty eight. What do you donate to?
Speaker 6: Where is wiscons can you.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a QR code. You're gonna have to
Speaker 4: scan the QR code.
Speaker 6: I will put it in. We'll put it in the
Speaker 6: in the description, right, we can put the q code.
Speaker 6: It's tickets just to help. But it's a fundraiser. He
Speaker 6: has pancre out of cancer, I believe man. So let's
Speaker 6: show some supportive fifty to fifty riffles and prizes. Uh
Speaker 6: that thirty thirty two thirty two wir Old Avenue, mon Tony,
Speaker 6: York on May fifteenth, six thirty to ten thirty. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so let's try to get out there and support.
Speaker 4: I pull it up after the show and then we
Speaker 4: have uh a lot of duty death from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: Let me pull his picture up. We'll say if you
Speaker 4: want to do the bells at the end, because.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we'll do up five.
Speaker 4: All right, this is Local six. Oh has announce something
Speaker 4: I wanted to do. The esophageal cancer Jesus Lt. Kelly
Speaker 4: Hoppy Hopkins is his name. He actually knows they know
Speaker 4: him as the battalion chief had passed away from Scranton, FD. No,
Speaker 4: you have your friend right, this is Scranton and uh
Speaker 4: for those of us that haven't heard, I do have
Speaker 4: a short little video that I don't know if you
Speaker 4: want to do it after the bells that.
Speaker 6: We'll do the bells last. You could throw it up ahead.
Speaker 4: It's only gonna be about a minute when I show up.
Speaker 4: But for those that haven't heard, Captain Bill Gustin from
Speaker 4: Miami Dade Fire passed away on Sunday, has the picture
Speaker 4: of the good old cap well known He's kind of
Speaker 4: like our comparable to a Vinnie Donner. The FDU y
Speaker 4: well known. He knows them, and one of the video
Speaker 4: will explain a lot too when I show you a
Speaker 4: little video for those that don't know him. This guy's
Speaker 4: a wealth of knowledge, a lot of stuff, fire engineering,
Speaker 4: so on and so forth. But he's gonna be missed.
Speaker 4: I do have permission from the Miami Date Fire Department
Speaker 4: to share this video because it is their video. Go ahead,
Speaker 4: So I'm just gonna play about a minute of them.
Speaker 4: When you see who it is, this gentleman was on
Speaker 4: our show once before, who also had recently passed away.
Speaker 4: Just listen to the kind word she says.
Speaker 8: Before I begin.
Speaker 12: There's two things comment on a I've never seen Bill
Speaker 12: so quiet. I've never seen him so closely shaved. In
Speaker 12: May of nineteen sixty two, then General of the Army
Speaker 12: Douglas MacArthur said the following.
Speaker 5: Duty honor country.
Speaker 12: These three hallowed words reverently dictate.
Speaker 4: What you ought to be, what you can be, and
Speaker 4: what you will be.
Speaker 12: It has been said that a vision is an acute
Speaker 12: sense of the possible. Today we have an opportunity to
Speaker 12: honor a man who not only had an acute sense
Speaker 12: a vision of what was possible, but became and shared
Speaker 12: that vision with literally hundreds of thousands of firefighters.
Speaker 4: I'll leave it at that, no way. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: a little bit longer. But as you guys know, we
Speaker 4: had Bobby Holton on the show, Chief Holding on the show,
Speaker 4: Big fd icy guy, and so this it's kind of
Speaker 4: a unique that two legendary guys kind of commencing there
Speaker 4: not too long ago.
Speaker 8: Guys, I tell young guys sometimes they go, you know,
Speaker 8: it's the greatest job in the world. You're gonna spend
Speaker 8: twenty thirty forty years on his job. Don't expect to
Speaker 8: make it to ninety.
Speaker 6: How it is, there's somebody else in the chat that
Speaker 6: was a line of due.
Speaker 8: Other thing I talked about too, is that when I
Speaker 8: got a job, we were firemen, not firefighters.
Speaker 5: There's another great.
Speaker 4: Don't forget Eddie Stevens, which we mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 4: of the show.
Speaker 6: Okay, that was that was actually okay, we're gonna give
Speaker 6: them the five bells now for all the brothers who've
Speaker 6: died in the line of duty. Rest in peace, brothers,
Speaker 6: Rest in peace, brothers.
Speaker 5: We got it from here.
Speaker 6: Don's lasting. Louis and I, we have to show us
Speaker 6: up there again the fifty third. Louis and I will
Speaker 6: be at Harrisburg for the fifty third annual Fire Expo,
Speaker 6: hosted by Lancaster County Fireman's Association. Fire Expo will showcase
Speaker 6: more than two hundred and fifty emergency service exhibits, featuring
Speaker 6: the world's leading manufacturer of fire, emergency, medical, service, rescue
Speaker 6: and public safety equipment. Plus you're truly getting salty hawkins
Speaker 6: and T shirts. You know how we do it. The
Speaker 6: Fire Expo not only has displays, exhibits, and live demonstrations,
Speaker 6: but also provides training from Cumberland Valley volunteers also provide
Speaker 6: let's just skip to this the Association penn State Hershey Lifeline,
Speaker 6: Critical Care Transport, Middle Creek Search and Rescue, PA Offices
Speaker 6: of State Fire Command. Full training descriptions and details available
Speaker 6: on our website Www. LCFA dot com. Backslash firesh Expo
Speaker 6: May sixteenth, seventeenth, nine am five and then nine am
Speaker 6: to four at the Pennsylvania Farm Showing Complex. So come
Speaker 6: down and see me. Louis twenty three hundred North Cameron
Speaker 6: Street and Harrisburg, PA. Come on down and see us.
Speaker 6: We'll be there along with those other ex exhibits. And
Speaker 6: one last thing. Captain Dennis Murphy's son just got over
Speaker 6: the squad two eighty eight.
Speaker 8: I heard about it.
Speaker 6: He already already caught a couple of good jobs.
Speaker 4: So how do he gets over?
Speaker 6: How he got there?
Speaker 8: If you know, Dennis doesn't get involved that the kid
Speaker 8: went over there on merit. I like it they went
Speaker 8: over there merit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to thank you again, mister Austin. It
Speaker 6: was worth the wait, your fire and fineman I love it.
Speaker 6: So I don't know, but I think your hell too.
Speaker 8: I always told people, Uh, I just went to work
Speaker 8: and did my job. You know, Uh, the ft m
Speaker 8: Y is not a job, it's a way of life.
Speaker 6: There's another T shirt this man.
Speaker 4: You better write that ship down.
Speaker 6: You got a lot of T shirt ideas. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna go back.
Speaker 8: It's been a real pleasure and privilege to finally get
Speaker 8: ahold of you guys and talk to him. I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much. Well, thank you. We'll see you.
Speaker 6: We'll see you on a boat ride. Now we have
Speaker 6: a boat ride.
Speaker 5: You love that.
Speaker 6: It's on the hobby the hobby fire friend.
Speaker 8: You have to John your hobbyist, right, it's privately owned
Speaker 8: that the owner.
Speaker 6: And we go around the Statue of Liberty and around
Speaker 6: Manhattan drink off, faces off, eat off, faces off. We
Speaker 6: have all the guests from the past year. Come on,
Speaker 6: so now you gotta you have my number now, keV.
Speaker 6: Second week of August, always second weekend, so I'll send
Speaker 6: it to you. I have your email. We'll send it.
Speaker 6: The invitations go out like in May June.
Speaker 8: I bring the spouse or well the girlfriend, whatever you prefer. Brother,
Speaker 8: we'll see if I'm still witter. You never know.
Speaker 5: We got this to make shoes.
Speaker 8: Louis great sitting you again after all these years. Remember
Speaker 8: working with you over.
Speaker 5: There, and that's coming back to him.
Speaker 8: Guys, I played in the hockey team for them from
Speaker 8: you know, so you know Dickley leads, Russ Banks and
Speaker 8: oh god, Joe Koopro got the rest of the soul,
Speaker 8: Timmy Connell, all the good guys over there. You know.
Speaker 8: Hundred three was always two nights on three. They used
Speaker 8: to get a little bit of rap once a while,
Speaker 8: but they're very very.
Speaker 6: Good company, objective, all right, boys, So we'll see you
Speaker 6: next week, Bobby Steady, don't don't click you out. We're
Speaker 6: gonna sign off here. Roofie guns.
Speaker 8: You know what I say, Man, you don't want one
Speaker 8: to rest first.
Speaker 6: Baby three, two, multiple phone calls.
Speaker 5: Sounds like a job. How about that? Everybody? Thanks again, Bob.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, I was gonna say roll heavy, no problem,
Speaker 4: they're Bobby, but I was gonna say rolling heavy. But
Speaker 4: we're gonna roll a little like tonight in honor of.
Speaker 5: Captain Bill Gustin.
Speaker 4: So absolutely God bless everyone and have a great night
Speaker 4: you
Speaker 8: Too, gentlemen again mm hmm