Hello,
Today’s post is an nostalgic look back at my career as a fireman. It’s sort of a running tradition here at SGEP, I’ve been posting about the fire department on October first since 2006 (2005 I was on hiatus from blogging). Here is last year’s post, and 2006.
It is now twelve years since I started the fire academy, and what can I say in this post that I didn’t say in the previous two?
I can’t believe it’s been nearly seven years since I left. It surely doesn’t feel that long ago.
So I didn’t know what to say here that stands out from the previous.. Then it came to me. The traditions of mealtime at the firehouse.
Most firehouses are still fairly traditional with some of their meals. For example,
Every Saturday’s dinner is corned beef. Remember though, with the way the schedule works out we work a Saturday every third week, so it’s not eating corned beef every Saturday… And then with the leftovers on Tuesday morning you made corned beef hash.
Sunday is brunch day– sausage, bacon, pancakes, omelettes, french toast, reg toast, OJ, coffee. Then, dinner is a turkey roast. A few years of this, and I can tell you that Thanksgiving just wasn’t the same. In fact, I don’t think I’ve done Turkey for thanksgiving since 1996. Even at the firehouse, typically on Thanksgiving we went with something like prime rib.
Other days of the week were fairly open for meals– some other common firehouse meals:
Chili (duh)
spaghetti
hamburgers
pork chops
roast beef
chicken parmesan (I used to do this one quite a bit)
steaks
Special holiday meals were typically either Prime rib or lobster and steak (surf and turf).
Oh, and there always had to be a dessert, typically a cake, baked in the afternoon. And then one moron would come along and cut the center piece out of it, every time.
But anyway, aside from the food, meal times were the time where everyone was together and news, stories and trash talk was shared. Some firehouses had a television in their dining area and guys would watch tv as they ate, but not in my house. The talk and the radio (scanner, not broadcast) were out entertainment.
There were plenty of times when we would be sitting there, just starting our meal and we hear a local company report on the scene with a fire and request additional units (pull a box). Even before the alarm went off in our house, guys knew it was ours and were racing for the apparatus floor.
Or someone would talk on the radio, and it would spur a story about the time that officer did something significant, or any other sort of banter.
It’s that family atmosphere that I miss more than anything. Even when guys were sniping at each other, it was time well spent.
Someday I’ll go back to my firehouse to spend a day. I do sometimes wonder who is all there still. And I will admit that I do miss riding the rig.
I don’t miss getting called out at late hours for false alarms, but I do miss the adrenaline rush of hearing over the radio “We have a fire” as you’re sitting in the rig about to turn the corner and catch your first glimpse of the inferno.
and that, ends another year of recall. Come back next year! 
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Jimmy Cracked-Corn // Oct 2, 2008 at 7:37 am
So why did you like the center piece of the cake so much?
2 dtkelly // Oct 2, 2008 at 9:22 am
Actually, I didn’t.
It was one guy in our house, and it started because years before I got there, he joked with the then-cook that he was going to cut the middle out because that’ the best piece, the cook flipped out. So of course he had to cut it out, and has been doing so since, probably still does.
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