Moments for the scrap book… pt 5
Rescuing the firemen
As I talk to people after the fact, more comes back to me. For instance, it seems the Fayette county board is having a meeting on Monday to discuss hiring us for their fireworks displays and have asked Pete to be there to speak in person. Once again, even in the apparent chaos, we manage to impress.
Especially impressive, apparently, was our attention to detail with our parking and making sure there were clear firelanes for the firetrucks. We had flags, parking signage, caution tape marking off areas, and people directing traffic with flashlights — which was apparently an amazing feat for an event held in Sis’ yard, essentially. Our display permit was prominently displayed. The shoot site was well away from any wandering people, and all of our care was remarked upon again and again.
We’d done so well, in fact, that we caused the poor stranded firemen after the show, who couldn’t get one of their trucks to start, to decide to radio in to their firehouse for someone to bring them jumper cables than to walk over and ask one of us. I found them on one of my rounds of guiding people back to their cars, and noticing that they’d brought their wives and kids along for the show and were apparently still hanging out, I offered to guide them over to the house for a beverage if they wanted. This is when they grudingly admitted to me that their “piece of crap” firetruck wouldn’t start, and they were just waiting for a rescue with some jumper cables.
As I’m turning to go get Pete and his jumper cables, I run into the frewtnut niece, tell her what’s going on, and she laughs and says probably too loudly, “Don’t worry folks, if things had caught on fire we would have had enough people in crew shirts around to push the firetruck up the hill.” The firemen are clearly embarassed, and frantically go to banging, cursing, kicking, and generally attempting to harass the truck into life.
Just as I manage to find Pete in the crowd to send him off for cables, I see the lights of the truck come on, and it seems they have banged it back to life. One of the firemen walks up to me and thanks me for all the effort we put in trying to help them, thanks me for letting them bring their families to the show, thanks me for everything I offered them, and generally just made sure I knew to tell Pete how much they enjoyed getting to come out for these shows all the time. They said to tell him they knew he wouldn’t actually need a firetruck, since he was so careful, and that’s why they didn’t bother to bring “the good one.”
Of course, when I finally showed up back at the house to join in the after-show drinking, I had to tell everyone I was held up because I had to rescue the firemen. I was then reminded that the cop who pulled Ben over the previous night was also a volunteer fireman who was likely at the show, though I don’t think he was one of the guys I was talking to — though it was dark out there. I guess if he’d recognized me from the night before, he might have been even more embarassed at the whole thing.
fluffyluggage has made a Comment
lol!! These stories are getting funnier and funnier! I love it
If you come down to Fayette Co., we’ll have to try to meet somewhere, cuz we used to go to those fireworks shows. We used to rent a room at the Wyndham, which is right across from the lake where they hold the fireworks show. That’s actually where a lot of people park, in fact. They charge like $10 a car. We only live a little ways north of there now, but we would rent a room when we can afford it, cuz it’s crazy to try to just go down there and park and then try to drive back home. It’s too much. The traffic is crazy, and so are the people!
What an honor it would be to do that, tho, huh? Awesome! I can’t wait to hear about it, what the results are. That’s really cool! 🙂 <3
July 10, 2008 @ 10:32 pm