"A Firefighter's Story" (standard:non fiction, 4220 words)
Author: Anonymous	Added: Oct 30 2001	Views/Reads: 3654/2412	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
My memoirs as a member of the NY City Fire Department from 1962-1985

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

condition and you should be close to home in Queens" he ould say. My 
assignment was to an Engine company in Queens. 

Special Breed 

Firemen are a special breed. Fear, risk, destruction, tragedies are
parts of their job. These demons are tucked away in their subconscious 
and are camouflaged with humor. Whenever firemen get together they 
rarely talk about fires but more about the funny things that happened 
while on the job.  Firehouse humor has its own uniqueness. Sometimes 
it's a biting humor and other times it's a mischievous childlike humor. 


Introduction to the Firehouse 

I received my orders to report to an Engine Company in Queens. I was
both excited and nervous to report to my new company.  I entered the 
door to the firehouse and saw a fireman on house watch. He said "OK 
kid, the Captain is waiting to see you in his office upstairs." The 
trip up the stairs to the Captain's office went on forever. Finally I 
entered his office. This guy was a young captain. This tells me he's 
sharp to advance so fast. 

"Don't just stand there, salute your Captain", he said.  I responded
"Yes Sir" and almost stuck my thumb in my eye in my haste to salute 
him.  "This job will not be a walk in the park". "Do you think I had it 
easy?" he said.  "Well ah, oh ah" I replied. "Things are not always 
what they look like" he continued. 

He stood up from behind his desk and walked over to the file cabinet. To
my amazement, he was completely naked from the waist down. Suddenly I 
heard a sound of laughter coming from just outside the office. This 
character is not the captain but the Probe appointed to the company 
about a year prior to me, dressed from the waist up as the captain. The 
brothers were behind the open door, trying hard from laughing out loud. 


Committee Work 

If the Fire Department is your family, than the firehouse is your home
away from home. I soon learned that all those difficult jobs that my 
wife did taking care of our home were now part of my responsibility at 
the firehouse. Committee work consisted of sweeping and washing the 
floors, cleaning the toilets, making beds, all the household duties of 
home. 

One morning when we were out doing Building Inspections one of The
fireman, who thought he was a Don Juan with the women, was Talking to a 
pretty young lady. In the middle of his conversation Telling the young 
lady how great he was, one of the brothers interrupted him to announce 
"Hey Don Juan, the captain said we have to get back to the firehouse to 
finish cleaning the toilets." 

The Demise of the Fire House Mouse 

When I arrived, the mouse was already a legend. We could hear his
presence but could never catch him. One morning when I reported for 
work, I found a line formed outside of the bunkroom. At the end of the 
line I saw one of the brothers knelling over a matchbox half open. The 
matchbox was made over to look like a coffin. There was the legend, 
stiff as a board, lying in the cotton filled coffin, I mean match box. 
They even made little cards expressing grief. One card read "Good" 
signed the Cat. Another "Rest in Cheese" 

Fire Fighting 101 

Training school did a great job of preparing us to fight fires. But now
it was time for the real thing. We have to serve six months on 
Probation where we are known as the Probie of our company.  Every 
fireman will always remember his first big fire. Mine was at 4:00 A.M. 
on a cold winter morning. 

The fire was in an Italian Bar and Restaurant on Woodhaven Boulevard. We
were the first company to arrive. The restaurant was closed but you 
could see the black smoke through the windows. One of the brothers in 
the Truck Company slammed the big storefront window with a six-foot 
hook and glass went flying in every direction. The smoke came rolling 
out and the restaurant flashed into flames. Meanwhile we had hose 
charged with water and were moving in through the large opening of the 
broken window front. 

Every thing was happening fast. I can still remember the sounds Of
voices over the handy-talkie scrambling out information and the sirens 
of the incoming companies filling out what we call a second alarm. I 
was more excited than scared, however it did feel strange that we were 
going into an area where most people would be running out. The more 
fire we put out the darker it got and the more difficult it became 
breathing in the thick black smoke. 

Meanwhile we kept moving in, pulling the heavy hose with us. Suddenly
the ceiling lit up and flames were rolling over our head like waves of 
water in an ocean. The nozzleman quickly pointed the nozzle over his 
head knocking off his helmet in the process. We all struggled to help 
him keep control of the hoseline. You don't want the fire to get behind 
you as it can cut off your exit. My brother Matt once described fire 
fighting as organized chaos. 

For outsiders looking on, it looks like everyone is running around like
a chicken with it's head cut off, when in actuality each fireman has a 
special assignment according to when he arrives, first, second, third 
to arrive Engine or Ladder Company. The thing is that each fireman is 
depending with his life that the other fireman will do his job, hence 
we call each other "Brothers." 

The officer of any company, who has a Probe at a fire, watches over him
like a Mother Hen. When you live, eat, sleep, depend on each other for 
your life and safety along with socializing together, you develope a 
deep sense of comradeship. By the way, it only took a year of eating 
dinner both at home with my family and with the firemen at the 
firehouse on the same day, before I gained more weight than I wanted. 

The Dark Side 

It wasn't very long before I saw the dark side of the job. When It was
my turn to be the nozzleman on the hoseline one night I was aiming the 
nozzle on a large body of fire in the living room of a private home. As 
I extinguished the sofa fire, the area filled with dark smoke. It's at 
this time that we are trained to shutdown the nozzle and give the smoke 
a chance to clear.  As the smoke cleared I had to rub my eyes to be 
sure of what I was seeing. 

It was an old lady sitting on the couch still holding a telephone in her
hand next to her ear. Her eyes were open and she was staring at me with 
a horrifying expression. When you witness this experience without 
warning, you never forget it. 

The hardest thing to accept is the loss of little children.  One winter
morning we responded to a call to a private home.  It was six AM and 
there was a major snowstorm with accumulations of six to eight inches 
of fresh snow.  The house was only a few blocks from the firehouse. 
When we arrived, the house was fully involved with fire and we knew if 
there was anyone in there we needed to get them out as quick as 
possible. 

As it turned out three small children awakened before their parents.
They apparently turned on the gas range that somehow ignited the 
kitchen curtains. Fearing that their parents would be angry with them 
they hid in the second floor closet while their parents slept. The 
closet was located directly over the kitchen fire. The fire and smoke 
eventually awakened the parents. 

Once they saw the children were not in their beds they searched
franticly? They finally left the burning house, hoping to find their 
children outside. Once outside and not seeing their children, they 
tried to go back into the house. The heat was too much. The burns on 
their arms and hands were testimony to their valiant attempt to save 
their children. 

It was about this time that we arrived. They were standing Outside in
the snow yelling to us that their children must be inside the house. 
When the fire was extinguished and I came down stairs and saw the 
bodies of three small children placed on the table where the firemen 
who found them tried unsuccessfully to revive them. I'll never forget 
that sight. 

They looked like little lifeless rag dolls lying on the table. For many
of us the beads of sweat on our face could not hide the silent tears 
rolling down our cheeks. 

Renovating the Firehouse 

The firehouse building was very old and in great need of repair. In the
summer we would barbecue in the back of the building where the building 
wall was ready to collapse. We had an old refrigerator that someone had 
thrown out and we affectionately called "Herby." We had it for years, 
never took care of it, and it was outside throughout the winter rain 
and snow. It had a loud hum but like the Timex watch it kept on going. 

We use to joke that someday the wall would collapse burying us All and
all that could be heard was Herby humming. Finally the Powers to be 
thought it were time for the building to be renovated. The firehouse 
occupied three companies, an Engine and Ladder Company and a Battalion 
Chief. They were able to relocate the Ladder Company and the Chief, 
however the Engine Company had to remain in quarters during the 
renovation. 

As the renovation progressed, the living conditions worsened. One of the
brothers who lived on the east end of Long Island Obtained a baby pig 
to live with us as our mascot, telling the powers to be that we were 
living in a pigs pen. We set up a pig's pen in the back of the 
apparatus floor with cinder blocks from the construction material on 
the premise. We had to feed the pig and walk it in the morning. 

The feeding was easy, he ate all our leftovers and seemed to Enjoy the
food although he insisting on sitting on his food while eating.  One 
brother in particular loved to walk the pig on a leash in the morning 
when people were walking by the firehouse on their way to take the 
subway to work. People were never sure what breed of dog they were 
seeing. When the mailman came in the morning one of the brothers asked 
him if he knew anything about dogs? He replied "a little. "Good said 
the brother, come in the back and look at this dog someone gave us to 
keep. 

It was in the winter and the pig was coiled up sleeping next to a
radiator. The pig's eyes were closed and the mailman's eyes were wide 
open trying to figure out what was with this dog. As the pig opened its 
large eyes that took up most of its face the mailman yelled "That's no 
dog"! "That's a Pig." The brother could not stop laughing. It didn't 
take long before the Chief found the pig and we had to transfer him to 
a farm. 

WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO...YOU HAVE TO GO 

The building was two stories with the apparatus on the ground floor and
the kitchen, eating area, TV room, sleeping quarters, bathrooms, and 
office space all on the second floor. While they were renovating the 
bathrooms on the second floor, we used a small toilet in the back of 
the apparatus floor. One night tour, we found that the construction 
workers removed the apparatus toilet during the day leaving us no where 
to relieve ourselves on that 15 hour night tour. There was a large 
empty hole where the toilet was located. 

It didn't take long before one of the brothers decided to construct an
artificial turd. That's right a piece of artificial s--t. He used every 
thing imaginable in the cupboard, from flower to food coloring, winding 
down with a few kernels of corn. Ugh! He strategically placed the 
artificial turd next to the hole in the floor. When the Captain came on 
duty at the start of the next day tour he immediately went to the 
toilet to do his thing. 

When he saw the toilet was removed, he questioned why? Than as His the
floor?" he shouted. "It must have been one of the Construction 
workers," one of the brothers said. "Don't touch it," the Captain 
grunted. "Leave it until 9 AM when I question the construction 
foreman." "I want him to see this." Than his imagination took over as 
he said "Geese - It Stinks!" 

At 9 AM he could not wait to question the construction foreman. "Do you
see this?" he shouted. "What animal did this?" As the foreman 
meticulously studied the artificial turd, he finnally said, " That's 
not one of my men's". The captain quickly replied "You mean to tell me 
that you would know your men's s--t when you see it". It took at least 
ten minutes before the brothers stopped laughing. 

INTERCHANGE 

In the seventy's, Interchange simply meant that a company in an area of
the city that was not busy would swap with a company that was located 
in a busy area for the duration of a fifteen hour night tour. Every so 
often the Ladder Company in my Queens firehouse swapped with a busy 
firehouse in the Bedford Styvesant section of Brooklyn. In one night of 
an interchange your night took on a transformation. The Ladder Company 
would pull out of the Queens firehouse at six-thirty PM sharp and 
proceed up Queens Boulevard to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. 

Once off the expressway you looked out the window to find the green
lawns had transformed into cement. The white faces into brown faces, 
the spacious single family homes into crowded tenements. Garbage pails 
overflowing into the dirty streets. Whenever we came close to the 
firehouse at Sheffield and Livonia streets we would receive a call over 
the radio to respond to an alarm. This went on all night, responding to 
working fires and false alarms. 

Three o'clock in the morning, a hot humid night, the streets crowded
with people sitting outside to escape the heat in their oven-like 
flats. A little naked baby playing in the street. Children running in 
and out of the water spray coming from the open hydrant. I remember 
thinking about my two young daughters, home in their comfortable 
air-condition bedrooms. How unaware they were of this world outside of 
their own. 

Six-thirty in the morning we headed back to Queens exhausted from a busy
night. We were going home to a place where life's problems were more 
easily tolerated. Unlike our children we were well aware the other 
world still existed. "Take a moment of silent prayer" for the poor 
people of the world. 

Who is This Guy? 

One of the brothers always gave us a laugh when we were down and needed
one.  How do I explain him? He had different characters that he would 
roll play. The brothers knew them all and would refer to them by name. 
There was the French midget artist Talus La Trek. At any given time you 
could hear a loud pounding at the kitchen door. 

When we opened the door after the consistent pounding only to Find this
brother with his knees in a pair of shoes that gave the appearance he 
was about 4 feet tall. He would just stand there, I mean kneel there, 
smiling, with a high hat and the cane that he used to pound on the 
door. One of the brothers would say, with a straight face, "Hey look! 
Taluce came to visit." No matter how many times you would see it, you 
had to laugh. 

His most famous and feared character was "The Blind Man."  All The
brothers would be sitting in the kitchen when suddenly the door flung 
open. There stood the dreaded "Blind Man" He wore dark black glasses 
and would enter the kitchen swinging this hard wooden cane as wide and 
as forceful as possible. Anyone or anything got in his path was stuck 
down. His sudden appearance would cause grown firemen to flee in all 
directions. He left a path of broken coffee cups. 

NYC Fire Department Holy Name Society 

The following contains excerpts of a speech given by my brother, New
York City Fire Department Assistant Chief, at a Holy Name Society 
Communion Breakfast in 1985. 

On March 18th of this year my father passed away. He was a former member
of our Department and had been retired for 19 years. He retired in 1966 
shortly after I was promoted to Captain. He told everyone that he had 
his papers in because he didn't want me to be his boss. (He was a 
Lieutenant.) The truth was that he worked right up to the day he was 65 
years old-his last day on the job was his 65th birthday. In the 
following years when we met and talked, the conversation generally 
covered two topics-the Family and the Fire Department. 

Since my brother was also on the job, and in recent years my two sons,
you can readily see where the two subjects often merged. If this sounds 
like our talks were confused-they weren't. I believe this was due to my 
father's feelings about the department. He considered it part of his 
life and part of his family even in retirement. If I may, I like to 
speak to you today about Family. It seems particularly appropriate here 
this morning. In a sense there are three families gathered here in his 
hall. We have our wives and children, perhaps parents or other 
relatives. We have our Department family, company members. And we have 
the Christian Family since we are all children of Christ. 

To some the lines between these families may seem clear and distinct
without relationship. I'd like to think they share some common 
elements. First and foremost there's Love-I think this is the 
difference between a true family and a group of people who are simply 
related. Over the years the men I most admired in our Department were 
those men who truly loved our job and the people in it-men like my good 
friend and coworker who recently passed away, this after 42 years of 
service and regrettably a very short retirement. I never heard him talk 
about love but I saw him live it daily in all his actions. 

Love is also the bedrock of our Church and the Commandments-Love your
God-Love your neighbor. The next common element is Pride. We're proud 
of our families and if you don't think so, you never sat next to a 
mother or grandmother with a wallet full of pictures. My wife is 
sitting out there just waiting for someone to ask about our 
granddaughters. If inordinate pride is a sin, than firefighters are 
dangerously close to mortal sin. I can think of no job where people are 
prouder-or have a right to be. 

And of course aren't we all proud to say we are members of the Catholic
Church. Last but not least there is Commitment. The day we were born. 
The day we were married. The day we had children-we made a commitment 
to our family. The day we raised our hands and took the oath at the 
appointment ceremony. We made a commitment to the Department and the 
people of the City. Similarly our Baptism committed us to God. We are 
here today as a sign of that commitment. In closing I can only add that 
I feel very fortunate to have been part of these families and to have 
shared so many years with each of them. Thank you. . .  Have a nice 
day. 

Having read that speech, you know why I was always proud of my brother. 

The Right Decisions My father started a family tradition without
knowing. My brother followed, than me, now third generation Firemen 
with my brother's two sons being on the job. In retrospect it was the 
second best thing that I did in my lifetime. 

The best thing was when I met and married my Rose. How was I to know at
20 years of age that I was going to have the privilege to be part of 
the three Families my brother referred to in his speech at the Holy 
Name Society? Have a nice day; I had lots of them. Charles Farrell 
child of God, Husband of Rose Farrell, Father of Karen Tunney and Debra 
Geiger, Grandfather of Matthew, Ryan and Alyssa Tunney, Elizabeth, 
Peter and Jack Geiger Last but not least a former member of the NY City 
Fire Department The End... 


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