You know who I’m taking about? That guy that looks like Andy Griffith playing Matlock speeding through busy intersections in a wood-paneled station wagon with a stick-on-magnet flashing red light on top? Nine out of ten times I see this man screaming down the road with no other emergency-related vehicles in site. You’d think that, if there was a fire somewhere, there would at least be two or three other fire engines along for the ride.
I live a couple of blocks from the fire station, so I frequently get to see him pulling out. Sure enough, the full compliment of trucks almost always stays inside the bays. But wait- it gets stranger still! Whenever the real trucks do go out on a call, it seems that the Fire Marshall is the only one who stays inside the station!
Where is this guy going all by himself in such a damn rush that he can’t afford to stop at a few lights?
I just had to revive this question one last (maybe!) time. Walking to work this morning, there he was again. The fire station doors flew open and zzzzzzzoom! away he went with lights & sirens ablaze. All of the other trucks were sound asleep inside the bays.
He may have been going to change a fuse. Seriously!
My dad was a volunteer fireman back in the late forties/early fifties. He likes to talk about a call the station received from an elderly lady who was complaining about her high electric bill; her thought was that it had to do with something in her fusebox. In those days, most fire departments would dispatch available personnel to change fuses and such.
After Dad left to take the call, the woman called back to cancel. She explained that she had located the problem. The bulb in her hall closet was burnt out, but the switch was in the “on” position. The “juice,” in her mind, had been running out all over the floor.
I don’t think all the senile old ladies in the city could account for the number of times I have seen this guy racing around town. mblackwell’s suggestion is a little more plausible, but there is a donut shop just at the end of the block. They could walk there in the time it takes to get into the Fire Chief car and get the fire station doors open. No, certainly there must be some emergency somewhere in the city that only the fire chief can handle, and boy does he need to get there fast! But what could it be?
Shirley we must have some firemen here who are ready to blow the whistle on their chief?
Two suggestions, Attrayant. Ask him. And, at least until you find out, get out of his way.
And doughnuts are fine cuisine. One doesn’t just go get them “down the block”.
Peace,
mangeorge
There is a little van at the markets in Melbourne that sells hot jam donuts. They are indescribably good. I once drove the 1800km round trip from Sydney to buy some.
You don’t believe me do you?
Oh and by the way, the vn was closed when I got there. Still, I had a nice weekend away.
A “Fire Marshall” more likely a Battallion Chief, is probably going to a large fire where a more central leadership is needed, someone who specializes in the Incident Command System. They often float on odd jobs, but if runing code, they probably are not going for donuts, probably to a fire.
Still, I had a nice weekend away.