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: We're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello, I am not as loud. I'm let's go. Hello,
Speaker 1: my pipes cannot reach the same volume.
Speaker 3: But little sweets welcome, No, Welcome to.
Speaker 1: The episode two hundred and thirty nine of the Getting
Speaker 1: Salty Experience. Unfortunately, Kevin is not feeling too well today.
Speaker 1: His voice gave out it on him, so he tapped
Speaker 1: me to substitute to host tonight. And I'm know Kevin Coobler,
Speaker 1: but I'll do my best. We got a great show
Speaker 1: on tap and it's always along for the ride. Luba,
Speaker 1: Ferando and Gonzo on the ones and too even gentlemen,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 4: It's a Mikey kid. You're ready to go? You get
Speaker 4: the suit on. I like it, yeah, always like. We
Speaker 4: actually had uh, we had our show in Long Island,
Speaker 4: Long Island Expo and uh, it's three days We've met
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of good people out there.
Speaker 4: But you know, you're doing a lot of talking and
Speaker 4: a lot of pictures and a lot of smooth Maybe
Speaker 4: Coob's signed a lot of stuff, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: He likes that stuff. But uh, yesterday he could barely talk,
Speaker 4: like legitly he could not talk. And then uh, this
Speaker 4: morning he I talked to him this this afternoon and
Speaker 4: he's like, I don't I don't think, you know, like
Speaker 4: he's horrible. So I'm like, yeah, we've talked to Mike,
Speaker 4: Michael zip right in there. It's better looking anyway. It's
Speaker 4: better to look at him right guns. It's like we've
Speaker 4: got to look at that crooked nosed all time and
Speaker 4: everything on Coobler.
Speaker 3: It's not good because he's not He's like right up
Speaker 3: in the camera.
Speaker 4: You know, he's always got like the medium shirt on,
Speaker 4: Like I want to see it, you know, I want
Speaker 4: to see it. It's nice.
Speaker 3: He's probably was right now.
Speaker 4: Surprise it's coming in. There's no doubt he's watching.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got to pop up in the chat.
Speaker 3: You know, show his face on the show.
Speaker 1: He might he might, but feel better, my friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't feel better. We're good. I'm just kidding. I
Speaker 3: love you.
Speaker 4: See inside voice again. Gun, it's nice.
Speaker 3: Stay away from the light, little buddy. We just give
Speaker 3: it to him now.
Speaker 4: Where we're at.
Speaker 3: So what we got? All right?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Anything else exciting the show this weekend?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, who was there? I mean everybody was there.
Speaker 4: Ron Zo he was there. It was true, Daddy Ray
Speaker 4: was there. I mean everybody was there was Mikey Milana
Speaker 4: was there. It was a lot of fun guys hanging out,
Speaker 4: partaking as they might say, perhaps could happened. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a good time. It was good. Good a lot
Speaker 4: of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, huh, I was this close. I wanted to make
Speaker 3: it up there, but maybe not, maybe next time.
Speaker 4: Maybe I saw some guys from a lot of f
Speaker 4: d y guys just uh our volunteers on Long Island
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, so they don't make their way
Speaker 4: to the shows. There's some classes going on if you
Speaker 4: guys are teaching. So it was good.
Speaker 3: M m, well, she goes. We had a good time.
Speaker 3: You guys had a good time.
Speaker 1: Really had it worked out like you did?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, we went to dinner with Vince from Arbor Tough.
Speaker 3: Oh did did he come off yeah, all right, you
Speaker 3: like the new commercials? Are you happy with it?
Speaker 4: I told we got to cut it down in half.
Speaker 4: I'm like, how did you send it a minute? Commercially?
Speaker 4: Like the price is going up, That's what I told him.
Speaker 1: Oh, Breck is going up.
Speaker 3: To tell the tariff.
Speaker 4: I say another thing on the tariff.
Speaker 3: My god, please Christ that it's changed. But anyway, yeah, yeah, change,
Speaker 3: come on man, So whatever anyway, Sorry, So you want
Speaker 3: to martials, we got, Well, we have FOC and we
Speaker 3: have Armor Tough. Which one do you want to do first?
Speaker 4: A Tough first, and then well we'll do the UH
Speaker 4: one after that.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's speaking events here we go.
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Speaker 4: I forgot to mention missus Procaccini's husband, was that too, Hi.
Speaker 3: Rob, he's hitting me up. I'm trying it, but I'm
Speaker 3: trying to keep it tight. I almost went, no, jail,
Speaker 3: I almost changed everything. But that white head ahead, I
Speaker 3: mean that's really white. It's changing. Yeah. So anyway, uh,
Speaker 3: all right, here we go, you guys ready for the
Speaker 3: new next one? Ye? All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for
Speaker 1: profit organization dedicated to protecting their 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
Speaker 1: responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen
Speaker 1: Firefighter Foundations. Okay, I have been tasked with the health
Speaker 1: and safety tip tonight. Obviously not a firefighter, so not
Speaker 1: my place to give that sort of advice. That it's
Speaker 1: a little bit different. If we can pull up the photo,
Speaker 1: please absolutely, this is something that it's not necessarily exclusively
Speaker 1: related to firefighting when it applies to us all, no
Speaker 1: matter what profession you're involved in. So yep, this is firefighter.
Speaker 1: Thomas Dunn retired. He worked an engine two thirty four,
Speaker 1: and I have the following sad information from Chief Fincent Dunn,
Speaker 1: of whom was Thomas Dunn's uncle. That quote, My nephew,
Speaker 1: Thomas Dunn, Engine two thirty four survived both tower collapses
Speaker 1: on nine to eleven, spent months down in the pile
Speaker 1: searching for victims. Since then suffered years with asp but
Speaker 1: breathing problems and recurring scalp infections caused by fumes and
Speaker 1: soot of the smoldering pile rubble. He took his own
Speaker 1: life yesterday at three pm, a gunshot to his head.
Speaker 1: Never forget end quote from Chief done. First of all,
Speaker 1: our condolence is the Dune family on this terrible loss.
Speaker 1: And secondly, mental health, mental health, and yes, mental health.
Speaker 1: We all have our struggles, we all have our burdens,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's easier said than done to share them.
Speaker 1: But in today's day and age, where there's more of
Speaker 1: a spotlight on this sort of a thing, it's important
Speaker 1: to share it. We can't shoulder our load alone. We
Speaker 1: all need one another.
Speaker 4: Well done, Michael, Well done, Michael. So when I saw that,
Speaker 4: I saw that today somebody had posted it up early,
Speaker 4: and my first thought was, Holy Michael, that guy's really
Speaker 4: young to have, you know, sticking cancer or something, because
Speaker 4: it said nine to eleven. Then when Chief Done posted
Speaker 4: on the fan page that you know, he had committed suicide,
Speaker 4: then it was just like, holy Michael. And you know,
Speaker 4: we talk about that pretty much almost every show, when
Speaker 4: you know, whenever we do that commercial, uh, I mean,
Speaker 4: Coops is really that's his thing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: he talks about that all the time. And yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: I guess you know, he felt like he was.
Speaker 3: At the end of the rope, the taugh job to
Speaker 3: keep the conversation going and letting everybody know that it's
Speaker 3: okay to uh to. I mean, I hate it's almos
Speaker 3: sounds getting very uh common. Yeah, to be okay, but
Speaker 3: you know, it's the outreach that we have and I
Speaker 3: was just going to get closer to home for for
Speaker 3: some of us. But don't be afraid. You out to
Speaker 3: have the conversation, even if it's a work colleague, my friend,
Speaker 3: it helps me and I did the same thing, so
Speaker 3: it helped me.
Speaker 1: We all suffer. What we don't want to do is
Speaker 1: suffer in silence.
Speaker 3: That's right. So all right, let's got har all right,
Speaker 3: So already guns, I am one hundred percent, I think,
Speaker 3: And he's ready sitting there patiently waiting.
Speaker 4: He's like he sleeping.
Speaker 3: Now he's get ready and come on, I can see
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 4: All right, coming to the stage author and f d
Speaker 4: n Y Captain Andy Sarah. Guys, say that, fella, thanks
Speaker 4: for having me. You weren't sleeping back there. Maybe you
Speaker 4: were reading a couple of them books you got back there.
Speaker 5: Hold, he's not a confirmed and I dozing off now,
Speaker 5: yeah we got here for a second, I was yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I got you. It was terrible news. You know, I
Speaker 5: agree with you. When I saw I'd say it was
Speaker 5: very shocking and sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: I mean it's almost every day there's some type of funeral.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, and you get the messages, right,
Speaker 4: you get the ufo A sends emails every day. There's
Speaker 4: one or two related to nine to eleven or something else.
Speaker 5: Never a week goes by without one, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh no, it seems like it's all the time.
Speaker 3: That's the sad fact, as everywhere you turned becoming very customer.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, gons I got ship to do. Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think we all Oh yeah, you
Speaker 3: mean lying not to make a joke out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, listen, absolutely absolutely, So before we get into
Speaker 1: your career, cap and of course we'll go, oh.
Speaker 4: Let's get patriotic, Coobs.
Speaker 2: Yes, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
Speaker 2: States of America and to the Republic, for which it
Speaker 2: stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice
Speaker 2: for all.
Speaker 1: I'll just forgetting about that now, Coops Colone tonight. Before
Speaker 1: we get into anything involving your career, first take me
Speaker 1: through and this is a two pronged question. A where
Speaker 1: you grew up and B did you have any inclinations
Speaker 1: early on? You wanted to go into simplicervice.
Speaker 5: Well, I grew up on Stein Island, and you know,
Speaker 5: my dad was a truck drivers. You know, I grew
Speaker 5: up going on the truck with him. You know, it's
Speaker 5: all I wanted to do, is kid, I think being
Speaker 5: the truck with my dad, you know, But my mom's
Speaker 5: father was a firefighter. He retired when I was very young,
Speaker 5: when we retired, but my mom always talked finally of
Speaker 5: you know, her dad being a fireman and with the
Speaker 5: fire department, and it was really her keeping on top
Speaker 5: of me and my brothers. You know. She was very
Speaker 5: use accepting whatever we wanted to do in life, she
Speaker 5: would have supported. But she had one rule. You have
Speaker 5: to take the tests. You know, yeah, you kind of
Speaker 5: turn seventeen eighteen whatever, whatever.
Speaker 4: Test, the same thing must be the Talian.
Speaker 3: Thing, Theiing thing.
Speaker 5: Maybe that era that my mom was Irish, So you know,
Speaker 5: she had a hard and fast rule. You know, you're
Speaker 5: taking the test. You could say no wing they call you.
Speaker 4: But that's it exactly. You could always turn.
Speaker 5: It down, you know, a physical class action lawsuit a
Speaker 5: few you know, six years later I got the call,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: So getting on in August of nineteen ninety eight, interesting time.
Speaker 1: Of course, the FD and WI is changing. This is
Speaker 1: right after the squads went into effects. Special Operations Command
Speaker 1: has has been revamped. City is in a good spot.
Speaker 1: It's in the middle of a renaissance. So getting down
Speaker 1: the Proby School, I.
Speaker 4: Just want to sit there like I've never heard coops
Speaker 4: use the word renaissance. In my life forty years, I've
Speaker 4: never heard them say that smart. It's smart. Mikey, go ahead, Mikey,
Speaker 4: I love.
Speaker 1: You getting down to the rock. Tell me about well, A,
Speaker 1: the first day and b what sticks out from those
Speaker 1: three months.
Speaker 5: You know, it's It's probably one of those things that
Speaker 5: you know you hated doing it at the time, but
Speaker 5: now you look back and love it. You know. It's
Speaker 5: the call pool in the morning, meeting first thing in
Speaker 5: the morning. We all met by on the stan Islands
Speaker 5: side of the Arizona Bridge. There's a big giant monument there.
Speaker 5: We used to drive there, meet and all getting each
Speaker 5: other's cars and call pool up to the rock and
Speaker 5: just a lot of laughs in the car with a
Speaker 5: bunch of guys that you know, all on the same boat.
Speaker 5: I think that test in particular because there was a
Speaker 5: lawsuit and hiring freeze and stuff by the time they
Speaker 5: got to it. I did the math. I think when
Speaker 5: I was there it was one hundred and fifty guys
Speaker 5: in the proby class. It was me and one other
Speaker 5: guy were the only two in the whole class that
Speaker 5: were under thirty years old. You know, I was twenty five.
Speaker 5: At the time, I was like the youngest you could
Speaker 5: be because I had just been old enough to take
Speaker 5: the test. So it was an older class. You know,
Speaker 5: a lot of guys who you know, blue collar, you know,
Speaker 5: swung hammers their whole lives waited, you know, whatever they
Speaker 5: were doing, even if the stockbroke or whatever they were doing.
Speaker 5: They waited for this job for a long time, you know,
Speaker 5: so everyone was pretty motivated. I think we started on
Speaker 5: day one with one hundred and fifty two when we
Speaker 5: graduated one hundred and fifty one, and that was because
Speaker 5: con One guy left on day two because he had
Speaker 5: been in conned and they got a race and he
Speaker 5: went back to Conned. But nobody quit during probey school,
Speaker 5: you know. So it was it was a good class.
Speaker 5: It was I think we had you know, we had fun.
Speaker 5: Now looking back, you know absolutely.
Speaker 3: Cap Did you have any family on the job. I
Speaker 3: don't know if we covered it or not.
Speaker 5: Prior to, like I said, my grandfather retired, you know,
Speaker 5: when I was quite young, but uh, down the road,
Speaker 5: my brother got on the job a couple of years
Speaker 5: after I did you know, the three of us were
Speaker 5: three boys. We all took the test me and my
Speaker 5: youngest brother Rob got on the job.
Speaker 4: Did your grandfather ever talk about it? Do you remember
Speaker 4: talking to me about.
Speaker 5: He was pretty reserved about it, you know, here and
Speaker 5: there a few stories, you know. He had a pretty
Speaker 5: interesting career. Was different back then. Obviously, he he graduated.
Speaker 5: They didn't really have an academy, whatever the training they
Speaker 5: had at the time, he said, a welfare island. They
Speaker 5: did some training, then they assigned them to a division
Speaker 5: and they floated, and then the orders came out and
Speaker 5: he got assigned to a fireboat on the Marine Companies
Speaker 5: back then whatever they were called, you know. But uh,
Speaker 5: he got to sign to a fireboat down and they
Speaker 5: were part of Battalion flour he said, on the Lower
Speaker 5: East Side. They docked in Low Manhattan, and uh, they
Speaker 5: knew the guard that it was like in a docking thing,
Speaker 5: and they knew the guard at the front gate. So
Speaker 5: if the battalion chief came by for an inspection, the
Speaker 5: guard would telephone them and say the chiefs and it
Speaker 5: would take the chief like five minutes to drive, and
Speaker 5: so the had heads up when the chief was coming.
Speaker 5: You know. He did that for like a year or two,
Speaker 5: he said, And then he said no, I want to.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Oh he did get out of there, all right, I mean.
Speaker 5: He chancewered he chanced it out of there he went
Speaker 5: to It was before the version A bridge, so I
Speaker 5: guess getting on the stan Ouen saw it was a
Speaker 5: big deal and he ended up he went to eighty
Speaker 5: one truck on steann Ou And he did that right
Speaker 5: about twenty twenty years there.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 1: So that fast forward to November of nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: You come out of Proby School, your first assignment the
Speaker 1: Happy Hookers W one thirty one truck and a family
Speaker 1: made the company going to a Brooklyn company off the Rip,
Speaker 1: one of the busier burrows of the five of course
Speaker 1: in New York City, especially at that time. Tell me
Speaker 1: about I don't know how long you were there. I
Speaker 1: know you were on a rotation a little while after that,
Speaker 1: But tell me how much time you spent there and
Speaker 1: the key lessons you learned early on from your senior guys.
Speaker 5: Well, I went there out of Proby School. I did
Speaker 5: my first year on the job there and got a
Speaker 5: probation before we went out.
Speaker 4: On the Holy mackerel fifteen. It was a paper or something.
Speaker 4: Look at you, Holy shit, you're a bait.
Speaker 3: Your newsday, just kidding.
Speaker 5: It was uh, yeah, you know, it was a very
Speaker 5: senior house. You know. I didn't think anything of it
Speaker 5: because I didn't know any better, you know. But uh,
Speaker 5: Jimmy Perkins in the in the engine had I think
Speaker 5: forty two years on the job. Wow, he was a
Speaker 5: senior man on the job. He got on the job.
Speaker 5: He was the proby class before my grandfather's proby class.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Wowking crazy, you know.
Speaker 5: He Uh, he saw the neighborhood come full circle. He
Speaker 5: got there and they had two rigs, a hose wagon
Speaker 5: and a pumper and they were doing about five hundred
Speaker 5: runs a year, he said when he got there, because
Speaker 5: it was before the war years, you know. And then
Speaker 5: he got he was there through the war years, and
Speaker 5: they were doing five or six thousand runs a year
Speaker 5: by then.
Speaker 4: And then by the time we wouldn't even have been there.
Speaker 4: Probably at that time, right, the Big qu probably wasn't
Speaker 4: even there because they're right under the pigway.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they were probably building it at the time, you know.
Speaker 5: And uh, the warriors, you know, and then the neighborhood,
Speaker 5: you know, down by Columbia Street, all the uh, the
Speaker 5: tenements and all that they burned, you know, and then
Speaker 5: the neighborhood slowed down a little bit afterwards, you know,
Speaker 5: but uh so it's about probably a middle of the roadhouse.
Speaker 5: You know, runs and workers wise when I when I
Speaker 5: got there, but you know, so the old time was
Speaker 5: like that sore of go full circle. You know, there
Speaker 5: was a good number of guys in the truck that
Speaker 5: had over twenty years when I got there.
Speaker 1: Truck work in a place like Brooklyn is a sweet
Speaker 1: spot few can never achieve in their careers, let alone
Speaker 1: of course the department like the ft and wiy. So
Speaker 1: what I'll ask you is as far as boxes going again,
Speaker 1: I don't know how long you were there, tell me
Speaker 1: about the fires that stick out and even just the
Speaker 1: emergencies where you found yourself saying afterwards, holy crap, that
Speaker 1: was really something.
Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, when you're young and brand new, you
Speaker 5: never think you're busy enough. You know, I look back now,
Speaker 5: and especially you know when I was a probe even
Speaker 5: I caught a good amount of work. That's you know,
Speaker 5: that neighborhood has a little bit of everything. There's other
Speaker 5: than private dwellings that has everything else. It has projects,
Speaker 5: has brownstones and road frames, it has tens, it has
Speaker 5: factories and warehouses, and uh, I really caught a little
Speaker 5: bit of everything that that whole time there. You know,
Speaker 5: I remember, you know my first fire was in a
Speaker 5: brownstone building up in Park Slope right by two twenty two,
Speaker 5: Lou you were telling that story before U we second
Speaker 5: do to them. You know, I'd been there like a month,
Speaker 5: hadn't caught anything. Then you think, oh, it's never gonna happen,
Speaker 5: you know, you get the jitters, and then uh, the
Speaker 5: senior guy in the truck, Gary Kakey, he said, go
Speaker 5: lay down. You know, it's like one in the morning.
Speaker 5: He says, go lay down. It'll happen when it happens.
Speaker 5: And next thing you know, it's like six am. The
Speaker 5: the tones are going off and you know, fire is
Speaker 5: blowing out two windows on the on the first floor.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Those areas over there, like we were talking about in the
Speaker 4: pre show again. When I got promoted, I was in
Speaker 4: the eleventh division in Brooklyn, and uh, I'd say I
Speaker 4: say it all the time, one thirty one. Like when
Speaker 4: you talk about busy trucks, you know, you think of Brooklyn,
Speaker 4: it's always one to eleven. It's the same companies one
Speaker 4: twenty right on one O three whatever. But I want
Speaker 4: my One of my first vacations I did was in
Speaker 4: one thirty one, and I absolutely love the guys that
Speaker 4: like I I you know, I went to a couple
Speaker 4: of little jobs, nothing crazy, and then right down the
Speaker 4: road they I worked in two oh four engine, which
Speaker 4: they end up closing. But again, you wouldn't even know
Speaker 4: that thing was like it was. It was on like
Speaker 4: a little block that kids were playing in the street
Speaker 4: like it was an incredible you know, guys are great there.
Speaker 4: And the same thing with twenty one twenty two. I
Speaker 4: told you about the story with the fruit and I
Speaker 4: forgot my wallet and the guys took care of me
Speaker 4: like I was, you know, like family. Whatever.
Speaker 5: It was definitely a great introduction to the fire department.
Speaker 5: You know that the house was great. I had great offices.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: My first captain was Marty Ford and Tommy Coleman was
Speaker 5: my lieutenant, and I learned a lot of them. The
Speaker 5: senior mental took me under their wing. You know, had
Speaker 5: some very senior guys over twenty years war years, guys
Speaker 5: like Jake Sexton and Gary Kakey and you know and
Speaker 5: then even like the middle of the road guys that
Speaker 5: just you know, j do the every tour, make sure
Speaker 5: you're doing the right thing. You know, the guys that
Speaker 5: stick out in my memory that even today, you know,
Speaker 5: it's like Mike jet Ski or Jerry Sweeney. You know
Speaker 5: those guys they just you know, they really make sure
Speaker 5: they stayed on top of you and taught you the
Speaker 5: right way, you know.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's funny that you think about those
Speaker 4: the first guys that you meet. You know, if you've
Speaker 4: never been in the fire department obviously you know, I
Speaker 4: was never going to firehouses. I had nobody, same as you.
Speaker 4: And those guys that you meet for the first time,
Speaker 4: they really do, you know, like embed themselves, like make
Speaker 4: a mark for you, like to look back, like when
Speaker 4: you look back through your career. Now you've been in
Speaker 4: two thirty one, you've been in Squad one, You've been
Speaker 4: in all these places. And yet even for myself too
Speaker 4: looking back like once seventeen, there's some guys there that
Speaker 4: really put me on the path, like with certain things
Speaker 4: that I still think about now, Like I said, wow,
Speaker 4: you know, and I had some really good jobs. Like again,
Speaker 4: like when I was in once seventeen similar to you,
Speaker 4: Like I it sticks out to me even after all
Speaker 4: that time, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and even bouncing aroun as a covering officer. You
Speaker 5: really really there's great people everywhere, really dedicated, talented people
Speaker 5: everywhere every part of the city.
Speaker 4: That is true.
Speaker 5: And there's knucklehoods everywhere, but.
Speaker 4: Different clowns, right, so.
Speaker 5: You know, no one has a monopoly on either, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: Not to jump ahead because I don't want to gloss
Speaker 1: over your rotation. We have yet to get the squad
Speaker 1: one as well. But given what would come later in
Speaker 1: your career becoming an officer in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: were these the guys that inspired you to start studying
Speaker 1: or did you have that in your mind already when
Speaker 1: you got on.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't think definitely like that early on
Speaker 5: in one thirty one. I think I wasn't thinking studying
Speaker 5: at that time. I don't think. I think I maybe
Speaker 5: a little bit later. That came because uh, they had
Speaker 5: just given a lieutenant's test, I think in ninety seven,
Speaker 5: so I knew I had a few years to you know,
Speaker 5: it wasn't like anything was imminent, and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: I was just happy learning the job and meeting new
Speaker 5: people and having fun. It wasn't an initial thought. And uh,
Speaker 5: and like I said, the truck, you know there there
Speaker 5: there were guys that got promoted out of there, but
Speaker 5: a lot of guys just stayed there forever, you know,
Speaker 5: for twenty something years, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's uh, Paddi Lee is always fun.
Speaker 4: It's like that.
Speaker 1: Too, Like Mike Jizki's in the chest to s and
Speaker 1: he was a great proby I knew he would have
Speaker 1: a great career. So Mike jiazekies if I'm pronouncing that right.
Speaker 1: Apologies from not Yeah, Mike Jeske, Yeah, Mike Jesseke. Sorry.
Speaker 5: Like I said, he was one of the like middle
Speaker 5: management guys when I got there, and uh, you know
Speaker 5: the guys that just always doing something, always taking care
Speaker 5: of something, always looking out for the young guys and
Speaker 5: teaching them. So he's he's definitely a big positive influence.
Speaker 1: Let's peel it back. Sorry about that. Let's peel it
Speaker 1: back to that rotation two thirty one, five night and
Speaker 1: day two thirty one. You go to Watkin Street. You're
Speaker 1: still in Brooklyn, so not too unfamiliar given your time
Speaker 1: in one thirty one truck one fifty five Staten Island,
Speaker 1: so completely different way of doing things out there. It
Speaker 1: fluctuates Burrow to Borrow. So tell me about changing the
Speaker 1: mentality from where you were in Brooklyn. That's how that's
Speaker 1: where you spent the early portion of your career to
Speaker 1: how they did things in Staten Island and what that
Speaker 1: experience taught you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was completely the opposite of you know, like
Speaker 5: red Hook and Brooklyn with as far as building types,
Speaker 5: you know, one fifty five, it's a it's a busy firehouse,
Speaker 5: one fifty five and seventy eight.
Speaker 4: And uh, is that the hot corner?
Speaker 5: The hot corner? Yeah? Nice. They have projects right in
Speaker 5: their immediate area, like along the way they have a
Speaker 5: you know, a project development. But then everything else they
Speaker 5: respond to is pretty much private dwellings and Queen Ann's.
Speaker 5: And I got some good work there, you know, I
Speaker 5: think two or three times in the in the time
Speaker 5: I was there, and we rolled up on like Queen Ann's,
Speaker 5: fully involved by ourselves, us in the truck for like
Speaker 5: ten minutes because the second do companies are coming from
Speaker 5: so far away, you know, So it was it was
Speaker 5: a good learning experien and the guys there know what
Speaker 5: they were doing. They you know, you think I had
Speaker 5: just my second stop was in two thirty one, so
Speaker 5: you think, all right, I think I got to handle
Speaker 5: on engine work and this and that, and then I
Speaker 5: remember a good job I caught one fifty five. I
Speaker 5: had the control and I couldn't get the cap off
Speaker 5: the hydrant. It was just seized on, rusted on, and uh,
Speaker 5: in my mind I was, you know, I guess in
Speaker 5: Brooklyn most of the caps were missing, but you know,
Speaker 5: but uh, I couldn't get it off, and you know,
Speaker 5: I didn't have that much experience to know. You know,
Speaker 5: I turned to the show for uh, this guy Dougie Spanel,
Speaker 5: he was one of the showfers in one fifty five.
Speaker 5: I said, Doug, I think we need a ten seventy.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'll watch my language on the air here.
Speaker 5: You know his idea of a ten seventy. You know,
Speaker 5: he told me where to stick it. You know, he
Speaker 5: opened the compartment, he takes all out and like you know,
Speaker 5: like a baseball player, goes get out of my way,
Speaker 5: and he swings the mall and hits you know, the
Speaker 5: head of the mall dead onto the nut of the
Speaker 5: four and a half cap cap and as soon as
Speaker 5: he does it, I see like the rust flakes fall
Speaker 5: out of the reds. He goes open it now and
Speaker 5: I put the ranch on it. I opened right up.
Speaker 5: We hooked up, and you know, the fire went out.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like no matter how no matter where
Speaker 5: you worked, how busy it was, or what you think,
Speaker 5: you know, there's always someone who knows more or what
Speaker 5: experience you can learn from. You know, all over the
Speaker 5: city it was. That was another great place to work.
Speaker 1: How long were you in two thirty one for not
Speaker 1: to gloss over that?
Speaker 5: A little over a year. It's weird the rotation. When
Speaker 5: I started, if you remember, there's a fire, I had
Speaker 5: Danny Wets. Yeah, Timmy ridden was the boss there and
Speaker 5: Danny dunleavy was with me. It was my second stop
Speaker 5: on rotation. Then they changed the dates. It used to
Speaker 5: be October to October and then they made it January
Speaker 5: to January. So I ended up being in two thirty
Speaker 5: one for like fifteen months or something like that on
Speaker 5: my second stop. So I was, you know, having fun there.
Speaker 4: Didn't majorady kind of like I know when guys did
Speaker 4: the rotation. Then from having a few guys on did
Speaker 4: you kind of already feel like you gravitated to You're
Speaker 4: going to go back there at some point, or you
Speaker 4: were saying I was going back to one thirty one.
Speaker 5: You know. It's one of those weird things. And coming
Speaker 5: from one thirty one, where I loved it, I loved
Speaker 5: the guys there, you know, and then I got to
Speaker 5: two thirty one and saw, you know, another great house,
Speaker 5: another great group of guys, and the tradition there through
Speaker 5: the war years. You know, I loved it there too,
Speaker 5: you know, so you're kind of your heart's torn. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like you're going back to company functions and in
Speaker 5: one thirty one meeting those guys and you know, so
Speaker 5: you know, time went by. It's uh, the way it
Speaker 5: worked out. The rotation ended, I went to one fifty five,
Speaker 5: and then I I, as much as I loved it
Speaker 5: in one thirty one, I just felt like, I think
Speaker 5: for my career, you know, I think being as busy
Speaker 5: as I could at the moment, would you know, was
Speaker 5: would it be beneficial? So I actually wanted to go
Speaker 5: back to two thirty one. And then my officers at
Speaker 5: one thirty one were great, you know, they were supportive,
Speaker 5: Captain Ford and Tommy Coleman all and uh they helped me.
Speaker 5: I put in the paper and all. But then in
Speaker 5: order came it didn't happen, And then nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 5: and right in September of O one and uh after that,
Speaker 5: I was in one thirty one and we lost, you know,
Speaker 5: we took a big hit on nine to eleven, and uh,
Speaker 5: you know I wasn't gonna leave then, you know, I
Speaker 5: you know, with the guys, we had guys missing, we
Speaker 5: had funerals to plan, families to take cares. And then
Speaker 5: I knew, you know, if I was gonna I was
Speaker 5: gonna stay in with you know, my company and my
Speaker 5: house there with them. And it wasn't until a few
Speaker 5: months later, Uh, Lieutenant Tommy comb And pulled me in
Speaker 5: the office and uh he said, you know, I know
Speaker 5: you you talked in the past about you know, being
Speaker 5: as busy as possibly he goes. He showed me a
Speaker 5: I guess in order that came out of something that
Speaker 5: Sock was looking for volunteers at the time. Of course,
Speaker 5: you know, they took such a big hit on nine
Speaker 5: to eleven, and uh, you know, I thought maybe it
Speaker 5: was too soon to leave it to nine to eleven.
Speaker 5: We had so much going on still at the fire house.
Speaker 5: This was maybe December of one, and he said, no,
Speaker 5: you know this this is you know, good for your career,
Speaker 5: and he helped me a lot. Tommy Coleman and actually
Speaker 5: Marty four too. He called the captain the squad one
Speaker 5: at the time, and I got an interview up there
Speaker 5: in January of one. I was I went to Squad one.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is at a time when of
Speaker 1: the ninety seven Special Operations Command deaths that happened on
Speaker 1: nine to eleven when the towers collapsed, quite a few
Speaker 1: of them were from Squad one. Squad one was decimated
Speaker 1: on that day, so getting there, it's already hard to
Speaker 1: go to a squad company or a rescue company and
Speaker 1: that does that type of work, because it's not an
Speaker 1: easy transition as it is with this as the backdrop,
Speaker 1: it's tens times harder, and it's pedal to the metal
Speaker 1: because there's a heightened state of alert. So it's quite
Speaker 1: literally trial by fire. Being in a company like that
Speaker 1: during a time like this. Tell me about those early
Speaker 1: months of just trying to keep your head on straight
Speaker 1: while your world is still spinning from what happened to
Speaker 1: your previous company and trying to mesh with guys who
Speaker 1: in their own way or grieve.
Speaker 4: In the.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's such a unique, it's it's it's hard
Speaker 5: to explain that whole time. You know, I'm sure you
Speaker 5: guys agree, like, and there's so many you know, there's
Speaker 5: a million stories on this job. Right if there's a
Speaker 5: you know, something terrible happens and somebody gets killed and
Speaker 5: then the new guy comes and takes his locker or
Speaker 5: you know, but now you multiply that by In Squad
Speaker 5: one's case, they lost twelve guys on nine to eleven,
Speaker 5: you know, literally half the company, so in a single house,
Speaker 5: so half the firehouse really and even the guys coming there,
Speaker 5: most of them were coming from houses that lost guys.
Speaker 5: So everyone's like in this very you know, unprecedented situation
Speaker 5: where you know, and there was there were moments for
Speaker 5: sure where it was it was I guess hard or surreal,
Speaker 5: you know, to be knowing that you step, you know,
Speaker 5: stepping into someone else's you know, someone who's died, you know,
Speaker 5: following in their footsteps and all, you know, But it's
Speaker 5: also like it was such a huge loss in such
Speaker 5: an unpressed ented situation, and there was no time almost
Speaker 5: with half the company gone, they had to work so
Speaker 5: hard to rebuild so quickly that there really wasn't a
Speaker 5: lot of time to dwell on it. It's like we're
Speaker 5: gonna getting a bunch of new guys in and we're
Speaker 5: gonna work hard, we're gonna train you know, you.
Speaker 4: Know, Andy, it was I was thinking about that too,
Speaker 4: like like when you went there in January that that's
Speaker 4: still to me, that that whole like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: like for everybody, it was like eight months, seven eight months,
Speaker 4: Like it's a blur, right, I mean, you guys were
Speaker 4: going we were going down like still on the rotation,
Speaker 4: like a squad or a rescue was going down every
Speaker 4: night or every you know, in the morning, at night.
Speaker 4: I forget what it was, but we were constantly still
Speaker 4: going down there all the time, right and looking and
Speaker 4: doing all that, and like like I'm sure a squad
Speaker 4: was doing and then you still will probably going to
Speaker 4: one thirty ones stuff if you know, if they had
Speaker 4: a master funerals, yeah, memorials, if they didn't find somebody
Speaker 4: and then they find them, then you got to go
Speaker 4: to the funeral again, and it was just it's.
Speaker 5: Now a whole new you know. Squad one had had
Speaker 5: a couple before January, but I think the most of
Speaker 5: them were after January. There funeral was a memorial.
Speaker 4: So it was just and then you got to learn
Speaker 4: all the you try to jump in and learn you know,
Speaker 4: high angle, and you're trying to learn collapse, and you're
Speaker 4: trying to learn confined space and shit you never did.
Speaker 4: On top of going the fires and everything.
Speaker 1: You know, now counter terrorism too.
Speaker 4: Well, your brain is half not concentrating, you know, for
Speaker 4: the most part, you know what I mean. It was
Speaker 4: a weird, weird time man, Like you said. So all
Speaker 4: those guys that came to eighty eight, you know, they
Speaker 4: they did a lot of great things to you know,
Speaker 4: to help prop up the you know, the company, because
Speaker 4: it allowed the guys who were there to maybe take
Speaker 4: their mind off of all the other crap to focus
Speaker 4: on teaching these guys stuff, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And I noticed that morning there were you know, there
Speaker 5: was so with twelve families to to take care of.
Speaker 5: You know, some guys in the flaass just they had
Speaker 5: their hands full with that, you know, and then other guys.
Speaker 5: You know, everyone pitched in on everything, of course, you know,
Speaker 5: but other guys were more focused on let's let's train
Speaker 5: the new guys. Well, let's you know, let's you know,
Speaker 5: I guess like any other flass, everyone was.
Speaker 4: A good distraction, right, It was a good distraction from
Speaker 4: all of the loss and pain, like to have guys
Speaker 4: that were motivated to be there and you know, teaching
Speaker 4: those guys and watching guys. You know, even for myself,
Speaker 4: I was only there until junevo two, I got promoted.
Speaker 4: But even those six months, like some of the guys,
Speaker 4: I think, uh, John McCoy bones call him bones. He's
Speaker 4: still been he's been there. He was one of the
Speaker 4: first guys that came, and he's a senior guy there
Speaker 4: now still you know, I think he's getting out pretty soon.
Speaker 4: But yeah, he you know, I think about going, you know,
Speaker 4: teaching him and going to fires and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: He won the Gancy Medal for God's sakes, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. I felt like he was my son,
Speaker 4: like it was my father, you know, like I was
Speaker 4: a father, you know figure to him. You know, so, uh,
Speaker 4: you know just what you're saying, you guys were important
Speaker 4: for the company to to be a distraction in a
Speaker 4: good way, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: If that makes sense, Yeah, I could see that, Yeah
Speaker 5: for sure.
Speaker 1: One thing, well, and a couple of questions. Is it
Speaker 1: pertain to Squad one. You spent a couple of years there.
Speaker 1: The dust figuratively, there's a great photo after a job
Speaker 1: of assuming dust figuratively and literally settles in the spring
Speaker 1: of two when the last beam is removed, and slowly
Speaker 1: but surely emergency agencies across the city start to get
Speaker 1: back into the normal day to day of things. Was
Speaker 1: there a point in time, even though you weren't there
Speaker 1: too long, where you finally felt, Okay, I'm settled into
Speaker 1: the company. I feel like I belong here.
Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, we had a great, a great crew
Speaker 5: there at the time. We were very close to There
Speaker 5: was a bunch of us that were all right around
Speaker 5: the same age, similar time on the job, and most
Speaker 5: of us lived on stann Awland and uh in the
Speaker 5: same neighborhood. We hung out a lot together, We did
Speaker 5: a lot of stuff together. Uh. It was a lot
Speaker 5: of fun going to work then, and we were busy,
Speaker 5: and you know, it was it was hard to leave
Speaker 5: that it was when the promotion came up. But uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I think we got into a good groove
Speaker 5: once once, you know, the like you said, getting used
Speaker 5: to the new company and the new type of work
Speaker 5: settled in a little bit. I probably wasn't there long
Speaker 5: enough to feel like, you know, I definitely didn't feel like,
Speaker 5: you know, oh I got this, this is you know,
Speaker 5: a piece of cake.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I was still on the upcurve of learning, uh the
Speaker 5: SoC world, uh in uh this you know, May of
Speaker 5: four when I got promoted. But I definitely felt like
Speaker 5: it was I felt like I was a part of
Speaker 5: the company, you know, and I felt like I was there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say it's about a year until you
Speaker 4: feel comfortable, you know, so more comfortable and they could
Speaker 4: throw you know, you still learn it, obviously, and you don't.
Speaker 4: It's not like you know everything. But if you've been
Speaker 4: drilling and doing what you're doing, you know, you definitely
Speaker 4: start to feel more comfortable obviously. You know.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to touch on too, is that,
Speaker 1: lou you felt this when you got the two eighty eight,
Speaker 1: both as an officer and as a firefighter there, but
Speaker 1: really being in a squad any of the squads throughout
Speaker 1: the city. There's eight of them now with the addition
Speaker 1: of the squad on Staten Island. It really does feel
Speaker 1: like the world is your oyster because you have your
Speaker 1: first two area, but you have city wide and at
Speaker 1: the drop of a hat, you can go anywhere. And
Speaker 1: being a young guy at the time, it's still learning
Speaker 1: and trying to be a sponge. I imagine that had
Speaker 1: to be your Camelot.
Speaker 4: Coops definitely never used that word. There is no way
Speaker 4: that's two Renaissance and Camelot. There's no way. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's very refreshing. It's it's better than they all dribble
Speaker 4: that I get use.
Speaker 3: Coobs as a color backdrop or something something like.
Speaker 4: That, just like, oh God, I love it.
Speaker 3: Sorry about that.
Speaker 4: No, no, Mike, We've said it. I'm sure Andy feels
Speaker 4: the same way. It's like Disney World, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. Like Squad one is uh is the one
Speaker 4: and only right, it's uh they have the lowest runs
Speaker 4: UH to work ratio, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I mean it might have changed a little over the
Speaker 5: years with like they got second and third do engine
Speaker 5: boxes now and some different things. But when I was there,
Speaker 5: we were going.
Speaker 4: You were going out the door, it was going to
Speaker 4: a fire.
Speaker 5: The numbers was we were doing like nineteen hundred runs
Speaker 5: a year and we were going over three hundred fires,
Speaker 5: you know, like all hands.
Speaker 4: Are better know, Yeah, doubt.
Speaker 5: That's a pretty pretty great ratio there, you know.
Speaker 4: And it was such a great neighborhood. I mean, forget
Speaker 4: about if you were single over there, like you know,
Speaker 4: too bad you didn't buy any houses back then, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, any buildings. Yeah got six Holy shit,
Speaker 4: there's freaking buildings over there, five, ten, twenty million dollars, right,
Speaker 4: some of those those Brownstones or whatever the heck they
Speaker 4: got on the holy shit.
Speaker 5: Oh, that whole neighborhood. Yeah, even when when I went
Speaker 5: to one thirty one, a couple of guys, you know,
Speaker 5: the the real estate had already started on the upswing
Speaker 5: by the time I got there. But there were a
Speaker 5: couple of senior guys, three of them in the early nineties.
Speaker 5: We're going to chip in I think five grand each
Speaker 5: and buy a Brownstone for fifteen thousand dollars, and oh my,
Speaker 5: one of the one of them talk the other two
Speaker 5: out of it. At the last minute.
Speaker 3: We had we had a few guests kind of talk
Speaker 3: about doing it.
Speaker 4: There's been a few guys, I know, one oh four
Speaker 4: there was a guy who bought there was like a
Speaker 4: whole row of vacants across the street and I think
Speaker 4: they were Brownstones and he knock on wood. Hopefully he's
Speaker 4: still uh, he's doing all right, you know, fishing somewhere,
Speaker 4: playing golf somewhere, doing something. But yeah, it was always
Speaker 4: like those areas, like especially with the Brownstones. I mean, goodness, gracious,
Speaker 4: the architecture. Now, you can't you can't. And that's that's
Speaker 4: one thing I say about like some of those areas
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn. There was a lot of good people. Well
Speaker 4: you know that, right. You would go to some buildings
Speaker 4: and there was a lot of good people, you know,
Speaker 4: stuck in a crappy situation and they hung on. And
Speaker 4: you know it's a good thing because uh, you know,
Speaker 4: hopefully they got paid, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 4: all the hipsters came into some of those areas and uh,
Speaker 4: you know they pay, you know, now they're millions of
Speaker 4: dollars though some of those buildings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they pay. Before you go further with Squad one,
Speaker 3: I just realized we missed this picture from two thirty one.
Speaker 5: You want to touch, Yeah, that's from I think it
Speaker 5: was a summer of two thousand. I was on the
Speaker 5: rotation in two thirty one, and I figured Louis would
Speaker 5: get a kick out of this story. That's me on
Speaker 5: the bottom, on the bottom right, that's my back there,
Speaker 5: and uh.
Speaker 3: Put the white helmet there is that you?
Speaker 4: Yes, Yeah, that's East New York.
Speaker 5: It's afternoon and early summer, and we want another box.
Speaker 5: And then this comes in. So now Mike Pullarphone was
Speaker 5: driving two thirty one. He's driving about one hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty miles an hour down Picking Avenue. The skinny of
Speaker 5: the rig gets yeah, and I'm sitting I got the
Speaker 5: nause I'm sitting with my back to the officer. And
Speaker 5: opposite me in the jump seat is Mike Callen, who
Speaker 5: I think he's a battalion chief. Now, Mike, and we're, uh,
Speaker 5: we're flying. I'm trying to put my coat on while
Speaker 5: we get there, and uh, while we're going down the
Speaker 5: roads and we're you know, hitting bumps and bouncing and all.
Speaker 5: I stick my arm in the sleeve of the coat
Speaker 5: and I put it my arm out the window so
Speaker 5: I could get my home in the sleeve, you know,
Speaker 5: the little slide window next to the backward seat. So
Speaker 5: I stick my arm out the window, and right at
Speaker 5: that moment, Mike pula Frond must have swerved to go
Speaker 5: around a car or something, and he hits a street sign,
Speaker 5: you know, like a no parking sign, and scrapes the
Speaker 5: whole side of the rig, and sparks were flying like
Speaker 5: they came in the window, sparks that the whole I
Speaker 5: had just pulled my arm in the window. I'm like,
Speaker 5: it's a second second before and now I'm like, I
Speaker 5: see the sparks are buy. I look up at my
Speaker 5: Accallen's face. His face is white and blank, staring at
Speaker 5: me like I almost lost my arm on the way
Speaker 5: to the box. So we get there. If you're looking
Speaker 5: at this picture, the building on the left was the
Speaker 5: original fire building and it's occupied, and the building on
Speaker 5: the right is Exposure four, which was vacant, and three
Speaker 5: seventy five were first. Two and three thirty two did
Speaker 5: the right thing. They stretched into the original fire building.
Speaker 5: Course it was occupied, so they went in there. So
Speaker 5: then us and two ninety pull up right around the
Speaker 5: same time, and we both decide that we're entitled to
Speaker 5: the half that line on the top floor of Exposure four.
Speaker 5: So we both companies stretch an inchant reecorder and we
Speaker 5: both go into Exposure four on the top floor, and
Speaker 5: it's burned through the roof. The ceiling's mostly gone, you know.
Speaker 5: We take the front and I guess it was two apartments.
Speaker 5: We take the front apartment here and come back. We
Speaker 5: put out that room of fire in the front and
Speaker 5: then start hitting the fire that's above us in the
Speaker 5: cock loft. Two ninety must have done the same thing
Speaker 5: in the back. But now we're basically opposing each other
Speaker 5: with hand lines hitting this fire in the cock loft.
Speaker 5: And we were probably up there for about a half hour,
Speaker 5: just pushing fire at.
Speaker 4: Each other, push fire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, got so much hot water built up on the floor.
Speaker 5: I was kneeling and I ended up burning my knees.
Speaker 5: And uh so, now the fire is knocked out and
Speaker 5: knocked down, and I tell the boss was coming office.
Speaker 5: I said, look, I got to get these pants off.
Speaker 5: My knees are burning, So al right, go down and
Speaker 5: I hand the nads off. I go out to the street.
Speaker 5: I'm about one hundred feet away across the street and
Speaker 5: they're hosing down that top floor that Now there's hundreds
Speaker 5: of people outside. There's cops, civilians, everyone. It's like a
Speaker 5: third alarm. And uh, they open a line on one
Speaker 5: of those front windows and uh, a part of the
Speaker 5: window frame comes off, is a two by four like
Speaker 5: three feet long. And if flies end over end across
Speaker 5: the street. While I'm pushing my bunk pants down around
Speaker 5: my ankles trying to get these pants off, was the
Speaker 5: burn in my legs.
Speaker 1: And this.
Speaker 5: Like like an episode of the Three Stooges, hits nothing
Speaker 5: but my head. I never lost consciousness, but I was
Speaker 5: just completely knocked out with my bunk of pants around
Speaker 5: my ankles. So now one twenty is the fast truck.
Speaker 5: They they picked me up. They stand me up there,
Speaker 5: you know you are right, and I'm like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, okay, So now I got burns, one head
Speaker 5: track open.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Anyway, they put me in the in the ambuss to
Speaker 5: send me to King's County and I'm in there with
Speaker 5: Jimmy gurzback from two ninety.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 5: He told me the story, he said, and uh, you
Speaker 5: know we're laughing about you know, the top floor in
Speaker 5: the hose lines and Uh. He said it was his
Speaker 5: last torn the engine because he had the order had
Speaker 5: come out. He was going across the floor to one
Speaker 5: O three, but it hadn't taken effect yet, so it
Speaker 5: was his last torn the engine. So we rode in
Speaker 5: the ambulance together to King's County. And then a couple
Speaker 5: of months ago, I am back to work and uh,
Speaker 5: you know, the bag comes and there's an envelope in
Speaker 5: the bag for me, uh, with that picture and a
Speaker 5: note from uh from girls. You know Andy, I thought
Speaker 5: you might like this. Stay safe, Jimmy. You know it
Speaker 5: was nice.
Speaker 4: Girls is like one of the most incredible chauffs. When
Speaker 4: I got there, he was in the truck already. I
Speaker 4: mean that guy could drive that rig my goodness, like
Speaker 4: so like incredible, like incredible, you know when you think
Speaker 4: back in your career too, like guys that really drove well,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like like could drive fast
Speaker 4: but under control.
Speaker 5: Somehow that's the key combined.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well guys who tried to drive like him, who
Speaker 4: were out of control, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 4: I always felt when he was driving, he was so
Speaker 4: in control, you know, And and he's just great fucking guy. Man.
Speaker 4: You know girls is a great guy. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 4: a funny story, dude.
Speaker 5: Like that one.
Speaker 4: I love the opposing lines, like, but that's listen. I
Speaker 4: mean that's plenty of fire for everybody boys.
Speaker 1: Right, especially in that one story and fully involved too.
Speaker 1: That top floor is really going.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wait, Mike, you're gonna be doing that in a
Speaker 4: couple of months.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be able to do it.
Speaker 4: I have a little dingo Berry, You're gonna be like,
Speaker 4: oh my, you know, I was stupid.
Speaker 1: That brings us into the spring of two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and it's bittersweet because you're loving your time in Squad one.
Speaker 1: You're back in Brooklyn too, where you began your career,
Speaker 1: so that had to feel pretty sweet too. But there
Speaker 1: comes a great opportunity that you did not pass up
Speaker 1: and you ended up getting promoted to lieutenant. So covering
Speaker 1: for a year, that's a way to get your feet wet.
Speaker 1: But then comes the time when you go to two
Speaker 1: thirty one Engine And what's interesting about that for you
Speaker 1: is that now it's a permanent assignment and now there
Speaker 1: comes a second kind of rookie phase that as an
Speaker 1: officer you're new, not as necessarily as a firefighter. So
Speaker 1: tell me about trying to prove yourself to a brand
Speaker 1: new crew as someone they could count on and look
Speaker 1: after their best interest.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's uh. I was thrilled to be able to
Speaker 5: get back to two thirty one.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: I think, I tell people all the time, I think
Speaker 5: my a lot. I had a lot of good things
Speaker 5: happening in my career, but a lot of the good
Speaker 5: things that did happen came from great captains who always
Speaker 5: looked out for me. You know, my first captain, Marty Ford,
Speaker 5: he made a phone call for me to get me
Speaker 5: the squad one to uh. He was friends with the
Speaker 5: captain at the time, bar cod And then when the
Speaker 5: bar Cood got promoted, Richie Portello became the captain of
Speaker 5: Squad one, and you know, he ended up becoming a
Speaker 5: great mentor and friend for me for my entire career.
Speaker 5: You know. So when I got promoted to lieutenant, you
Speaker 5: know a lot of guys you saw going to get
Speaker 5: promoted out of SoC like the job wanted to put them,
Speaker 5: you know, in somewhere where they never worked before, like
Speaker 5: to you know, move guys around, and you know, and
Speaker 5: I wanted to go to the fifteenth division. I wanted
Speaker 5: to you know, I still felt I was young on
Speaker 5: the job and I wanted to be as busy as
Speaker 5: possible to learn as much. And uh, you know, Richie
Speaker 5: Portello was able to make some uh he called the
Speaker 5: Brooklyn Bow Commander. You know, he's never shoy about anything, Uh, Richie,
Speaker 5: so uh he called the brook and Borough commander at
Speaker 5: the time and pleted case. What you know, he said
Speaker 5: he was actually able to use uh my time in
Speaker 5: the job in my favor. He says, you know, he's
Speaker 5: he doesn't have that much time in the job. We
Speaker 5: could use some more experience and whatever. He said. It
Speaker 5: worked because I got assigned to the fifteenth, so that
Speaker 5: was good. And then I'm bouncing around and uh, you
Speaker 5: know I didn't mention when we talked about two thirty
Speaker 5: one before, you know, I was lucky to go down
Speaker 5: in the rotation and throw. The captain was Bobby Higgins
Speaker 5: at the time. Oh, and you know he's just legendary
Speaker 5: captain and I loved working for him, you know, And
Speaker 5: you know, in some ways he was the oldest guy
Speaker 5: in the firest because he was like everybody's grandfather. That's
Speaker 5: just the presence he had. But really in other ways.
Speaker 5: He was the youngest. We'd show up at hockey, you know,
Speaker 5: he'd change and great biceps out to here and on
Speaker 5: the ice heat skate circles around anybody, you know. But
Speaker 5: so he was a great captain worked for And it's
Speaker 5: funny story. I'm I'm bouncing around, uh the fifteenth. You know,
Speaker 5: I worked in two ninety and one or three A
Speaker 5: lot I worked and uh, I worked in a lot
Speaker 5: of the sock support companies at the time because I
Speaker 5: was one of the few covering officers who had the training,
Speaker 5: because I got promoted at a sock But uh, so
Speaker 5: I was bouncing around for about a year and I'm home,
Speaker 5: uh and uh on off day and my phone's ringing,
Speaker 5: and I'm getting out of the shower dripping water the
Speaker 5: towel and I'm running for my phone. It picks it
Speaker 5: up and uh andy, I said, yeah, he goes it's
Speaker 5: Bobby Higgins. And it didn't even reg No one calls
Speaker 5: him Bobby, you know, he's cap you know's It didn't
Speaker 5: even register in my head. Like Bobby, I'm like, hey, Bob,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Funny what you remember? It's funny what you.
Speaker 5: Come in here?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Uh you're coming to two thirty one to cover vacation
Speaker 5: and wanted to see if you want to set up
Speaker 5: some twenty four as I said, Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 5: didn't even know I was going to two thirty one. Uh,
Speaker 5: the sequence hadn't come out yet, you know, so Uh
Speaker 5: then it's like, you know, never called them Bob again.
Speaker 4: Obviously even now with him, he's not Bob.
Speaker 5: I went there for a vacation which turned into one
Speaker 5: of the guys had knee surgeries, one of the lieutenants,
Speaker 5: and I stayed there for like five or six months,
Speaker 5: left for a week and that's when one twenties rig
Speaker 5: flipped over and uh, Larry Thompkins, you had a couple
Speaker 5: of weeks ago, Uh for a while, and you know,
Speaker 5: Captain Higgins talked to Captain John Colermarray and said, you know,
Speaker 5: Andy's back to the wind, why don't you if you
Speaker 5: need somebody in one twenty And they got me one
Speaker 5: twenty for UFO until Larry came back, and then uh
Speaker 5: there was an opening in two thirty one, and uh,
Speaker 5: I wasn't sure if.
Speaker 4: I was all timing kid, right, Yeah, you know, let's
Speaker 4: be lucky that yeah, hell yeah, it's all.
Speaker 5: I guess nobody gave it a I don't know if
Speaker 5: maybe because I was on the rotation in two thirty one,
Speaker 5: nobody it was under the radar that I had worked
Speaker 5: there as a firefighter. But h you know I put
Speaker 5: in for it when it opened there. Captain Higgins was
Speaker 5: kind enough to give me his endorsement, and uh it
Speaker 5: went through. Maybe because he's the guy who endorsed it.
Speaker 5: They pushed it through, you know, and uh.
Speaker 4: I went back.
Speaker 5: You know, it's it's you could think, oh, you're going
Speaker 5: back as a lieutenant Louis. You would know this, you know,
Speaker 5: somewhere where you worked as a as a firefighter. But
Speaker 5: you know, most of the guys I worked with in
Speaker 5: the engine had gone across the floor, you know, but
Speaker 5: there was still a good amount left. But uh, it
Speaker 5: was never an issue.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: My regular chauffeur was Billy McLaughlin. They call him Poppy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: He drove me in as funny is. We got on
Speaker 5: the job almost around the same time, but he had
Speaker 5: like maybe six months or a year more than I did,
Speaker 5: you know, and uh, yeah it was He's a gruff guy,
Speaker 5: and you you would think, like, that's the guy who
Speaker 5: would give you a hard time as a lieutenant that
Speaker 5: we were firefighters together, you.
Speaker 4: Know, right, a little more time than right.
Speaker 5: And he could not have been batter you know. It's
Speaker 5: it's like he come downstairs, you know, guys, lieutenant wants
Speaker 5: to go out and Joe and you know he makes
Speaker 5: sure they're on the rig and you know anything, you know,
Speaker 5: what do you what do you need?
Speaker 3: Lou?
Speaker 4: You know it's like, uh, well, really a special play,
Speaker 4: like we talked about it. There's a few firehouses you
Speaker 4: know that stick out to me like that. Really they
Speaker 4: got great alumni, right, I mean they have a lot
Speaker 4: of tradition. You know, two thirty one and one and
Speaker 4: one twenty, you got forty four truck and and ninety two.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of firehouses around that are good,
Speaker 4: but there's a few that just really stick out that
Speaker 4: and that's one of them. They have the battalion there forever.
Speaker 4: They got legendary chiefs there. So it's like again that
Speaker 4: that type of place is Disney World. It kind of
Speaker 4: runs itself, right. The guys really police everybody. There's no
Speaker 4: shenanigans going on, there's no bs going on. If there
Speaker 4: is bs, it doesn't even get to the captain. It's
Speaker 4: taken care of by the senior guys because there's a
Speaker 4: lot of senior guys usually there. It's not like, you know,
Speaker 4: the senior man has you know, twelve years on the
Speaker 4: job in some places unfortunately. So you know, that was
Speaker 4: one of those things. Somebody was asking if we h
Speaker 4: what year you got there, if we ran into each other,
Speaker 4: and I do remember running into you, but I think
Speaker 4: by that time, two thousand and five, I was already
Speaker 4: in the truck so I wasn't really competing with you anymore.
Speaker 4: But there was more Tompkins and Rob Brown and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: and the squid man. You know, I was always trying
Speaker 4: to get to the squid you know. So I love
Speaker 4: all those guys were great man. I always loved you know,
Speaker 4: it was such a.
Speaker 5: Great place to work. And you know, like you said
Speaker 5: that Larry Tom we had we were probably worked together
Speaker 5: for maybe three years. And the office up there, there's
Speaker 5: a door between the engine and truckle house, but it's
Speaker 5: never closed, you know. So and Larry, you know, like
Speaker 5: has very similar interest to me. Like we'd be up
Speaker 5: till one o'clock in the morning every like talking about books.
Speaker 5: We read or politics or you know, just anything and anything.
Speaker 5: You know, It's like it was, you know, just one
Speaker 5: of those places where you know, there's always something.
Speaker 4: A few times I worked in the truck over there,
Speaker 4: and uh and and Catain Higgins. You know, he used
Speaker 4: to like you said, you could talk right across from you. You know,
Speaker 4: you just walk right through the door and you're in
Speaker 4: the office obviously, and he used to talk about his son.
Speaker 4: You know, I played hockey, so he used to talk
Speaker 4: about his son right playing and you know, obviously later
Speaker 4: on he ended up getting drafted and you know, playing
Speaker 4: with the with the Canadians, I think, and the brain
Speaker 4: is or whoever. And but the b boop would go off,
Speaker 4: and that guy again, like you would just run, just running,
Speaker 4: like like how many runs the engine would do on
Speaker 4: a night toil there, right the truck would get saved
Speaker 4: a little bit right without the ems. But and I
Speaker 4: would he would come up first, guy in the rig,
Speaker 4: I know, he would throw the ticket on their thing
Speaker 4: and you know the same thing that we were doing
Speaker 4: over there too. But I just felt like, you know,
Speaker 4: I was there, you know forty maybe you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, thirty five or whatever, and this is this
Speaker 4: guy was like sixty and like you said, he's got
Speaker 4: you know, he looks like he's one hundred pounds, soaking wet.
Speaker 4: You know, he's a short guy. But like you said,
Speaker 4: he was just running up and down going on all
Speaker 4: these runs. And I always just had every time I
Speaker 4: saw him. He was always a gentleman and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: really special guy too, you know. So you guys were
Speaker 4: lucky to have you know, some good officers over there too,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, always great offices and great chiefs.
Speaker 4: You know it's uh, oh chiefs too, right, I mean
Speaker 4: incredible stuff, good stuff.
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about this with you as well,
Speaker 1: cap and that. And it's interesting regardless if it's a lutenant,
Speaker 1: a captain and a trucker an engine. And this comes
Speaker 1: with time, the more time you gained it as an officer.
Speaker 1: But your size up process rather be tene minutes, cock
Speaker 1: losts taxpayers asn't matter. There is that size up as
Speaker 1: soon as the run comes in. So tell me about
Speaker 1: learning how to hone that based off what you learned
Speaker 1: when going over books and what you learn from watching
Speaker 1: your officers over the years. To measure up properly when
Speaker 1: it came to not only a box, but any kind
Speaker 1: of major emergency.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it starts with you trying to read
Speaker 5: the sids. You know, that's us not that you know,
Speaker 5: sometimes it's confusing or hard to read it. But I
Speaker 5: at least wanted that first line in my head, you know,
Speaker 5: m D. Sixth story, twenty five by one hundred, class three.
Speaker 5: It's like, all right, we got a tenement, you know,
Speaker 5: And in my mind, I'm like, all right, I'm in
Speaker 5: tenement mode. You know, it's like going there, you know,
Speaker 5: or you know, twenty story class one nights. You you know,
Speaker 5: you're in that mode already, and now you just that's
Speaker 5: the toolbox you grab. And now you know, you don't
Speaker 5: know what tools you're gonna need yet, but you know
Speaker 5: you have that toolbox tenement, Brownstone Project building. So that's
Speaker 5: already a big leg up pulling up, you know, just
Speaker 5: clicking your mind over to mode. That's why I always
Speaker 5: liked putting in CIDs, even if there was nothing crazy
Speaker 5: about a building. At least put that first line of
Speaker 5: sids in there.
Speaker 6: That way you're getting this Michael, Yes, all right, right,
Speaker 6: get that heads up about what you know, you could
Speaker 6: get your thinking on the way there, you know, and
Speaker 6: I think that goes a long way.
Speaker 5: I suppose they're getting off the rig not knowing anything
Speaker 5: and trying to play catch up. You know. It's always because.
Speaker 4: You're gonna skip stuff a lot of times because.
Speaker 3: You're yeah, that's gotta have the same process, the same approach,
Speaker 3: kind of a systematic thing.
Speaker 4: God, do you have the same thing? Right? Does every
Speaker 4: building have sids down by you or do you have
Speaker 4: to put it?
Speaker 3: So we are a little we were a little behind
Speaker 3: the april. We've made a lot of progress over the
Speaker 3: last couple of years with our uh pre planned software
Speaker 3: that our inspectors do and that information that's in there.
Speaker 3: We were trying to get our dispatches to do it.
Speaker 3: But it's a lot of information. I was involved with
Speaker 3: it a little bit, and we want to I just
Speaker 3: want to specific information that's gonna give me information so
Speaker 3: I could plan my tactics. No stamp pipe, stampipe for example,
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Could have determined some stretches sprinkler building,
Speaker 3: non sprinkled building, you know, those those kind of immediate
Speaker 3: information that's going to play into my tactics when I
Speaker 3: get arrival. Kind of that I want to know those
Speaker 3: couple of things right off the bat. So trying to
Speaker 3: narrow that down always a challenge for us because it
Speaker 3: was there was so much ship that the chiefs wanted
Speaker 3: to put on it, I mean, lack of a better term.
Speaker 3: But we're getting better at it. We didn't have as
Speaker 3: as fine too. Yes, we copied the wife for this.
Speaker 4: That was one good thing about our kids was you
Speaker 4: can only put so much characters in there, right, Like
Speaker 4: you had to abbreviate everything to the point where almost
Speaker 4: you didn't even know what the hell it was because
Speaker 4: you're abbreviating because you wanted to put so much on it.
Speaker 4: But I guess it made sense not to put too much,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I don't think more would have been better, But there
Speaker 5: were times where it's like you had to make a
Speaker 5: decision what's more important.
Speaker 4: Right and abbreviate stuff down to like, you know, down
Speaker 4: to three letters, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like to me, just give me a couple of three
Speaker 3: bullets the most right, you know, I want to know.
Speaker 3: But like I said before, we had some chiefs nothing
Speaker 3: to get on a soap oper. One of our chiefs
Speaker 3: was a very he'd burned houses down every building in
Speaker 3: the city. He's burned down one hundred times. So as
Speaker 3: he's writing the SIDS reports, he was the one main
Speaker 3: guy doing our tactic specialists. You know, he's given novels
Speaker 3: because in his mind he's burned it down and he
Speaker 3: wants everybody to know. So just you know, it becomes
Speaker 3: a little a little much. The intent was great, but
Speaker 3: like I said, you got to shut shut it up
Speaker 3: a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, absolutely, And that segues into twenty ten. Another interesting
Speaker 1: transition to your career. A dozen years on at this point,
Speaker 1: you get promoted to captain in February of that year
Speaker 1: and you go down to twenty truck. Now, we talked
Speaker 1: earlier about going from Brooklyn to Staten Island and the
Speaker 1: change in mindset from Borough to Borough Manhattan. Same thing,
Speaker 1: and even though it's a little bit further in your career.
Speaker 1: A reason why I mentioned it's the same thing is
Speaker 1: because firefighting every borough is different. It's not just the
Speaker 1: box alarms of Manhattan, it's every other emergency you can
Speaker 1: think of that can happen. And of course in a
Speaker 1: borough like that where sometimes the calls are very unique.
Speaker 1: So tell me about first, the good feeling of getting
Speaker 1: that promotion and then having a transition again to another house,
Speaker 1: another crew, and gaining their trust and respect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Manhattan was definitely a different world for me. Like
Speaker 5: you said, I did two ranks in Brooklyn, so I
Speaker 5: had in the interim I had moved to Manhattan. I
Speaker 5: met my wife and when you know, I was living
Speaker 5: on Staten Island, she was living in Manhattan. So we
Speaker 5: got married and I moved to Manhattan. So and I
Speaker 5: kind of always thought, you know, that I had missed
Speaker 5: out on something, having never really worked in Manhattan, so
Speaker 5: I wanted to experience it and give it a try
Speaker 5: and see some different things. So I think it was,
Speaker 5: you know, a natural fit to to try and get
Speaker 5: into Manhattan. And I asked for the first Division, and
Speaker 5: I was, you know, I was lucky enough to get it,
Speaker 5: and not knowing anything about it, I really very soon
Speaker 5: came to love it, you know. I love working in
Speaker 5: the first Division. The chiefs. The division chiefs were all
Speaker 5: phenomenal the whole time I was there, from from day
Speaker 5: one to the day I retired, every single one of them,
Speaker 5: and even the aids in the first Division were great,
Speaker 5: and all the battalion chiefs were great, So you know,
Speaker 5: they they made it an easy place to work as
Speaker 5: far as even administrative. You think it is a lot administratively,
Speaker 5: and there is sometimes, but definitely the chiefs understand that
Speaker 5: and they work with you and they know what they're
Speaker 5: talking about.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I always felt comfortable that at jobs and operations that
Speaker 5: they they knew what they were doing and had the experience,
Speaker 5: you know, for the situation. So getting to know the area,
Speaker 5: you know. I bounced for about two years as a captain,
Speaker 5: and once I had heard that the captain of twenty
Speaker 5: truck was on the list for a battalion chief, I
Speaker 5: spoke with the division commander at the time, Jim Daily,
Speaker 5: and he agreed. He says, okay, twenty truck, I'll hold
Speaker 5: it out for you. He put me UFO in a
Speaker 5: midtown engine engine twenty six for a while, but he
Speaker 5: kept his word. When twenty truck opened, he he moved
Speaker 5: me down to twenty and I never looked back. It
Speaker 5: was probably, you know, just I mean, every stage of
Speaker 5: my career I loved and everywhere I went. I love
Speaker 5: the guys I worked with and the people I met
Speaker 5: along the way and learned a lot from. But I
Speaker 5: think it's a very special time too. I'm very proud
Speaker 5: to have spent my last eleven years in twenty truck.
Speaker 5: I think it's like one of the best kept secrets
Speaker 5: on the job. It's a great crew and we really
Speaker 5: went a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's that young guy that I remember seeing a while ago.
Speaker 4: What that one? That one wow, tough paper route kid
Speaker 4: to what happened? Yeah, post I don't do it to you,
Speaker 4: no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: In the New York Times, that's how did how did
Speaker 3: you deal with?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 4: Before we talk about the guys in in twenty how
Speaker 4: did you deal with the traffic? I always ask the
Speaker 4: guys like did that drive you out of your mind
Speaker 4: at all?
Speaker 5: You know, it's luckily like Midtown they're coming doing that
Speaker 5: UFO stint in twenty six engine that they probably have
Speaker 5: the worst. They're on thirty seventh Street, which leads to
Speaker 5: the Lincoln Tunnel.
Speaker 4: And oh my god, what about two pm?
Speaker 5: Two about eight pm Monday through Saturday, it's just a
Speaker 5: parking lot. You know, it's uh, you know one in
Speaker 5: twenty four, fifty four and four of those companies just
Speaker 5: you know, that's a whole other level. Twenty truck you know,
Speaker 5: we were able to get around the neighborhood most of
Speaker 5: the time. Sometimes, you know, some traffic jams down by,
Speaker 5: like Broome Street for the Holland Tunnel, or you know,
Speaker 5: there's be a particular day or Broadway would be backed up.
Speaker 5: But most of the time we were able to get around.
Speaker 5: You know, the worst you know, in Chinatown or a
Speaker 5: little Italy if someone would double park, we couldn't get
Speaker 5: around them. That was frustrating. But the actual traffic itself,
Speaker 5: believe it or not, we having a tiller helped. For sure.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say that's a till, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 5: Definitely helped. Be surprised though we were able to make
Speaker 5: turns that some engine companies couldn't make even you know,
Speaker 5: m I.
Speaker 1: Do want to say, moving away from the emergencies for
Speaker 1: a second, just the neighborhood. Lafayette Street one of the
Speaker 1: more unique neighborhoods, not just in Manhattan but in the city.
Speaker 1: And it's often been said, you know, the f and
Speaker 1: hy greatest show on Earth ft and why's got a
Speaker 1: backstage passed? So in working in a neighborhood like that,
Speaker 1: what did you most enjoy just about the area alone?
Speaker 5: I loved that everyone was almost everyone was interesting.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like in Brooklyn, you know, you get the fires,
Speaker 5: you get this a little bit, but then you get
Speaker 5: a lot of routine runs that are you know, elevators
Speaker 5: and project buildings. It's like the same run over and
Speaker 5: over again. Right, you go there, you shut the pal,
Speaker 5: you pick the door, and it's like in twenty it's
Speaker 5: like every all the you know, even the emergency runs.
Speaker 5: Everything could be you know, you go to a loft
Speaker 5: building with an elevator in between floors and you got
Speaker 5: twelve people stuck and you got to get the top
Speaker 5: hatch and pull them up, and you know, and you
Speaker 5: go to another run, you're in a loft and you
Speaker 5: got a movie star you know, or somebody you know.
Speaker 5: And then you go down to Chinatown and you got
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty year old tenement building that's never
Speaker 5: been renovated. That's and they have that. You know. So
Speaker 5: it's like you have such a mix of everything, and.
Speaker 1: You spent the bulk of your career there. That was
Speaker 1: the longest shitting that you had from twenty twelve up
Speaker 1: until the end. In twenty twenty three. Rob Procaccini has
Speaker 1: a question the chat that stands out And I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask you this, so you read my mind. Rob
Speaker 1: in this regard says, what was the captain's most memorable
Speaker 1: job or running either structure, fire or anything else that
Speaker 1: stands out from that time on?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's there's some you had to have,
Speaker 4: like a fifth alarm in Chinatown at some point down there.
Speaker 4: I mean they have one, like one or two a
Speaker 4: year down there.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, there's always some crazy ones. You know, we
Speaker 5: call it the annual Chinatown. You know, eighth alarm, there's
Speaker 5: always one usually, you know, and uh, there was a
Speaker 5: couple of those. It had with just you're running around
Speaker 5: from building the building, apartment apartment, coming in, you know,
Speaker 5: changing your bottle going back in. You know, it's just
Speaker 5: because there's so many shafts and and hidden voids and stuff,
Speaker 5: and you know, have to have to the battle in
Speaker 5: uh in that area is finding the fire. You know,
Speaker 5: it's uh, most of times in Brooklyn, the fire finds you.
Speaker 4: You know, it's uh, they got sub cellars over that.
Speaker 5: A lot of sub summers they over there.
Speaker 3: They need to do those.
Speaker 5: I mean a funny it's kind of funny story. It's
Speaker 5: a great uh Manhattan story. We uh it was I
Speaker 5: think a fourth or fifth alarm going on. So we
Speaker 5: get relocated and it's over by Chelsea. It's it's not
Speaker 5: you know, in any other borough, we would have been
Speaker 5: second dude truck at it, but you know here it's Chelsea,
Speaker 5: and uh, we're not even on the the third alarm,
Speaker 5: you know, so it's well, we're not on the second
Speaker 5: alarm anyway, So we get relocated and then we end
Speaker 5: up getting sent to the job. It's uh, it's like
Speaker 5: a five story loft building when the top two floors
Speaker 5: are just fully involved in fire, burnt through the roof
Speaker 5: and everything. The tower laddering it from the front, but
Speaker 5: it's got Exposure two, three, and four are all taller
Speaker 5: buildings that uh, you know, high rise buildings that that
Speaker 5: butt right up against this thing. So they want every
Speaker 5: you know, they want to protect these buildings obviously. So
Speaker 5: we get there and they send us exposure three. So
Speaker 5: we have to go on on on the other street
Speaker 5: behind it and come in in this building that butts
Speaker 5: up against the back of it. And we go up
Speaker 5: there and we get up on the I guess like
Speaker 5: the fifth floor and there's these the window's actually open,
Speaker 5: and it's an older high rise building, and the windows
Speaker 5: slide open, and there's fire blowing up higher than the windows,
Speaker 5: you know, because it's through the roof of this building.
Speaker 5: And we see fire all around. And now it's just
Speaker 5: us on this floor, you know, with these one hundred
Speaker 5: year old single pane giant windows keeping the fire from
Speaker 5: getting in this building. So I turned to my guys,
Speaker 5: and no one else is there yet, and I said,
Speaker 5: I stretched the house line from the from the stairwell,
Speaker 5: and we'll bring it in this area here, and we'll
Speaker 5: just protect this area in case one of these windows fail.
Speaker 5: So now we stretch the line and then we're waiting.
Speaker 5: There's nothing to do, there's no fire in there yet.
Speaker 5: We give our reports a waiting waiting. Now an engine
Speaker 5: company comes up. They hook up to they got a
Speaker 5: two and a half on out of a standpipe of
Speaker 5: a different stairwell and there by one set of windows,
Speaker 5: and a chief comes up and uh, they open up.
Speaker 5: They slide one of the windows open and end up
Speaker 5: opening the line out the window to knock fire down
Speaker 5: that's burned through this roof. So now I'm standing there
Speaker 5: with this house line and uh, the rescue battalion chief
Speaker 5: that night was Jim Yakimovich. He shows up, he comes
Speaker 5: up and uh he comes up on the floor and
Speaker 5: he looks. He goes, Andy, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 5: I said, what, Chief, We stretch his hose line here.
Speaker 5: But I'm kind of feeling left out, and I said, uh,
Speaker 5: I think we could put out a lot of fire
Speaker 5: in this corner here. No one else is hitting this
Speaker 5: side of the building. The towel ladders can't reach it,
Speaker 5: and that line's only hitting that side. He looks at it, he goes,
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So, uh, I send
Speaker 5: the guy back to the alley. We open up this
Speaker 5: house line. We slide the window open, and for about
Speaker 5: forty minutes, the six of us in the truck, all
Speaker 5: of us are up there show for all of us.
Speaker 5: We have a proby with us like little kids taking
Speaker 5: turns fighting over this nozzle, you know, masking up. One
Speaker 5: guy's holding your back. Actually, I think we were hitting
Speaker 5: fire bending anyone because we could turn that little hose
Speaker 5: around and you know underneath like into the cockle. After this,
Speaker 5: this uh giant loft that was burning and like a
Speaker 5: half hour, forty minutes with Finally a deputy comes up,
Speaker 5: you know, Chief Jakamoalva. She had gone do something else.
Speaker 5: The debty comes up. He goes, twenty truck, What the
Speaker 5: hell are you guys doing? So I felt like remember
Speaker 5: in the Hansens and slapshot. You know we're putting on
Speaker 5: the foil coach. You know we're putting that fire chief,
Speaker 5: you know, he goes, I'll give you a real.
Speaker 4: I'm listening to the song, so I'll.
Speaker 5: Give you an actual hose. So he gets an engine
Speaker 5: up there. They stretch and they replace us. So now
Speaker 5: there's really nothing for us to do up there. He
Speaker 5: sends us down. We go back to the command post.
Speaker 5: And who's the chief of the chief of the apartment
Speaker 5: at the time? I forget, but it was before Leonard,
Speaker 5: right before Leonard, and uh not sudden maybe it was
Speaker 5: Chief said Nick. Yeah, but you know it was what year,
Speaker 5: the wee hours of the morning, and he wasn't you know,
Speaker 5: he wasn't in his most chipper of moods. And he's
Speaker 5: by the command post and I'm I don't want to
Speaker 5: talk to him. I don't want you know, I'm standing there.
Speaker 5: You know, we we had worked for a while up
Speaker 5: there and uh, chief, come over you. He comes over again. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he said, Andy, what's going on? I said, now they
Speaker 5: sent us down.
Speaker 4: He goes. He looks at me.
Speaker 5: He goes, you want to get out of here, don't you?
Speaker 5: I said? He goes, wait here. So he walks over,
Speaker 5: and now the chief sudden.
Speaker 4: I got to get you, got to call ya up.
Speaker 4: Get him.
Speaker 5: He whispers something in the division ads And then I
Speaker 5: watched him take the magnet, you know, twenty truck moved
Speaker 5: off the thing, put it in the released units and
Speaker 5: he turns, gives me the thumbs up, and we leave
Speaker 5: and it's funny my show for Chris Burke. He turns me.
Speaker 5: He goes, Okay, how the hell'd you do that? I said, what?
Speaker 5: He goes, we show up late, we put out fire,
Speaker 5: and then we leave early. And I said that it's
Speaker 5: a squad train, baby.
Speaker 4: We don't have to pick up the hose. We're out
Speaker 4: of here. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Been so that was what, you know, it sticks out.
Speaker 5: Just funny things like that, you know, and so many
Speaker 5: fire you have to be reminded of something to think
Speaker 5: of a fire. You know, you walk by your building
Speaker 5: or see it, and then you're reminded of it.
Speaker 4: Did you have a lot of senior guys over there
Speaker 4: at that time? Did you have a lot of senior
Speaker 4: guys you can count on?
Speaker 5: You know, it was a good mix of guys when
Speaker 5: I got there. The senior I want to say, the
Speaker 5: senior guy when I first got there was Randy Reagan
Speaker 5: had about twenty years. There were a couple of guys,
Speaker 5: you know, pre nine to eleven guys for sure, you know,
Speaker 5: and they you know, they were the scenior guys. And
Speaker 5: then but then it was a block of guys who
Speaker 5: had got there in like o to to five, you know,
Speaker 5: so like the heart of the company when I got there,
Speaker 5: and twenty twelve had from like eight to twelve years ago.
Speaker 4: That's a good time.
Speaker 5: And most of them never left, you know. So the
Speaker 5: whole time I was there, I had this this great
Speaker 5: core of guys that you know, and uh, they were
Speaker 5: just really professional always you know, and and always did
Speaker 5: what we had to do. In the fly house.
Speaker 4: They were you know, always just said chief Dale and
Speaker 4: that the interrupted Andy was a great grade and twenty truck.
Speaker 4: He loved his company. He had a great crew of young,
Speaker 4: prideful firemen. They were a great company.
Speaker 5: That's Uh, I guess said. Jef Dale is a great gentleman.
Speaker 5: You know, he looked out for me, and uh, he's
Speaker 5: exactly right with twenty truck. You know, it's just always professional,
Speaker 5: always drilling, always learning something, always into the job. You know,
Speaker 5: kept the big squared away, kept the fire house looking great.
Speaker 5: It was h I can't say enough good things about
Speaker 5: the place.
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you. You know, it's it's very rare
Speaker 1: that we have a guest down that was working during
Speaker 1: the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Not an easy year
Speaker 1: for anybody, especially for those on the front lines. So
Speaker 1: you're twenty twenty. How was a twenty truck impacted by that?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 1: Were you guys in the heart of the storm, so
Speaker 1: to speak, or not hit as heavy in terms of
Speaker 1: responding Right now?
Speaker 5: It was real now we were in a ghost town
Speaker 5: down there. You know, we'd come in for whole twenty
Speaker 5: fours and you know, you look outside and it's like
Speaker 5: the movie was the worst. What's that?
Speaker 4: It's like congestion pricing maybe not, maybe I don't know,
Speaker 4: maybe it was.
Speaker 5: You know, the neighborhood was a complete ghost town. All
Speaker 5: the storefronts were locked up, it was. It was surreal,
Speaker 5: you know, those first few months the lockdown there was
Speaker 5: there was really nothing going on down there. You know,
Speaker 5: it was working whole you know, steady twenty fours with
Speaker 5: the same crew. You know, it's uh. You had to
Speaker 5: really stay on top of being motivated and taking the
Speaker 5: guys out. It was hard to get in buildings. Everything
Speaker 5: was locked up, but you do your best you can.
Speaker 5: We had a couple of brand new Proby's and made
Speaker 5: the best of it, but you know, trying to just
Speaker 5: even trying to find restaurants to order food from to
Speaker 5: support it wasn't easy. You know, it's a it was
Speaker 5: a it was a crazy time. Man.
Speaker 4: Were you still living in Manhattan at that time or
Speaker 4: did you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm still living in the same place in Midtown. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Nice, cool cool.
Speaker 1: Well, as before we get out of that, you know,
Speaker 1: we get back into normalcy, things kind of stable out
Speaker 1: a little bit. And that brings us into June of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, when you called it a day after
Speaker 1: almost twenty five years, just under twenty five years. So
Speaker 1: I got to ask you, was it a series of moments,
Speaker 1: even without the pandemic, that made you say okay, you know,
Speaker 1: what I've had my fun time to go? Or was
Speaker 1: there one specific moment where it was light bulb bull
Speaker 1: going off over that saying all right, I'm done, I've
Speaker 1: had my fun.
Speaker 5: No, it was exactly the opposite. Until the second I
Speaker 5: handed in my paper. I was this close to not
Speaker 5: doing it, you know, I was. It was a real,
Speaker 5: real tough decision. You know, I loved work and I
Speaker 5: could have done it more. It was tough a lot
Speaker 5: of different reasons. You know. I just I thought maybe
Speaker 5: it was time. But you know, you know, the kids
Speaker 5: are still young. You know, with the family, we like
Speaker 5: to travel, and you know, the schedule is always unpredictable
Speaker 5: with the fire departments. So I feel like I think
Speaker 5: this was probably a good time to make that move.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't an easy decision though.
Speaker 1: I can imagine you had a lot of You had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. You have to a lot of
Speaker 1: great houses that you worked in, and it's never easy
Speaker 1: to walk away. One thing that I guess we can
Speaker 1: touch on now is that, in addition to your firefighting career,
Speaker 1: you've written two books. As Lou mentioned the introduction of you,
Speaker 1: you are an author. So the first book is Finding John,
Speaker 1: which guns. If we could share the screen and highlight that. No,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. Okay, you go finding John by your
Speaker 1: truly captain Andrew Sarah so clearly as you can tell
Speaker 1: by the cover related to the September eleventh, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one attacks. I'll let you tell the story on it.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a story, not the whole story, a little bit.
Speaker 3: Just so nice they got the book. They go out
Speaker 3: and get the book from Amazon before you go for
Speaker 3: Andy's website.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's you know, I'd been writing for a while.
Speaker 5: It's always been like a passion in a hobby of
Speaker 5: mine writing. I actually put out a historical novel in
Speaker 5: twenty twelve, was my first one, and people had asked
Speaker 5: me all along the way, said, oh, you know, do
Speaker 5: you ever think about writing about nine to eleven? And
Speaker 5: you know what your experiences? And I never really thought
Speaker 5: I could write about nine to eleven, you know, definitely
Speaker 5: it was I thought it was too soon. I didn't
Speaker 5: think I could really formulate the thoughts. And a number
Speaker 5: of things happened, and really the the impetus for this
Speaker 5: book was getting back to two. When I was with
Speaker 5: Squad one, like Louis said, we were doing the rotations
Speaker 5: down on the pile. They were sending sock units down
Speaker 5: on a rotating basis twenty four hours a day. We
Speaker 5: won an overnight shift in March two when I was
Speaker 5: with Squad one and while we were digging, we found
Speaker 5: the remains of Firefighter John Tipping from Lat of four.
Speaker 5: And it was, you know, it was a moment. I
Speaker 5: think it always stuck with me. It was just, you know,
Speaker 5: I never met him in life, obviously, but it was
Speaker 5: I felt like just being there for that moment. And
Speaker 5: later in the morning, his dad, who was retired firefighter,
Speaker 5: came and carried a stretcher out, and uh, I always
Speaker 5: that moment always stuck with me. And uh, you know,
Speaker 5: I know you guys touched on this story with Larry
Speaker 5: Tompkins a few weeks ago with the latter four. You know,
Speaker 5: in later in o two, a story was published that
Speaker 5: four truck had been uh looting genes from the department
Speaker 5: store while you know, while the buildings were before the collapse,
Speaker 5: and while the buildings collapsing, they were stealing jeans from
Speaker 5: the store. You know, that was what they pulled up
Speaker 5: and decided to do rather than help people. And you know,
Speaker 5: like all firefighters. At the time, I knew the story
Speaker 5: was a lie, and it just ate away at me
Speaker 5: for years, you know, when everyone, you know, the book
Speaker 5: got a lot of press at the time. There had
Speaker 5: been an article here or a store, some pushback on it,
Speaker 5: but I never really felt like those guys were fully vindicated,
Speaker 5: you know. And and years went by, and like I said,
Speaker 5: I always, you know, was into writing always. And one day,
Speaker 5: it had to be about twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen,
Speaker 5: I was sitting with my laptop and I said, you
Speaker 5: know what, you know, I think enough time has gone
Speaker 5: by now I'm just going to write one chapter and
Speaker 5: see what happens. And I sat down and I wrote
Speaker 5: all in one you know, I just banged out the
Speaker 5: first chapter flows right up. You know. I think I
Speaker 5: can do this, you know. And so then I paused,
Speaker 5: and I spent like the next year doing research, and
Speaker 5: I tracked down witnesses and physical evidence and written records
Speaker 5: of I didn't know that all I could find about
Speaker 5: four truck, And you know, I learned a lot the
Speaker 5: things that you know, people had known. It's not like
Speaker 5: I didn't uncover this truth. These truths were out there,
Speaker 5: but I wanted them all in one place, telling one
Speaker 5: story of who these guys were from for Truck, and
Speaker 5: I was able to put the story together. Not only
Speaker 5: were they not looting jeans when they died, they were
Speaker 5: you know, they're one of the few companies that we
Speaker 5: actually know what they were doing. They were using the
Speaker 5: hearst tool in the lobby of the South Tower to
Speaker 5: open up a jam elevator car. They had rescued at
Speaker 5: least one woman for sure, and maybe even another. They
Speaker 5: had rescued from this stole elevator. One had fallen, one
Speaker 5: had gotten out of the elevator, and then because the
Speaker 5: elevator wasn't lined up, she fell into the pit underneath.
Speaker 5: It fell like twelve feet and there was fire because
Speaker 5: the jet fuel was yah and members of the ladder
Speaker 5: four one of them was held by the ankles and
Speaker 5: lowered in and pulled her up and she survived. She
Speaker 5: tells the story, and she remembers the four on the helmet,
Speaker 5: and she remembers a guy with blue eyes, it's probably
Speaker 5: Mike Lynch from four Truck. As as they were taking
Speaker 5: her out and put her in an ambulance, the amage
Speaker 5: drove away and then the South Tower collapsed, but uh,
Speaker 5: they were still working on that elevator with that hearst
Speaker 5: tool when it came down. So they, you know, heroes
Speaker 5: up until the last second of their lives, the last
Speaker 5: they gave everything. And uh, some.
Speaker 4: Shuk wrote a fucking you know, an article you know
Speaker 4: wherever they got these information from, like to try and.
Speaker 5: You know, I also I wanted the book to not
Speaker 5: just be you know, two hundred pages of me saying
Speaker 5: layer lawyer pants on fire. You know, I tried to
Speaker 5: get into where did these accusations come from? You know,
Speaker 5: they came from somewhere, and you know, I tried to
Speaker 5: get to the story and like you would know that
Speaker 5: we like there were basically three groups down there, right
Speaker 5: there's police, this fire, and this construction down there, and
Speaker 5: at various times, for the most part it was cooperation,
Speaker 5: but there were heated moments and there were and the
Speaker 5: people who in it, on all sides had their own
Speaker 5: concerns and their own priorities, you know, and I think
Speaker 5: part of that friction created an environment where some resentment grew.
Speaker 5: And some of these rooms and the reporter who wrote
Speaker 5: the story of the looting of the genes was embedded
Speaker 5: with the construction crew. So he's hearing their gripes, hearing
Speaker 5: their you know, they're annoyed because the firefighters keep slowing
Speaker 5: us down, they keep you know, so he's hearing their gripes.
Speaker 5: And that's where this rumor started to take hold, you know.
Speaker 5: And but as a show like there were no genes
Speaker 5: found in the compartments of the rig, that was all nonsense.
Speaker 5: And you know, so I tried to put all of
Speaker 5: that evidence down in one place and hopefully, you know,
Speaker 5: clear the air on their story.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for doing that, because to add context
Speaker 1: and do it as well, it's worth noting every firefighter
Speaker 1: from Battalion nine four truck and fifty four engine that
Speaker 1: went that day did not come back. Every one of
Speaker 1: them from all three companies perished. So what's even more
Speaker 1: horrible about that, not to dignify this person, not even
Speaker 1: to mention their name, is these guys aren't even alive
Speaker 1: to defend themselves. So I'm glad there was someone there
Speaker 1: to clear their name. Thanks And I.
Speaker 5: Can imagine the heartache of the families of losing losing
Speaker 5: your loved one. But then six months, eight months later
Speaker 5: having to read in the Internet that they were there
Speaker 5: thieves and just you know this, you know, uh, it's
Speaker 5: like the ultimate betrayal of duty to do something like
Speaker 5: that when people you know are dying and need help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, disgusting thing, but thankfully some good came out of
Speaker 1: it with your book. And again, thank you for doing that.
Speaker 4: And where is it for sale? Guns?
Speaker 3: It is for sale on Amazon? And actually, let me
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 4: How much it's on sale? I saw it was on sale.
Speaker 4: These guys are like that.
Speaker 3: Not free you some bits you can off your wallet.
Speaker 5: But the money from Finding John goes to a good cause.
Speaker 5: It's all the proceeds are going to the Ray Fifer Foundation.
Speaker 4: Yes, there you go, fifteen bucks, get it up.
Speaker 1: Look, say, definitely worth the investiment.
Speaker 3: You're thing, but you get you wallowed up.
Speaker 1: And folks, it isn't the only book that he's written.
Speaker 1: Another one is another historical work that brought.
Speaker 4: My mind hype out. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Ninety years before the tragedy of the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, there was a tragedy of
Speaker 1: the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire which still, even though none
Speaker 1: of us were around for it, is a reference point
Speaker 1: for firefighting, not just in New York but everywhere across
Speaker 1: the country. So tell me about doing a deep dive
Speaker 1: into this tragedy that stuck out for the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and of course putting it into a book.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, when I retired, you know, I figured
Speaker 5: I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. I
Speaker 5: thought I wanted to, you know, starting at a writing project,
Speaker 5: and they say, oh, you know, stick to what you know.
Speaker 5: And it's like, well what do I know? And like
Speaker 5: and just coming off off the heels of retiring, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, well, I know about lad of twenty, you know,
Speaker 5: and that's such a you area of the city and
Speaker 5: the loft buildings and the history of them, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: how do I bring that into a story? And I
Speaker 5: definitely wanted to tell some of that story. And I
Speaker 5: started from there. And then I'm like, well, what's the
Speaker 5: one of the biggest events, you know, you need something,
Speaker 5: some kind of hook of a story. And one of
Speaker 5: the biggest events in the latter twenties history for sure
Speaker 5: was the Triangle shirtwaist fire. They were the first truck
Speaker 5: on the scene at the job and and that's it
Speaker 5: all grew from there, and I said, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 5: how do I tell the story? Who were the people
Speaker 5: that were there, from the seamstresses in the building, the
Speaker 5: owners of the factory, you know, what do they have
Speaker 5: going on? How did we get to this point and
Speaker 5: to the to the firefighters, you know, the members of a
Speaker 5: lad of twenty and even I found who very interesting
Speaker 5: was Chief Edward Croker. He was, you know, very interesting figure.
Speaker 5: You know, it was an almost mythical figure among firefighters nowadays,
Speaker 5: but even at the time, he was like this TABLEAUI
Speaker 5: he'd figured well known, he was the authority on fires.
Speaker 5: You know, he had grown head. It's a funny story,
Speaker 5: like he'd come You would think he was like from
Speaker 5: this like the Tammany Hall cronyism because his his uncle
Speaker 5: was the the boss of Tammany Hall. But he grew
Speaker 5: into a very respected, very professional, you know chief, and
Speaker 5: he was the chief of department for like eleven years
Speaker 5: and uh, right up and through the Triangle fire. So
Speaker 5: I thought that was an important part of the story,
Speaker 5: like a very interesting So I tried to just tile
Speaker 5: these things together and tell the story of these lives.
Speaker 5: You know that the actual fire and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: I include the details of that but there's a lot
Speaker 5: of great books on that stuff, and I know you've
Speaker 5: had a Chief Jonas on here. I was just going
Speaker 5: to such a great I you know, I spoke the
Speaker 5: Chief Jonas early on. He was very helpful, you know,
Speaker 5: and gave me some great ideas to focus my research because, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, he knows a lot about this fire, you know,
Speaker 5: so I wanted to. I figured how I could maybe
Speaker 5: add something new to it was to highlight, you know,
Speaker 5: the actual lives of the people who were intertwined in
Speaker 5: this tragedy.
Speaker 1: And they get forgotten. Of course, unfortunately, because people said
Speaker 1: to focus so much on the event, they forget and
Speaker 1: they look at the number of casualts and forget that
Speaker 1: behind one.
Speaker 5: Hundred and forty six it almost becomes statistic as opposed
Speaker 5: to realizing it's one hundred and six people families that
Speaker 5: had devastated.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah what one hundred and forty six people
Speaker 4: like lined up on the floor, you know, like in
Speaker 4: front of it. You know, when you just say one
Speaker 4: forty six, it doesn't seem like that much.
Speaker 1: The same thing with three forty three, righteah, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So again another another thing, I was glad that we
Speaker 1: were able to dive into with you. So two books
Speaker 1: in there. It is of course on Amazon. You can
Speaker 1: go and get it, and we can put the link
Speaker 1: in the chat too, so you guys can go and
Speaker 1: buy that, and of course uh finding John Now two
Speaker 1: books down, anymore to go? Any other projects you're interested
Speaker 1: in taking on?
Speaker 5: You know, I haven't really uh decided yet what the
Speaker 5: next project.
Speaker 4: We do need a break, Mike, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: they need break, so.
Speaker 7: I'm sure he'll uh, I need to write another book.
Speaker 3: I'm holy kidding.
Speaker 4: I was all like kidding.
Speaker 3: I saw the kiddy.
Speaker 4: Good stuff drew like, looks like keep doing You're doing
Speaker 4: all right. And your retirement we just got to keep
Speaker 4: waking up right, like we were saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, people sending me all the time, you know, like,
Speaker 5: oh there's good things about being retired and bad things
Speaker 5: about being retired, and I am enjoying the good things,
Speaker 5: you know. Oh yeah, schedule and you know, able to
Speaker 5: spend time with the kids and work on my books
Speaker 5: and you know.
Speaker 4: And nice to be home for Christmas, right, it's nice
Speaker 4: to yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, the first time in the plays and twenty five years,
Speaker 5: I didn't have to worry about which which part of
Speaker 5: the Christmas holiday I'm missing or if.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be missing a play, right, missing the
Speaker 4: play and all that stuff. So how.
Speaker 5: It's fifty fifty whenever, Sorry at you more years ago.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm like sixty when I go.
Speaker 1: Well, as long as you're able to make that walk
Speaker 1: to the pension section, that's important.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of your mouth to god. Bro.
Speaker 4: Just got to keep running, that's it. Just keep running.
Speaker 4: Don't walk, run it, run to whatever you gotta do, man,
Speaker 4: just get it done. Good stuff, Drew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you very much, cap for your time. Any
Speaker 1: shout outs you have to anyone or anything.
Speaker 4: That time, Oh we forgot, I forget it's time.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, I'll give two quick tips. I was thinking
Speaker 5: the other day I saw something written about a frozen
Speaker 5: hydrogen and something, uh no time had taught me one
Speaker 5: time whenever I had to control in the engine, I
Speaker 5: used to keep under my seat old newspaper and a
Speaker 5: road flare. And if you you know, you're checking the
Speaker 5: hydroen and it's frozen, you can take the four and
Speaker 5: a half cap off and stuff it with a loosely
Speaker 5: rolled up newspaper. Just stuff it. Use the road flare
Speaker 5: and light the newspaper on fire. If if the barrel
Speaker 5: is completely frozen, it's not gonna help. But uh, if
Speaker 5: just the turning mechanism on top is a little frozen,
Speaker 5: or the magnet won't drop because of some ice, you know,
Speaker 5: just a quick thirty seconds of flames will loosen that
Speaker 5: up and you'll be able to open a hydrant. And uh,
Speaker 5: the second tip, I'll be a completely different turn is
Speaker 5: you know. For young guys, just remember that the you know,
Speaker 5: the firehouse, it's it's not just a bunch of co workers.
Speaker 5: That's your family. And if you walk in the door
Speaker 5: every day with that attitude, I think you'll retire someday
Speaker 5: with ten thousand brothers and sisters and a lot of great.
Speaker 1: Memories friends, that's for sure, and the memory bank sure
Speaker 1: all it.
Speaker 4: Listen, you gotta work up with Tello for me too,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like, uh, trying to get them.
Speaker 4: I don't know it's gonna happen or not.
Speaker 5: He's got a lot of a lot of stories and
Speaker 5: a lot of great knowledge to tell.
Speaker 3: You to touch on what you just to touch on
Speaker 3: what you said. I think the fd N Y is
Speaker 3: at a busy year with the the throwing units, all
Speaker 3: kinds of ships all over YouTube with them now do
Speaker 3: frosting fire hydrantsuff and see it like crazy?
Speaker 4: Are they really haven't even?
Speaker 3: Are they really the whole little thing with the I
Speaker 3: just happened to watch it the other day. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: that they got obviously you have a special unit that
Speaker 3: goes out and and uh, from what it was showing
Speaker 3: on a couple of jobs going up, I've.
Speaker 4: Seen guys use the road flats quite a bit. I
Speaker 4: remember seeing guys like when the couplings were locked up,
Speaker 4: they would put it near the exhaust and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: you know, like let the coupling sit down.
Speaker 3: But I've seen guys take a roll to it. I'm
Speaker 3: just kidding, road flash man. Well that's great stuff.
Speaker 4: So nice job boys, nice job. Joke. Hop you get
Speaker 4: with the books.
Speaker 3: Get off your wallet, gentlemen, ladies too.
Speaker 4: That we're going to put that in the description. It's
Speaker 4: in the description. Like the description description.
Speaker 3: I put the names of the books in there, and
Speaker 3: I can add to it before we close tonight that
Speaker 3: they can get them at his website and on Amazon.
Speaker 4: All right, cool, So I get a little push, give a.
Speaker 3: Little push you know and spend span spend, spend spend,
Speaker 3: But we do have a quick little shout out for
Speaker 3: your little reminder of your Lancaster X fire ex post
Speaker 3: still in May sixteen to seventeenth. This is your what
Speaker 3: do you call?
Speaker 4: This is your that's right, come out and see us
Speaker 4: May sixteenth and seventeenth. I wasn't partaking, but I know
Speaker 4: a guy with bow legs and uh who might have
Speaker 4: been a little out of his mind there signing books
Speaker 4: and stuff hats last time down allegedly had We had
Speaker 4: a good time. His kids, both his kids would have
Speaker 4: younger kids, and they did a great job.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: They were out there hustling selling stuff, so nice. All right,
Speaker 4: we were chilling.
Speaker 3: One quick last photo of Andy something you may want
Speaker 3: to ship.
Speaker 4: Where the hell was that?
Speaker 3: I found it on the on the internet earlier? Mike, Okay,
Speaker 3: I think he used like, I don't, I'll let you
Speaker 3: tell the story.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was I was in the city with my
Speaker 5: wife and we saw the graffiti wall and she just
Speaker 5: called over, said hey and snapped the picture and uh.
Speaker 5: We ended up using it for the book jacket for
Speaker 5: one of my other novels. A couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Nice. I figured it was nice sports a little ship
Speaker 3: because I was like, look at this thing.
Speaker 5: Looks I've heard the seventies professional shot, right, Yeah, looks.
Speaker 4: Like it's from the seventies or so. There's graffiti. Still,
Speaker 4: there's no graffiti anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't know what what do you call graffiti?
Speaker 1: Well, these days, not to get too deep in the weeds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's coming back, Mike.
Speaker 1: There's not as much order in the Five boroughs. Let's
Speaker 1: just see it.
Speaker 4: Order.
Speaker 1: You say, no law for that much either, But that's
Speaker 1: another story for another day.
Speaker 4: Yes, So all right, Drew, thank you very much for
Speaker 4: coming on. We appreciate it. Great story, great career, Good
Speaker 4: luck with the books, keep going, keep writing. Coobla, nice
Speaker 4: job tonight, going in. I don't know. I think the
Speaker 4: guys in the chat were like, uh, they're ready to
Speaker 4: take a vote. Coobs is out, Cologne is in.
Speaker 3: Well done. Nice job as always. I guess I guess
Speaker 3: you had a John. I can't pronounce his last name,
Speaker 3: Gadeas Gadias. He passed away. That's what pelsas a brother
Speaker 3: was like the rest of today from one twenty.
Speaker 1: Four we can highlight Mike wrap cabbages common as well
Speaker 1: as the thirty five year anniversary of firefighter John ninety
Speaker 1: who was killed at a fire of one thirty one truck.
Speaker 1: Dan Potter had a good post about that, so.
Speaker 4: I did say that.
Speaker 5: Actually, yes, the ten you know, when I got there,
Speaker 5: it was about nine years before and uh, we were
Speaker 5: just getting ready for the ten dinniversary when I was
Speaker 5: a proby and in a sad story it's going, yeah,
Speaker 5: crime flies by, you know he I I read about
Speaker 5: it today again. One of the guys posting, Uh, you know, he.
Speaker 4: Was on Chief Norman.
Speaker 5: Charlie Meaghan was on overtime, so he uh, John had
Speaker 5: to see but he let he let Charlie drive because
Speaker 5: he was a senior man. So John had the o V.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I just I think Chief Norman posted that. That's
Speaker 4: what I read it this morning. Yeah, that's good that
Speaker 4: we got a lot of guys out there that are posting.
Speaker 4: You know, really social media and social media ain't total cancer,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. At least we got some
Speaker 4: stuff that reminds us prayer and never good and bad. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: no doubt, no doubt. All right, boys, I guess I
Speaker 4: will lead us.
Speaker 5: I will.
Speaker 4: We Thursday. We're not going to have a show. We
Speaker 4: got to show the following week.
Speaker 3: We don't know what. You don't have anything schedules right now.
Speaker 3: I know you're working on something, but.
Speaker 4: I think I got it all right. Well, uh, we'll
Speaker 4: see the big one. Everybody. Thank you again, Cap.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Alright, guys, I'm gonna close out before Colomba. Remember we're
Speaker 3: rolling heavy here in South Florida.
Speaker 1: Al Right, So this one's a special one for my
Speaker 1: buddy Andy Would. I promised him I would do this.
Speaker 1: Signal seventy five. I'm on scene. Signal seventy three, working fire.
Speaker 3: Oh good NIGHTED one No