I really was grateful to Chief Tommy at that moment. But at the moment he jerked me off the truck and called Chief Roger I wasn’t and neither were the boys at 8’s.

Following my departure I have heard that Chief Tommy began to take the subtle flack that firefighters are so good at delivering and it is subtle. Most of the time no one comes right up and gets in your face. It’s a shunning.

Pissed firefighters are a little…

I watched through the window of the station as Chief Roger’s fire SUV rolled in the parking lot. The only thought bouncing around on the hamster wheel in my head was, not this man, not this man. I was almost in tears, but you don’t cry in a fire station.

Word had spread quickly through the house that I was being yanked off the truck and taking for testing. I don’t know if the officer I was working for that day even really knew what was going…

I had started drinking once again. It was a Friday night and I had gone to a sports bar just a few blocks from my house, a safe drive if I got bombed again.

I was lonely and told myself, as all real alcoholics do, that I’d just get something to eat have a couple of drinks and see what was shaking on a Friday night.

The little bar was run by friends, of course when you drink like me every bartender is a friend after the…

I have been asked what it is like to ride in a firetruck many times and all I can say is; it’s freaking cool, one of the coolest things I have ever done. Not the riding around doing the mundane activities of getting from point A to B.

No I’m talking about red lights and sirens balls to the walls blasting down a three lane road going against traffic at 50 miles per hour stuff. What a thrill, and you know what makes it so…

  This is an excerpt from my next book, love some feedback.

I was asked by a reader if I was ever drunk at work. That is a difficult question to simply answer with a yes or no. In the early days before my alcoholism had fully bloomed, I did show up to work hung-over frequently.

By the standards now in place in the modern world, I’m sure I showed up under the influence. Nobody can drink all night long on a Friday, from 8-9 o’clock until 2:00 am and show up to work at 7:00 and be sober. It’s…

How do you get a “reputation” in the fire service? Obviously there are two main types of reps a person can acquire. The good and the bad, but are either of those considered positive or negative?

I can only speak from my personal experience and based on direct feedback I received from mostly supervisors. I had a chance in the last week to sit down and have a cup of Joe with a fire chief I used to work for.

My book has caused a lot…

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I once found a baby in the trash. On a beautiful summer morning we were engaged in our normal coffee and BS session when an alarm came in for the engine company. The horn went off. I didn’t pay much attention as I was riding on the ladder truck that day.

The pumper bros rushed out of the kitchen while I continued to eat my breakfast of eggs and green chili. In double company stations there are generally two kinds of trucks, a pumper truck, that’s the one that carries the water and…