Notes from a Rookie Firefighter...March 14, 2009

Today I went to my first St. Patrick's Day Parade in Morristown, NJ. Yes, at 47 I went to my first parade. We didn't have these parades on Long Island, and we never seemed to want to go to the ones in Union.

I started the day going to breakfast at one of our fire stations, then wrote my contract, and then headed back to the beginning of the parade. I saw all the guys in their Class A uniforms talking, and then getting ready to line up to march. I wasn't marching, but was doing communications with the Office of Emergency Management. I was asked so many times why I didn't march...but I didn't have a uniform and with everything going on with my daughter didn't want to commit to something I may have had to back out of.

So I snapped snapped snapped away, and then got to ride in the back of the OEM truck, waving, taking photos of the crowd, and seeing a few people I knew in what seemed like thousands of people there. We were riding right behind our fire truck so I could get a few shots of the back and the guys marching in front of it. But that high up everything looks different. Even the churches and historical buildings on South Street looked different. The Court House looked five times its size.

I only have two photos to post here as I dropped my camera while trying to download the 100 or so photos I took!!!!! Hopefully I will rectify that situation and at least post some of them tomorrow.