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Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on February 1, 2009 at 5:09pm

jeez there are so many possibilities, One thing I began was looking into My company History On my job, I got on and was assigned to a house that was built in 1903 after a year and some "feeling" to the placeand no problem with company pride, I ended up at a 3 bay single story house that was built in 1983 talk about creme colored Cinder block walls...UGH No windows in the kitchen or day room.... 2 engines and a tiller,but still.. Near the front entry/watch desk was a Brick facade with the plaque of dedication, I decided it'd be cool to find a pic of the old houses with horses... would be great but whatever I might find... asking around one day Iwas given some possible leads, and the guys got into the discussion totally, as it happened we were relocated and got sent home... within a couple weeks the core of guys decided to send out an interest flyer ina department Historical society... Today the society is housed in my orginal assigned house and owns 2 early 50's Mack pumps and the ALF rearmount That I road when I was in that house... (20 years ago now) In the cinderblock palace, I found and put up the Horse drawn photos on that wall, In the Kitchen, behind the dinner table, I built a Plaque, Back in 1995 the city decided it needed to close a company,and chose that one, which was historically oldest in the sense in the early 1890's They moved that truck to the west station, replacing it with a New alf 100'er, The "new firehouse "(1887) housed an steamer and hose and got the old truck. To justify paying another tillerman's salary, the Tillerguy of Truck 1 was also the department Farrier, so there was a blacksmith shop attached to the firehouse too.. In 1949, I guess the chief was easy to confusehechanged the trucks numbers to the engine's number they were housed with,
1 became 3, 2 became 5, and 3 became 6... and they also had 3 city service type trucks that became 10,11,12
anyway, The company served the westside between the two firehouses for 105 years alone..and was shutdown by an order over the teleprinter, followed by reasignments... I though that was pretty lame for over 100 years of guys riding out, so I dug up some old hose beds from one of the wagons and started working in my mind what It might become... I located two wooden Bangor poles, that had been on the tiller before we got rid of it, Cleaning them up I was a bit surprised to find them both Branded with the american la france logo, and while I know "the department had a 65' horse drawn hayes a couple of 85' alf's one was horse drawn one and 1 was a 50's tiller then pretty much the other horse drawns were 100' alf's, The same trucks were motorized 1st by a 2 wheel tractor and That was replaced (on "our rig") with a 1936 Mack Tractor ( the trailer was refurbed at that time again) and then in the early 50's they began recieving new ALF tillers by now "truck 3" was assigned a 1955 100' tiller a which was refurbed in 1982 and remained in service until 1992. The only reason I know all this is because I began asking when I might find an old picture..lol I expect Ladder 10 would be in some junkyard or worse and the 50's L model Macks would be in private hands or worse, and the Old firehouse, well who knows But It would not have been pretty... I suspect that those old bangor poles go back at least to 1955 sinceall he ladders after that were aluminum and because they had the brands they came from one of the orginal ALF trucks in the thirties and even when they were first motorized ALF was not involved either the shops or Mack In Long Island City, NY so safe to say the poles were pretty old .. I made them into 7 foot pike poles, added some other antiques from the tiller that werent carried on the rear mount for space, The Yellow oak board looks beautiful weathered, I rough sanded, then linseed oiled them and they look like they are waxed... On the "wing boards" I added pictures From the eariest days from the 65' hayes to the 82 refurb Its really become a focal point of interest on many levels

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on February 1, 2009 at 6:27pm

Jeremy,

Lead by example, do the dirty jobs because it's the wrong thing to do, encourage teamwork, and train, train, train.

My department has a fairly short history and we've spent some time discussion similar issues.

Our new motto is...

"Tradition starts Today"

What it means is that your department doesn't need a 300-year history to do its job and to have value for the community. You are in a unique situation. Don't copy other's traditions...create your own. Just make sure that those traditions are positive, and that they're ones in which your mother would be proud to see you engage.

Feel free to copy our motto.

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Permalink Reply by jeremy on February 1, 2009 at 8:20pm

i would like to thank you who have replied so far it helps alot and smokenpipesjim u have inspired me i think i am going to try and find some more old pics from my dept;s history and find a way to post them in the house

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Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on February 13, 2009 at 6:46pm

Cool, I am glad I was able to get you thinking... Ben waller Makes a good point as well, In that we can't "live in the past either" BUT Having traditions , from the past , gives us something (often) To strive to uphold in "our Time".. very often These are catylists to Make new traditions, new drive, new pride..
I think old traditions and all that Ben mentioned , collectivly can make for a pretty snappy operation...

some focal point whether its"parade trophys in a vollie outfit or a "unit citation wall" in a career house, or I've seen some companies that have "done up a" kitchen table making some company logo as the centerpiece, I've seen houses that have "homed up" yucky cinder block walls (like mine) with Fake brick and Barn board or Just paint in some manner.. it depends on your skills and in put and codes... One thing I did along with a buddy in the vollies Years ago , which was a BIG hit was since we both did alot of photography, we took an 4 x8 sheet of plywood and glued photos to it.. Obviously we had incident pics we had member pics pics buffing in NYC Boston and all over, all sorts of off duty things, with time we ended updoing I think like 6 or 7 sheets.. Often the guys began to ham it up all thetime so it became nearly impossible to do .. At One stage, I contacted moms and wives and got Baby pictures ofliek all the active member, which was a cool diversion. lol Everyone got a HUGE laugh amd for instance I was the senior Chauffer and I had a pic of myself at about 4 in my pedal car engine with helmet when the boards went through a regular viewing and began to get boring , we'd break out the cartoon balloons and add captions.. Meeting nights when the Older fellas showed up, The guffaws and hours spent all became well worth the effort and time involved .. In a sense, its sad , But withlittle ability for storage we eventually used the boards In a burn building we agreed it was a fitting way todeal with them... (yes we took pictures and they ended upon the next board, which was also urned two years later in the next burn..

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