Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of Tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. Hello, I didn't know like he does. He puts his head back. Hello, Bucky Casta. That's who I'm doing the shout out tonight too.
That's my uncle Bucky. Welcome back to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. This is the only one that brings the to you legends isaacon on a nineteen sixty Most of you guys weren't even born in nineteen sixty, but this you weren't even born. That's right right by the way. You weren't even born in nineteen Yes, but this guy was doing it, Steven, he was doing it up there in nineteen sixty. Yeah, I was up there doing it. He was. He was up there doing it in Brooklyn. He wasn't
even on a year. He had the he had the plane crash, right, he had the constellation. Yeah, man, a shit sandwich. He had bad luck Charlie. Right, you ain't kidding. That's bad luck, Charlie. All right, he's stilling something. Right, he's eighty eight years old, so he might be good luck. Blessing God bless him. Yeah. Well, anyway, Bucky Cass who I hear the shout out that I was my uncle Buck. Yeah, we have a photo of them. Let's le's get it up there. My brothers, Me and my brothers went to
see him. Had for over forty years on the job. Started out and engine two thirty two, Section two. I believe wasn't seeing much fire back then in the sixties. I went thirty two. But you know what, the guy in a wheelchair and everything still loves to talk about the job. Bro still brought a smile to his face talking about putting the sticks up. We'll talk about going to fire as chief. Steve on the left, old man river, yesterday was his birthday. Oh happy belleated Steve. Yeah,
big sixty six double sixes. That's how old is year. It wasn't a fire. But my brother on the right, that's time. How old is who? Uncle Buck eighty six eighty seven something. He was like a burly guy too. Man if you saw that guy. He was a big barely jolly jolly, like a big jolly guy. Man always at my house always right roough, Oh yeah, always there. He worked with your dad too, right, wasn't He went to ended up going to one forty one.
He went to one forty but he was doing it back in the early days. Love, I told him, should have want to soft. Was such a buff too, man, love the job, Love the job? Is he? Yeah? Oh, big time buff. That was a big buff too. Sometimes yeah, sometimes listen, well something we're drown two. I guess you know he only twists like family and Yankees. But you turn your paying that around and he's got to forget about it. Bro, he's got the would take the camera and turn around and you can see the statues and
the fire trucks. You about the patches that he took off old shirts, that he's got them all this guy right? Oh man, I do have patches too. I just have the ship everywhere. Just yeah, to play the non buff. But we know, I love the job. You know the story one of us don't don't afraid to admit it. You taste fire trucks on a bicycle and you were a kid too for me. Yeah, I mean we all did. Come on. I don't know if I did
that, but I think I pulled the box a few times. I know that would have slacked it with probably one forty coming to rewind it, but I definitely did it a couple of times. Well, Tomorrow, Rookie and I will be at the Long Island Expo. Yes, here's another little treat for you on Saturday. If you come sometime early late morning, early afternoon, Paul Hairshaking will be there signing his book, One Hundred Years of Vowel. So come and see the living legend Paul Hairshaking, have him sign your
book, have him sign your shirt. To be feeding them bourbons. We'll be feeding the bourbons. You will know where him starting to be signing at Cliff Yeah, just love Cliff sh Coming see tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. I know Supting's coming. I know Procaccini's coming. Yeah, I'm not going in. Well Procacini bring his old lady. Now you coming? Oh yeah, bring his old lady in the bottle of I don't know what he's playing.
I'm gong on Hitler's wife. Uh you know, yeah, Oh, I know, all right, Oh, you know, let's get to the commercials so we can bring mister Charlian all right, here we go. Established in nineteen thirty and under the current ownership since nineteen eighty seven, the New Jersey Fire Equipment Company handles a complete line of fire department equipment and supplies.
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the state of New Jersey. Find us now at www dot NJFE dot com. That's www. Dot NJFE dot com. Patty Lee said he would come, but he found out of twenty eight thousand. He's on a fixed income. So listen, Partty, you come out there, Louis, and I'll pay for you to get in. I will even throw a hot dog down your truck. Dare you a double dog? Dare you to come out? Put that thing up? From John Delmhurst too. Yeah, yes, he
was puffing. He was buffing in two forty eight and what year sixty nineteen sixty three to seventy three, John, you must be all the Garrett Lingren's father was his first captain. Very cool. Yeah, tee Garrett in the chat much lately anymore? Yeah, he moved on to bigger and better things. Maybe I don't know who else. All right, let's get him in here. I don't know. We're ready money, Bill, You're ready?
There we go, Bill Coming to the Stage eighty eight year old FDNY Captain Charles Sollen looking good, cap, Yeah, huh yeah, a lion. Please, we only tell the truth. I swear to you God, I told him in the pre show. I'll sign the papers you told me. Where I get the contract that says eighty eight, I'm signing it. Yeah, until you eighty seven and three quarter, then you might not sign it. Looks good. How do you feel for eighty eight? Yeah, I
guess eighty eight? Really everything hurts, yeah, sometimes more than others. You're still smiling, Charlie. So I like it, Cap, I get around. That's all that matters. I got a lot of support, a lot of family. Great, Yeah, all right, I'll be fun. You know what. We gotta get patrioty. I almost I almost talk that turn. I'm sorry, Okay, it's all good. All right, here we go. Stand by. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, One nation
under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Boom still gets me right there, right, Charlie. After all these years, now we're gonna go back. We gotta go. We got a really roughie start. Cranking the time machine, because when we go back, we gotta really crank the time machine. Ago that let's go back to those early pictures, bro that his son sets us of a very young lad. We're gonna go, h, I'm gonna bring this one up if you guys are okay with that one?
Now? Who is that? Joe DiMaggio? That was a high school uh? You off of a city championship at the Ebbittsfield And that was nineteen fifty two, nineteen two. So you grew up in Queen's right, I grew up in Queens. Yes, a story of Queens. Uh huh, I guess I could say until I was there while we were married and moved the valley stream in sixty one. It's a wild right. What you come
from a big family? What did your pops do? My father, well, he worked for a moving van the company, and his father worked for this for the same company for a while. But his father delivered coal, and my father worked as a furniture mover and first stirch. And you soon thought to yourself, I ain't doing that, man, I ain't no furs
around, I ain't shoveling no coal for me. So you played baseball, right because I heard you, and I guess while in high school, maybe I shure did some more study and be but that they had me believing I was going to be a ball player. I was doing a lot of things. Is that you that's you right there? Hey, that's me I had. Yeah, they it was a catcher. But the Cleveland Cleveland wanted to know what I was doing. I said, I wasn't sure at that time if I was going to go to college or not. And uh, which
I didn't. And then uh, uh, well, well I can say it wound up after playing ball. But I guess the Phillies, the Philadelphia Phillies are the ones that wound up offering me a contract. But it was I wanted to give me two hundred dollars a month and send me the cliss and I said, no, that's not for me. I worked out at the Yankee State. I spent three days at the Yankee Stadium working out, and at the end of the third day, their scout, which the head
scout was Critchell. His name was Critchell, and he brought me aside and he says he can't can't he didn't say, he says, Charlie he says. Somebody should sign you. He says, but we can't. We got more catches than we know what to do with right now. And they did. When I looked back at their system, they had catches all over the place, I mean, and one of the catches became their manager, Ralph Alca. Mean. So yeah, like I wound up an All Star.
I wound up playing in a journal American All Star game where the uh the City All Stars played the I think was right here, Yes it is. We played the US All Stars. So I mean, that's awesome. It was. And hey, I got like I said, I have no complaints. I have no complaints. If it was disappointing at the time, maybe I didn't realize it, but I don't know. I I believe in God and God knows best, and I relied on that and he guided me wherever I went, and I'll hold that to today's thought. Okay, so,
what what made you want to be a fireman? Anybody a fireman? I had an uncle. His name was Vin Haley, and uh he was a husband of my aunt. My aunt was my father's sister. Well anyway, Vin Haley was a custom inspector, but he liked the fire department, and he belonged to what they called the Bell Club. The Bell Club had had a room in one of the hotels. I forget the name of the hotel, but he brought me to that room. And when I think of it, I look at that room. It was wide open, and it was
constructed, and it was positioned like you would go into a firehouse. The house watch desk they had with the bell system. They had a sink, they had the coffee, they had a table. There was and the members. Members would freak with this place day in and day out, and they would monitor and they would take turns at the house watch desk like they would
in a firehouse. They would sign a journal, they would be they would record the alarms that came in and they would say, hey, we got a fire at such and such a and if it became a magnitude of fire, mean a fire at all, that these guys would get up and get on their way to the fire. And at that time the Belt Club was recognized that they were given up IDs that could get them within the fire lions. I mean a lot. Let's face it, the public is there's a
line drawn, and nobody goes within those lines. But these these members or what not had ideas and they were offering they were allowed to get go into the fire lions. I never heard that. Well, I think it wasn't So's father of belt, my uncle, No, his his son became a police officer. I think he might be right. Yeah, all right, so you go to the bell club and that that's when you got bit by
the bug. Well that I yes, And also I wound up. I worked for an electrical distributor, Gray Barre Electric, and while I was there, things were happening, and they were an employee owned organization, and they had salary bonuses. But they all of a sudden it became that you had to be thirty years of age and you had to have five five years or more to get the maximum of their bonus. And I didn't. I didn't fall into that category. So I was I would say, pod right.
So anyway, I wound up. My mother in law, God bless her. One night we're talking and she knew I was unhappy. She said, Charlie, then you got to go civil service. You got to go with the civil s. I said, well, sanateation, noough, I don't want to pick up people's garb and the way it was the police department. There were no cause. There was guys that were given a post and they would walk in the post, right, yeah, walking post and the beat.
There was bad weather, they would be standing on a corner and I said no, I said, I don't want to be a policeman. I said, and they said, well fire, I said, well fire, yes, I I'm going. So I wound up taking the test and the rest was great. The rest we'll get you. What year did you take the test? You got on in sixty Do you remember when you took the got on the test. I believe that the it might have been fifty eight, fifty eight, fifty eight. I believe the test might have been and
uh, I got on the nineteen sixty eight. I might have been. I might have been on close to the mid of As far as the list, everything I got, I got A pointed. Then in October of sixty they swore us in on the twenty sixth, effective the twenty ninth. How do you remember these things? I don't remember what I had an hour ago? We got I'm like an hour ago. What are we doing right now? I guess my family can I'm a little nutty with figures and nuts.
I could probably go through eighteen grandchildren and tell you their birthdays. That's crazy. I mean, this is the way. There's different telephone numbers. I know. I'll tell you, Hey, I can tell you about how did I get to one O four? There's a story behind that. Yeah, I don't want to rush on. No, we don't want to run easy. We don't want to rush. What was the starting pay Charlie when you
went what the starting pay? I think it was thirty eight hundred a year, wow years, And that was in October and then January first there was a pay raise of two hundred dollars. So January first of sixty one, if the pay was four thousand dollars, So that's where it was at that time. Well, he didn't go to the firehouse right away. Back then you would go right, you'd go to a firehouse first. Before the academy.
No, I wound up when the first day I had to go to the eleventh version was in the quarters of two twenty nine and one forty six, and there had to be fifteen or twenty of US one hundred one hundred were appointed, and they guess they split a cent to fifty fifty fifty were going to school pretty much right away, and maybe it was alphabetically being I was soln and I think of some of the names Pollinger or whatnot towards the end of it. But anyway, we some of us went to the eleventh
division and others others went to different divisions. Well, when we got to the division, the deputy came down and we wound up each given a folder, and each folder we were given a what they called a this is your base company. My base company was latter one oh six, so I had to go to report down there. As soon as they dismissed us. I went to one oh six that was on green Point Avenue in green Point.
But anyway, when I got there, okay, the captain happened to be working that day, and the chore was well, they were prepared for and will inspector, and I believe every piece of metal that was used in the construction of that fire polish brand. I think the whole day was polished brass. And at that time the firehouses, they weren't given rags or anything.
There were balls of twine that would just I mean, if you if you took it apart you would get a string, you would get a ball a string, but they were but anyway, we polished with polished brass and we didn't the first day there, we didn't turn the wheel. Next day all right. It happened to be a lieutenant working and that his name was Iorio,
and fine he he was. He talked to us with they talked to me, well at that time was only me the probian, not how he talked to me and enlightened me of what goes on in the firehouse and the rules, which was very good. He was good, and we did have a run. We wound up with a rubbish fire that was in a vacant lot. But the fire lapped up onto the side of the building and we had to scrape the shingles down and everything for the engine then to wash down.
And the engine at that time was engined two point fifteen, who was on India Street. In the street they would shortly ended, they would disbanded, they were gone away with well okay, leaving that they wound up giving a detail we had to go to was which was a part of the the shops. The shops were on off of green Point Avenue, but on the upper point was office. There was an office light and a structure and they the ProBiS. They were introduced in what was what we called a proby training
to the firehouse. They told us what was expected in a firehouse, making the coffee. They taught us how to make a firehouse bed. This is the way every bed in the fire department has made. And that's how we were talking, and it progressed. We had night training and that led us later on in a month later on, while at night training, we were at Randolph's Island at one time they called it Welfare Island. But anyway, while we were their one night, a fire erupted down in Manhattan one ninety
nine bars. That was on I believe the sixteenth of November. But anyway, down at the fire chief of the fives at EIGHTI Prob's get the Probys down, they said. They put us on a rig, a CD rig, and they brought us to the fire. Well, when you realize at that time in nineteen sixty there was no radios, and you didn't see you didn't see masks, and you didn't see power tools. So what they used
us for was their communication. So they broke us into pairs and a came over and said, hey, the chief wants you to go to the roof of this building where they were operating a line across the street. Now the fire was Grand and Broadway in Manhattan, and they had a line and it was going in across the street and of the fire building. Now this building was a textile building. It was I believe at least five stories, and
it was it seemed like it was fully involved. But anyway, we get we get up to the roof and I said, the message was by the order of the Chief of department, shut down and the engine company. Who the heck I need? And then one guy says, what is he saying? A chief of department? Well, okay, all right, we're gonna shut down. So we go downstairs. Yeah, fine, every well, it wasn't how many minutes later, get back up and tell them to open up, open up. Oh yeah. Can imagine the comments that were made,
all the things like, oh my god, that's awesome. Get back down. We get back down, and then all of a sudden they go up to the third floor. There is a company operating a line which they were out the window across the street. And we leave that company and the two of us went up there and I mean, okay, so we held the line out the window across the street and only it didn't seem that much later that came up and they said, hey, they want you back down
on the street. Well, I mean, when you think about the time lapsing and whatnot. Finally the building was they said, okay, it's under control. But in the meantime there was three firemen missing and so searching and they did recover them. They recovered them in the basement. Now imagine this huge textile building. When they got deliveries and then went into the basement or the cellar of the thing. There wasn't inventional steps. They just had shoots.
So everything when they got delivery that was dumped on a chute and a shoot just so well, what had probably happened was these firemen who had to go down because of the body of fire at the time. Initially they were down there at the beginning of this whole fire. Probably they hit this shoote and they were well eight that's where they were found, almost at the end of the thing. And they said that the the what at that time they
had what they called the masks. The masks were called MSAS and it was a demand type and an MSA was it was MSA because it was called mine safety apparatus. This is what the coal miners used when they were digging in Well anyway, okay, well they found they found the fellas and that was that. That was and then the rest of the thing, well they knew they had how to get us back because of the time when we were at training. Our training period was from five p m. Till midnight. So
we helped drag some of the fellas. We run we were doing the messageing. Some of the guys were dragging hoes. So anyway, we wound up getting back on the rig and going back to the island. And that was the end of that day. And those guys were they they found alive or were they passed? They f had the three of them died. Three of them were found. They were found the o way at the in in a in a basement, Uh just about filled with water. Oh, you weren't
even on the job a year yet. And the three guys passed. Ready, right, there was the three guys and we finished that that probe. That part of the training was called uh engine training because it was fittings we'd sat, we'd in the and the officer while it was a chief that would give us a little problem. Okay, we got a two and a half inch mail, we got a you know with three inch female. How do we put those two together? And we had to go grab fittings and put
it together. And this was all part of the training. We got out of there and then they sent us to sixty eighth Street. Behind sixteen truck was this big open yard and they gave us ladder training. They put up an area we would climb the areel with without a tool and then with a tool and the handling of portable ladders and at that time, most of the
portal that were all trust wooden trust ladders. We didn't have metal extension ladders are at that time, and they would We were instructed how to handle that, how to bridge, how to carry everything. And of course the fire department had the so called life nets and they would let's face it, when you look at it, it's quarterfall. Well you had to open up and then open it up, and you had this ten foot ring and okay,
all right, who wants to Okay? I so yeah, I'll go up and jump, I go up to the fire escapele whatever it was, and I jumped into the net and the offices. Thank you, But a part of that another part of that story. Now I jumped ahead. It was very when we first got there. They lined us up and they said, okay, we're gonna put you in size places. All right, Okay, who's six five? One guy gets up, all right? Another guy six? Then all of a sudden, then all of a sudden, wait a
second, what about I'm six six? He didn't respond. That was part, but that was it. And then after the latter school, we all were given a schedule and we wound up rotating into various companies. I followed. There was only one of us at a time in a company. The first company I went to was two thirty engine, and in there you had days. You work five days, you worked from nine to five, you were all forty eight hours. You came back and then you work nights,
and your night hours were from five until midnight. Okay in there, well, okay, after a couple of weeks, what happens comes the sixteenth of December. Sixteenth to December. I'm in two thirty five engine and the guy and watched this holy miracle The report is that there was a couple of airliners crashed over Stirling in seventh and whatever box was involved. So of course two thirty five the over they got together, see what are we doing that?
Well, they pulled the card and they looked for their assignment, and their assignment. I'm not sure if it was the second or third. I'm thinking it might have been less to one a second because when you look back, when you look back at the assignment in cards that when an alarm came in, you got three engines, you got two trucks, and you got two chiefs. This was the initial but then as time went on they dropped off, okay, you don't need a chief, only one chief has to go.
And then okay, the third two engine, you know, uh, you're staying quarters if they need you. That's when they came in when when an all hands was needed, they thirty in the third engine would go. But anyway, okay, air crash, we go. And I believe there was the pick. I believe that's us at the were got there and we had to set up a multiversal. We set up the multiversal. Okay, operated for a little while. We were told a shut down, get a
hand lined and get into the structure. Alongside the fuselage was down the street and off to the tail section was this corner building which happened to be a funeral parlor. Well, we got got the head, but first of all, we got to get these scots. I'm not Scots. We got to get these msas. So we had to go back to the apparatus. Because you didn't automatically take them. You got to wait till it brought them back.
The masks. We put the masks on and all it is, like I said, it was a container with the face piece and you had to take the tape off the bottom of this canister which was called hopclit, and you it was a demanda. You sucked. That's the only way you got air is if you sucked the air through and hope that it filtered. And well we get into the funeral. While we get to it, we can't
we can't stand there. We got to get out. We can't breathe why because some of this embalming flumets or whatnot or from out what now behind it was burned and all it did was make a brownish smoke. So we had it back out. And the way we backed out. We felt the hand line that we had stretched to get back out of there when we got outside. Okay, upstairs above the funeral pollo was an apartment I guess where the people lived in. Any Way, that's where they wound up bringing a hand
line up there and knocking down It was a little fire. Anyway, at that time we went to the window to the office. Is get away from that window because otherwise you're going to be called down there to sift, sift through to what he called shop me and it was a total loss. The two planes collided. The passenger plane came down on Surley and seventh. The other was a cargo plane which wound up in Staten Island, and at that time it wasn't called Staten Island, was called Richmond, they didn't name it.
How many people were on board that that plane? Excuse me? How many people were on that plane? Do you know, Charlie, I'm not I don't know. I know that it was less than one hundred. I think it was in the sixties something like that. It's good at that time you didn't have these huge airliners, large compatit, you know, compacity. So cap I want to ask you so So first off, your son just sent us the picture gun show all the picture of the three guys because I
don't even know if I even know about this fire. So we got this is the fire that you were at. The guys that were in the basement. Yeah, uh huh and thirty was it? I only have two names here that Yeah, it's kind of cut off, but at least uh, I mean, what were you thinking? I mean, you were at a fire, one of your first fires, where we had three line of duty deaths, and then you go out to the field and you have two planes collide in the middle of the burrow, Like what what any time? Did
you say? Holy shit? Man, I don't know if this is for me or what's it? You know? That was it? It was? It was you know, became part of the job. And maybe that is some of the things that you wind up being instill to you that this is what's going to go on now for the rest of it. Truthfully, I guess I liked I liked it because I wound up and scared. I would scare most most people, I would think. But you know, my my father in law, God bust and so I had had a good friend,
very good family friend. His name was Walter Wagner, and he spent his whole career in twenty three engine in Manhattan, and he retired and one day at my father in law's house, he says, holy mackful. He says, I spent in whatever number of years, and you've seen more in a month, which was true. Uh yeah, one hundred and twenty eight people were killed at six on the ground. That six people on the ground,
right, I remember that. We've had a few people that were as there you go, see, I mean, so then again right after that, again we've had a few guys who three days later then yeah, okay, now I'm going into night a night tour. And five it was the Constellation the Brooklyn Navy Yard, an aircraft carrier being built, is burning. So we got in there, all right. We happened. I happened to be working night and I'm working with the captain and whatnot, and we got to
relieve. So at that time, there was no transportation, no, there was no cars available, so we had to get our public transportation. Well, we got down, we got a bus on Bedford Avenue, we got the Flushing Avenue, we got off Flushing Avenue and we started walking and all of a sudden, the department vehicle is passing and the captain grebs the guy they'd chauffeur there, and he and the guy said just climb on. So
we climbed on this thing and what an odor. But what it was was just a pile of body bags they were bringing to the Navy Yard because of the deceased. I mean, when we got there, the workers, I mean, let's face it, they were just laid out on a dock, and you know, but anyway, I think they lost fifty there. I think it was fifty that they lost there if I remember right, but it
could have been a lot more. I mean, the guys said that, you know, thefty and why did an incredible job at that at that and then and the box that was pulled when he think they wound up one nineteen, they had already located to one oh five because of the air crash, and they were still in three days they were still relocated in one oh five. Of course, one o five I think was there over one hundred hours. They were well anyway back here. The box that was pulled was cant
and climber for the Navy Yard one oh four is first doom. So they wound up. But one oh four had only a seventy five foot wooden ladder. No, and even when I went there, it's a wooden lade and they could not reach an area where I couldn't reach some of the workers. Well, one O two wound up. They were the second second along. They were special. They brought it. They had one hundred foot aerial. They were able to get there. They were able to make rescues. Thank
Kevin's so wow. When we got there, we relieved. We had to go in to relieve the company, and we had to go across. It was below deck. It wasn't the flight deck, it wasn't the first hangar deck. It might even be bee in a second or third deck, but we wound up. We had to walk across. Don't forget the constellation was a thousand feet long and two hundred and fifty feet wye and we had a
cross and we had to go to the far side. I'm not sure if the starboard or stern or whatever, but anyway, there was still fire and we got in there. We relieved the company and we moved wherever there was a little fire. And where we were I don't know anything about the ships, the construction, but there were different ways they went into different locations. When there was a bunk room, it wasn't the bunk room for the entire
crew. There were sections, There were different bunk rooms in different areas. There was and there was cafeteria. There were supplies that were being brought in because of the building and the sections, and some of this section was more advanced than the building, but there were still supplies, and these supplies were burning and whatnot. And there was an area where only two guys could fit
to hold the line. Wow, when you think of when you're a man power at that time, engines and truck there was only a four man company, four men and an officer. Well in an engine company, the MPO stayed with the ring. So there's only three guys now going well, now, if only two guys, I wound up being the fourth guide and not
Proby and Fine. So the two of us were paired in and we we knocked down what we could and we'd last fifteen twenty and then we came out and another two guys and we progressed to as far as we could, and during that point we met rescue and rescue passed us and they said yeah, and they told us where they saw a little further and all they were they
were on a continuous search operation rescue. They were just looking for persons or at that point there was not going to be survivors, so they were looking for the loss. Well anyway around. I guess it was midnight, maybe after that or before that, well we will they would just be up. The story was that the fire department, the chief of department, the ship was listing. It was a four degree list, and the chief of department said, we want to cut a hole in and to drain, and they
were ordering the marine unit to come in and cut and the pentagons. No, you do touch the government property. You don't touch that both, you know. But anyway, okay, So the fire department never cut a hole in it. So so we got to a point we wound up taking up. The captain said, thanked me. He says, I'm going to write
your well for voluntary duty. I said, well, whatever, I should have been going home at midnight right again, but no, so I went to the firehouse of whatever I might have been two three o'clock in the morning. I said, well, I'm not going home. Now, I might as well just hang out till the end of the tour. So that's what I did. Well to be that that cabin caught another job. We went, we had, we did, we came, We caught a we caught
a small fire in a BA with the one a little free nothing. Well, after you go to the constellation and aircraft, Yeah, I guess it was a building. We would have said it was really nothing compared to four five fire. That's easylation. It's that consolation. How that fire progress so
fast is because of the fuel. There was a five hundred and fifty gallon JP four fuel and one of the one of the high lows of whatnot, was transporting one of the steel plates to a location, and as they passed this tank, they shared I don't know it was a valve, but some sort of valve or safety plug, and it ripped open the tank and the tank just spew every direction and it went down what they called a bomb elevator
and going down. I didn't know that's how it started. Well, now, now this tank was on one of the upper levels and on on a hangar, not a yeah, one of the hangar decks. So that fuel is pouring down, and a deck or two below there is a guy with the torch. He's he's doing some welding. And as soon as it hit, not for long, you was it? That went up right? Right? Probably that was it? So no one hit him. That went up, went up up that bomb well and the well. The rest is history.
Wow. Wow, I feel like we're already. That's like more excitement than my whole career. He didn't even get out of it, weren't even out of the nineteen sixty yet, he's not even sight that little three days on the job, three days work as a prob would hundred and two. We had one job. Now I'm the probi. I'm taking a hook in the and the extinguisher right, so I grab the extinguisher, start and then one guy says, we won't need the extinguisher, leave it because the building
give it to him. That was another thing with the extinguisher. At that time, we didn't have pressurized water. We had soda and ashid extinguishers, and you had to mix a solution and you put it in and then you had the acid that you put in the top, so that when you got and you want to operate, you had to turn the extinguish over, shake it so that it would mix with the bycoss. That would create create the
pressure and she would have a stream. And that was And you also had another type of extreme which was the phone extinguisher, and it was a different combination, but it operated the same way. And when you used it every day you came back to the quarters you how to refill your extinguisher. So, I mean, how things changed through the years. I mean, I said, in wonderfol we had a seventy five foot wouldn't it. I don't
think we. I'm trying to think that. I think nineteen sixty three is when we got a ceegret, a hundred foot aerial didn't get there yet. That's my favorite pictures too, by the way, the ones that he said, I want to get that. Oh my god, the roof that that wouldn't aerial. I mean, let's face it. The shover had to get up on a turntable and pound the foot on a lever that would kick the
bed ladder up. And it was all spring loaded. This was a hot and night high hydraulics was spring loaded and he got and then there was cranks on each side to extend the fly ladder, and then noticed that I could be in good shape. Story on the wooden aerial. We get relocated one day. Now this wooden aerial has got an overhang of about six feet. The tiller is up there. He's on top of the riff. Anytime the aerial had to be used, he had to pull a pin and remove the
tiller so that the aerial could be used. One day, we get real located to one. We go in there. The chauffeur's backing, Remember there's an overhang, its backing up, backing up. All of a sudden crash every firehouse and all the rigs. When they back into quarters there was a bumper. He knew when the chauffeur knew one to stop when he hit they hit the bumper. Didn't have a rig with an overhang, biker, So chauffeur just kept going, waiting to hit that bump. Well, what he
heard was the extension going through the rear windows. Uh yeah, and the tillman leaped from the seat. I got and his and the tilevit will. He wound up transferring. He wanted to go to Queens someplace, but hey, the stuff there where at I worked rescue I'm not rescue were uh. I even did a stint in the squad there in the in the three four battalion and the squad all it was was a bread wagon. I mean you you didn't have a seat, you had a school. You were a little
like you went to a soda shop or a fountain. You had fixed to them things in the back of it, you know. I used really at that time, the squads was for manpower so they wouldn't have to have another company or whatnot. They brought us in and we would help with a line and it would depend on the officer when it was time to take up, if that squad officer was nice enough to use the men to help them take the line up, or would say okay, let's go and leave leave the
line that they might have to leave it there. But that's what did and that was you know different. Like I said. Then, finally, after that stint, like I said, here it is March, I'm going finally to Prob school. Oh going to school, Well, yeah, finally to school finally. So Prob school officers really love it because while we were there the drill periods, we were being taught knots, we were being taught whatever was available in the firehouse. It was a truck company, it was the
truck tools. So when we got to Proby School, somebod these offices when they went to teach us, they would use somebody a slang or something and yeah, you wise guy, let me see you talk, and one of us would go up and we were tired and not that they were trying to teach us what this was it and Proby School six weeks and the biggest the biggest thing while in Proby School was getting the use of the m s A mask? How do you because they most of most of the island at that
time was vacant hospitals. So what they did, They tell you to don the mask? No fire is it? Just run up the stairs to the roof, no fire involv with the mask on. What who let's see who can get to the roof without pulling the mask off. Some of us made some guys didn't make it because suck by time you get up your sucking air like you all your work. And the other part was getting used to a hose line with pressure. You know, to back you open up a line.
You got a belt if you so you get used to pressurized lines, and that was to me, that was a biggie. That was a big one. Instructor, well, one of the guys when he opened up the line, he let it go and that line the instructor is alongside, hit him in the ankle. It's it smashed his ankle. He went, YEA, that's do joke. No. I wound up and okay, I went to one O four. Now there's a story behind. Somebody knew where I was going the first day I got on a job. Really, I'm saying
it's faith mentioned. I was given directions how to get to that eleventh division. Was I given the right direction or did I misinterpreted? But I wound up on have Amaya and South fourth Street in Williamsburg. And when I got off, I said, oh my god, I'm supposed to get to Richardson Street. I asked Similia. I said, hey, do you know where Richardson Street is? Oh? Oh my god, I said, here it
is twenty after eight. I've got to be there to be fine. Now, okay, I said, well, I'm looking for a firehouse on Richardson Street. Well that was a definitive word firehouse. You just go down to South second, make a turn a couple of them. Well, when I went down south second, made the turning, went over my car to twenty one and one oh four. I asked the guy on watch. He gave me the directions and there get to know eleven makeup right there got me to
Richards Street. I got there by twenty to nine, but I said one and when I got in to go back to that spot, right, crazy, totally, Macael, Huh to go back to that spot like after you were there already, to get the instructions like that's crazy. It was. It was, I'll tell you, and hey, one of four who weren't the business when I got there the first year. I don't think they had
a thousand runs. Really, really, what it progressed neighborhood change. Different groups of people moved out and other groups of people moved in, and situations change. Fires. We started getting fires. I talk about some fires there I seen. I will I wouldness some decent rescues that would today be written up. Back then, things weren't written up. Is free you? Yeah? It was all And we had we had two especially one Lieutenant maur We come out. He would say, good job, fellas, and we knew
he would if anybody said anything, he says, that's our job. This is just the way it is. That's the way it is. And I can say on a whole, I would say we did. I think we did a good job. We did. We weren't the business we became. We finally made and I forget the year, but we finally made the top
twenty five in workers. And the reason we made that is because the TCU units came into being at that the TCU Tactical Company Unit, that's what they called them TCU, and the one by us was in one O two, so that TCU was called TCU seven O two seven of course being a truck right, and the engine had another one. But their hours came in they worked. Their hours of running TCU was from six pm till midnight, so one o two they were running, or if they run, it's because there
was another another box or another fire and they had to go. And that was they were almost like a second a second section. But that was the year that one oh four. While up like making the number twenty five, we made number twenty five as on workers. But other than that, Hey, Cap, who are some of the guys, Yeah, excuse me, Cap, who are some of the guys there that you remember when you first
got there, that stuck out to you, that helped you. My first when I got in there, the captain, his name was Utenski, and he was the pro I was being. I was a prop He wanted me to travel to and from in proby uniform, the type of uniform that the probs wore. And he you tell, and the fellas that were in there, there was one guy I would say that was young, but there was the old timers. It was like Jene Flaherty, IRV. Lungern, Steve
Simkowski, Charlie Pensack. I mean, uh huhm. There will be a number of guys between both with the Skis the s k I at the end of the day, and they were the green point. Yeah, that was a point guys, right exactly so, But it was good house. No hey, hey, there was the colored or the black ordered African Americans and whatnot. They were there was a few of them, not what they were
there. In fact, On Stanward was one of them. And stand you would you you I'll get back to the one day there was by whatever differences that might have occurred in the firehouse, we never used the derogatory return of any But anyway, we get we get the uh stand. They started talking a lot uh and he says, well, I'm not one of them.
He said, you know, I came from India, you know. And so another guy turns around and says, oh, so when you were kids, you didn't play cowboys and Indians. You you play cowboys at Indians, you know, Indians. And they turned it around and I just messed it up too. But anyway, I learned that. I'll tell you. They
got me up into the tiller section right away. Well, by the time I had a year I on a job, I was tilleran and one year tilla and leaving that firehouse, not every firehouse, I don't maybe nobody will remember. Is what they called on the side of the building was what they called a slap switch. And it was the tillaman's job going out the door to slap it, to slap that script so the doors would close, come on, That's what it was. And that didn't last too long because the
neighbors all of a sudden knew that nobody would be in the firehouse. So before those doors actually really close, they could sneak in there and do that, and a couple of tilam in most of their arms, so that it's time. Then it was the time. I'd say Gene Flowery was most of the time he was if you were working. And also at that time, when you look at it, there was only an eight group system in the firehouse groups one to eight. The officers groups were one, three, five,
and seven. I happened to go into group two, so I worked with one officer one day and my second tour I'd be working at with the other officer. The way it worked this is and this is the way it was, our twenty four group system. And because if you look at it, you only had four, you only had four guys. But there was no overtime. Overtime didn't come in until nineteen seventy two. So that played
really before. That played havoc mostly with the poor engine because during that time there was there was no Arizano's Bridge, there was no and let's face it, in the spring over in Staten Island or Richmond whatever at that time, there was tremendous brush fires. Lowel Manhattan would be sent over to Staten Island. They would have to get on a ferry and they would transported over there.
Well to twenty one. They wound up relocating to Manhattan. Sometimes those things in Staten Island got so twenty one had to get on a ferry and go over there. When it came time to quit, you're on your own. The job didn't say oh, do or take your rig and what oh blah blah. No, that was it. That was their attitude. I mean, later on they started changing things. Yes, thank Kevin's it's crazy.
If in the firehouse there might have been a guy say all right, use my car, let's go, you would have they would have to go down to Manhattan to the pier. What had happened was the guys would be able to get on the ferry and get back to Manhattan, and the member who allowed his car to be used could use his car to get back to quarters. But now the guys there how to go back. I fell to get the rig the rig is still over there, and do whatever they had
to do until they were told to take up. So there was times that guys didn't get back to maybe eight o'clock at night having sake. That was but that was God show some of the pictures from some of the jobs. Yeah, it was I know, but before power tools, baby, okay, you want to hang out loop for a second. No, it was power tools. Well, let's face it. Oh boom there it is. Okay, that happen. That happened to be. Uh, I guess I'm
looking at the tool. I know I was a show for because that was a pike a pikehead X and that that was my tool I used as a show. And we're up on the roof and second alarm and it was a couple of pictures taking that and like I said, no tool, there there's another one and behind me is Joe Joe Allen, little Bruce shrinked right there, buddy, Oh yeah, this is there's the third who was taking those
pictures. Cap you remember, Yeah, he was a former member of the two twenty one engine and he was into photography and he asked for detail and he got detailed to the to the photo unit and he wound up chasing fire and this happened. That's great that you have those pictures. He caught them. He caught them moment we were talking to the fire too, right coming. Look chops, look at them chops. Look at those chops, man, those seventies chops. Those sixties chops maybe uh huh. Look at the
chiefs car in the back there was it was a great it was. This really is for the instagram. Oh yeah, that's why I use it for the thumbnail. It was just that's a solid pick. So you got to hear something about nineteen sixty four. Uh, Squad three the fireman killed and Squad three that was mark what and what? There was a fire and then the Jewish Yeshiva school h and it progressed to a point and became a multiple.
Well one four we wound up going and we got over the When we got over, Uh, Gus Catnice was the chauffeur, and we had a detailed from rescue to Tony Maddy his name was. And what had happened was as we got just about got there, Waki who was the officer. I don't know if he was It might have been silber to thirty, but anyway, he came to a window which happened to be like the only window on
that side of the building, and he screamed the collapsed men trapped. Well, there was a fence that was too high for the ladder to get in to the angle needed to get to that window. So we grabbed the thirty five foot extension and we got and we went up, we got in the window. We've we moved along and as we moved along there was I don't know how many inches of water already on the floor and the squad, the squad just relieved one two at that point, well, the collapse happened and
guys from the squad were hit. One guy was cut bed. Well, they wound up getting him a but there was still Mark What was under the ceiling because it was a monolithic and the whole thing came down at once, not in a piece, but the whole thing because along the lines I guess the school they built a hanging ceiling rather than just leaving it open. But anyway, Mark What and Tony and I we wound up getting to the edge of this of that portion, and we were able to pull up and some
other guy pulled Mark What out of from underneath it. We got him out. I was giving him a cardiac And by the time we got out and started working, a deputy the eleventh Division came and said, I want you out of the building. Get him out of the building. So we took him out of the building and we went down the stairs into it and we're in. Now we're in the courtyard. While we're in the courtyard, Okay, by this time, the medical officer, Ginsburg was the medical officer comes
over and oh, my god, we need a trade kit. I don't have a trade kit. A guy from rescue runs across the street, gets a razor, gets the razor blades, and Ginsburg cuts a trachea opening and whatever they need. They use the base of a ballpoint pen and they placed it into the trachea and the lieutenant, my lieutenant who was covering at the time, his name was Hutner, Lieutenant hut and he was he was blowing into the trait and every but the blood would be popping out, and they
said, the ambulance is there. I'm still pushing on the heart and we carried him, got him into the ambulance. He was gone because the poor guy, I mean, I mean getting hit, the way he got hit and whatnot, he is to describe it. Bile was coming out of his nose and he is from the trauma involved. And I believe he was gone, but they couldn't. They couldn't pronounce him gone until he got to the hospital or a doctor examined them. So but that was Marquart and that was
nineteen sixty three. Wow, who is in the job mackerel? Yeah, me and I moved one day. I sent me to Actually I went to chau For School before I was first grade because a couple of the chaff one uh got promoted another another the same the same group. Joe, he went to the fire marshals. So there's too. And that other fellow I tell you he was a chauffeur. He got transferred. So Moran the lieutenant. One night, he says, hey, did you have a drive? I said, yeah, okay, and I on the side when I worked on
the side, I worked with that where my father were movie company. But anyway, I drove the truck, so I said yes. He yah, Gus let him let Charlie drive. And that's what I wound up. I was and I learned standard transmission with a wooden ladder, and wound up I wound up going to Chauffe School in Yeah, it was just I guess. I was in Chauffe School just as I turned first grade, was in octobery in October of sixty three, because when the department order came down that I
was given the qualified chauffeur title. It was on the twenty second of November nineteen sixty three, and if you remember that day, that's today President Kennedy was assassinated on the twenty second the twenties. It's also one of our granddaughter's birthdays spent. But and okay, I wound up being a show. Yeah, so when details came in, I wound up being detailed. But hey, that was part of it. And then the one put the chauffeur, Sam Giamo, got promoted. When he got promoted, the captain said,
hey, Charlie, you're get in a seat. And I said, well, I said, I don't think I'm in line. I think that so and so is in line. I want you to. And I went to the other fellow and I said, hey, I said, I don't know what he's doing, but and Tom said, jolly perfect, it's just the way I would like it. I don't want to be you got it. And I wound up and okay, And I guess that was good years for me because I not to say that I'd love to you that airy you lie.
Every chance I saw a smoke or something, I was putting the area up and going through a wonder or something. One job, it was only food on the stove, but the smoke was coming out and as I'm going in it was the chieftain. Okay, truck, that's it. We don't take the glass cap, take the glass I always say. With the new rigs, though they had they had, you had a bed ladder pipe already,
man mounted to your bed ladder. The captain like the drill on that at time when we went out on drill, how to put that thing into operation? As well as putting we also carried a fly ladder pipe that we could put on. Well, we had a fire vacant building, three story job only not even two blocks from the firehouse, so we would in no time. Engine founder A. Hide said, not only that one nineteen had gotten the towel ladder, and when they came in and we had a bed
ladder going, they were moaning the troubles bowl ladder. But the ship on that birthday cake cap. I mean, let's face it. Where where there were boxes, you knew who would come was coming in, If you knew you had a chance to beat them, you know what I'm talking about. That's what they did. They did the same thing. We did the same thing. Baby. There was there was companies that would search their their their response area and try to figure out a way of getting you knocked off with
the response and them, and we did a lot of them. I'm excited. One away went to a new quarters. In the new quarters what the end of my are one O four Administrative District. So I mean we played games. We go over there to building a new firehouse. We put we would put a condemned notice on there that you know this building is condemned, you know. But it was all good fun, good fun. And hey, guys were good. Did we did? We did jobs? Say we got we got I guess unit citations, we got a number of them.
And what what about Class three? Here? Though? I wound up, let's face it over, what the heck you was it that I wound up with a roof rope rescue? We get that? Yeah? Which one are you talking about? Talking about? Your that one there is Drakes Avenue, Yeah, Drakes. Well we came in company everything. I wound up, Like I said, I wound up being a chauffeur. I got in there
was a new law. I went down, I went down the driveway and I'm in the in the courtyard and the fire is coming out of the pres it's into the second and okay, I got to get on that fire escape. So I used my tool. I was able to release the fire escape drop ladder, so the fire skater I went up. And because the way the fire was lapping up, I couldn't use any other any other step stair for the fire. So I had climb over the railing which there was a
window, and I got in the window. And when I got into that window, there was a a family in there. There was the mother, father, and two kids. The two kids might have been three or four years old. Now the fire is lapping around, it's getting getting high, and they don't want to leave. Because what went on is when when apartment people were running out, the bandits were running in stealing, and this is
what happened, And this is what happened with vacant buildings. If one apartment became empty, that's the apartment they would set on fire, and everybody else around it would be running out and they would come in and steal. I mean I went in the building. I'm going in the building and somebody's coming down with a television on their shoulder and you know it was there, or
they steal. They would steal anything and all right, So this particular I get into this apartment and whatnot, and they don't want to leave, and I said, we got to get out of here. We're choking. Everybody was starting to choke. It wasn't ask and what not. So I grabbed the two kids and I told them I'm leaving. Grab my coat. So one of them grabbed my coat and we get out of the apartment. When we got out of the apartment, the engine was in the other apartment and
I eventually had it coming. Well, I was written up and that was it. That's how I got my three. There was other times, Hey, that was one. There's other times I thought I should have been written nothing. I think everybody's had those caps. You get stuff sometimes with something you don't think it happen. You think you should have got it, you don't get it. That's what happens. But hey, now we can talk
about the roof rope. January fifteenth, nineteen seventy three, seventy three, I'm detailed to want to wait at that time, all rite, I don't know it was detailed. Well, I was. I guess it might have been overtime because now the picture that's there's Pudging Walsh, there's myself, and there's Arnie Murkage. Arnie Murkage was in Rescue two at the time and this here was a reporter from Channel seven and he's interviewing us. In the apparatus is Gil Murtha with a mask on, an oxygen mask. Okay, what
had happened is fire. They gave me the roof, so I'm on the roof. And at that time, at the time, as you can see in the picture that there was radios. When radios were distributed, first two radios to each company and the engine it was the MPO and the officer, so the officer could call for water in the truck. It was the officer and the roofman, so the roofman could let the officer the roof is opened
up or whatever situation is there, because he's overlooking a building. So okay, so the fire is coming up. And one of the at that time, the chauffeur when it was a fire, another one of their jobs was to carry a roof rope to the roof to the roof. So Gil brought the roof rope up. People are trapped in that apartment, a mother and child, and so we're going to use the roof rofer. Gonna be a roof robe rescue. I said, yell, I'll go. He says no, no, And I said, okay, your company, your roof,
your rope go. So hooked up, put him down, got into the apartment. So what happened is, I'm I lowered him. I have nothing, I can't talk off anything. Well, I'm down there. All of a sudden, I said, holy God, where Gil? So I get on a radio right away and I said, hey, Gil left the rope. He left her, you know he took left or not. I can't. I can't abandon the situation because he could come back to the window and
need the rope. Well, I'm looking around. I can't tie off because if I could tie off, I'd make I'd go single slide down to him. But anyway, winds up. The rescue was made. People got out and well, the pudgy and the officer they did. They had a good partner too, but being with it was a roof rope and whatnot. G Gil got he got a one, he got a class one. He got a national award on it and fine, but I was I was in detail, right, So when they wrote everything up, they didn't put my name
down. Come on, so what happened? What happens when this came down on the department order, he said, holy geez, you know, so my captain he got on the phone and he proceeded and it wound up that they put me in and at that time, at the tutorial or something had something to do and he just said, oh, give him. I forget what an a or just throw throw, you know, with somebody business. Oh that was it. But Gil, I'll tell you, guilt came. He says. Hey, Charlie, I didn't know. He says, yeah,
you know, I said, you didn't get what you deserved. So he he was good and it was and because I was able to use the radio, saying that he left the rope, he was trapped in there. He was trapped in there trying to make the rescue. And okay, subsequent the rescue was made, but with the others two but Gil, but let's face it, the radio at that time, you know, and then later a couple years later, you know, do you know how the power tools
really came into the job. They were out there other other other units are outside. They had them. But at that time we got a fire commissioner Safer. His name was Safer. He came from the fire marshals down in Washington, and when he came to New York, he thought he was going to be the police commissioner. That was it. But he became the fire commissioner. And because he became he looked at what the fire department. He says, look this equipment they need to quit order. I don't know,
fifty pumpers order, trucks ordered and some of the specifications. Okay, we need power every pumper that we order, we want two powers, two partner saws on every pumper. So as the pumpers came in they had there was two partner saws. Well, the saws were put and they were start handing them out to the busy companies. Well, eventually we got a power, a power, but that's that was later the way to have Hey, kep, why did you start studying? When did I start studying? Oh?
I died on a light I took for some reason, and I don't know how true it was. There was there was a test before I was first grade. But they were saying something I don't bother you in our first grade. You can't well, I didn't. I took the test in sixty sixty, sixty seven, sixty seven. I took the test, right I got. I really My wife said, you really didn't want it, Charlie, because I guess I didn't put it. I did whatever the school told me
to do, and nothing more than maybe that was detrimental. But anyway, I wound up with a number eight something or nine hundred on the list, and I by time the list and they wound up the World's Fair was in progress. That was another story too, But so but I the last guy that was made. In fact, he had a story too. He was made on the last day. Siwinsky, Reginie Silwinsky his name was, And they wound up a lieutenant of two twenty one. But anyway, that list
died and I didn't do anything. And then, of course when seventy one they said there's going to be a test in seventy one, I put more reffort into it and I made that list. So I'm on that list. But the city became a financial property, they froze the list. They froze the list like in or seventy four or seventy seventy four, I think it would. And guys, guys were laid off. There was one guy in the engine and one guy from the truck that were laid off. And where'd
they go? They wound up? They were bus drivers for the city. Guy said that they wound up bus drivers. Now, the one guy that was in the truck when they opened it up and allowed them to come back, only the guy that was in the truck came back to the job. Didn't come back to one hundred and before he went to I don't know what did he go to. He went to a busy, one of the busy. I think he went to one eleven truck. That's where we went. And the other guy, I'm not going back to the fighter. He stayed.
He stayed, Yeah, he stayed. He stayed with the Butts Company. Just another Bronx tail stands. Thing in life is wasted talent. What about you got? You got burked in December nineteenth seventy three, right, you got? That was Warma Street there we had There was the third long we came in. We were second alarm truck and one O six were first to well, we came in. It was a wintry day, cold, and okay, I wound up I was the shelf. Well anyway, nobody
went about their business. Uh Kenny griff he happened to be the tillerman. We got off. We said, okay, we there was no spot that we were no Aeriel went up. Anyway, Well we get it. We got into the adjointing building and we did what we had to and there was really no no need for us, so that the both of us left that building one of the exposures. And now we're going we're looking for our company.
So we go over and now the fire company. And as we get into the into the building, an engine company comes down the stairs and out apparently the fire came out the apartment door or something. And this company, I don't know exactly if I remember the number, I forget about, but anyway, rescue was there, and the rescue officers to say, why don't you take a line? So Kenny and I took the line and we went back upstairs and we were knocking that fire down, and as we moved along,
one or an ember came down and went down my coat. So I wound up getting a burn on your chest. So we were doing a dance. So when I got outside a cap, I don't know, I think I got a burn on it. Well anyway, okay, go to Rick, and then the medical officer came in. Medical officers, Well, what do you want to do, he says. I said, well, I'm going I'm going on. I forget whether I've gone on at forty eight or seventy two. I forget. And at that time didn't want to go to
no medical office. So he says, all right, so yeah, it's you know, it's only a slight. It isn't that serious, he said, So let's treat it. Take the rest of the tour off, and if you want to go sick tomorrow, go sick. So he left it up to me. You know, that was just the rest of the tour. All put a little silver dine on it. You're right, you deal sporing. Oh they didn't have a ship, I can did, and so all right, so you get promoted number a little bit. That's eleven,
seventy six, seventy six. Finally December eleventh, nineteen seventy six, they get promoted. And at that time the job had what they called the m MBO Probe program. Management by objectives, and some of us were sent right to a company. Well that's when I got promoted. I was fortunate enough I went right to a company. I didn't just I went to to ninety two from Woodside and with rescue for not that busy a company. And I went in there and one of the first tours, the phone is ringing over
the louds figure, hey lou telephone, I knowing again. Hello, I'm in the back room. And one of the guys says, hey you telephone. I'm not Oh gee, they changed my name. I'm not doing while ut and I'm short while there. I don't know did the warrant turn or something. Anyway, we got a we got a few jobs. We got some work. And the guy said you were there. We said it turned you were in a black cloud. Well we're in there in the first come. Well, the first one was there was a diner just about Roosevelt,
the have your Roosevelt Woodside. Well we're pulling in and the signal at that time, Yeah, we got a working fire. We got a ten thirty. We got a working I know no, sooner finish it, say in a ten thirty. The rest of your officer make that a ten seventy five, you know, So I said, oh God, we got in there, knocked it down for God's sake, And when I came out, I just shogged my shogged my shoulders to the chief. Did he know what I
meant? I don't know, but things like that. Later on came back and they wanted to know, hey, Looke, did you bring your Brooklyn mentality into because said, in Brooklyn, that wasn't a seven, that wasn't ten seventy five, the ten thirty. Yes, there's a working fire two and two. But rescue they had a and And the funny part of that rescue he went to the same high school and he played on the ball team
too, and so you know him too. I know. I also while I was there, Uh, the guy that was ahead of the the orficer, ahead of the burn center, Jimmy cullin, Yeah, current, I'm I'm working and uh in rescue is villain John Dylan. Well, Jimmy happened to come into quarters because him and one of the fellas and rescue for they worked on a side together. They did some at work. Anyway, I happened to be there, Dylan says, Yeah, this is the engineer Charlie
Solan, and Jimmy says, Charlie Solan, you went to Brian. You were there, Catcher, right, So he went to Bryan. And it's funny from that point on, it seems like I met him at different times. One time was my wife and I I don't know where, we were going with someplace in Manhattan, and he was walking with a couple of guys and right away he ran, Hi, we just bid hello, what not? Hello? How are you? Another time was my wife and we were
going to the hockey game. We're going to Madison Square, God the police and fire the hockey game. And who do I mean? Jimmy? Jimmy calling again, so I mean uh, and then all right. I wound up later on after I retired, I wound up getting burned with a pot of boiling water. Uh and uh uh it was. It was pretty bad because when I got back home, the boys said, oh, you got to go, so they contacted to burn you. And I wound up in the hospital and the burn unit was the ones that took care of me.
And Jimmy was there. Yeah. In fact one night, okay, in fact, one day, one day, my wife is there, My youngest son there. He brought my wife there and he had to leave for work. My wife is still there and she didn't know how to how to get home from Presbyteria. So we wound up. They called Jimmy up, Hey, Jimmy, can you put Charlie's wife up? Yeah? They put They sent it to one of the apartments, the burns, and she's right there. So that was nice. I mean it was so I was there and
I had skin grafted whatnot. That was Hey, cap, I want to talk about Tommy Williams a little bit. Tommy Williams. Tommy Williams uh came into one O one oh four and he came to one O four. He came on a job with his brother and his father worked. His father was was an aid downtown to this one of the staff chiefs assistant, uh department or I don't know, but anyway, his father wanted his son to go
to one engine and another other son to the truck. And there was supposed to be two thirty engine and one O. Waight, Well what had happened one to wait didn't? So he wound up in one O four. Tommy was there probably for a year, maybe in one O four, and he want we worked together. He wound up in our group and we became what would you say? What would you say on a job? Buddies, Not
so much outside the job and whatnot, but on the job. And he went to and ay and the same thing, the same thing when if there was runs or whatnot. Another time, another, another time they called Tommy. Tommy was a he was a trained chauffeur in One O Wait, but he didn't go to school. So one day one A Wait needed a truck chauffeur. So the chief at the time he said, oh, you got a chauffeur, Williams will drive and Williams said, no, I'm not a
qualified shephey because then it was overtime. So it wound up. They called him, and I wound up getting the tour. So thanks well, like I said, we're friend. I wound up in two ninety two, roughly a year later, Tommy had gotten promoted. He was in the four six FATA. He comes to rescue for so here we are working to rescue for mutual There was no sock at the time, there wasn't. I wound up. I worked a lot of mutuals in four and I used to kid.
One night with Up and Down South Jamaica's burning, we went up and down Queens Boulevard, I know, half a dozen times and sent back and I getting back next morning, they said, hey, what did you do last night? I said, I don't know. I said, you guys must be the the number one you turned, specially the boomer. I broke him on that. And I also another time, I said, another time up and down I called. I said, you're the Queen's Boulevard bull uh pothole
inspectors. I called him. It was all fun and and and the guy that took it this Syriah didn't like it so much was John Dylan. And I don't know. John had such a reputation. I mean he came out of three rescue three as a fire and he went there full and John John was a fireman's fireman and fine. Another story with John New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve, after John had all the figures for rescue, puts it on the board and I looked, I said, I told you did I
said two ninety two. I said, we out did you eyes we got we are well? He blown he blah blah as well. I bet he goes you know, better do something. So I go upstairs. And at that time, we didn't have all this electric you had all the honesty program. Well, I took the from January to December the rape. By the end of the year, I got sixty more workers or whatever I need. And I got down. I said, you see, John, we out work you guys. And really nobody knew the story but me until I could
convey it after another few weeks. That's awesome. But this is what happened. I mean, what that was? It? At one time just made lieutenant. Like I said, they called me, I'm upstairs, and that was December. What's the end of December? All the annual reports. I gotta go win that. There's a half a dozen reports. Nobody told me about these reports. I'm a new lieutenant. Nobody passed the word. I get a call battalion, Hey, you got those reports. I'm coming over
to pick up because I got to get them to the division today. What I go through, sack mouth? What do I gotta do? So I go to the typewriter. The battalion chief shows up and I'm up there and he says, you finish it. I said, no, Chief, I said, I didn't. I didn't even get out of peking poor Institute. And I'm still punching letters here. Oh man. So he says, when you finish, you bring them the division. It's in the bag there. Then I wound up in eighty one, then getting promoted to captain, and
that was it. That was that was terrific, and and I covered I I'm here, I am a covering captain and whatnot, vacation here. I'm home one day and I get a call it's the division. Yeah, I said, I'm not there, No, No, Will you work and rescue? I said? Will I work and rescue? I said yeah? Why? I said, well we got there's ot and nobody wants to work and rescue. Will you work and rescue overtime? Why does sure? I wound
up a few tours with overtime and rescue, and these weren't tools. Usually over time was always following one of your day tours or following one of your knight tours. But I went to rescue. Was rescue too that I wound up working in. And I wound up Tom Coleman and one I'm in one thirty eight one day covering for roband or another and a couple of firemen in there. This guy I played ball with, in fact, I said McMahon.
He says, hey, Charlie, why don't you find out Rabanda's going to be he got injured here, He's going to be out a while. Maybe you could cover it. So I called fourteenth division. The fourteenth Division he ate right away knew me. Said yeah, Charlie, what So I told him the story. He says, Charlie says, you have to get released from the tenth division. You're in the tenth division. So oh god, he says, so all right. So the next day I'm still in
one thirty eight. I said, well, I'll find out so ill Before I could get to the tenth division, the tenth division called me, and the tenth division says, effective unite to his cap you're in one forty seven. I said, oh nice, So I went to I was in one forty seven for about five months. That's a great place it was now at
the time. From one forty seven. Jerry O'Donnell was a lieutenant there and he was detailed to Charlie Hines, the commissioner, because he knew Heines and Hines, who became the fire commissioner, and he didn't know the operations of the fire department, so he brought Jerry down there. When Jerry went down to work with Heines, they put in a guy that they toold Mike Burke. Mike Burke went into that lieutenant spot. Well, okay, fine, no problem. What happens The word goes out, Tommy, Tommy Cole,
Tommy, you call him? Is he gonna retire? You know? So, Jerry, would you be you know, interested in? I said, in a heartboat beat, I said seven. So he says, all right. What happens though, But then that week or ten days Mike Burker promoted the captain that all he did was changed groups and put a different helmet. He wound up the captain of one forty seven. I wound up. I went out wherever I went, but covered again. But anyway, what happens
is a five minute two forty eight. Dave Radenberg he was a chow for their and very good friends with the Solon family in Valley Stream. He knew him and his wife from the kids when the kids. But anyway, he says, hey, Charlie Mahula, he's captain. He's going he's going to retire. In a month or so. I said, oh yeah, well, hey Jerry, this is Charlie. So Jerry's I said, I hear from He says, why you would want to forty eight? Of course I would want to forty eight? Okay, Well, made out of transfer form,
went down right to the tenth division. And who's down there at the time. It's Clancy and Clancy. Now Clancy I knew as a fireman. He was in two twenty nine when I was in one oh four. So oh child, blah blah blah, you know. And of course when I first made Cathy was times when I was detailed to two thirty nine where the tenth division was quoted. But anyway, so he looks at the trend, he says, you really want to far? I said, yeah, I want It's okay, he says, we'll approve it. Well, I wound
up with two forty eight, thanks to thanks to God and cap. What was that like over there at that time? Ah? Right, Hey, we had fires. We maybe I didn't catch the real bad ones, but I mean we had fires. I mean it was it was a company, let's face it. I had a load of prob's there, and that was a story I had with stell. But anyway, we have had a load of ProBiS that that that company. They were fire hungry, so to speak. You know, if there was an ald, hey don't we go?
What are we were on a second? Or what they were down at the house watch desk where there were they were going? They wanted you know what? You got the offices the same thing. No, every officer we have an officer took care of fire fire prevention, he says, cap He says, one thing, I'll tell you, I don't work neutrals. I said, yeah, that's fine, Jimmy, I don't care. He says, if it's all right with you, would like to take care of fire prevention,
I should eat ching. He had everything if you had to go out of buildings. He had the buildings on a love that guy clip of the building that you should be. You had to do the same thing. But I did it did what? Oh would they we get this fire? And it's it's oh, would you say a beauty shop supply area up And it was right right up Snyder Revenue. Almost almost weeks. They don't come off even in water. When we get there, I mean plenty of smoke get
in there. It's downstairs. Where's the door? We couldn't find. It was like a secret door that had closed around a shelf. So go around the back, how's the window? And all the stock the stock is up over the shelves and whatnot. I took the company across the stock with the hose line, and well, there's a fellow that remembers the fire, Jimmy Rodder. He was became an officer anyway, and we wound up getting to the fire with the holes by that time. Then another company found a door,
but we had. What we had to do was climb over the stock that was on the shelves, and the floor was still six feet wid be low us, But I don't know. I think I think of some of the fire. Going back to like two, I got into a pretty good standing with some of the chiefs, and I guess I did some of the good things when there should have been I mean fire. While I was in
two ninety two, there was a fire two eighty eight. In fact, was went in the front door, but I saw the side door and I owned so I took ninety two and we went in the on the side door down the stairs that was where the fire was. So Jane, good job. The old Brookly mentality rough right. I was working a mutual and rescue and we have a commercial place and one thirty six and two eighty seven they're in rescue two ninety two stand heavy smoke condition, no fire. They can't
find a fire. The same thing. They said, Hey, let's go down the side of the building. And go down the side of the building. And there's two doors on there, and Arnie Marketshare will show you. Now he's in four. He goes to I said, no, no, no, Arnie, force this door because what I saw in the structure like there could be a front and a rear of this building. So when he forced this door the staircase and down the stairs, the battalion is is rescue.
I have the company engine probably two ninety bring the head line, and we got the fire down here in the basement. And yep, my deputy, the deputy whenever a deputy I have. When I showed you that fire in Brooklyn with a fifth alarm, who was I was detailed to the engine who was the captain at that time? Who was Captain Clennan. He was the captain there. And by the time I got to two ninety two and whatnot. The chief later he was the deputy chief. That's always in the
same group. So whenever we had a far and that was another meant wanted the fireman said, hey, when I went to a fire with somebody, the officer would would always say hey, loop, hey, cap. He says, when we go to a fire, hey, Charlie, come here, that's what And that one job we had a second multiple in in Alamhurst and we get in there and we we might have been last, or any we were were first to one a second, so they would it might have
been third. But anyway, we get there and it's Chief Clennon and he says, and the fires up. He says, hey, Charlie, you were in the truck. Tell you guys, go get a couple of hooks and go up in overhaul. I don't have to walk, I don't have to call another truck. The guys, what the hell are you doing there? Right a truck company. Let's talk about it, says I'm trying to make this out. You fell through the floor, you fell three floors or when I was forty eight now then yeah, and two eight. It was
a vacant building. We were second due we came in and we the fire was on the second and third floor by this time, and we took a line. We were going to the third floor. Got up to the third floor. The door was opening to the apartment and it's it's it's coming out real good. We didn't I didn't have water in the line yet, so I called for water and I said to the nozzle Jimmy Day, I said, as soon as we get water, we're gonna give it a shot and
we're gonna move in. Okay. Well, just about the time of water hit the the the stairs gave way from under us, and down we went. We were in a standing position. It's funny going down. I knew we we fell. They grabbed Jimmy Day, but I was on extral. I went all the way. So I wound up in the hospital. In fact that the battalion chief thought I broke my leg at that, but no, I didn't break my back. It was a neck and back injury. But I hit the floor and at that time I had Scott Scott on so
that against the bounds, but always that like four and three floors. So I'm down, Hey, thank him alive, And I didn't lose consciousness. Rescue got me to the hospital. I was there five or six days. That was That was terrible because I even had the Union captain. I forget his name, but he came in Charlie. As soon as we get a room, we'll get you in. They put me in. They they wound up put me into a ward and it was six six of us in there.
And let's face it, downstate, you know, they don't have the greatest reputation, and the people there I thought could care the less fear. In fact, I got more care from my own coming like two forty eight brought me meals what I was there, well, and okay, I was out a while. I went back to work. When I get back to work, I'm standing in quarters and the department vehicle pulls up and yes, the gas pump that we had different department veils vehicles came to our quarters to
fill up. Well, who steps out of the car with Cherry o'donald and Jerry o'donald. You're back. When did you come back? I said, this is my Sara. I was here yesterday and now I'm here today. Oh, if we knew that you would have gotten the girl. The girl was scheduled for two forty eight, but because the captain was on medical leave, they didn't want to put the girl there. Oh my god, is that right? They sent the girl to two fifty engine and over there they
love us, see they they, they said, even the captain. I wound up knowing over there, Santiago Santos, he was a captain, he was a lieutenant in two twenty one. He wound up he was the captain over there. And yeah, in fact, Sandy, when they were put me out of the job, Sandy called up. He says, hey, you want your retirement, you want us to get your paid because the commissioner
was pushing me out of the job. Yeah. Well anyway, well getting okay, I'll go back track a little after I got back from the fall a few months later, now, a few about four months later, I go out and it's February first that night, and we go down and uh, we're getting almost the two one thirteen two point in their quarter. There's a Queen Anne, and the fire was coming out a couple of floors.
Oh two forty nine went in. They were going into the sun. Because the apparently the chief got there he was worried about an exposure and the fire was coming out of that front lapping on the exposure was only a few feet away, so they went that way. But two forty eight went in the front door and we fought fire. We fought fire for three floors, and I mean it was we just were the Internet and you know what a Queen Anne was. Yeah, of course there was different stairwells and different spots and
what. But we got up there and who was the truck the truck that was wound up in There was one thirty two truck and one thirty two truck that lituleten. Hey, Cap, right, I'll follow you anywhere because we will. Ordered added the building. And I told the battalion, I said, we're not leaving. We're not finished yet. When we're finished, we'll let you know. And this was that building and that that was my last fire. I was aching, hurting myself, and another fire we got downstairs.
By that time the medical officer was there, Soren, Chief Soren, and he says, oh, and he knew he was the orthopedic doctor I had seen prior. So he's, oh, okay, Cap, you're hurting now. He says, well, I know what's hurt your fire fighting days are over. That's it. I'll see you at the medical office today. Okay, that's today, right, all right? So first your last fire today? Wow, how cool is that you're talking about it? Look right? He went out of a blaze of glory on there cap Oh and hat
to come? I had while I'm in two forty eight. I don't know if you have a story with Chief Style on Chief Style. He just passed away two weeks ago. He passed on, don't you then? You realize the guy was ninety five almost ninety six years old. I'll take that roof. He was what he got out here. You organized annual annual lunches for whoever wanted to come. There was an annual lunch and it was always the Thursday before Thanksgiving. And he says, remember that Thanksgivings on a Thursday.
It's the week before and we used to have and huge turnouts. It was always a great day. Well anyway, my first year there, right, so I wound up the six. I have four probs and two other young guys that barely have a year on a job, and they were put into vacation groups that were prime for the summer. Well, I took it upon myself to ask the shelf, is, hey, you want a partial summer?
They didn't have it. You split with this proby. But well, when I sent the paperwork in Stells on the phone, what the heck are you doing? You get me locked up? You realize the over time you'll be increasing yep. So but he worked, he worked things out, some of the guys out, and that was the only time I had any any good body from the battalion that come down. And I had more than that. Really, if there wasn't a set droll he was supposed to. I
let the members, what do you want to drive on? Some of the members they want And at that time we had recess it recess it Annie the battalion would they rotated so we might have had and the other one we had the uh De fibulator that the battalions were carrying, and you guys would want to use that? When do we use it? What not? How? And we let them drive so each other was to me it was a captain's dream home. Yeah, I got you. You had your own bedroom upstairs,
gould lock the door and put yourself and everything. So we're gonna everything. We're gonna move on to uh the old school tip of the day, unless you have anything else that you wanted to talk about. Well, oh, the guys there they are my three sons got you got to medal at that, William and Charlie, and they were great guys, and I gotta thank you. Nobody came back to me and said, you know your sons and so and so and what not. It was all plus I had had
even Bill, I spoke to spoke to Jack clee House. Now Jack clee House. Now I knew Jack when he was in one O Way and he was we've heard the name a lot like the last two weeks. Well, anyway, one of our breakfasts, why not I because you know Charlie. I worked with Dennis, and I worked with Charlie well Dennis when Jack was the captain. He was in one twenty six. Dennis was the chauffeur. So he knew Dennis pretty well. Jack became chief right where is he in
the four six battalion? Where's Charlie? He's the captain or two of Swede with so he says. The only one I didn't work with he says, I worked with you is your son. Bill. I didn't work with him, you know. So they all went up in some good spots. I don't know how that happened, roughly, oh yeah, and because of all I guess a reputation was Bill. And if you get remembered from here there and whatnot, I guess you were doing something right. That's true. I
didn't get all right there cap now things. If I could pass anything on, I could say as a fireman, there's don't be times fireman, you get assigned to a company you don't know anything about. So don't come in with an attitude. Come in and learn what's going on in that firehouse. Get used of their routine. You might have heard about a routine in a
different firehouse. This firehouse where you're in has their own little routine. And listen to what the probe said and feel your way around, learn how they do things, and pay attention. Don't be a mouth and come try to come off that r and know it all. There's times we didn't get to give the old too al tip of the day, all rolled right to it. I wound up being surplus captain. I wound up in Manhattan, and I would have to roll call the same thing. Any new you're in a
new firehouse, you don't know what they're going on. I say, hey, listen, guys, I'm from Brooklyn, I said, I'm not not Manhattan. What do you guys do? But one of the first things they had me was a bag this standpipe big. The officer carried the tools the standpipe. So of these companies I mean came in with their mass on a handcart because they would be going into a building that might require it. But the mask who would be brought to the floor that they need and that's where
they were doing them understood, Where are the I T guys? Let's see the I T guys? Cap what the I T guys? The computer guys? Where are they? Where are they? Who knows? It was Bill? His bills. Let's see a picture. Let's see it. He's giving me some hand signs. He's like no, no, no, no, no no. I'll give them salutes. Guys. Thanks a bunch of you taking time to something. And I know when I get home, I'm going to get a third degree because my my wife's aides love the stories because I'm
always one of the family. And it's got so that when somebody comes in, I said, if you want to know anything about a soul, and family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a pleasure. It was an absolute pressure. I never thought it would work this way, but the boy, it did me well it did. You enjoyed it. We enjoyed your stories. Guys. I want to thank you, Louis. Thank you because it's been two years in the making since that thing. I'm glad we got him. Yeah. I hope it goes another fifty years. Baby.
Yeah. Hey, my my wife lasts that long, fine hey half that she keeps me going every day. I know. I gotta get up to take care of her, so that gets me out of bed every morning. Good for you, and these these guys are in the house. I should have a revolving door on the front. I was in the kitchen and the refrigerator. I know again. I have a great night, guys. Thank you. Hold On, we gotta do the uh we gotta do the old school health and safety tip. But yes, we do all. Thanks again.
Just hang out one second, day care, hang hang one second, cap, hang on second, you got me, you got hold on. The versus Under Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of first responders, their education, and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are
an affiliate of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation. All Right, ladies, gentlemen, tonight's old school health and safety tip is use your SCBA during overhauling and coffires. The actions you take today to best protect your health will pay dividends long into the future. Your future self will thank you, Thank God. Good, there we go. That's it. Remember to come out and see me and Louis Booth one for two starting tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday at the
Nassau Coliseum at the Buffaloalooser. Come on out, we'll be there. Boom. All right, that's all I got, Charlie, great life, great stories. You're a gentleman. Something you did, okay, guys, maybe smile and left so appreciate it. You know there's more laughs behind this. We'll have you on again with individuals with instances, but nothing vicious, laughable things. Good, uh huh. All right, guys, So we will see you. If we don't see you at the show tomorrow, we'll see
you Monday night. We got coming on, big show. Big show, p used to the used to CAF shame me all the time. He's got big case. So all right, I'll see you soon. Stay low and go all right, everybody, we'll see it big Thanks again, cap All right, all that, guys, remember hook up and look up baby. Oh he's not like that one now, strange it up for a little while. Al right, guys, good night everyone. Mm hm hm