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 3: Hello, and away we go. Go with the old one,
Speaker 3: the old style, welcome back. It's wrong with old school
Speaker 3: now gets Old Experience podcast. It's the only one that
Speaker 3: brings the Flying House Kitchen table to you with me
Speaker 3: and my host voice Roofie gons Raad. Show you a
Speaker 3: good guy coming up? Another f d m Ony legend down.
Speaker 3: I'll say, right, Root, I still.
Speaker 4: Don't know what we the way.
Speaker 5: Sorry, you've gotta have a guy on from uh from Florida.
Speaker 6: And then he just said, nah.
Speaker 4: No, we weren't gonna do that. Did x A on
Speaker 4: the Florida actually.
Speaker 7: Enjoy uh all that kind of guy?
Speaker 6: He was good. He was Florida. He was from l A,
Speaker 6: l A.
Speaker 8: No, I'm just saying outside of fd M.
Speaker 6: I right, you know it was in Florida.
Speaker 7: What's his name?
Speaker 8: Uh? He got good hair too. I can't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh, Gonzo, we'll have Gonzo on the show one day.
Speaker 4: Gonzo. I'm not from Florida, I live here.
Speaker 6: But right it looks.
Speaker 7: A little sweaty down in that kubs.
Speaker 6: Finally, it's good hundred degrees down there.
Speaker 9: No, did you guys? How are you dealing with the
Speaker 9: flood up there by the way. I just saw the news.
Speaker 9: It was the city get freaking happenings, greens and what not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of rain here by
Speaker 6: me too.
Speaker 5: It's good to see guys like pro Kacchini and there
Speaker 5: hasn't signed up for the thing yet. A lot of
Speaker 5: guys without the green lettering. You know what I'm saying. Appreciate,
Speaker 5: appreciate the little help that you give us from the podcasts. Mike,
Speaker 5: and he's coming on the boat cruise too. You think
Speaker 5: you would throw to sign up for the freaking membership? Guy,
Speaker 5: Holy crap, you're good bunch from Johnny albert E's qc B.
Speaker 6: Still avid fans, but nobody wants to do in the membership.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm done plugging, I'm done. How much can
Speaker 5: you hurt my feelings?
Speaker 6: I'm done? Moving on. Let's play some commercials really quick
Speaker 6: before I lose my voice.
Speaker 4: And all right, we're gonna listen to Vince.
Speaker 9: And Vince is coming on the cruise. He is, mister
Speaker 9: Vince will be on the cruise. You guys gonna collaborate
Speaker 9: on what you're supposed to be doing. And as the
Speaker 9: Northeast rip.
Speaker 10: Yes.
Speaker 6: To talk to him because I'll be there, because he'll
Speaker 6: be there.
Speaker 5: There's only one guy here from the show is not
Speaker 5: gonna be that guy goes on cruises every fought in
Speaker 5: five days, but he can't come up to go on
Speaker 5: this cruise.
Speaker 6: He's busy, you know.
Speaker 4: I unfortunately I have some words for you.
Speaker 7: Go fuck yourself.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry kids.
Speaker 9: If you're listening at home, I apologize, but I mean
Speaker 9: it in a most loving way.
Speaker 6: A good good stuff.
Speaker 4: All right, there we go, mister Vince.
Speaker 8: That's awesome.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, we already got some chief boys fans in this
Speaker 6: saying we got a legend here. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 5: I got to play the final one that I've been
Speaker 5: halping about, you know, like Froch just refuses to join.
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Speaker 6: That voice is just smooth.
Speaker 8: It's like.
Speaker 6: This is beautiful. What is velvet?
Speaker 4: Took a little delay them like damn.
Speaker 6: Already. Yeah, let's do it man, bring him in.
Speaker 7: F d n Y assistant cheap Robert Boyce.
Speaker 6: You got the young girls screaming for you. That look
Speaker 6: at that?
Speaker 4: Keep going.
Speaker 5: The best Tom Jones rendition right now before we dive
Speaker 5: into Chief Voyces career. Though, we gotta get patriotic right.
Speaker 2: Here we go, I pleague Allegiance to the flag of
Speaker 2: the United States of America and to the Republic, for
Speaker 2: which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible with liberty
Speaker 2: and justice for all.
Speaker 5: By the way, the girl m Jay's coming who sings
Speaker 5: the national anthem. I don't want to rub it any
Speaker 5: gowns anymore, but just it's gonna be so touching when
Speaker 5: we go around the statue of the Liberty.
Speaker 6: And she's singing.
Speaker 4: Are you just facetiming?
Speaker 6: I'm getting over clemped over clem.
Speaker 9: I had to. I had to weigh my option to
Speaker 9: take my dad. You know it was deteriorating.
Speaker 5: Don't you don't have to explain it, nobody, I just
Speaker 5: want to I got I already got at the left on.
Speaker 8: Next moving on.
Speaker 4: All right, chief, all right, let's do this, get this,
Speaker 4: let's go.
Speaker 5: We got a guy that's seventy six. We're talking rough.
Speaker 5: But before we get it to your fire service, tell
Speaker 5: us a little about the earl years of a Robert
Speaker 5: Boyce where you grew up home.
Speaker 10: Uh, who's your audience, Like, who's listening?
Speaker 6: A lot of guys Jimmy Graham just popped in.
Speaker 10: Well, I mean like the young guys and young.
Speaker 6: Variety, young guys, older guys.
Speaker 10: Well, I'm going to share with you like pretty personal
Speaker 10: stuff because I think that people might see it and say, well,
Speaker 10: this guy can do it, I can do it, you know.
Speaker 10: So first I think you're scraping the bottom of a
Speaker 10: barrel by calling bob boys. But uh, you know, I
Speaker 10: had a pretty tough upbringing, and the Fire Department of
Speaker 10: Fire Service really I think saved my life. My parents
Speaker 10: were you know, uh married very young right out of
Speaker 10: high school. I came along. I lived with my paternal grandparents.
Speaker 10: You know, we all lived together and my parents never
Speaker 10: owned a home, they didn't graduate high school. You know.
Speaker 10: My sister came along six years after me, and my
Speaker 10: parents got divorced when I was six and she was
Speaker 10: an infant. Wow, So you know, I was really raised
Speaker 10: by my mom and you know, welfare and food stamps
Speaker 10: and it was tough. And I moved to Malvern to
Speaker 10: Limbrog into the Malvern School district in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 10: During the race, they weren't riots, but they were bussing
Speaker 10: force bussing, and I just remember it being very very tough,
Speaker 10: you know. And I only share with that because there
Speaker 10: might be some people that you know, weren't born with
Speaker 10: a silver spoon in their mouth, and you know, so
Speaker 10: I just wanted to share with that. My father I loved. Obviously,
Speaker 10: they were both alcoholics, and my father was not easily
Speaker 10: aroused to activity. So in other words, I don't want
Speaker 10: to say he was lazy, but he you.
Speaker 4: Know, but he was.
Speaker 10: Correct. I loved him and involved with the fire service.
Speaker 10: He was a volunteer fireman from nineteen fifty six in
Speaker 10: Valley Stream, and like when I would go with him
Speaker 10: on the weekends, he would take me to the firehouse
Speaker 10: and hang out and blah blah blah, and I just,
Speaker 10: you know, I enjoyed it. And I was a junior
Speaker 10: fireman from like eight years old. And then they had
Speaker 10: an explorer post from I think there was fourteen to
Speaker 10: eighteen and I participated in that, and then I got
Speaker 10: sworn in on my eighteenth birthday in the volunteers. That's
Speaker 10: kind of you know how. I and my father had
Speaker 10: really good friends that were for FDNY, And one guy
Speaker 10: that I really gravitated towards was this guy Baria McLaughlin
Speaker 10: who just recently passed, and he was a fireman in
Speaker 10: twenty eight truck. I'm guessing in the late sixties. Wow,
Speaker 10: and he got severely burnt respiratory burns. I think he
Speaker 10: had a year on the job and he was in
Speaker 10: the hospital for months and he had you know, yet
Speaker 10: one lung has two lobes and one Hunt has three lobes,
Speaker 10: and he had a lobe move from both lungs with
Speaker 10: the burnswith But he just somebody I looked up to
Speaker 10: and I wanted to emulate. And he became a nurse
Speaker 10: after that, and you know, just a guy that I
Speaker 10: really admired. And then there was another guy, Tom Bosh
Speaker 10: that as a fireman, then forty truck and one oh
Speaker 10: five and another guy, Tommy Hendrix. They were all in
Speaker 10: the volunteers together and I just looked up to them
Speaker 10: and I wanted to emulate them. So that's kind of
Speaker 10: why how I got involved. And then you know, they
Speaker 10: always seemed happy, and.
Speaker 7: I just you know, did they push it to that
Speaker 7: or you were already push.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't use the word pushed, but my father pushed
Speaker 10: me towards civil service, where Bobbie, you know, they were
Speaker 10: close friends in high school, pushed me to go to school.
Speaker 10: You know, so I did try college. I mean, I
Speaker 10: barely made it through high school. I was a poor student,
Speaker 10: and then I flunked out of National Community College after
Speaker 10: a year. I couldn't do it. So I had gone
Speaker 10: to Bosi's for copping tree. So I for a year
Speaker 10: or so, and then I went to work for my uncle,
Speaker 10: and then I joined the volunteers on my eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 10: And one thing I wanted to mention about it was
Speaker 10: one thing I wanted to mention that I forgot to
Speaker 10: mention was I looked at the list of who has
Speaker 10: done this interviews before, and guys I really admired and
Speaker 10: looked up to and worked with worked for was Donny Haide,
Speaker 10: Dennis Murphy, Kevin Say, Bobby Sano, John O'Connell, fiming together
Speaker 10: on one O two, Vincent Dunn. He recruited me to
Speaker 10: go to the third Division as a new lieutenant that
Speaker 10: he killed off. I worked for at headquarters. I looked
Speaker 10: up to and worked Tommy Richardson we were finding together
Speaker 10: in one O two and Jay Jonas we got promoted together,
Speaker 10: and Tom Galvin and Di Dominico. And one other thing
Speaker 10: I wanted to mention was before I got too involved,
Speaker 10: was you know, I was a little apprehensive of doing
Speaker 10: this because of the twelve step recovery programs that have
Speaker 10: what you see here, what you hear here, what you
Speaker 10: do here, let it stay here when you leave here.
Speaker 10: And you know, there was a I think a UFA
Speaker 10: poster in the firehouses over the year, and you know,
Speaker 10: I honestly believe in that, and I'm not going to
Speaker 10: share anything, you know, that's not beyond the statute of limitations,
Speaker 10: but I just wanted to share with that.
Speaker 5: It was it Bobby Sono a volley in where you
Speaker 5: work too over in.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we grew up together. He was much older than I.
Speaker 7: Was, but.
Speaker 6: I'll remind him of that when I see him still.
Speaker 8: It still looks good.
Speaker 10: I'm sure he's listening. I'm sure he's listening. No, we
Speaker 10: were like two or three years old. He's older than me,
Speaker 10: but we were in the explorers together and the volunteers together.
Speaker 10: And one of the fires that I wanted to talk to.
Speaker 10: As a matter of fact, I think it's picture number
Speaker 10: two his dad took and I wanted to share with
Speaker 10: you that fire.
Speaker 4: It was his name is there source Robert Arnold.
Speaker 10: Right, I'm sure his dad was a you know, I'm
Speaker 10: sure he was a big photographer and took the picture
Speaker 10: and babyat Bobby. I don't know where I got it from,
Speaker 10: but but that fire, you know, really shaped who I was.
Speaker 10: I mean, I really don't want to go back with
Speaker 10: the volunteers, but it shaped my whole career as a fireman.
Speaker 10: And it was the ninety four Thanksgiving in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 10: and I had gone to the Ranger game earlier that
Speaker 10: evening with my cousin who was down from college upstate
Speaker 10: to spend Thanksgiving with my family, and my tones went off.
Speaker 10: The plectronum went off and it came over as the
Speaker 10: table temple gates of Zion. So I lived literally around
Speaker 10: the corner. You could see the building from my bedroom,
Speaker 10: so I looked out. I looked at the window and
Speaker 10: I couldn't see anything. So I had gear in my car.
Speaker 10: I jump in a car. I go around the corner.
Speaker 10: I'm the first one there, and there was a one
Speaker 10: of the assistant chiefs lived a couple of blocks away.
Speaker 10: He got there. It's about four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 10: There were some people milling around. I had turned out
Speaker 10: gear in my car. The first engine pulled up and
Speaker 10: I jumped on the back step. I took the first
Speaker 10: three folds to two and a half in the nozzle
Speaker 10: and I pulled it off. And I really can't tell here,
Speaker 10: but there was a walkway to the main entrance to
Speaker 10: this synagogue, and we stretched the line, and obviously it
Speaker 10: wasn't looking like this at that time, but we got
Speaker 10: I got in the sanctuary and we had to make
Speaker 10: two turns to get towards the front of the building.
Speaker 10: And I turned around and my best friend Mike Moran
Speaker 10: was backing me up. So I didn't have a mask on.
Speaker 10: He didn't have a mask on. He had gear from
Speaker 10: a borrowed from a company. And ye, all right, we're gonna,
Speaker 10: you know, do what we have to do put the
Speaker 10: fire out. So we're hitting what I think is a
Speaker 10: lot of fire, and we're moving in hitting fire, moving
Speaker 10: in hitting fire. But something really weird at this fire
Speaker 10: and never happened before. It never happened that. I think
Speaker 10: we were moving in too quick, too much, too fast.
Speaker 10: So I said to Mike, I'm gonna go out and
Speaker 10: get a mask. I'll be back. So I go out
Speaker 10: to get a mask, and in the frontier there was
Speaker 10: windows that it was basically opposite of way we were hitting,
Speaker 10: so I kind of said like, oh, this would be
Speaker 10: a good place for horizontal ventilation, but I didn't take
Speaker 10: the windows, and before I got a mask on, I
Speaker 10: hear a whoosh, like a really loud whoosh, and I said,
Speaker 10: what the fuck was that? So I go running in
Speaker 10: back to the door where I came from, and guys
Speaker 10: were burnt in the fouryer there, and I went back
Speaker 10: into the sanctuary to look for my friend Mike, and
Speaker 10: I got in little ways and he basically got himself out,
Speaker 10: but he was badly burnt, and so you know, I
Speaker 10: got help because there was about eleven guys burnt, and
Speaker 10: I got my friend. Mike was pretty seriously burnt. So
Speaker 10: I got a stretcher and we got help for him,
Speaker 10: and there was an ambulance about a block away on
Speaker 10: Corona Avenue and Valley Stream, and wheeled him down to
Speaker 10: the to the ambulance. There was an e MT there,
Speaker 10: a m T and they were working on him in
Speaker 10: the back of the back of the bus and there
Speaker 10: was nobody around to drive the ambulance. So I was
Speaker 10: going to jump in and you know, drive the ambulance
Speaker 10: to the hospital. Then a cop came as Aga We're
Speaker 10: going to NASA County Medical Center. So they take take
Speaker 10: take him off, take off.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 10: Now the fire is looking like it is. What happened
Speaker 10: was there was a cuckloft explosion so that the ceiling
Speaker 10: and the roof blew down onto the guys. That was
Speaker 10: the wish that I heard. So I couldn't participate in
Speaker 10: the fire anymore. So I had to go tell mister Moran.
Speaker 10: So he lived about six blocks away from the fire.
Speaker 10: And I drove to the man's house and you know,
Speaker 10: his my and Mike's two sisters were there and they
Speaker 10: were young, and I said, you know, it's your dad.
Speaker 10: I got, you know, I got to talk to your dad.
Speaker 10: So he came to the doors that that mister Morane,
Speaker 10: Mike's been hurt. I says, you got to go to
Speaker 10: the hospital. So I drove him to the Nassa County
Speaker 10: Medical Center and Mike was in bad shape and he
Speaker 10: was talking, but he was very bad. So he lived
Speaker 10: for about two weeks. After the fire. There was another guy,
Speaker 10: another fireman, Captain John Tate, that was badly burnt too.
Speaker 10: He lasted eight days and Mike listed until December eighth.
Speaker 10: And you know, they only allowed immediate family. So I
Speaker 10: initially I told him that I was his brother. So
Speaker 10: towards the end, you know, the doctor calls me and
Speaker 10: he says, Bobbie, you know my name. You know, Mike's
Speaker 10: not doing well. He's not going to make it. So
Speaker 10: I said, okay, you know, I'm not as real brother
Speaker 10: about our fellow's dad. So he died and in the
Speaker 10: introim Mike was the captain of our company in a
Speaker 10: volunteer company and then Valley Stream Engine four and we
Speaker 10: had gotten a brand new rig and he was instrumental
Speaker 10: in getting us this new max CF beautiful pumpa and
Speaker 10: uh we worked to get the pump in service while
Speaker 10: he was in the hospital. And the first official thing
Speaker 10: that we did with that rig missus funeral. So I
Speaker 10: was twenty one, he was twenty three.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 10: You know so that that matures you for the rest
Speaker 10: of my life. So I wanted to share that.
Speaker 8: First off, Chief, that's uh.
Speaker 12: We appreciate you telling that story because that's uh, I
Speaker 12: know it can't be easy for you.
Speaker 10: To say, well, how did you one of my firefighting
Speaker 10: you know experience, No.
Speaker 12: I know we all we all have these little things.
Speaker 12: How did you like my first gut. Now after I
Speaker 12: didn't realize that you were going that way? How did
Speaker 12: you feel? Like obviously you said, and this is your
Speaker 12: best friend, I guess your brother, But like how lucky
Speaker 12: did you feel or bad?
Speaker 8: Did you feel that you got it out of there?
Speaker 8: Like you know by chance? You know what I mean?
Speaker 8: Like it's crazy.
Speaker 10: I survive his guilt for a long time. You know,
Speaker 10: I stretched the first line. I was the noushle man,
Speaker 10: and like I said, something told me, you're going in
Speaker 10: too fast, too deep, too fast. And you know, it
Speaker 10: was nineteen seventy nine. I mean, we had masks, but
Speaker 10: we didn't have them on. And I said, I'm going
Speaker 10: to go out get a mask this way I can
Speaker 10: you know continue And he said okay. I said I'll
Speaker 10: be back, and wow, it was three minutes, you know,
Speaker 10: three minutes.
Speaker 12: Yeah, no, I listen, we say all the time. But
Speaker 12: I don't know if at your time, at your time,
Speaker 12: I don't.
Speaker 10: Know what friends good friends that they ever got burnt
Speaker 10: And it's a shit, shit sandwich for a long time.
Speaker 5: But did you use that when you became an officer?
Speaker 5: Did you use that experience?
Speaker 10: I don't think I brought that scenario up, but I
Speaker 10: certainly you know, it's part of me to my DNA now.
Speaker 10: So one of.
Speaker 5: The cool things would you tell guys to slow down,
Speaker 5: like in the back of your head?
Speaker 10: So yeah, I mean as an officer, you usually have to,
Speaker 10: you know, pull guys out, you know, like slow down,
Speaker 10: money and ronan. But one of the cool things about
Speaker 10: that happened positive for that story was for the last
Speaker 10: I don't know how many years, and it's seventy nine,
Speaker 10: forty four years, forty five years, that every either the
Speaker 10: Sunday before or the Sunday after Thanksgiving, five of his
Speaker 10: close friends we all get together and we go and
Speaker 10: visit him at the cemetery. You know, we say never forget,
Speaker 10: but you know, we never forgot. And I think it's
Speaker 10: a cool thing that we do. We started out just
Speaker 10: the guys, and then when we got girlfriends and wives
Speaker 10: and kids, we'd meet at each other's houses. And we've
Speaker 10: done and doing it for you know, since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 10: And unless I was working or I couldn't get off
Speaker 10: or whatever, I was there and so was everybody else.
Speaker 10: So we visit. We tell the same stupid stories every year.
Speaker 10: Because I've only known I only knew the guy for
Speaker 10: like six or seven years, and now it's forty five
Speaker 10: years later, and he was on our list. You know,
Speaker 10: he was on al Fimu's list in seventy seven. Really, yeah,
Speaker 10: he was. I was four thousand something, he was five
Speaker 10: thousand something, so he would have been on the job.
Speaker 12: And well, Coops always says, it's not a slogan, right,
Speaker 12: you either live it and you really don't forget, or
Speaker 12: you know, we all have guys that you know, to
Speaker 12: nine to eleven and stuff like that, so you could
Speaker 12: say it wear a hat or some shit like that,
Speaker 12: but it takes a lot of effort to do that
Speaker 12: for forty years to make sure you guys, you.
Speaker 10: Didn't coup with the name of the day. I've got
Speaker 10: to drink by myself.
Speaker 6: You ain't drinking bout itself, Jeane, that story so your.
Speaker 10: Brother Mike, sorry to you know, break down.
Speaker 4: But uh, chief was that Mac an open cab. Mac
Speaker 4: was the old School was an enclosed cab.
Speaker 10: The there was a company and Valley Stream that had
Speaker 10: one of the open cab cps. That's still yeah. That
Speaker 10: was the Nope, go back, that's the rig. Yeah. So
Speaker 10: that West End Avenue is a funny story. So West
Speaker 10: End Avenue is in Coney Island. So one day where
Speaker 10: I don't know half in the big group of guys
Speaker 10: getting allegedly happened. We were volunteers, We were allowed to drink.
Speaker 10: We went to Coney Island and you know, we had
Speaker 10: to get up on somebody's shoulders and acts the West Sign.
Speaker 8: But I like it.
Speaker 10: That was a story in itself. But that was the
Speaker 10: rig that we got in service.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a nice, nice rig. Not the Beatles, match Man.
Speaker 8: How did you.
Speaker 12: Keep obviously that's that's a that's a job that you
Speaker 12: know could push people not to do that. Like, how
Speaker 12: did you still keep the motivation to get on the job,
Speaker 12: Like how did that happen?
Speaker 8: Or did you even think about it?
Speaker 10: You want to do it? No? The thing that kept
Speaker 10: me going was Mike died doing what he loved to do.
Speaker 10: You know, That's all I can We went to funerals together,
Speaker 10: other volunteers that died over the years, we go together,
Speaker 10: we tell stories and you know, it just he loved
Speaker 10: doing it and he was good at it. And he
Speaker 10: worked for a fire supply company, remember the name of it,
Speaker 10: But it was in Franklin Square and you know, he
Speaker 10: did extinguishes and whatever whatever else they did, but ah,
Speaker 10: he just loved it. It was his body, it was
Speaker 10: his life.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's what kept me going.
Speaker 9: Well sure, well with that, Chief, Uh, just really quick,
Speaker 9: I don't want to go too far ahead. And in
Speaker 9: the beginning, you want me to show picture one with
Speaker 9: when you're talking about the initial days of value Street one.
Speaker 9: Was this a picture that you wanted to show or
Speaker 9: talk about.
Speaker 10: I don't want to know. I thought you're going to
Speaker 10: show that for the like introduction. Uh and you use
Speaker 10: the one with the ice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like that was a pretty cool So I wasn't
Speaker 4: sure if that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 12: That because I don't have watching that freaking picture my
Speaker 12: whole career.
Speaker 8: Like what picture the one that I used for the thumb? Now?
Speaker 8: What this one right here?
Speaker 6: Say one too?
Speaker 4: That's why I want.
Speaker 8: Chief. When you sat down, I'm like, I don't want to.
Speaker 7: That's about He's already one or two.
Speaker 10: So I was, uh, I wish I had more picture
Speaker 10: is like I see guys with you know, in front
Speaker 10: of the rig or in front of the fire and
Speaker 10: six guys.
Speaker 8: And you were in the fire building.
Speaker 12: Chief, all these other guys that standing there, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 12: standing around the thumb up the rest.
Speaker 10: I would come out of a building, I'd see a
Speaker 10: camera and walk the other way.
Speaker 7: I just.
Speaker 10: But that picture. I don't I don't know who took it,
Speaker 10: but somebody from you don't get my good side.
Speaker 6: Yeah, all right, so seventy seventy. Take the test in December,
Speaker 6: but in the meantime, you gotta go slumming. In eighty
Speaker 6: two you become an NYPD.
Speaker 10: I took a lot of civil service tests, you know.
Speaker 10: That's my father steered me to that. Not not an
Speaker 10: education or formal education anyway. I took the Port Authority Police,
Speaker 10: I took you know, other fire departments tests, and I
Speaker 10: took the seventy seven tests, which I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 10: I don't know if I had long hair. I mean,
Speaker 10: I just took up you know, they had the uh
Speaker 10: they had the applications up on the on the counter
Speaker 10: in the valley firehouse, you know, and you took it
Speaker 10: and a bunch of guys and we get in the
Speaker 10: car and I did work out somewhat and I went
Speaker 10: to I think the city had some classes that I
Speaker 10: went to, but I really didn't do well in the test.
Speaker 10: I mean I just passed. I was forty nine forty
Speaker 10: four on the list, which I you know, that helped
Speaker 10: me later on because I says, well, it ain't never
Speaker 10: going to happen again. So I just got on. And
Speaker 10: if it probably wasn't for the women, I you know,
Speaker 10: they probably wouldn't have extended the test the list the
Speaker 10: way they did.
Speaker 6: So uh, things happened for a reason.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I went into I always wanted to be in
Speaker 10: the busiest firehouse I can get in and the slowest
Speaker 10: precinct I can get in. It was.
Speaker 12: In the buildings all day, but I ain't chasing anybody
Speaker 12: behind the house.
Speaker 10: When I got Yeah, I was in Forest Hills one
Speaker 10: o seven precinct and right near Queen's College. I wasn't married.
Speaker 10: I worked four to twelve. It was great. You know,
Speaker 10: I had a good time. I would have enjoyed it
Speaker 10: more if I knew I was going to get on
Speaker 10: the fire department. But I didn't know, right, And but
Speaker 10: I took another FD test while I was on a
Speaker 10: police department and I ended up getting So this is
Speaker 10: a funny picture.
Speaker 4: So, well, this is your PD days, right, I'm assuming
Speaker 4: that's you in the ped uniform.
Speaker 10: No, that's that's me, the tall guy.
Speaker 4: No way so early look at it, look at the lots.
Speaker 10: So the picture is funny because that's my partner. I
Speaker 10: was still a cop.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 10: Yeah. So the other guy, Kevin Powers, was in two seventeen.
Speaker 10: We very very close, and he says, come on watch
Speaker 10: with us. I'll get you a uniform. So we go
Speaker 10: to Decalbay Avenue. I'll have my gun in my pocket
Speaker 10: and we go to the firehouse and Gino Sabastano was there.
Speaker 10: I don't know if you ever heard of him, but
Speaker 10: great guy who was a fireman in two seventeen and
Speaker 10: he died I believe while he was an active chief
Speaker 10: and the second battalion. But a great guy. And they're
Speaker 10: going through the lockers saying, oh, yeah, you're about the
Speaker 10: size of so and so. So they gave me a
Speaker 10: fucking uniform. We took the train into the city. We
Speaker 10: did what you know what we everybody does on Saint
Speaker 10: Patrick's Day. So this is Saint Patrick's Day in nineteen
Speaker 10: eighty three. So as I'm walking or marching whatever you do,
Speaker 10: I see my partner. So that's Jimmy afterday. He's probably
Speaker 10: watching tonight because I told him. He says, I'm gonna
Speaker 10: have a picture of you on there.
Speaker 8: So I see him.
Speaker 10: He says, come on, we gotta step out of line
Speaker 10: and take a picture. So that was my part.
Speaker 6: That's great, good spot.
Speaker 8: Did he did he know that you were obviously looking?
Speaker 10: It wasn't cell phones at the time.
Speaker 8: No, No, I'm saying, did he know that you wanted
Speaker 8: to get on f d Oh?
Speaker 10: Yeah? He was a volley too, in a different department, right.
Speaker 10: We always talked about the you know, the real job.
Speaker 6: I can't get over the head of head, that's it.
Speaker 10: And we we would buff a lot of fires, not
Speaker 10: that there was a lot of fires in Fresh Metals Queens,
Speaker 10: but when there was a ten fifty nine, we would go.
Speaker 8: And nice, that's awesome. That's a pretty good picture.
Speaker 10: I don't have many. So that's so I got called
Speaker 10: in uh that was March of eighty three. I got
Speaker 10: called in June, and every very happy day in my life,
Speaker 10: I had to go. I had to figure what you
Speaker 10: call that. You have to you know, vauchi you guns.
Speaker 10: I vouched my guns. I had my PD shield in
Speaker 10: one pocket, my FD shield and the other and uh, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 10: who who.
Speaker 5: Are you probably schooled anybody that, uh, you know, I
Speaker 5: don't really remember too many guys.
Speaker 10: I mean, there was this guy Burns, Kevin Burns, I
Speaker 10: think his name was that that I he ended up
Speaker 10: in one O two when I was there. But I
Speaker 10: don't remember a lot of guys. I do remember. I
Speaker 10: think there was three hundred people and one hundred and
Speaker 10: fifty of us were cops. Half the club.
Speaker 8: That's why they were changing it, right, I mean then
Speaker 8: in the.
Speaker 10: You know, I mean I could understand that you train
Speaker 10: him for six months, and I did. I did a
Speaker 10: year and a half. But people, you know, would get out.
Speaker 10: There was this one guy I remember, a long Greek name.
Speaker 10: We were in police academy together. We went to the
Speaker 10: fire Academy together. He went to two thirty seven. I
Speaker 10: went to two thirty. He went back to the cops. Well, yeah,
Speaker 10: I know. Well that's why I'm mentioning it that he
Speaker 10: had a nice he had a nice gig. I think
Speaker 10: he was like the PC detail or whatever. You know,
Speaker 10: he had tit job.
Speaker 12: So when you were in when you were in probably school,
Speaker 12: were you putting in the cult of a fixer or.
Speaker 10: Didn't know anybody? I honestly tried my best. I mean,
Speaker 10: there was a guy, Bill Done. He was a lieutenant
Speaker 10: in one fourteen, and he was there. I'm trying to
Speaker 10: think of the chief of department at the time. Was
Speaker 10: I think the captain of one fourteen. Really good guy.
Speaker 10: I don't remember his name, but Bill Done. Let its
Speaker 10: rest his soul, but he took a liking to me
Speaker 10: for whatever reason. He was there on a punishment and
Speaker 10: he had to do that. I had to do one
Speaker 10: class as a punishment. So he says, Bobby, you know,
Speaker 10: after the six weeks, he says, Bobby, I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 10: I'm going to put you in for a truck company.
Speaker 10: He says, lou all due respect, I really appreciate that,
Speaker 10: and I know, you know, but because I know they
Speaker 10: were going to slow trucks, he says, I'd rather go
Speaker 10: to a busy engine. And I have a little bit
Speaker 10: of an inn So Bobby, I understand, you know, I
Speaker 10: understand you're one hundred percent right. But through my whole career,
Speaker 10: after he died, and I would see him, have you know,
Speaker 10: his kids got one the job, got promoted, I would
Speaker 10: get promoted. He would be there. I go up to him,
Speaker 10: hey don't know, you know, But so I had guy
Speaker 10: Kevin from two seventeen Powers helped me at the time.
Speaker 10: Jimmy Boyle was I think the Brooklyn Trustee and he
Speaker 10: was a fireman in two seventeen. So Kevin went to
Speaker 10: Jimmy Boyle and said, yeah, I got a friend of
Speaker 10: mine getting on. Well can you put him in the neighborhood.
Speaker 10: So you know, that's all I had, and which was
Speaker 10: you know, it ended up being enough perfect.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a great spot.
Speaker 10: It was a great spot.
Speaker 12: We hear cheap over and over and over again around
Speaker 12: that time. It's the same right with the engines that
Speaker 12: circle one to eleven, right, it's like two thirty two
Speaker 12: seventeen to twenty seven, two eighty three two yeah, right,
Speaker 12: two twenty two right, So it was all those engines
Speaker 12: that were by themselves that happened in a small first
Speaker 12: do area. But do at that time, we're doing so
Speaker 12: much work for a first to area that was like
Speaker 12: ten by ten or some ridiculous thing.
Speaker 10: Right, Well, I mean I got the eye, would say
Speaker 10: towards the end obviously of the warriors. But I just
Speaker 10: wanted to mention because I did, right, So my first
Speaker 10: captain was John Bamberry, he just died. Gentleman George Grossman
Speaker 10: was one of the lieutenants. He was a fireman, a
Speaker 10: one O three, great, great guy. Jerry Ercalino was I
Speaker 10: was in his groups. As a matter of fact, my
Speaker 10: first night, he gave me the nozzle. Joe Russo was
Speaker 10: a senior man. Woman Samuels. I looked up to him
Speaker 10: like a father. Frank Truccio, Carmon Grenada, Bobby Lawrence, Greg Simonara,
Speaker 10: Richie Crochy, Bonnie Riley, Richie Razuwitz, Jimmy Gasparino, who I
Speaker 10: think was backing me up the first night we had
Speaker 10: a job. Mike Thompson, Steve Mondohlia, Tommy Swannick Walter Searing,
Speaker 10: Tommy Auer, Brenda McSweeney, and Jim Jacket. I mean, these were,
Speaker 10: you know, great guys that I enjoyed working with. And
Speaker 10: you know it was only there after three years, but
Speaker 10: I loved every minute of it.
Speaker 13: You caught a job your first night too, it so, yeah,
Speaker 13: he gave me the first night to ten first boxes.
Speaker 10: Well we were second, we weren't first, still, uh, I know,
Speaker 10: I wrote it down somewhere. Oh so the first night
Speaker 10: and the guys, you know, knew that this one guy,
Speaker 10: Jerry or Galino, gave the proby the nozzle because you know,
Speaker 10: and I thought it was a little weird, but I
Speaker 10: kind of understood it later on in my career that
Speaker 10: if he's going to get spooked, let him get spooked
Speaker 10: on the first night. And now we know who we can,
Speaker 10: you know, count on, you know. So he said, they Bobby,
Speaker 10: you got the nozzle, Jimmy, you're backing them up, and
Speaker 10: blah blah blah. It wasn't the first run, but we
Speaker 10: had a job second due with two sixteen and forty
Speaker 10: eight Humboldt Street on a corner of De deble Boys
Speaker 10: Street and the second do and vacant, and you know,
Speaker 10: back then, everybody stretched their own lines. We went to
Speaker 10: the floor above and I remember no flooring. We had
Speaker 10: to crawl along the beams nice and uh now the
Speaker 10: fire is coming up and beca Bobby opened it up,
Speaker 10: and you know, so I think I didn't fuck up.
Speaker 10: I mean, I don't know how I did, but I
Speaker 10: think I did. Again, tell you that I was putting
Speaker 10: on the rotation like that everybody else then, you know,
Speaker 10: after that, but it was it was tremendous, tremendous guys.
Speaker 10: I just was. I was blessed, and two seventeen and
Speaker 10: two thirty were like brother sister companies, you know, and
Speaker 10: we did everything together. We did our dinner, dance, we
Speaker 10: did our picnic, we did we were able to swap
Speaker 10: out vacation mutuals and uh two single engines. And you know,
Speaker 10: back then you only worked within your battalion. So there
Speaker 10: was two thirty five, two fourteen, two seventeen, two thirty
Speaker 10: and one eleven, so there was four or five engines
Speaker 10: and that was it. So you only, you know, you
Speaker 10: only worked within your battalion, so you get to know everybody.
Speaker 10: It was great because you knew you knew everybody. Now, yeah,
Speaker 10: we worked.
Speaker 8: We were with Eric Allen was from two seventeen. He
Speaker 8: came over to the squad lady. Yes, obviously.
Speaker 10: Good guy.
Speaker 6: So what did you do like a thirty day?
Speaker 4: So I don't want to get too far ahead. I
Speaker 4: want to sleep it in here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's probably school. That's my wife girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 4: Make sure we get that in here.
Speaker 8: No more curls.
Speaker 6: Cool, Yeah happen. Curls probably school happened?
Speaker 4: Was exactly.
Speaker 6: So nice Italian young lady. You married a nice Italian
Speaker 6: young lady.
Speaker 10: Well, it's we met on a cruise in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4: On the cruise ships.
Speaker 10: Sorry, my friend Eddie Gatty was he went oh two
Speaker 10: and he put together this cruise and it was it
Speaker 10: was I think two or three other five. So my
Speaker 10: friend Kevin Eddie's brother, Steve Eddie. I wasn't on the
Speaker 10: job yet, but nobody knew everybody. There was eight of us,
Speaker 10: so two rooms of four. And uh, I was going
Speaker 10: out with a girl for like four years at the time.
Speaker 10: I was old. It must have been like, I don't know,
Speaker 10: twenty three years old, and YadA, YadA, YadA. And she
Speaker 10: was from Bensonhurst, so she was on with her sister.
Speaker 7: You knew about a girl, Cubs, you knew about a girl.
Speaker 7: You didn't go to the World Series, you know, we
Speaker 7: had to go check out a girl.
Speaker 8: That's what happened.
Speaker 6: Yep, how many years later now.
Speaker 10: We met in eighty one. We got married forty years ago.
Speaker 6: Nice.
Speaker 10: She just celebrated our fortieth anniversary. Never had very nice
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, what'd you say?
Speaker 8: Lott never had a fight, right, Oh that that he won?
Speaker 6: Anyway?
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, exactly. She's playing marge On tonight. That's really
Speaker 10: was crazy. I'm using my two hours with you guys.
Speaker 10: I could be having my piece of qualityet my.
Speaker 8: Wife, my wife. I've been playing golf.
Speaker 12: So my wife plays march On with the girls at
Speaker 12: the at the golf course over there, and you know,
Speaker 12: we're playing for twenty dollars a whole.
Speaker 8: Whatever the heck we're playing.
Speaker 7: She comes at you like, how'd you do you win?
Speaker 10: Show? Yeah? I won?
Speaker 7: How many games you went? I want three games?
Speaker 8: Oh good? How much money do you win? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, cheap though a dollar fifty. I say at least
Speaker 7: two five out was a game or something.
Speaker 8: Hell are you guys doing?
Speaker 7: They're freaking crazy.
Speaker 6: They're talking about their husbands, that's what.
Speaker 8: About them?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you get a hanker when you go to
Speaker 6: the truck enough for the engine.
Speaker 10: There's a picture number four.
Speaker 4: Number four was actually you and your wife. So is
Speaker 4: it be five this one?
Speaker 10: Yes? Yeah, So that's a pretty you know somebody took
Speaker 10: the picture. Obviously it wasn't posing for it. But that's
Speaker 10: Chris Gleanna. He was a lieutenant one to eleven. I
Speaker 10: was still a probe. That's a dinger. I don't remember
Speaker 10: his his real name, but he was home. Yeah, you
Speaker 10: telling them that, I'm not telling them respect My friend
Speaker 10: and Kenny Connolly is behind Dinger, so, uh, Lieutenant Gleanna
Speaker 10: and Kenny Connolly are sharing a cigarette. But you know,
Speaker 10: I worked any chance I could get in in uh
Speaker 10: one to eleven. And then a short time after I
Speaker 10: was there, Rescue two moved to the Pacific's berg, so
Speaker 10: they were in the five to seven. So I would
Speaker 10: try to work over there as much as I could.
Speaker 10: But that was a picture. Very few pictures of me
Speaker 10: at a fire after somebody just wrote Chief, Oh, there
Speaker 10: you go.
Speaker 6: I took your picture when you were in probably detailed
Speaker 6: to one eleven with Chris Yah.
Speaker 10: There you go.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Jeff was He sent us a lot of pictures
Speaker 8: at that time.
Speaker 10: Now I know who took it. Thank you, Jeff.
Speaker 6: All these years you had no idea.
Speaker 10: I only to tell you the truth that I just got.
Speaker 10: Even knew it was, uh something that only a couple
Speaker 10: of years ago somebody jumping to me. So I didn't
Speaker 10: know it, you know, for the first thirty years of my.
Speaker 8: Anyway, So how come me to go to one eleven?
Speaker 6: I was just gonna ask that right there.
Speaker 10: I yeah, I put in for six companies for first
Speaker 10: I started studying when I was a proby. And how
Speaker 10: that happened was a good friend of mine, Billy Youngston,
Speaker 10: was in one eleven and he knew that I had
Speaker 10: some cop time and he guessed when the lieutenant's test
Speaker 10: was going to be. He knew I was studying to
Speaker 10: sgeant for the police department when I when I switched
Speaker 10: over to the fire and he said, oh, Bob, you
Speaker 10: know you're starting the study group. You want to get in.
Speaker 10: I said, Billy, I'm fucking proby, you know. He said,
Speaker 10: you've got three years. You'll you're you're gonna be you know,
Speaker 10: You're you're gonna be all. So I was eligible only
Speaker 10: because of the police time, but I was in a
Speaker 10: great study group with Bill Youngston started it. Tommy Damore
Speaker 10: from forty four truck, Kevin Powers from two seventeen, Pete
Speaker 10: Hart from he was in the Bronx and he transferred
Speaker 10: to one fifty five. Jimmy Kane was from forty four truck. Uh.
Speaker 10: We just had a great study group, and you know,
Speaker 10: we all got promoted. And that started in the fall
Speaker 10: of eighty three. So I was on for like, I
Speaker 10: don't know, a couple of months, six months, and I
Speaker 10: started studying and the test was spring of eighty six.
Speaker 10: And uh but one story I wanted the truck one. Yeah,
Speaker 10: well one story I wanted to share was pretty funny story.
Speaker 10: So the Chris Eve of nineteen eighty four, I was
Speaker 10: in on the job about a year, a couple more
Speaker 10: months in the year, and uh so years ago. You know,
Speaker 10: I'm assuming they still do it. The senior guy, you know,
Speaker 10: the junior guy works for the senior guy on Christmas Eve,
Speaker 10: and the senior guy works for the junior guy on
Speaker 10: New Year's Eve. So Joe Russo was one of the
Speaker 10: senior guys. See the chauffeur. So he says, you know, Joe,
Speaker 10: you know you're working Christmas Eve? You know, will you
Speaker 10: work for me in New Year's Eve? And I work
Speaker 10: for you Christmas Eve? Yeah? Okay, Bobby Great, he had kids,
Speaker 10: so agreed. I'm not. I don't have any kids. Okay.
Speaker 10: So I come in Christmas Eve and nobody wants to
Speaker 10: drive on Christmas Eve, you know what I mean? I know, so,
Speaker 10: so they're all bitching. Oh fuck, I don't want to
Speaker 10: fucking draw you fucking draw. No, you drives who's working
Speaker 10: for Russo boys? Let him fucking dry?
Speaker 7: Who who's working for the chauffeur for Guy's Yeah, let
Speaker 7: him so.
Speaker 10: George Grossman was the officer. He says, Bob, you drove
Speaker 10: these things in the volleys. He says yeah. He says,
Speaker 10: jump in, Come on, we're gonna go around the corner.
Speaker 10: I get in the rig, we go around the corner.
Speaker 10: I put it in pumps, I hook up to the hydrant.
Speaker 10: Blah blah blah. He says, all right, go back in
Speaker 10: back again. He says, your company qualified.
Speaker 8: You're good.
Speaker 6: You're driving tonight driving.
Speaker 10: I said, all right. Never spoke on a radio, never
Speaker 10: do nothing right. So I'm probably I'm sitting at the
Speaker 10: house watch where I belong. They're roll in the back cooking,
Speaker 10: and I guess it's around I don't know, nine or
Speaker 10: ten o'clock at night. Bee boop, first doo, uh, you know,
Speaker 10: phone along, blah blah blah. First let's go, you know.
Speaker 10: So I get in the show for seat I started up,
Speaker 10: so it's I forget the I thought I wrote the
Speaker 10: address down, but it was underneath the l on Broadway
Speaker 10: Beaver Street somewhere down there. So the lieutenant says to me,
Speaker 10: he says, he says, you know where this street is?
Speaker 10: I said no, but I know where Broadway is, So
Speaker 10: I go ahead. They so we go underneath the l
Speaker 10: and they're like this. They're like this, you know, they're
Speaker 10: waving a sin. So I make the left. It's blown
Speaker 10: out two windows on the first floor. Oh my god,
Speaker 10: it's an old tenement. And they had to drag a woman,
Speaker 10: a burnt woman, out of the street so I can
Speaker 10: go to the hydrant. So the locals dragged are out
Speaker 10: of the street. I go to the hydrant. I pumped
Speaker 10: three lines.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, dude, two thirty two.
Speaker 10: Seventeen and Squad one they had three line stretch. I
Speaker 10: fucking pumped three lines. So so does drop the tank.
Speaker 10: But yeah, okay, but it was my first run, first
Speaker 10: runners the show. Well I was off, but I was
Speaker 10: just off.
Speaker 6: You get an out of boy from the lieutenant after that.
Speaker 10: Oh, I just you know, I guess I did what
Speaker 10: I had to do, you know, just impressed. I didn't
Speaker 10: suck it up, and you know, yeah we got got water.
Speaker 8: So oh that was kind of like a comic thing.
Speaker 8: I would imagine, like, you know, new guy in there.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 10: Too many guys. I guess their first run gets a no.
Speaker 8: Not like that either where the car people at.
Speaker 12: But usually if there's a as we should say, partaking,
Speaker 12: then it's always that new guys.
Speaker 8: You know, stick that kid up there. What could happen?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 8: Actually, you know they hang it out the windows, and I.
Speaker 10: Don't know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 6: The dragging a burnt lady out of the way.
Speaker 10: I couldn't believe because I go like this, you know,
Speaker 10: I point to the hydrant. They dragged it right of
Speaker 10: the way, so I know the hydrant and they its fun.
Speaker 8: Yeah, fun stuff, good shit.
Speaker 6: So look, you asked the question why did you go
Speaker 6: to one eleven? Why did you you put in for
Speaker 6: a bunch?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 10: So let me talk about the test. So the test
Speaker 10: was in eighty two. So I took the test in
Speaker 10: May of eighty six. It was cheating by somebody, a
Speaker 10: member of a fraternal organization. And uh, I'm not going
Speaker 10: to steer you towards the newspaper article naming a guy.
Speaker 10: But there was rumbling about throwing the test out. So
Speaker 10: I knew I wanted to go to a truck. You
Speaker 10: know as soon as I could, I put in for
Speaker 10: six trucks. At the time, there were spots for six companies,
Speaker 10: and it was right after the lieutenant's test, and we
Speaker 10: had a we had a covering new captain. So I
Speaker 10: go in. One eleven was first, one O two, one
Speaker 10: oh wait, one twenty three, one thirty two, and one
Speaker 10: seventy six. So I had three years on the job.
Speaker 10: So I go up to the captain. I says, cap,
Speaker 10: you know how you doing. I'm you know, I'm looking
Speaker 10: to go to these companies. So we left. He says, Bob,
Speaker 10: you're not going to at these fucking companies. I says, well,
Speaker 10: I appreciate that. I understand that, but can you do
Speaker 10: me a favor and sign it? So yeah, okay, here
Speaker 10: I go, here you go. So he signs it. And
Speaker 10: that was the summer of eighty six. So all summer
Speaker 10: they're saying, oh, they're gonna throw the fucking lieutenants tests out.
Speaker 10: They're gonna throw it. So I, you know, like I
Speaker 10: was friends with, you know, all the study of the students,
Speaker 10: and uh, I says, look, if they throw the test out,
Speaker 10: I'm gonna pull my paper. So Eddie Garretty, good friend,
Speaker 10: of mine. He was in one O two and they
Speaker 10: were in the three four battalion. So, uh, he calls
Speaker 10: me up. I don't remember, but which first.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 10: I think he called me about they threw the test out,
Speaker 10: so I said, all right, well, I'm gonna pull my paper.
Speaker 10: Like an hour later he called me, oh, and by
Speaker 10: the way, you got transferred to one oh two. So
Speaker 10: September sixth of eighty sixth I got transferred. And the
Speaker 10: only reason why I didn't feel bad was that that
Speaker 10: was a study in house. You know, it was real
Speaker 10: study in house. I was the I was the seventeenth
Speaker 10: guy to get promoted out of the house, sixteen out
Speaker 10: of the truck, and one out of the engine from
Speaker 10: that list. So there was a lot of students, and
Speaker 10: I kind of just you know, everybody's in the same boat.
Speaker 10: Everybody's got to study again. So it was for three
Speaker 10: months September October November December that the test was again
Speaker 10: given again September December that year. But they were all welcoming, and.
Speaker 5: Are you a junior guy there? When you got there
Speaker 5: with those other guys with less time.
Speaker 10: I doubt there was anybody there with less time. But
Speaker 10: my first captain was Dennis Cross.
Speaker 6: I was gonna ask you for yeah, I mean he was.
Speaker 10: My first captain. I got this funny story about my
Speaker 10: first day there. But John Doggerty was a lieutenant. Frank
Speaker 10: Gletto was a lieutenant. Joe Dirks, who was a Gordon
Speaker 10: Bennett winner from one O three was one of my lieutenants.
Speaker 10: Jay Tavoalaro who was my mentor because we were in
Speaker 10: the same groups. He was one of the chauffeurs and
Speaker 10: we ended up getting promoted the same day. On lieutenant
Speaker 10: was I was seven sixty three, he was seven sixty
Speaker 10: two on the list. Hanka Mellon, who ended up retiring
Speaker 10: as a lieutenant one seventy five, Pete Hassler, John kenn
Speaker 10: and Mike Dally, Eddie McGrath, Eddie Travis.
Speaker 8: Who was Pete Travis Chief.
Speaker 10: Eddie Garrity transferred out of one O two and went
Speaker 10: to rescue one because he didn't do as well as
Speaker 10: he thought he that it was going to do on
Speaker 10: lieutenant's tests. John O'Connell, Tommy Richardson, Mark Farran, George Bell, Navis, Billy.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, except Bran was there too.
Speaker 10: Man live well, hopefully he hears this that he was
Speaker 10: on an onion skin when I got transferred there, and
Speaker 10: he said, what the fuck is this guy comes here
Speaker 10: with three years on the job and he goes before me.
Speaker 10: I wasn't going to bring it up.
Speaker 8: Was the richies man? Yet I guess they came after you.
Speaker 10: They both Rass and Croach, he transferred before me before
Speaker 10: a year or two. But Billy McGovern who was a
Speaker 10: battalion chief in in the second Battalion dart On nine
Speaker 10: to eleven. Mike Banker, who I think retired as the
Speaker 10: captain Squad sixty one six one yea Ray Coyle, Bobby
Speaker 10: ol Or, Donny Boyle, and then I know we were
Speaker 10: talking about Louell about the four guys. So that was Croachy, Rasuwiz,
Speaker 10: Dennis Pace and Billy o'fanos. That was the guy. You
Speaker 10: couldn't think, yes, yes, yes they were. There were four
Speaker 10: guys from two thirty the transferred to one O two
Speaker 10: that had seats together.
Speaker 12: The kid the guy told me when I got in there,
Speaker 12: who was my first my first tourus as a lieutenant.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 12: I turned the MDT around, you know, to me, and
Speaker 12: we're flying like we're going towards one eleven's area, and
Speaker 12: we would pull up and as I'm going to hit
Speaker 12: the eighty four, he turns the MDT around and he says, yeah, Lude,
Speaker 12: I'll touch the MDT.
Speaker 8: I'll take care of everything.
Speaker 10: Went like this.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 12: One in Rome, Bro and Cat Murphy, Dennis Murphy. He
Speaker 12: said to me when I was getting promoted at two
Speaker 12: eighty eight, he was my captain. He said to me,
Speaker 12: when you get there, go upstairs, you know.
Speaker 8: Relieve the guy.
Speaker 7: Obviously put your get get ready, go upstairs.
Speaker 12: When you make the BF four out, you know, just
Speaker 12: take a look and see how much time the guys got.
Speaker 8: You know, Bro, it was I had. I was just
Speaker 8: coming up on ten years.
Speaker 7: All those guys, Richie, I think it was Grimaldi.
Speaker 8: I mean it was uh Pollid, Ray Pollard. All those guys.
Speaker 12: Had like twenty five years or more, all of them
Speaker 12: are you know. I didn't even go downstairs. I went downstairs.
Speaker 12: I gave him the BF ran away, and then I
Speaker 12: went upstairs.
Speaker 10: No, they did. They did the roll call, and they
Speaker 10: used to do anyway. No I didn't, No, they didn't.
Speaker 10: I remember covering as a captain there years later and
Speaker 10: I said, come on, you know, we'll do it all. No, no, no,
Speaker 10: let's go fucking roll call. Have you had a roll call?
Speaker 8: So I tell her.
Speaker 12: With the Chief Travis when again, I think this was
Speaker 12: that first night we go to we Go. I think
Speaker 12: it was like a valve al m and the water
Speaker 12: was leaking out underneath the rolldown. So I was going
Speaker 12: around the side to see what was going on, and
Speaker 12: I hit a sauce start up and they cut the
Speaker 12: roll down gate for the water leaking out, right, So
Speaker 12: I come around and Chief Travis is that it's like
Speaker 12: it was July one hundred degrees. All the guys got
Speaker 12: their jackets off and they all have cut sleeves. I
Speaker 12: think I told this story. They all had cut sleeves.
Speaker 12: T shirts would cut sleeves, and Chief is that, and
Speaker 12: I go over them to introduce myself for the first time.
Speaker 12: I'm like, oh my, and I never was dressed properly
Speaker 12: coobs though. I go over to shake his hand. I
Speaker 12: got the shirt on, buttoned up, everything right, and I'm
Speaker 12: thinking to myself, he's gonna like rip into me like
Speaker 12: with these guys. Next thing I know, he's talking to
Speaker 12: them everything, and I get to the firehouse, and I said, wow, man,
Speaker 12: I thought the chief was gonna read me out because
Speaker 12: everybody was out of uniform. He's like, look, Chief, he
Speaker 12: was a one o two guy. I said, oh, he's
Speaker 12: one of two guys. I went upstairs.
Speaker 8: I cut my shirt. I said, hey, when that.
Speaker 6: When Mike Travis's father.
Speaker 8: No, I don't think so. No, No, I'm sorry, Chief,
Speaker 8: I just was thinking about one or two.
Speaker 10: No, it's a good, great spot. I loved it working there.
Speaker 10: Put it easily stayed the canman for thirty five years.
Speaker 10: You know, no problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, did you ever give you can up?
Speaker 12: No, Let's see the let's see the ice picture. Now,
Speaker 12: let's I want to I've been looking at this picture
Speaker 12: for like thirty.
Speaker 10: Show the one with the building first.
Speaker 4: Sure. Absolutely, So that was.
Speaker 10: A story that was the you know, I almost bought
Speaker 10: the farm that that night. So it was a little background.
Speaker 10: I worked Tuesday, January twelfth, nineteen eighty eight, six by
Speaker 10: nine tour, so I was working the two for some reason,
Speaker 10: I was working two straight toward night tours, January twelfth
Speaker 10: and January thirteenth. So January twelfth, I went to a
Speaker 10: fire and it was cold out, very cold out, and
Speaker 10: I had a scarf around my neck underneath my coat,
Speaker 10: and I went to a fire and the scarf melted
Speaker 10: around my neck. So it was you know, I guess
Speaker 10: it was polyester or whatever. But yeah, I said, oh,
Speaker 10: this ain't good. So I went in between tours the
Speaker 10: next The next day, in between tours, I went to
Speaker 10: this place called Accurate Fire Equipment and bought a hood.
Speaker 10: So hoods weren't a thing then, you know, they weren't
Speaker 10: a thing. But I said, well, you know, if i'm
Speaker 10: gonna it's a fucking cold night, I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 10: buy a hood. Which so now it's I'm working Wednesday
Speaker 10: the thirteenth, and early on the January fourteenth, there was
Speaker 10: a fire with that putting up a new building there.
Speaker 10: It was an old building and that was five eighty
Speaker 10: three Franklin Avenue. So we get assigned, and this is
Speaker 10: between Atlantic and Pacific Street and Brooklyn. We very rarely
Speaker 10: ran south of Fulton Street, but we get it was
Speaker 10: it was a busy night and companies were all out
Speaker 10: of out of sorts. It was early in the morning,
Speaker 10: it was just starting to get light out, and we're
Speaker 10: going down on on what Street, down down south, So
Speaker 10: I remember Richie Crochey was hey, he had the iions
Speaker 10: I had the OV. So I remember saying to him.
Speaker 10: He says, rich oh, boy, I hope the fireing out
Speaker 10: by the time we get there. He says, oh, don't
Speaker 10: say that. Oh I said that one time, and I
Speaker 10: got the shit beat out of me. So sure enough
Speaker 10: we get there. Al Petrocelli was a covering captain before
Speaker 10: we got the spot in one O two and we
Speaker 10: get a sign to the exposure, which was where that
Speaker 10: where that arrow is? That was five eighty five, I
Speaker 10: believe Franklin. So we get a signed okay, search exposure four.
Speaker 10: So we go into exposure four. I note the front
Speaker 10: fire escapes. I got the OV and we all go
Speaker 10: up together to the top floor and the captain says
Speaker 10: to me, Bobby, go the rear. We'll start in the
Speaker 10: front and we'll meet in the middle and keep going.
Speaker 10: I said, all right, I go all the way to
Speaker 10: the rear. I note that there's no rear fire escapes.
Speaker 10: So now I'm searching from the rear towards the front,
Speaker 10: and they're searching from the front towards the rear. Now
Speaker 10: it starts getting shitty, so they decide to go down
Speaker 10: unbeknownst to me. So I'm search towards the front. I'm
Speaker 10: getting towards the front room and Greg Siminara in one
Speaker 10: eleventh bucket is coming in in that window off the
Speaker 10: fire escaped there. So I says Greg, it's getting shitty
Speaker 10: up here. Now you know we were fireming together in
Speaker 10: two thirty. I knew his capabilities. Great fireman. I says Greg,
Speaker 10: it's getting shitty up here. I'm going to just search
Speaker 10: this room and I'm going to go down. So he
Speaker 10: pulls the bucket. He says, okay, Bobby pulls the bucket away.
Speaker 10: Two fourteen was stretching a line to the top floor,
Speaker 10: a dry line to the top floor, and that's when
Speaker 10: the shit hit the fan. The whole third floor lit up.
Speaker 10: So now we're I mean two fourteen's on the landing
Speaker 10: and I'm in the front room. So they all dive
Speaker 10: through the fire down below the fire and I'm stuck
Speaker 10: in that room there. So I my My first thing
Speaker 10: that I'm fearing is I'm going to die up here
Speaker 10: with my my my cheeter, my cheaer. I didn't have
Speaker 10: a face piece, that was my That was the thing
Speaker 10: I was thinking of so I give like a half face.
Speaker 10: I give like a half fasce urgent. Yeah, one or
Speaker 10: two ov. I'm up on the top floor. So now
Speaker 10: there's fire about those three windows on the third floor there.
Speaker 10: So the chief says, go to the rear, go to
Speaker 10: the rear. I know, I go to the rear. I'm
Speaker 10: a dead man. So I yell out to Greg in
Speaker 10: the bucket. I says, Greg, Man, come and get me.
Speaker 10: So they kept the fire in the window from a
Speaker 10: line in the street. So I was in that the
Speaker 10: window where the arrow is. So he says, what window,
Speaker 10: what window? Yet I says, off the fire escape. So
Speaker 10: he drove. He drove the bucket through the fire, through
Speaker 10: the smoke. I dove in and I got out. So
Speaker 10: now they call for water. They're gonna, you know, we're
Speaker 10: gonna go to a next steary operation. And that's how
Speaker 10: I got coated with the ice. Greg and I were
Speaker 10: in the bucket. We knocked the fire, went up to
Speaker 10: the fourth floor. So we knock too far. Two floors
Speaker 10: of fire down, and you know, it was cold morning,
Speaker 10: and YadA, YadA YadA. So now we're over, we're done,
Speaker 10: and hey, come get me. Well, no one O two
Speaker 10: was leaving. They were leaving because they got you know,
Speaker 10: take up, but I said, hey, don't leave without me.
Speaker 6: So you hood looks good.
Speaker 10: See yeah, I mean it was only a couple hours old.
Speaker 10: But that's uh Richie Deeper Dover he was a chief
Speaker 10: in the five seven. Uh that that's like you can
Speaker 10: cut off there, but uh that clicked. Sure.
Speaker 6: I went to probably school of his son deep Andy. Yeah, and.
Speaker 10: I was in the.
Speaker 12: That was in the magazine the what the fuck is
Speaker 12: the name of that magazine? What was the magazine we
Speaker 12: had in the fire house all the time. I can't
Speaker 12: think of w n y F magazine.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I don't think that picture was in the w M.
Speaker 8: It was in the back. Yes, I remember seeing it.
Speaker 4: What episode I have a.
Speaker 10: Bunch here and go look the next uh the next day,
Speaker 10: after that incident of my ship in my pants, I
Speaker 10: get over time because it's the end of my you know,
Speaker 10: it's my second tour, right, So I'm in the fire
Speaker 10: house and bed for the avenue and the three four
Speaker 10: Battalion was still in existence, and uh, well you want
Speaker 10: to work overtime? Said yeah, okay, all right, Oh you
Speaker 10: got to drive the chief. So I never drove the
Speaker 10: chief before. I was all right, well, what the you know,
Speaker 10: what could it be? So we get we get a
Speaker 10: I'm working chief stayed in the three four battalion first
Speaker 10: time ever. We get a box in with one O
Speaker 10: eight and uh to sixteen on Graham Avenue manhole for you,
Speaker 10: and I'm just like, you know, I'm standing there with
Speaker 10: a fucking clipboard. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
Speaker 10: So all of a sudden, boom, the fucking manhole goes flying.
Speaker 10: So I was a student, and I know it said don't.
Speaker 8: Run, don't don't run, always look up and look up.
Speaker 10: If it's going to land on your head, then you move,
Speaker 10: then you run. So the fucking things coming right towards
Speaker 10: me and I run. What the fuck?
Speaker 7: They never got towards anybody really, So, you know, this
Speaker 7: morning and then.
Speaker 10: Later on the afternoon, the fucking manhole almost lists. So
Speaker 10: now the next day, which was Friday to fifteen, I
Speaker 10: didn't have any kids. My wife was like six months
Speaker 10: pregnant at the time at the first one, and she
Speaker 10: was working at the time, and I go to the
Speaker 10: new I go to the candy store to buy the newspaper,
Speaker 10: and the fucking front page of the news of the
Speaker 10: daily news. I think I have a picture there there
Speaker 10: Daily News, this one. So I go to the candy
Speaker 10: store and that's what I see. So I start laughing.
Speaker 10: So the young girl behind the counter, she's on the phone,
Speaker 10: she says, Oh, what are you laughing at? I says,
Speaker 10: that's me. She says, Oh, I was just just talking
Speaker 10: to my friend. What a fucking picture that is? You know?
Speaker 10: I says, yeah, it's a long story. But that picture
Speaker 10: was on the WNYF which I'm sorry. It was on
Speaker 10: the department orders, which they had a thing it started
Speaker 10: in January nine of eighty eight, you know that they
Speaker 10: would put pictures and whatever. I don't know what they
Speaker 10: called it, but that was the first picture.
Speaker 9: I like how they tied it into the Jennifer's Final
Speaker 9: hours last week and talk of sex and there you are.
Speaker 10: So you're familiar with that story that the whole did
Speaker 10: you do you remember that story?
Speaker 6: But no, is that the one of the central plot?
Speaker 10: It was They called it a.
Speaker 6: Not yuppie yuppie rape or whatever it was.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, that was it. I don't remember the guy's name,
Speaker 10: but but that picture. Also, I'm good friends with Paul Pharaoh,
Speaker 10: and he told me that that picture six foot tall
Speaker 10: in the I A F F headquarters in Washington, d C.
Speaker 10: I never seen it, but that he told me that
Speaker 10: that's one of the pictures in their headquarters lobby.
Speaker 12: Now I know why he had a hood on, because
Speaker 12: you always wonder like, how did that guy have a
Speaker 12: hood on? If he was like back then nobody we
Speaker 12: didn't have buds then interesting.
Speaker 5: As you guys, and well how can they left jump there?
Speaker 5: They didn't tell you they were going down?
Speaker 7: I never really uh, after you run for your life,
Speaker 7: you never really yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 10: Did never really approached that. Why did you leave me
Speaker 10: up there? But anyway, where are we? We are?
Speaker 6: Uh Chancellor?
Speaker 4: We were in one of two.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we got promotenant. We got to move a little
Speaker 12: quicker because we got an hour and fifteen in oh
Speaker 12: to Uh.
Speaker 10: Promoted to the gott. I got promoted jury.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm sorry, Uh to division three and assigned to
Speaker 6: a lot of twelve.
Speaker 10: Well I covered Jerry Tracy I called up. I didn't
Speaker 10: know I got assigned to the third division. I didn't
Speaker 10: know anybody Jerry Tracy. I knew from one O eight
Speaker 10: I was in one O two. He was in four truck.
Speaker 10: I called up Jerry. I said, said, Jerry, how you doing?
Speaker 10: You know I just got a sign. Oh you know,
Speaker 10: he says, Bobby, you know I'm going on vacation. Nobody's
Speaker 10: covering my vacation. You're covering my vacation. I sais ah
Speaker 10: four truck? You know?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 10: He said, No, nobody's covering it. You know I'll call
Speaker 10: it up. You know, they'll call you what you're doing.
Speaker 10: So I was My twenty four partner was Tom Galvin.
Speaker 10: He was a captain of Ford Truck. The first tour
Speaker 10: I was an up and down twenty four in the
Speaker 10: middle of July of nineteen ninety and it was the
Speaker 10: Empire State Building fire. So I'm driving in from Valley
Speaker 10: Stream and I'm listening to ten ten Wins and they're
Speaker 10: terror telling these howering stories about a big fire, the
Speaker 10: Empire State Building fire, fucking fires wrapping around the core
Speaker 10: and blah blah blah, and guys are getting burnt. I'm saying,
Speaker 10: what the fuck am I getting myself into? I says,
Speaker 10: I was only I was never more than ten feet
Speaker 10: away from a window. And now I'm going this fuck
Speaker 10: in Manhattan John Bill Navis, who I worked with his
Speaker 10: brother George, and went out to telling me, you know, Howering,
Speaker 10: it's amazing that we lose didn't lose a dozen guys
Speaker 10: that fire. I'm going to move it along. There was
Speaker 10: another story while I was doing that vacation. So there
Speaker 10: was old lower tenements under demolition right in the harder
Speaker 10: Times Square where they sell the tickets for the shows.
Speaker 10: I don't know what it's called ticket whatever. There was
Speaker 10: a bunch of old law tenements that they were under demolition.
Speaker 10: So when they were doing the cutting or whatever, the
Speaker 10: corners went on fire. So I got seven years on
Speaker 10: the job, first time lieutenant and Ford Truck and Times Square.
Speaker 8: So we go to you know a little for the microscope.
Speaker 10: So I says, to the show for I says, why
Speaker 10: don't you hit it with the aeriel knock it down
Speaker 10: and we'll hit it with the booster. You guys. He goes, yeah, Love,
Speaker 10: we don't do that around here. So I look on
Speaker 10: the on the on the curb and everybody's got a
Speaker 10: fucking cap. I says, bro, do whatever you do. So
Speaker 10: they got the fucking ball cutters. They're going. They went
Speaker 10: the booster, they're going to knock it down. They take it.
Speaker 10: They gift wrapped each pace. They're coming down. You never
Speaker 10: twelve I get a sign right. O'Connor was a Fineman
Speaker 10: and four truck lieutenant in two thirty five Captain twelve truck.
Speaker 10: Uh knows me knows I'm covering. At that time, seventh
Speaker 10: Battalion went from the third Division to the first division. Bobby,
Speaker 10: you know we need a guy lieutenant. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 10: I was studying for captain. You know, I like twelve truck.
Speaker 10: The response there he was decent. They didn't do a
Speaker 10: lot of the high rise stuff that they didn't like.
Speaker 10: They did old tenements and and H types and brownstones.
Speaker 10: So I he asked me. I went and was in
Speaker 10: twelve truck for a bunch of years. Guys there was
Speaker 10: Rod O'Connor, Jack Gibbons was a very senior guy when
Speaker 10: I was there. Clarence Singleton, which he retired as a
Speaker 10: lieutenant to eighteen Big Angel RIVERA, Wayne Petretti, Mark Fredrickson,
Speaker 10: great guy, Larry Cohen, Mike Matt Cassidy, Tommy Lane, and
Speaker 10: Heinz Cothy and Paul Farrow was a lieutenant in Engine
Speaker 10: three while I was there, so I got a quick
Speaker 10: story about Heinz Coty. So after I get promoted, there
Speaker 10: was a guy in twelve truck that had a construction business,
Speaker 10: so I'm already gone, and he hired some of the
Speaker 10: guys in the firehouse to help him, you know, work
Speaker 10: on construction in the Manhattan. So I wish I could
Speaker 10: think of his name, but I don't remember his name.
Speaker 10: So Heines is working for this guy and they're walking
Speaker 10: up to the building with it and they smell smoke.
Speaker 10: So they said, oh, the fucking son's barning. You know
Speaker 10: something's barning. Oh fucking building over there's on fire. So
Speaker 10: one of the guys there was three guys. One of
Speaker 10: them was lieutenant I think it was, I can't think
Speaker 10: of his name, Larry Bleeker, Larry Bleeker who ended up
Speaker 10: being a captain of two thirty. Heinz Kthy and this
Speaker 10: other guy. They go into the fire into the building.
Speaker 10: Heinz goes up to the roof. So sixteen truck was
Speaker 10: first due, so I guess they got The other two
Speaker 10: guys go to the fire floor. They're doing whatever they're doing,
Speaker 10: but there's somebody at the window. At the window, so
Speaker 10: Heines is in Doungarees construction close you know. So a
Speaker 10: guy that I grew up with is his father was
Speaker 10: this guy, Bobby mcglock on. My father's best friend was
Speaker 10: the roof man in sixteen truck. So heine says, come on,
Speaker 10: I'm a fire him in a twelve truck. I'll lower
Speaker 10: you down to get the guy out of the fucking window.
Speaker 10: They do a roof robe rescue. I swear to god
Speaker 10: he ended up Dale mclough and got a medal for
Speaker 10: roof rope rescue getting lowered by some guy that claims
Speaker 10: he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 8: From that's worked.
Speaker 6: I worked with Dale when I was in sixteen truck.
Speaker 6: He's a good guy.
Speaker 8: Circle the trust right there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's like I suck that so moving along left.
Speaker 10: Like ninety five, I got promoted to captain. I did
Speaker 10: six months in the captain's management program, which was torture tough.
Speaker 10: Yeah tough.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 10: I think there was thirty guys in the class. Fifteen
Speaker 10: did six months and fifteen did a year, so I
Speaker 10: would have had to turn it down if I was
Speaker 10: in the year group, but I was in the six
Speaker 10: month group. Fortunately, my job this was the old headquarters
Speaker 10: on I think Livingston Street, and my job was to
Speaker 10: put the forms online like now, I guess that's a
Speaker 10: common thing like but everything was by paper and carbon
Speaker 10: paper and back, you know. So there was a pile
Speaker 10: somebody else had you know, started it, So there was
Speaker 10: a pile of papers. So it took me six months
Speaker 10: to move the pilot papers from the otherft side of
Speaker 10: the desk of the rights of the.
Speaker 12: And that was my good god, crucial, crucial, right, like,
Speaker 12: we can't use this guy.
Speaker 8: Anywhere else on the job.
Speaker 7: This is really what we need to do.
Speaker 10: It was, you know, I don't I don't say he's
Speaker 10: completely useless. While I was there was when Vanessa became commissioner,
Speaker 10: and I remember who was before him, But what the
Speaker 10: six months I was there, which I guess was the
Speaker 10: beginning of ninety six, I don't remember. But you know,
Speaker 10: he he brought it like a lot of good ideas.
Speaker 10: You know, guys felt questionable. But I remember the Fireman's rotation,
Speaker 10: you know, so he had all these new captains, fifteen
Speaker 10: new captains, and he said, I'm going to have this idea.
Speaker 10: I'm going to do approb the rotation. Ask me any
Speaker 10: questions you want. Somebody says, why do we got to
Speaker 10: do this? And he had a great answer. He says, well,
Speaker 10: you know, ten percent of the companies are doing ninety
Speaker 10: percent of the jobs. He says, I'd rather have a
Speaker 10: guy go to a busy company for a year than
Speaker 10: never go to a busy company, right, you know, it
Speaker 10: kind of made sense that And you learn things in
Speaker 10: a good house that you maybe want to take back
Speaker 10: to the house that.
Speaker 5: You were in, and I just a chance to go
Speaker 5: somewhere else with the decent Maybe they want to go
Speaker 5: to a busy house to stuck in a slow house
Speaker 5: to get complace it and then never want to move.
Speaker 10: Well, that's and I've seen that in three engine and
Speaker 10: twelve truck. You know, I said, guys wanted to go
Speaker 10: to busier houses, Guys who wanted to go to slower houses,
Speaker 10: Guys that got closer home, right, you know. But so
Speaker 10: that's that I get a signed to the seventh division.
Speaker 10: But then you know it turned they turned it back
Speaker 10: to the fifteenth, and so now it's ninety seven. I
Speaker 10: hear rumblings about these new squads. I'm a covering captain.
Speaker 10: I loved two fifty two engine. It was a Great House,
Speaker 10: single engine. I think the rumors were that that was
Speaker 10: going to be one of the squads, and I put
Speaker 10: in for two fifty two, so I think it was
Speaker 10: a lead ahead. Did I have the lead ahead?
Speaker 8: You had one of the but not?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it was with squad.
Speaker 10: So that's what they asked for. They asked for divisions
Speaker 10: to you know, poll your captains who wants So I
Speaker 10: put him for two fifty two. Steve Raswella was the
Speaker 10: captain and I found out later on that he was
Speaker 10: putting in for it. But a guy I knew was
Speaker 10: the executive officer of I guess it was man Essen
Speaker 10: at the time. And uh, he says two fifty two,
Speaker 10: you know, Steve aswell is staying. Eighteen's open. What do
Speaker 10: you do you want that? So I says, it's a
Speaker 10: tremendous opportunity. I ran in with engine eighteen when I
Speaker 10: was in twelve.
Speaker 8: Right, I wasn't a second do there?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Right? Yeah, I wasn't you know, I wasn't in the system.
Speaker 10: I never was in a rescue battalion company. But it
Speaker 10: sounded like a tremend this opportunity to make I was
Speaker 10: already studying for battalion chief at the time. My wife says,
Speaker 10: at the time, Uh, what the you hated work in Manhattan?
Speaker 10: What do you want to go back? You know? And
Speaker 10: one of the things was to their credit was all
Speaker 10: the guys from the engine says, you take all of us,
Speaker 10: or you take none of us, which I kind of
Speaker 10: admire it, you know, but I think I think they
Speaker 10: all left, And so I would have had twenty five
Speaker 10: new guys, some guys that had rescue experience, some guys,
Speaker 10: most guys didn't, So I would have been you know,
Speaker 10: mentoring or not mentoring. That's you know, training with these guys.
Speaker 10: Even so, it just so Jerry Tracy, I believe was
Speaker 10: the first captain. He was in eighteen. So that was, uh,
Speaker 10: I guess eight ninety eight. So now December eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 10: ninety eight, I was I was UFO in I'm getting
Speaker 10: but that was like a busy time ninety eight, ninety nine,
Speaker 10: two thirty six. Yeah, I don't think I was UFO
Speaker 10: there yet, but I was covering and I was doing
Speaker 10: Jack Mooney's vacation or tour or whatever. He was a
Speaker 10: captain one, and it was the night of December seventeenth,
Speaker 10: I think the fire was on the eighteenth, so rest
Speaker 10: in peace. Joe Cavalieri, Chris Bop and James Bohan so
Speaker 10: Mike Mike Donovan was the officer in two ninety.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 10: You know, we knew each other from the five seven battalion.
Speaker 10: Great guy, friendly. We were friends and work and I
Speaker 10: loved working on Sheffield Avenue. I tried to work there
Speaker 10: as much as I could. You know, they went to fires,
Speaker 10: they wanted to drill. I mean, I just love working there,
Speaker 10: so I worked as much as I could. I was
Speaker 10: one of the first of my two night tours. I
Speaker 10: was working the seventeenth and the eighteenth. So I'm working
Speaker 10: at one O three. There was Ruderick Bauer was driving.
Speaker 10: Vic s Fedaro was the OV. Bobby Higgins was the
Speaker 10: roof man. Dan the Bretty who rest in peace. He
Speaker 10: got in September eleventh and Rescue two had the irons
Speaker 10: and Jim Schweckey was a detail across the floor. He
Speaker 10: had the cam. So we get a run. The Corps
Speaker 10: came in at four point fifty two am. We got
Speaker 10: assigned at four fifty four AM. I know where Vandalia
Speaker 10: Avenue is, I just didn't know which building it was,
Speaker 10: but we're following ninety down Penn and Mike Donovan sees
Speaker 10: the fire on the top floor, so he gives a
Speaker 10: ten seventy five. We're still driving and said, what the fuck,
Speaker 10: you know, where's it? Ten seventy five, So we make
Speaker 10: the right on Vandalia. Earlier in the evening, we had
Speaker 10: a food on the stove in a building right across
Speaker 10: the street from seventeen Vandalia Avenue, so it was a
Speaker 10: food on the stove one seventy and two fifty seven
Speaker 10: or first do we were second due food in the stove.
Speaker 10: They go up, they do their thing. Bobby Higgins goes
Speaker 10: up to the roof and he comes down later on.
Speaker 10: He says, it's very windy up there, be careful for
Speaker 10: a top floor fire. This is earlier in the night,
Speaker 10: so okay, now fist forward. We got a top floor
Speaker 10: fire at A two ninety gives a ten seventy five
Speaker 10: at four point fifty eight. At the same time, the
Speaker 10: dispatcher calls me on the radio one O three we
Speaker 10: have a report of a woman trapped in an apartment
Speaker 10: ten e. That was also at four fifty eight. So
Speaker 10: we go walking up. I'm not sure if two ninety
Speaker 10: went up first in the in the elevator or fifty seven.
Speaker 10: But I said to Joe Cavalleery, I says, you're first.
Speaker 10: Do you take the elevator. We're waiting in the lobby.
Speaker 10: Vic Spadaro gives a fantastic size up, goes to the rear.
Speaker 10: He says, cap the fires on the top floor, exposure
Speaker 10: floor blowing in so great great, So I says to
Speaker 10: the Dan the Bretty and Schweky, I says, come on,
Speaker 10: we'll take the stairs. So we go to exposure four stairs.
Speaker 10: And what happened was the SIDS information was reversed because
Speaker 10: the building that we went to earlier in the night,
Speaker 10: the stamp pipe was in exposure too. But whoever wrote
Speaker 10: up the CIDs card just wrote the same thing for
Speaker 10: the building across the street, so everything was reversed on
Speaker 10: the SIDS. So we walk up and I'm not carrying nothing,
Speaker 10: so I go up, you know first, And I never
Speaker 10: had to do this before, but I put my face
Speaker 10: piece on on the half landing between nine and ten,
Speaker 10: and I had stopped into nine to see where the
Speaker 10: eline was, So I'm heading for tenny I went, I
Speaker 10: stopped ninety, so I said, okay, it's the first door
Speaker 10: on your right when you go in. So but I
Speaker 10: never had to put my face piece on. When the
Speaker 10: fucking door is closed to the hallway. Holy shit. So
Speaker 10: I put the face piece on.
Speaker 8: I go into the hallway and tent flights.
Speaker 10: So I did. In the hallway, it's it's hot. I
Speaker 10: bang bang on the door. The woman open the door.
Speaker 10: She's in a wheelchair, so I push her in, I
Speaker 10: turn her around, I pull her out into the hallway.
Speaker 10: I go towards the door to the stairway, and then
Speaker 10: the bready comes up. He says, you know, grab the feet,
Speaker 10: let's go. We carry her down to the ninth floor,
Speaker 10: and at the same time to fifty seven's bringing the
Speaker 10: line up to ninety I believe was stretching at this.
Speaker 10: At the same time we get her down to the
Speaker 10: ninth floor, I get back up to the to the
Speaker 10: door of the hall hallway, and fifty seven is getting burnt.
Speaker 10: At the time you were allowed to hook up on
Speaker 10: the fire floor, they're getting burnt with the fucking door closed,
Speaker 10: trying to hook up the line, you know, in the stampede,
Speaker 10: So ninety stretch the second line. They come up fifty
Speaker 10: seven didn't get their line hooked up. I says, okay,
Speaker 10: are you ready, you know, we'll open up the line. Oh,
Speaker 10: we're getting burned at one line. We tried once, we
Speaker 10: tried twice. We called for two eighty three. I believe
Speaker 10: I had the second line from the eighth floor. Now
Speaker 10: we have the engine. Two lines, two lines open up
Speaker 10: at the same time. Open okay, ready, go open up
Speaker 10: the door. We were able to get in the hallway,
Speaker 10: and that only with the two lines opened up. That's
Speaker 10: how we got in the fucking hallway. So it was uh.
Speaker 12: I think dom Carino had the nozzle too there and
Speaker 12: he's like, I talk about him all the time, like
Speaker 12: he's burning his ears are going to burn off him
Speaker 12: before he's And all those guys went to the birth center.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean eighty three, I believe was on the
Speaker 10: left side of the hallway and ninety was on the
Speaker 10: right side. I'm kind of like in the middle pushing
Speaker 10: down the may days had already occurred, and we're, you know,
Speaker 10: we're trying to.
Speaker 8: Those guys are on the floor from the other side.
Speaker 10: I think they went up the other Yeah, exposure too,
Speaker 10: and years ago they used to called it a wrong
Speaker 10: way fire when the when the wind was blowing into
Speaker 10: the into the so I think the minute or two
Speaker 10: that I was in that hallway, the fire wasn't blowing
Speaker 10: out or wasn't blowing in. It was blowing out, and
Speaker 10: then the gusts would come in it would blow back in.
Speaker 10: So I just I read the safety report in preparation
Speaker 10: for this and he said that which was true. The
Speaker 10: fire was from the floor to the to the top
Speaker 10: of the door coming out hitting the wall on the
Speaker 10: other side of the hallway. That's so it's very, very
Speaker 10: bad night. I remember John O'Connor was the division commander.
Speaker 10: He had that fire, and I remember him saying, he says, Bobbie,
Speaker 10: I work one night too many. Wow. You know, he
Speaker 10: had a he had a career and he retired after that.
Speaker 10: But you know, it's it's a cheap's worst fear.
Speaker 6: Is watch yep.
Speaker 8: I to have three guys, I mean three guys.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's terrible, terrible night. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 8: It's still disgusting.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So I had another funny story. You know, Tony Verrially
Speaker 10: was on here, so I don't think kill mommy telling
Speaker 10: this story. So I was UF I w and two
Speaker 10: thirty six. I'm very happy there. I think I was,
Speaker 10: you know, pretty safe getting that spot. But how it
Speaker 10: was was if you didn't put in for any transfer
Speaker 10: order coming down, if you didn't put in, they would
Speaker 10: fucking assign your places. So you know, I'm not going
Speaker 10: to say a slow company in the fifteenth, but I
Speaker 10: don't want to go there, so I put in for
Speaker 10: every time there was an opening, I would put in
Speaker 10: even though I'm where I want to be. So it
Speaker 10: was one twenty, two eighty three, one twenty six, and
Speaker 10: two seventy five. Those are the four companies I put
Speaker 10: in for. So I knew Harry Harry Werner was going
Speaker 10: to one to twenty, rock O Ronaldi was going to
Speaker 10: two eighty three, and I didn't know who was going
Speaker 10: to the two companies in Queens. But so I'm happy
Speaker 10: where I am. And I get a phone call a
Speaker 10: couple of weeks later from the from the fire Commissioner's office. Yeah, Bobby,
Speaker 10: did you put in for two seventy five engine? I says, yeah, boy,
Speaker 10: he says yeah, the fire commissioner wants to interview you
Speaker 10: for two seventy five, I says, for a fucking engine company.
Speaker 10: In Jamaica. What's the fire commissioner getting involved with? So
Speaker 10: it was me, Tony Barryali, this guy Bob Bell, who
Speaker 10: I knew's father was a valley in my company of
Speaker 10: Ally Stream, and and uh Tommy Yawer who we were
Speaker 10: pro he's together in two thirty. Those are the four
Speaker 10: people that were interviewing. So we go to headquarters. They're
Speaker 10: all in regular you know, dress uniform. I got my
Speaker 10: work shirt on my don't I think I had a hat.
Speaker 10: They had hats on. So they called us one at
Speaker 10: a time into the conference room. Commissioner, the executive officer,
Speaker 10: the chiefer, department guaranty at the time, everybody's in there.
Speaker 10: So Tony Barriali's like he had a run in with fian,
Speaker 10: chief fian. So Tony's funny, you know, he's just the
Speaker 10: fian's in there. Because the fian's in there, I might
Speaker 10: as well go home because I'm he's holding me. I'm
Speaker 10: never never getting anything in there. So the first guy is, whoever, no, no,
Speaker 10: no feeing in in there. So he comes back out
Speaker 10: to the lobby. Second guy goes in those this fifteen
Speaker 10: minutes interview comes out. Tony's like, is feeling in there
Speaker 10: because the Fians in there. I must want to leave.
Speaker 10: The Fian's in there. No, no, no feend in in there.
Speaker 10: He was. He was first Deputy commission at the time.
Speaker 10: It's okay, boys, you go, So I go. So I'm
Speaker 10: here for essence to the right gyancy feeing three or
Speaker 10: four other pieces. Wow, Bobby, you know, what do you
Speaker 10: want to do seventy five? I says. It's an active company.
Speaker 10: He says, yeah, we have a some kind of politician,
Speaker 10: very influential, wanted a strong captain for two seventy five.
Speaker 10: So I says, yeah, I'd love to work there. It's
Speaker 10: a good company, good house, you know. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 8: So I go.
Speaker 10: He says, okay, bringing Tony. So I go back to
Speaker 10: the lobby. I says, Tony, you must well fucking go
Speaker 10: home because fucking Fians and oh he's full of shit.
Speaker 10: He's full of shit. I walk him back. I opened
Speaker 10: the door. He looks in, he sees feeling. He looks
Speaker 10: at me. I says, I told you, he didn't get it.
Speaker 10: He didn't get it. He got two later on. But
Speaker 10: it was a funny how things work in the fire department,
Speaker 10: you know, so I get booted out of two thirty six.
Speaker 10: How much time we got? Five minutes?
Speaker 8: No, no, you got time.
Speaker 10: I get booted out of two thirty six because at
Speaker 10: that interview, von Essen says to me, so, Bobby, where
Speaker 10: are you working now? I says, I'm UFO with two
Speaker 10: thirty six? Because like this, he looks away from me.
Speaker 10: I said, wow, that was weird. What's that all about?
Speaker 10: Like a week later, I get booted out of two
Speaker 10: thirty six. So I'm not gonna mention the name. Some
Speaker 10: guy that headed end with van Essen was lieutenant there.
Speaker 10: He wanted to go back as captain. I get booted out.
Speaker 10: So I get a call from the division. Yeah, a
Speaker 10: cop you're working in you know three twenty one? Next week?
Speaker 10: I said, no, I'm UFO in two thirty six. Not more. So,
Speaker 10: I says, can I talk to the chief. So I
Speaker 10: don't remember the chief's name. But he says to me,
Speaker 10: all right, you know you got you're not in there anymore.
Speaker 10: Charlie McGrath, Captain one fifty seven, just broke his back.
Speaker 10: He says, I'm going to put you there, UFO. I said,
Speaker 10: all right, funny, great, Yeah. So it was like one
Speaker 10: tour before I went to one fifty seven. So I
Speaker 10: was in one O seven one night. It's a Friday
Speaker 10: night before I started in one fifty seven. And uh yeah,
Speaker 10: captain apartment phone, Captain Boyce, Yeah, Bobby, how you doing?
Speaker 10: This is peak Nancy? How you doing? I'm like, who
Speaker 10: what the hell is going on? He says, Bobby, I
Speaker 10: heard you know two thirty six. I think it was
Speaker 10: John O'Connor. He says, he told me he's putting you
Speaker 10: one fifty seven. He said, I'm going to give you
Speaker 10: one eleven. Is that okay? I says, yeah, Chief, whatever
Speaker 10: you tell you know, whatever you tell me, you know,
Speaker 10: whatever you say, I'll work wherever you tell me. He says,
Speaker 10: hang up, he's gonna call act surprised. So like five
Speaker 10: minutes later, five minutes later, captain boys apart my phone. Okay,
Speaker 10: how you doing? Yeah, Bobby, how you doing? Uh yeah,
Speaker 10: I rethought I'm not gonna put you in one fifty seven.
Speaker 10: I'm gonna put you in one eleven. UFO. Is that okay?
Speaker 10: I says, yeah, Chief, whatever you tell me, you know whatever,
Speaker 10: I'll work wherever you tell me.
Speaker 8: The wor so.
Speaker 10: That's how I you know. So for whatever reason. Gancy
Speaker 10: he was he was a chief in A five seven
Speaker 10: when I was in one O two and he interviewed
Speaker 10: uh Greg Seminara from getting me out with the bucket.
Speaker 10: So I don't know why. I think maybe he had
Speaker 10: heard for van dalea revenue. This was right after the
Speaker 10: Vandalia Avenue fire. I got back to quarters that morning
Speaker 10: after the fire, and I got everybody together, the five guys,
Speaker 10: I says, I says, guys, you guys did a fantastic
Speaker 10: job tonight. This morning, I says, three guys die trying
Speaker 10: to get that woman out. We got out. I says,
Speaker 10: we're not putting it for nothing. No, no, no, cap,
Speaker 10: you're right, you're right. You know, we know what we did.
Speaker 10: That's fine. So I can't help think and somehow that
Speaker 10: got back there that we just did our job, you know,
Speaker 10: and we're not I'm not going to put in a
Speaker 10: unicitation or something for uh for something that guys, So
Speaker 10: that ain't happening. And they all agreed and everybody was
Speaker 10: good with it. And so I went to one eleven
Speaker 10: and which was like fucking dream come true. Uh, it
Speaker 10: was way out of my league. I'll be the first
Speaker 10: one to admit it. I remember I was UFO there.
Speaker 10: It was annual inspection. You know, you line up, you
Speaker 10: did the inspection. Everybody's got the hats on. So some
Speaker 10: deputy comes by, you know, roll call, We do the
Speaker 10: roll call salute. The deputy says, all right, the cap Bobby,
Speaker 10: have somebody get you know, the left handed uh standadventure whatever.
Speaker 10: He asked for the smoke Ben, he says, had the
Speaker 10: junior guy get the I like this. I said that
Speaker 10: would beat me. Sir, who was who was?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 7: You had all the old guys there, right, I mean
Speaker 7: you had I mean.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 10: Chris Sullivan was one of the lieutenants. He was he
Speaker 10: was UFO there when I got a sign there. Uh.
Speaker 10: He died on September eleventh. He was working in the engine.
Speaker 10: Tony Tony Cruz was one of lieutenants. Steve Luisi was
Speaker 10: one of the lieutenants. Charlie Williams who I loved. Uh.
Speaker 10: He lived in the neighborhood. Kenny Connolly was a senior guy.
Speaker 10: He got the Gordon Bennett and Archer medals. He was
Speaker 10: one of the chauffers. Richie spatafora great, great guy. Greg
Speaker 10: Simonara who got me out with the bucket A couple
Speaker 10: of years earlier. Richie Spatafora was one of the guys
Speaker 10: that wrote the bucket down when the when the building
Speaker 10: came down and shid the bucket off of one eleven
Speaker 10: and in Brown and Brooks, Bushwick, Joe Valente, Mike Tresa,
Speaker 10: Billy Reid, Richie McCabe, Eric Wiener, Nick Cicero, Ray Strong,
Speaker 10: Jimmy Elson, French Saparrito, Chris Isa and I would be
Speaker 10: remiss if I didn't mention the five guys from the
Speaker 10: from the house had died, Chris Sullivan, Carpodesian, John Florio,
Speaker 10: Kenny Watson, and Mike Roberts. Going on September.
Speaker 8: Eleventh, doing good, Chief, You're doing good. How was b A?
Speaker 8: What was he like that?
Speaker 4: I thought you said b I for a second, I'm
Speaker 4: like what, Oh no, no, No, He's.
Speaker 10: A character and I loved him and he was good. Fineman,
Speaker 10: That's all you can ask for. He took a detail.
Speaker 10: I don't know if he was on the detail driving
Speaker 10: in the three seven when I got there or soon after,
Speaker 10: but while while I was there, he his year came
Speaker 10: up for the for the detail to drive in the
Speaker 10: eighth so he says, Cap, you know, uh, my years
Speaker 10: up in the three seven. I'm going to put the
Speaker 10: paper in. But I says, Bobby, nobody's pressuring you. I says,
Speaker 10: you stay there. This is your company. You stay there,
Speaker 10: don't you have to put your pay and you stay
Speaker 10: there and when you want to leave, you come back.
Speaker 10: So it's another story, but I don't want to tell
Speaker 10: that's out of school. But he came back when he
Speaker 10: wanted to come back, and uh, it's fine.
Speaker 8: Crazy.
Speaker 6: Would you like most about that house? Cap?
Speaker 10: Well, you know when I was there doing my details
Speaker 10: from two thirty, it was the nuthouse and that was,
Speaker 10: you know, the early eighties, and now it's the late nineties,
Speaker 10: so a lot transformed. And I, honestly, I'm going to
Speaker 10: credit Bob Turner was a captain two fourteen. With the
Speaker 10: priorities were, you know, follow your duty back then, but
Speaker 10: that wasn't the only priority. And when Bob Turner was
Speaker 10: the captain, you know, he put the lid on and
Speaker 10: it was just fires and drilling, fires and drilling, and
Speaker 10: that was the priorities. So when I went back there
Speaker 10: in the nineties, that was a priority. So you know,
Speaker 10: I wanted to mention earlier on. There's two types of firehouses.
Speaker 10: One type of firehouse where it's easy to be a
Speaker 10: fireman and hard to be a boss. The other type
Speaker 10: of firehouse is where it's easy to be a boss
Speaker 10: and hard to be a fireman. I want to be
Speaker 10: in a firehouse where it's hard to be a fireman
Speaker 10: and easy to be a boss. I don't want to
Speaker 10: be working in a place where I got to be
Speaker 10: let the senior guys run the house. That's where I
Speaker 10: look at it, and that's how I aspired to work
Speaker 10: in a place that ran itself, and the senior guys
Speaker 10: ran the house. And I'm just, you know, shuffling paper and.
Speaker 8: Showing up at the job and helping everything.
Speaker 10: And he drilled, and I certainly wasn't the most knowledgeable
Speaker 10: experienced guy there. And I made sure that Eric Wiener
Speaker 10: or Race Straw or somebody else has given good drills.
Speaker 10: And you know, I said, in beginning of toice, you know,
Speaker 10: I said, what do you want to do today? Oh
Speaker 10: there was this vacant there last week. Let's go over there.
Speaker 10: We go over there, we're cutting fucking holes. We had
Speaker 10: rotation guys drilling. It was it was great.
Speaker 6: It's a lot of good work there, of.
Speaker 10: Course, yeah, I mean one one funny funny. But so
Speaker 10: one night there was a guy running around in Bushwick
Speaker 10: setting stairwells on stairways on fire.
Speaker 8: I remember.
Speaker 10: So we had you know, one twelve down that way.
Speaker 10: So Charlie Williams was my chauffeur. And you look like
Speaker 10: eating I'm in big round face all you see his eyes,
Speaker 10: great Vietnam Vet, senior, senior guy. So he's driving me
Speaker 10: one night and we are running into Bushwick. We go
Speaker 10: to a second alarm, good fire. So this was the rundown.
Speaker 10: So the can man was from two twenty two, the
Speaker 10: irons man was from two fourteen, the roof man was
Speaker 10: from one to twelve. Chauffeur Ov and me were from
Speaker 10: the company. So we had a good fire. The irons
Speaker 10: man got burnt from two fourteen Corran I think it
Speaker 10: was Jimmy Curran. I'm not sure the first name. But
Speaker 10: so he got burnt. He goes to the burn center.
Speaker 10: So now we're riding short. So we take up from
Speaker 10: that second alarm and we're going back to quarters. The
Speaker 10: guy from one twelve says, oh, can you stop by you?
Speaker 10: I want to get a change of clothes. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 10: we stopped. We get a change of clothes. We're driving.
Speaker 10: I think it's Gates Avenue, going back to the firehouse
Speaker 10: and a box comes in. Blah blah blah blah, phone
Speaker 10: lamber so between Gates and something else. So Charlie Williams.
Speaker 10: He says, cut, that's right around the corner. I says, yeah, no,
Speaker 10: I know, Charlie. So I turn around. I see Nicki
Speaker 10: Cicero has the OV. I says, Nikki, what do you say?
Speaker 10: What do you think?
Speaker 4: Because he does, I says, all.
Speaker 10: Right, let's let's we're not going to go in the air.
Speaker 10: We're just going to drive pass and.
Speaker 8: See we check it out, check it out, stealth mode.
Speaker 10: We make a right, We make a right. We're you know,
Speaker 10: we're still assigned to the other box. We make another
Speaker 10: right through the through the bulkhead in the middle of
Speaker 10: the block. I says, want to live in Brooklyn. That
Speaker 10: job on bullet of the street, ten seventy five.
Speaker 8: So we go to work.
Speaker 10: We no first one, there no no ions.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 10: I grabbed the ions. The kid hit the can. It's
Speaker 10: going from top to bottom and the OV goes. He's
Speaker 10: getting people off the fire escape. We just did what
Speaker 10: we had to do. So while we're doing this and
Speaker 10: a company comes in, Shorthanded engine company because they were
Speaker 10: at the other job. Somebody goes to Bobby Gleeson I
Speaker 10: think is the chief, and the cops says, a chief,
Speaker 10: you know, the building down the blocks on fire. So
Speaker 10: he's no, no, no, it's probably the smoke, you know.
Speaker 10: So the cogo A couple of minutes later, cop comes back.
Speaker 10: He says, Chief, I'm not telling you how to do
Speaker 10: your job. The fucking building down the blocks on fire.
Speaker 10: So he says to Bobby Austin, he says, Bobby, be
Speaker 10: a go. You know see what the guys cops talking about.
Speaker 10: Yeah about six houses down, you know, three, seven, ten,
Speaker 10: seventy five. So the address that came in that we
Speaker 10: went to was for that fire when we seeing the
Speaker 10: one that we seen, because the fire was through the ballpaper.
Speaker 10: I had a gasoline and that's why that wasn't wasn't
Speaker 10: going as good because he man had a gasoline. So
Speaker 10: you've had to fucking buildings on the same block.
Speaker 8: Saying, man, I remember that guy. Wow.
Speaker 5: They finally caught him, though they got him to do
Speaker 5: a lot of work yeah, oh yeah, two fifty two is.
Speaker 6: Going to do a lot of work. Then that all sense.
Speaker 10: So in two thousand, I my wife got laid off
Speaker 10: from her job, and I know the job was always
Speaker 10: you know, like looking for guys to come off line,
Speaker 10: and Guancy owed me. I owed Guancy big time. So
Speaker 10: I he was Chief of opera cheap of the Chief
Speaker 10: of Operations, I think at the time. And I says, Chief,
Speaker 10: I'm very appreciative if you, you know, taking care of me,
Speaker 10: giving me a great company, I says, if you need
Speaker 10: somebody offline when I get pumoted, I was number six
Speaker 10: on the battalion chiefs list. When I get promoted, you know,
Speaker 10: I'll help you whatever I can do, he says, Bobby,
Speaker 10: we'll have something for you when you get promoted. So
Speaker 10: September eleventh happens. You know, you know that whole story.
Speaker 10: But you know, I felt obligated to Chief Guancy to
Speaker 10: live up to my right offer to come offline. So
Speaker 10: Cassano was Chief of Operations, so I told him, I says, Chief,
Speaker 10: I made this pack with Chief Guancy. If you I'm
Speaker 10: a new battalion chief, now you know, if you need somebody,
Speaker 10: I'll do whatever needs to be done. You know, my
Speaker 10: wife got laid off. I don't have to be with
Speaker 10: the twenty fours. So he says, okay, Bobby, you know,
Speaker 10: we'll have something for you. So they made me the
Speaker 10: liaison to the police department. And I, you know, I
Speaker 10: worked in one PP and they made a captain from
Speaker 10: the police department as the fire guy. So I just
Speaker 10: happened to know them. We were volunteers together and we
Speaker 10: ended up commuting together and blah blah blah. But mum hm.
Speaker 10: I did that for six months and then well I'm
Speaker 10: walking around and a fireman is, you know, pajamas, and
Speaker 10: I thought that they would be but they treated me
Speaker 10: like gold. Oh and then I went to oe EM
Speaker 10: for six months. They made me a deputy commission of
Speaker 10: a homeland security which the fund does that mean? Look,
Speaker 10: the building's on fire. What do you need me for? Uh?
Speaker 8: Everybody need it's a good gig.
Speaker 10: Maybe it's a gig people could have made that. I mean,
Speaker 10: people made that job, you know, do something on the side,
Speaker 10: retire sphema, you know, but that wasn't me. Yeah. I
Speaker 10: did a year offline and I had to go back.
Speaker 6: So we go back where back to the field.
Speaker 10: To the thirteenth Division. U. I was UFO and covering
Speaker 10: in the thirteenth Division and five four battalion, and I
Speaker 10: got promoted to battalion a deputy chief in May of seven.
Speaker 12: Everything was happening as fast after nine to eleven, right,
Speaker 12: it was just happening.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean I was only I was I think
Speaker 10: lieutenant captain of battalion chief for exactly five years and
Speaker 10: eight months.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, oh five years each. Okay, that's good
Speaker 8: five years. But I know people who did that.
Speaker 12: Gonstan went from fireman to chief in like some ridiculous
Speaker 12: amount of time. Like I don't know if he did
Speaker 12: it that quick, but there were guys I know who.
Speaker 8: Did it fast. Wow.
Speaker 10: So I got promoted deputy and h how much.
Speaker 8: Time we got time? Chief?
Speaker 10: Don't? Right? There was you know, just two other stories.
Speaker 10: One was this steam explosion. So I'm covering, covering deputy
Speaker 10: and the third division, and you know, you get in
Speaker 10: at five fifteen, five thirty. I relieved the guy. I
Speaker 10: don't even think I'm I don't even think I was
Speaker 10: dressed yet. So about a quarter two quarter to six,
Speaker 10: this this box comes in. There was a second alarm
Speaker 10: and arrival, and I think a bunch of times down,
Speaker 10: but very very quick succession. The captain in twenty one
Speaker 10: engine got it as a verbal they were going to
Speaker 10: I think an EMS run, and he calls it in.
Speaker 10: He says, you know, he called it the mother of
Speaker 10: all transformer fires over the radio. This is the mother
Speaker 10: of all transformer fires.
Speaker 8: I could see that, though it wouldn't look like that.
Speaker 8: Maybe I don't know it was.
Speaker 4: Well, some of these pictures. I'm trying to find something.
Speaker 10: Engine twenty one, Engine eight, Engine sixteen initially on the
Speaker 10: on that mother of all transformers that was at seventeen
Speaker 10: fifty seven. At seventeen fifty eight, he gets on the scene,
Speaker 10: he transmits a second alarm, So now you got you know,
Speaker 10: the whole second alarm assignment. And that's when I got assigned,
Speaker 10: which was two minutes to six o'clock. So the aid,
Speaker 10: I don't remember where they are up in Manhattan, but
Speaker 10: he takes me through the Central Park here in progress report.
Speaker 10: I think he transmitted the third alarm before we got there.
Speaker 10: Jack Joyce was in the ninth Battalion. We get to
Speaker 10: he says, the command post is at Lexington and forty
Speaker 10: second Street. The steam explosion was at lex and forty one.
Speaker 10: So I get there and I meet the battalion chief.
Speaker 10: I go to open the backup to start getting dressed,
Speaker 10: and a rock slams through the glass and goes all
Speaker 10: over me like the back of the car. You know
Speaker 10: what I'm saying, mother fucker, what's going on here? So
Speaker 10: it looked like coming to the and the noise sounded
Speaker 10: like a.
Speaker 8: Jet engine, jet engine. I think I remember that.
Speaker 10: So I wrote a WNAF article. I think I don't
Speaker 10: remember when it was, but.
Speaker 6: The mother of old steam explosions.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, And what I tried to delineate in
Speaker 10: the in the article was we had we had seven buildings,
Speaker 10: you know, So I broke I broke up the intersection
Speaker 10: in four quarters, and I gave a battalion chief each quarter,
Speaker 10: but each each quarter like this was the northwest corner
Speaker 10: sector three seventy four and three eight Lexington. One is
Speaker 10: a fifty two story and one's a twenty eight story building.
Speaker 10: And also one twenty two East forty second Street that
Speaker 10: was a fifty six story building. So that's one hundred
Speaker 10: and thirty six floors that just he had to be
Speaker 10: responsible for crazy then northeast corner was Kevin Woods, who's
Speaker 10: the chief of operations now. He had one twenty eight
Speaker 10: and one fifty forty second Street. One's a forty five
Speaker 10: story building and one's a forty two story building that's
Speaker 10: eighty seven floors.
Speaker 8: And the other two sectors.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry, unbelievable. And there was shit. The ship was
Speaker 10: going on. Cops were coming up to us. Oh, there's
Speaker 10: an explosion in the subway. I have three three train
Speaker 10: cars with thousands of people and people were getting burned.
Speaker 10: There was two articulating buses right at the explosion. They
Speaker 10: had like ninety people in them each and they couldn't
Speaker 10: get out because the fucking steam is now turning to
Speaker 10: water and the water's boiling in the street.
Speaker 4: They're the buses.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they're two buses. That's how close it that the
Speaker 10: one person that died. There was one person that died.
Speaker 10: I don't think that people in the in the in
Speaker 10: the pickup truck, truck, tow truck died. But these there
Speaker 10: was ninety people each of these buses, and rescue one
Speaker 10: and latter four ended up carrying them all off one
Speaker 10: at a time. You know. I tried to get them
Speaker 10: to back up the buses. But because of the debris
Speaker 10: in the street, that didn't work. But the ship was on.
Speaker 10: There was a woman in the water. I mean, obviously
Speaker 10: you know this is I don't know the next day
Speaker 10: or whatever. But it was dark, it was noisy, the mud,
Speaker 10: the asbestos, the rocks that were falling, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 10: So that was quite the operation. I was the deputy
Speaker 10: for a while, and then it ended up being a
Speaker 10: I think a fifth alarm. I transmitted ten sixty because
Speaker 10: the ship was falling from the buildings. I didn't know
Speaker 10: what was falling. And then the whole soon as you
Speaker 10: mentioned the a word asbestos. Ye, everybody, preserve your whole. Mother.
Speaker 8: See, how did you get How did you like becoming
Speaker 8: a deputy? How'd you like doing that? Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 10: It was never a goal, but once you get in that,
Speaker 10: once you get in the swing of things, uh, I was.
Speaker 10: I waited for the five to four battalion for five
Speaker 10: years because that was the closest battalion and they did
Speaker 10: work and I loved working there. And I waited five
Speaker 10: years because I turned the five four or five O
Speaker 10: town three times because they did they had five O nights.
Speaker 10: I called them five O nights for they a lot
Speaker 10: of running, and he did work, but the ratio for
Speaker 10: work runs was the five fours the ratio roof. So I,
Speaker 10: you know, I waited for that, and I studied after
Speaker 10: September eleventh. I studied for deputy by myself, and I
Speaker 10: didn't do well, but I did, like towards the end
Speaker 10: of the list. And then I guess a couple of
Speaker 10: years later, I was in a good study group with
Speaker 10: you know, so now I needed college. The other test,
Speaker 10: I didn't need college. I kind of like skated through,
Speaker 10: but I didn't ever have college. So the other deputy
Speaker 10: tests that I was studying for, I think that was
Speaker 10: twenty I don't know when it was, but twenty five
Speaker 10: maybe I don't remember when it was. But Jimmy Kane
Speaker 10: was in the study group, Joe Cunningham, Jerry Migliore, Steve
Speaker 10: Raynis and Ed Ferrier and me, and we were studying
Speaker 10: for deputy. And you know, I said, all right, well
Speaker 10: it depends on how I do on the test, then
Speaker 10: I'll go to college. But I ended up getting promoted
Speaker 10: off the old list and I didn't have to get
Speaker 10: to college. All those guys. You know, they got promoted,
Speaker 10: so I don't know. People say that's a hard job.
Speaker 10: I loved battalion chief. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's that's the one you would stay if you
Speaker 12: had to go back, that's the one you would pick.
Speaker 10: You think. Well, so now yeah, yeah, yeah. Well now
Speaker 10: I'm deputy and I get a phone call about a
Speaker 10: deputy chief that's in five prevention, Jack Hodgens, and he
Speaker 10: did a year and they whatever he was doing there
Speaker 10: there was there was a three star chief and a
Speaker 10: two star chief in five prevention and he was a deputy.
Speaker 10: So I get a phone call that, oh, Bobby, would
Speaker 10: you consider coming here? You know, and then you can
Speaker 10: you can go to any division you want. So I said, ah,
Speaker 10: I said, let me, I'm in the eleventh division. Let
Speaker 10: me or walk over and I'll talk to you.
Speaker 4: So was.
Speaker 10: Richie Tobin and uh, I can't think of his name,
Speaker 10: but he was the chief of fire prevention. So he
Speaker 10: lay it out on line. He says, look, you do
Speaker 10: give us a year and you can put him for
Speaker 10: any division you want. I says, look, I never really
Speaker 10: was a fan of that. You know, do for me,
Speaker 10: and I'll do for you. I never was a fan
Speaker 10: of that. I understood it, but I went, I went,
Speaker 10: I never did it, and I didn't like it. I says, look,
Speaker 10: there's there's about twelve other covering deputies. You ask all
Speaker 10: of them. I'm not saying no, you ask all of them.
Speaker 10: If they say no, i'll do I'll do it. But
Speaker 10: I want the fifteenth Division, Okay. So they asked the
Speaker 10: guy that his wife was sick and he needed to
Speaker 10: be home for the nights and everything. So it worked
Speaker 10: for him, and I was very happy that he got that.
Speaker 8: So I said, I.
Speaker 10: Did the right thing. I said. So now it's like
Speaker 10: six months later and I hear rumblings that Ray go
Speaker 10: Back is retiring. Now it's like, I think it's the
Speaker 10: end of a wait. Ray go Back is retiring and
Speaker 10: wait on seven old wait, I don't remember. I think
Speaker 10: it was so wait and uh, I says, I'm not volunteering.
Speaker 10: They're looking for a guy. I said, I am volunteering,
Speaker 10: but if they ask, I'll take that job. Nobody wants
Speaker 10: these fucking jobs. You know, they're tough to film.
Speaker 8: God, nobody nobody wants.
Speaker 10: I really really respected Cassano, and I looked up to him.
Speaker 10: And I think he appreciated me. So he's a hard
Speaker 10: guy to say no to. So I get a phone
Speaker 10: call about going to cheaper personnel, and I go and
Speaker 10: talk to Cassano and Galvin and Ray go back. So
Speaker 10: he says, I'm retiring January first. This was like the
Speaker 10: beginning of December. He said, I'm retiring, like December thirty first,
Speaker 10: you know, would you do it? I said, all right,
Speaker 10: I'll do it, you know. So I mentor mentored with
Speaker 10: him for a month and he leaves, and now I'm
Speaker 10: the cheaper personnel, which I don't know personnel. I'm nothing.
Speaker 10: I got a secretary, I got a call. I and
Speaker 10: some of my great quite a good time, because you know,
Speaker 10: like it's all the tests, fireman's tests and tennis tests,
Speaker 10: captain tests, battalion chiefs deputies, fire marshals, all the tests,
Speaker 10: and it's work. There's work that has to be done.
Speaker 10: And he left right in the beginning of it, you know.
Speaker 10: So now I'm going to do all this, and you've
Speaker 10: got to put together these what they call them, groups
Speaker 10: of you know, onside guys and come offline and make
Speaker 10: up questions. And I got to work with dcasts, you know, civilians.
Speaker 10: I don't. They don't like me. I don't like them.
Speaker 10: So I did it for a year. So every other
Speaker 10: week I cheapiss Sanah was the cheaper department. I would
Speaker 10: have to meet with him every week or every other week.
Speaker 10: And you know what's going on. We're making promotions. We
Speaker 10: you know, we're putting a class on blah blah blah,
Speaker 10: giving him a rundown openings. Over time, I'm giving them reports.
Speaker 10: So he's towards the end, like he says. He says, Bobbie,
Speaker 10: I fucked up. I should to put you in communications.
Speaker 10: I said, what are you gonna do next week? Next?
Speaker 10: Two weeks later, this is Bobby, I fucked up. I
Speaker 10: should have put you in communications. Two weeks later, this
Speaker 10: is Bobby, I fucked up. I should have put I
Speaker 10: says chief. I can only fuck up one place at
Speaker 10: a time. Put wherever you want. I'll go. I'll work.
Speaker 10: Tell me what to do, I'll work whatever you tell
Speaker 10: me to work. So he says, yeah, I'm gonna put
Speaker 10: you in communications. So he runs a pair of skipeta. Yes, okay,
Speaker 10: so go to communications. So that was say the end
Speaker 10: of the eight beginning of nine. I don't oh nine ten.
Speaker 10: I don't remember the year. Oh it was, yeah, oh nine,
Speaker 10: I started personnel. Ten I started in communications, so that
Speaker 10: was a whole nother thing that what the hell do
Speaker 10: I know? I mean, I I talked to the dispatchers
Speaker 10: on the radio, you know about a twelve Manhattan, But
Speaker 10: that's all I knew about communications. I know that they
Speaker 10: dispatch the boxes, they take the phone calls, but what
Speaker 10: do I shit? And they're all good guys. And the
Speaker 10: Bureau Communications. When I was there, it was five units FDOC,
Speaker 10: which is the Fire Department Operations Center. That's you know, firefighters,
Speaker 10: lieutenant's captains, mostly light duty, long term, light duty. Then
Speaker 10: you had the outside plant, which those are the guys
Speaker 10: that take care of the alarm boxes, the voice alarms,
Speaker 10: the electricians, the locally three electricians that take There was
Speaker 10: about fifty sixty of those guys. And then the cell
Speaker 10: phone unit that was under communications. And then you had
Speaker 10: the Emergency Medical Dispatch which was the EMS call takers
Speaker 10: and dispatches that was under me, and then the fire
Speaker 10: alarm dispatches. You know, you had different unions involved, and
Speaker 10: everybody's got you know, agendas, and I have an agenda
Speaker 10: and I wanted to you know, do the best liked.
Speaker 10: But it was a big learning curve. And you probably
Speaker 10: remember about OTC or.
Speaker 4: Uh oh TV, like the official track bending back in
Speaker 4: the day.
Speaker 10: And I'm just kidding, No, I forget what it was,
Speaker 10: some kind of call taking outside call taking. I'm really
Speaker 10: so happy that I don't remember that.
Speaker 4: It was very riveting.
Speaker 8: I could tell probably like how I feel about b
Speaker 8: I G.
Speaker 10: You probably remember this big deal that they were transforming
Speaker 10: about how they took calls in from nine to one one.
Speaker 7: Remember, yes, I remember that. Remember whatever they were going
Speaker 7: through p D first.
Speaker 12: I think if I remember, we'd go through p D first,
Speaker 12: we wouldn't get the pin boxes for a while, something
Speaker 12: like that.
Speaker 10: And it was a cluster fuck. And but you know,
Speaker 10: John Colo was the chief of communications before I was there,
Speaker 10: and I guess he's seen the writing on the wall
Speaker 10: about closing the individual and going to these p sacks
Speaker 10: p SEC one in Brooklyn and p SEC two, And
Speaker 10: I was fucking spending a lot of money like that
Speaker 10: p SEC two building was six hundred million dollars. Oh
Speaker 10: my god. Wow.
Speaker 8: And you were in charge of it.
Speaker 10: No, No, I was the fire department rep. But obviously
Speaker 10: it was a police facility because they owned nine one one.
Speaker 10: But then we were you know, call takers and dispatches
Speaker 10: were in the one in Brooklyn and the one in
Speaker 10: the Bronx, and we had you know, empts and paramedics
Speaker 10: that were call takers and dispatches and dispatches and what
Speaker 10: was closing ces wasn't a big popular thing. And then
Speaker 10: the last thing that I was very involved with was
Speaker 10: the new Kid. So we had star Fire, which was
Speaker 10: from the early seventies, which was a computer program for airlines.
Speaker 10: So EMS had one, Police had one and fire had one.
Speaker 10: They were all forty plus years old and PD was
Speaker 10: doing a new one and it could easily dispatch a
Speaker 10: fire truck, an ambulance and a police car easily spend
Speaker 10: one time. But PD didn't want us to have access
Speaker 10: to their you know dispatch, who's where the cars are
Speaker 10: and when they're going to get there, and who's available
Speaker 10: and all of that. So they paid for a couple
Speaker 10: of millions of dollars to their CAD, and now we're
Speaker 10: designing one for us for fire ems together the same CAD.
Speaker 10: So they talked to each other millions of dollars. We
Speaker 10: spent over time up the ying yang get professionals that
Speaker 10: knew what they were talking about, the designers thing, and
Speaker 10: when the Blasio came in out the window. So I
Speaker 10: had to leave Communications, and I tried to go to
Speaker 10: a burrow. And at the time, Brooklyn was open and
Speaker 10: Manhattan was open. So I said to I said that Nigro.
Speaker 10: I said, Chief, you've got to get me out of Communications,
Speaker 10: you know, please give me a burrow. Otherwise I'm going
Speaker 10: to retire. Okay, Bobby, yeah, okay, yeah, don't worry. I'm
Speaker 10: going to put you in operations for the time being.
Speaker 10: And then so the reshuffle happens and Voice is still
Speaker 10: at operations and they didn't get a borrow. So I said,
Speaker 10: all right, I'm going to retire. So can I use
Speaker 10: my comp time? Oh yeah, absolutely use your comp time.
Speaker 10: So when Nigro, you know, was retired, and I guess
Speaker 10: so too. Around there, if they had a one hundred hours,
Speaker 10: they had a lot because they would earn it and
Speaker 10: use it. You'n't earn it and lose it. I had
Speaker 10: thirty eight hundred hours. It's crazy, it's a year and
Speaker 10: a half. So he, you know, I guess he didn't
Speaker 10: realize that. So I worked for nine months one day
Speaker 10: a week, and I used some time, but I didn't
Speaker 10: use a lot of time. And I tried to work
Speaker 10: the twenty fours. The staff chiefs worked twenty fours one
Speaker 10: time every thirteen days, and he does a city wide
Speaker 10: I love doing that and anyway, so then he says, Bobby,
Speaker 10: you gotta get off the pot. You know that ain't
Speaker 10: working out one day a week. So I said I'll retire.
Speaker 10: So it took a year to get out. Yeah it sucked,
Speaker 10: but I didn't leave when I wanted to leave, but
Speaker 10: the new chief of department had a different plan for me.
Speaker 6: But it's not on your own terms. It sucks.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, especially that way.
Speaker 12: I mean, I didn't understand what you were talking about
Speaker 12: when we talked cheap about that earlier, and now it's
Speaker 12: crystal clear, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm not going to mention the name, but uh,
Speaker 10: you can sneeze it if you want.
Speaker 8: You sneeze them all the time, can you do it?
Speaker 10: It sounds like he ended up getting a fall in
Speaker 10: so he uh mm hmm.
Speaker 8: Oh, I know what you're talking about. I remember that guy.
Speaker 6: Not too shabby your career chief, No great stories.
Speaker 10: Oh, yeah. Well, I know there was something else I
Speaker 10: wanted to bring up, but I don't remember. Oh, okay,
Speaker 10: well that's the closing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we're going to do that now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is it is it that time?
Speaker 10: First? First, Yes, my wife knows that I'm not a
Speaker 10: big conversation, so she says, how long is this thing?
Speaker 10: This is two hours? Two hours. You're gonna talk for
Speaker 10: two hours?
Speaker 6: Job, tell.
Speaker 10: I'm talking about me in the fire department. I can talk.
Speaker 8: I told you fast.
Speaker 4: That's like to pass over a meal. We're gonna sit
Speaker 4: and read for two hours, two hours.
Speaker 8: All right, I need some bread.
Speaker 4: I needed something to do with my right hand.
Speaker 10: I appreciate that guy. It is very pleasant.
Speaker 9: Alright, Chief, it's time for sorry cruises at that time?
Speaker 6: Oh, I think it is.
Speaker 10: It is that time.
Speaker 4: It is time for the Oh school of the day, Chief,
Speaker 4: take it away, buddy.
Speaker 10: Well, I'm not going to talk about something firefighter relating related.
Speaker 10: I'm going to talk about career relate related. You know,
Speaker 10: I could easily say, oh, take your glove off and
Speaker 10: put it over your hand. That's how you know when
Speaker 10: it's starting to get hot. But uh, I have two uh,
Speaker 10: and I live by these and some people said, I
Speaker 10: did well. I did successful, but I just I trudged through.
Speaker 10: And one of the things I wanted to talk about
Speaker 10: was I don't remember what it was, but I wrote
Speaker 10: it down somewhere. And I always put the fire apartment
Speaker 10: before me. There was a saying in the Marines, put
Speaker 10: the service before yourself or something like that, and I
Speaker 10: live by that in the fire apartment. So my first
Speaker 10: act closing advice is act like something's always watching you,
Speaker 10: because someone is. And I, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 10: a shitty way to go about life that somebody's always
Speaker 10: watching you. But I have the story of Lieutenant Gordon
Speaker 10: Simon in two thirty. I was in his groups for
Speaker 10: a while and I was a proby and there was
Speaker 10: a brass plate on the bottom of the office door.
Speaker 10: It was about maybe a foot high by two or
Speaker 10: three feet wide, kickplate going for the door. He said, Bobby,
Speaker 10: I want you to I want you to wax this.
Speaker 10: I want you to clean it. I spent hours with
Speaker 10: a little piece of brain cell on my finger, going
Speaker 10: over over over over over over over. I took two
Speaker 10: or three hours to do that little thing. But the
Speaker 10: point was he was breaking my balls, which I understood
Speaker 10: but I ain't gonna let him get to me. And
Speaker 10: I tried to do the right thing. I tried to,
Speaker 10: you know, tried to do a good job. And I
Speaker 10: cleaned that thing. And I went over two or three times,
Speaker 10: every little inch cleaning that brass kickwait because the lieutenant
Speaker 10: wanted the new proby to do that. And I would always,
Speaker 10: when I was in two thirty, take a compartment out.
Speaker 10: I would paint the inside of the compartment, paint the tools,
Speaker 10: put all the tools back. I made a tool list
Speaker 10: from compartment you know, one, three, five. Just I always
Speaker 10: wanted to be doing something and doing something productive, go
Speaker 10: on over the asks and what have you. The second
Speaker 10: bit of advices is have aspirations and work towards them.
Speaker 10: I always had aspirations. I wanted to work in the
Speaker 10: busiest fire company that I could get into shortly in
Speaker 10: my career, less than a year. A good friend, Billy Youngston,
Speaker 10: asked me to go into a study group, and you know,
Speaker 10: I didn't want to, but he's way explained it. Three years.
Speaker 10: You know, you'll have three years on you'll take the test.
Speaker 10: It'll take it two or three years, four years to
Speaker 10: get promoted. Blah blah, blah. So I had aspirations of
Speaker 10: a busy company and to study, and I did. And
Speaker 10: I'll tell a story about Ormond Samuels, a gentleman to
Speaker 10: the highest honor. He was one of the senior guys.
Speaker 10: In two thirty I got about a year ron and
Speaker 10: I'm studying, you know, in a closet somewhere, and he
Speaker 10: comes up to me and he says, he says, Bobby,
Speaker 10: I see you studying for chief. So he says, what's
Speaker 10: the matter with this old coup. Doesn't he know that
Speaker 10: you got to go study for lieutenant and captain first?
Speaker 10: So his point was that you know, you're not studying
Speaker 10: for lieutenant captain, you're studying for chief, which is a
Speaker 10: great job on a great job on a job. So
Speaker 10: and I think that's about it. Thank you, guys, Thank you.
Speaker 5: For each stuff, great care, your chief, great stories. Appreciate
Speaker 5: you open up about those other stories. And it was tough,
Speaker 5: but we certainly do appreciate it. Here, guys, we have
Speaker 5: a couple.
Speaker 4: Of shout correct yah that too, And we also have
Speaker 4: health and safety tip.
Speaker 6: I don't have one on hand. Put up the what
Speaker 6: do you call it? First?
Speaker 8: Okay, 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 Foundation.
Speaker 5: I found the paper all right Tonight's old school health
Speaker 5: and safety tip number thirty one, Never stole your bunking
Speaker 5: inside of your car or home. When bunking gear must
Speaker 5: be transported, use a gearbag or clean plastic bag, and
Speaker 5: don't put the you know, the bunk gear inside your
Speaker 5: kids couty.
Speaker 6: You know, a smart idea.
Speaker 9: Now, let's do the shot, all right, So we have
Speaker 9: a couple of we have a firefighter death on our
Speaker 9: YPD death or a firefighter death here. Unfortunately, this is
Speaker 9: a strange story from what I was reading. A piece
Speaker 9: of the apparatus broke and actually just some trauma to
Speaker 9: his legs, but unfortunately he died during surgery.
Speaker 4: Uh, firefighter Raymond Muro.
Speaker 8: How you say that?
Speaker 9: I'm saying that, yeah, yeah, And our other shout out
Speaker 9: is NYPD officer who was fortunately murdered.
Speaker 4: Did a rule Islam. This was a line of duty
Speaker 4: death for NYPD.
Speaker 6: And also, I want to say tonight also we're going
Speaker 6: to give the five bells to Chief Boyce's friend Mike,
Speaker 6: who died in the line of duty so many years ago.
Speaker 6: But he definitely deserves the five Mike, Mike Moran.
Speaker 10: I ended up.
Speaker 6: Rest in peace, brothers.
Speaker 10: I ended up naming my first son after Mike.
Speaker 6: Very cool, stand up guy.
Speaker 10: Chief.
Speaker 6: Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 10: Lou just Saturday. I'm gonna say no unless you hear
Speaker 10: from me, right, Okay, thank.
Speaker 6: You for the essence coming. You might want to change
Speaker 6: your mind.
Speaker 8: He is coming.
Speaker 6: Actually I know you know he's not coming. Gone god,
Speaker 6: Oh yeah. You can't hang up on me now though, anytime.
Speaker 5: All right, guys, we'll see you. We'll see some of
Speaker 5: you on the boat cruise on Saturday, and I'll see
Speaker 5: the rest of you on next Thursday.
Speaker 6: Until then, stay low and go.
Speaker 9: Thank you everybody. We'll see it the big one. Alright, guys,
Speaker 9: have a good night. We'll rolling heavy in South Florida.
Speaker 9: Stay salty, and I'll see you guys next Thursday.
Speaker 8: Good night, everyone,