GETTIN' SALTY EXPERIENCE PODCAST Ep.205 | FDNY FF JOSEPH BONANNO

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 Podcast. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. A low Dog Doyle Welcome about to get in Salty Experience podcast. It's the only one in the whole world. Room brings the fire House Gets You

table to you. What do we say about there? Let's kind of close up with what you have going on. I don't know, fell on my head before it came off my border and fell off my head. Is this what better makes my head look smaller? Better? Let's let's bring a little close Chief Steve. Huh, that's the Chief Steve one. Yeah. Anyway, fire out kitchen table. You know it holds the weight of a thousand

stories problem. You could then the figure out all the problems in the world at the kitchen house, at the fire house table, right right, everything, Yeah, we solve them. We solve them more. Sometimes we're talking about the fires, you know. Sometimes we talked to Mike about fires. When the dropped the fire and we went mutual a to the basement. The

windows like there was a two bagger floor was walling out the windows. So the Charlie exposure whatever corner the brothers pushed in did a search for nobody work in the rock well, working the rock well. That's my anyway. We wish fight the best. He's he's volley right. First's gonna be a volley and then he's taking the paid last week. Yeah, he's gonna be a He's gonna be a medical guy for a little while. There's some blood pressures and that's about boy. That's my boy. My Yeah. I told him

I can't have any ms stories. No, no, there he was. So I got the cuff on the guy right and he's flailing all. I don't know, he was flaring all. I wanted to hit him with some kenemy, you know, knock him down. He's like, what forty five of a one hundred was way up there. I said, this is what I gotta do, Bro, I gotta jump run into action. Bro loved up, loved up, loved up. Start giving the breast. I'm begging, I'm begging, I'm and I told him he can only say one thing.

That's the thing I want to hear from his MS days. That's it with me. From that little buddy. Oh my god, that's too fun. His face is colmic right doing this mostly, you know, his faces like that, and he's just doing this when he gets a little like, oh my god. I can see him right now, he's like, oh my gosh. He's smirking too. He's got a big smile. You know. You can see him going on there on today. That was in the Krobe class before Chief Steve. So he's achieve is actually Steve. Chief is

actually his bop. That's what I'm saying. Nice, oh man, that's what I'm doing. Wicked chicken pom. Yeah, well you know what he did. It has to be a healthy chicken pong because his book started out being uh, healthy Cooking in the fire House, which is almost like an actually octy moron right, like like a jumbo shrimp like healthy probably a couple of years ago. Uh up your veins, you know what I mean.

If Joe is finding to college, he's probably bacon the number one. So you know what I mean, maybe you wouldn't have to get this stent I did that in the firehouse, right, how did we do that? What? This much oil in the pot? Right right? Yeah? Yeah, I'm going to bacon. The oil was boiling. So they just sat in the cold oil for a while. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, y soaking up like a sponge healthy with bacon. The cutlets and the colts that

we weren't this small. They're like this big, you know, yeah, monster exactly, yeah, pound them out so it's bigger than the police, like this thick. So it's like like that. All right, So look, commercials on so we can get mister Joe in here. Bro, commercials. It is all right, let's listen to our friends over at New Jersey

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said right here. Actually George passing away. I think I think Pe is the one who told me originally, so our condolence is mister Fosdick's family. All right, ruf what else we got? That's it we got? Bring him in. I want to bring Joey Banana in. Bro, I asked him he was a member of crime family, the Banano crime family, said I wish. I don't know, I just uh would it would have went really good tonight with a nice plate of unhealthy chicken palm for Demo. I

would have been like to like, let's like chicken palm. Your wife is Jewish? Ship maybe develop the fish or something. I don't know. What are you having? Filter? Amazing, amazing skulls? Are you ready? Guns? I'm ready. I don't have Yeah, out of the water coming to the stage, fire fighter Joe Banano, Yeah you got a hold of No looks good, Rob, huh, yes, look at him. Bro. When we see the old pictures, wait, you see the pipe sticking

out of them? Bro, it was turty tree. How much How much was you mentioned back in the I don't know, but I think that's one of the reasons your brother didn't like me, because I when I went to one thirty eight, I was working out. I think I was a little good beefier jack than he was, and he didn't a little more swall a little bit, says the word. Alright, before we get out in front, though, let's uh, let's get patriotic, because again, this is

the greatest country in the history of the world. So yes, all right, 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. Isn't the associate of a certain family, I believe so with that head of hair and that named me like that? All right? So uh, jo, let's go back to the early days. Your

dad was refinement to already know how you got into it. But tell us you would tell us a little bit how you will Bronx guy originally tell us a little about the early days of grown up in the Banano family. H. Yeah, born and raised in the Bronx. My father went to eighty eight Engine in nineteen fifty seven. And yes, I was born and raised in the Bronx. Went to Catholic Catholic elementary school. My father was eighty eight engine we lived in the Uh yeah he was good looking. Yeah,

he was good looking. Joe drew that, by the way, Yeah, and I drew Yeah, yeah, I do that. Yep, that goes what we were just saying, and appreciate. You never know what talents guys have before you start ripping the soil, you rip him to shreds, they'll have something too awful. But yeah, no, and then again, I can't say he talked all that much about the fire department growing up. Yes, it was a big part of his life, but he didn't bring it

home to him that much. And you know, eighty eight engine in the late sixties and seventies was nuts in this. I do remember him coming home distinctly, remember him coming home smelling like smoke, probably all the time, all the time. I mean he would come home. Yeah that's a pitched nineteen fifty seven I think when he was a proby carrying an old Scott bottle. But uh yeah, I do. As a kid, I do remember

him smelling like smoke, seriously smelling like smoke. And I was like, you know, and I never said to myself, Wow, my dad's a farm man and dangerous, Like you're a kid, you don't really kind of know any and he didn't. But I do remember him doing a drill once with you know, if the house goes on fire, all the kids get on your knees, crawl on your knees to get on the meeting place out on the front yard. Yeah he did. He didn't do that with us.

He didn't do that with us a few times. I do remember that. And then I definitely remember the parties, like the beach parties in the summer with all the guys an eighty eight engine and they would just you know, that's the part to me that was so I guess it was amazing to me, Like the first time he took me to eighty eight engine, I mean a whole and there's a couple of guys that like yourselves, that do podcast and stuff, and the one guy, the way he said it,

he was the whole firehouse. That smell is so unique and it's sweat leather and smoke, but more wet leather. They should bottle it, because when I never forget the first time we went to a communion, uh whole communion breakfast with the UFA or something, and he took me to the firehouse and I mean, when I walked in. To me, every guy in that

place looked like they were sasquatched. They were so big to me, to a seven or eight year old kid, Yeah, I just looked around and and and just awe the size of these guys and the you know, the deep voices they all had, and it just was like, wow, I'm like, look at the heady company that I'm in with these men of men, you know. And but again that was just then and then, and

they were all so just something about fireing. They just seemed to always take a liking to children and they were just like, it's just a kid joke. Me let me know this. It was so endearing to me that they were just so nice to me and so pleasant and the only the only thing I do remember is I think once he got there, he forgot that you have an eight year old kid, we do. And none of the firemen held back on dropping the F bomb. And you know, I went to

I went to Catholic school, so we never heard any of that. So the minute I walked, the minute I crossed the apron of eighty eight, we got in the kitchen, they were like F this and F that. I'm like Oh my god. Listen to the eighties. Guys are talking, Oh my god, it's horrible. So I didn't remember them like we were unloading on each other with the curse words. But I guess that was part

of the environment. That's one of the nicest looking firehouses. Inside. I trying to find some Let me see if I can get the they buff the who they are with thirty eight thirty eight I worked a few times. You know the brass it's legit like you know that was in two thousand and two three, you know, something like that, bouncing around like I worked there a few times. And uh, it definitely is one of the cleaner up the firehouses on the job, there's no doubt. I'll tell you a story

about Christiano. I might have said the story on the show before this, but I remember my mother told me to go because the firehouse wasn't where he was in the last part of his career, wasn't too far from the house. He said, go to the fire house and get some ice for me. So we get dad the ice making it. The father was working that day. Now, my father right a little tested this never it was like never a curse and as long as he was in the house around us,

never said ship, never said damn. You know, he would say what the deuce. That's the worst thing. He would say, what the deuce? You know. I walked into the firehouse. Now he's in the kitchen, but he's got his back to the app right his floor. And I walk in and I hate my father. Same thing the guys. I see the guys in the kitchen, like, I don't know how they held it back when they went home, because he never cursed at home. Never same

here. I was in shock that he was unloading those words out of his mouth, you know, But I guess that's just the way it was. And yeah, he just accepted and so yeah, he never he never really took the job home with him. He didn't talk about it that much. So yeah, then he grew up in the Bronx and around nineteen sixty eight, sixty nine, you know, I get the got the bug to move

out to Long Island. So we moved out to Lindenhurst, Long Island, which I hated because I was a city kid and regularly, you know, like nobody on Long Island knew what a spoil Dean was. Oh hang out, we're talking about stickball, three seas stickbull played football Sue and Sue's city kids, right, yeah, said on the cross stick, like what is that lacrosse stick? Exactly? So I would say, like, you know, what do you guys guys go to get a school dean? He like,

what's a school dean? I go in to paints up on the one? Would it would? It would be like the out of bounds like left or right? Fair ball like along the street, you know what. We used to throw sneakers up on. Yeah, but all city kids stuff. But eventually I had to get used to it and and get used to being in in a school in Long Island, and I grew up there, and

then then I went to the military. Uh yeah, I was in Yeah, I was in the Air Force. Which is another funny story with my father, because you know, unfortunately I was an arrogant, snotty teenager. I wasn't your boy next door. And you know, he was really pretty strict, and me and him had our share of battles. He was a

golden gloves boxer. Me and him, I mean we used to just god verbally, you know, and I fought him tooth and nails, and I like to relate this story, especially for younger people listening, because I think everybody should get a chance to go in the military to straighten out. So I just remember I had so fed up with him. I go, you know what, I'm gonna fix his ass. I don't need this ship. I don't need you get me up at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning to

rake Leaves. I'm going in the military. I don't need this shit. So next thing, I want to recruit and him watch this. You think you're gonna get me up on a Saturday morning at nine o'clock to rake Leaves. What an hour? Hell no, Hell no, I'll go in the military. And I went down to the recruiting office and he never said a word. I thought he was gonna say, you know, i'd like to see you going in the name he was in the Navy. I like to see going to the Navy like me, or like your uncle or your uncle

was in the army. He just let me make my cause I think in the back of this morning, he goes, day, are just gonna fix him and he's gonna get his big payback. And I'll you will never And I want to honor the man to this day. I'll never forget getting on the plane. He drove me six o'clock in the morning to Fort Hamilton and

processed me. And then that if I go on a plane to Biloxi Air Force Base for basic training, by the time you get there, it's three thirty in the morning, and the drill sergeants greet you on the bus screaming at you. And I'll never forget it was four thirty in the morning. I'm standing at attention with a guy twice my father's saw he screaming at me at the top of his lungs, and he's like, you got a half

an hour to sleep, because you're getting up at five. At five thirty is a roll call and five thirty I had like an hour's sleep, and I wake up and from five thirty in the morning till ten thirty at night, you're just doing something, jumping around, getting yelled at screen, got watching. At that point, you said yourself, maybe this wasn't a good idea. I don't know I what I what I did know what I did say to myself, I'm standing at attention. My sergeant was Sergeant West.

Guy was as big as a refrigerator. Screaming two inches from my f and when he got out of my face that somebody else was when he got away from me, I go, boy, I really showed my father fixed. He wanted me to rake leave. He wanted me to rake leaves for an hour. And now I'm making leaves all day every day at four thirty in the morning, getting yelled at. So he must have been when he shut

up an eight een engine. He must have got in the kitchen and said, my knit wit son thought he was going to kill me, and went the air was I am? He must have been smiling for me, probably ripping him up and down. And they were so and how old hellow you in for two years? Uh? Yeah, I was in for two years different, oh, and completely entirely different. I came back completely focused,

and I went right to college. I started college right away. And then it was getting near the time the fire deponent test was coming up, and again I had to be a belligerent idiot, and again I regret it to this day, saying I'm not going to be a voument like you, you know, almost saying I'm better than that, which I regret to this day because it was the best decision I ever made that he and he didn't force me. He goes, listen, you don't have to take the job,

but take the test. I want you to take the test. You don't have to take the job. Take the test. Just the same thing Joe last week. You don't you don't want to be fine with it. You don't have to take the job, but take the test. You might change your mind. But if you don't take the test, you can't turn the

test. Everybody says that the same thing. Right, They take the test, and by the time it comes around four or five years later, Right, they're in a different line, right, different part of their life, and all of a sudden they're looking forward, you know, to getting on the job. You know what I mean, just like you're saying. Right. So I was in good shape. I trained for the test, and

then I took it, and then I I'll never forget. I was at the Jamaica Armory training for it, and I met this fellow, Tom Pellegrino, who was in two ninety end up but being in Provy school with me. I met him at the drills for the training, and I was one of the few guys that could whip the dummy over my shoulder, up and down the stairs. And he was really a skinny guy, and he wanted to be a fireman since he was born. And he goes, I can't

do the dummy thing. You gotta help me, you know. And I didn't know him from all in the wall, but I was meeting all great guys my own age at the Jamaica Armory training and I'm like, Wow, these guys are funny. They're fun looked like they'd be fun to work with. So I helped him and and he knew all about the fire he knew about pensions, he knew about medical benefits, he knew about promotions, he knew about everything. And so he was kind of a little bit of a

mentor. And so then we both got called. I think my list number was eleven oh two. He was eleven twenty four, and they said, Tom, we're gonna be in the same class together. And I met, I'm sure you familiar Craig but Cherry. Yeah, we're trying to get him on too. Yeah, he was at that time. He was taking the same test I was, and they were going to have an eligibles association,

and he was like the president of the Eligibles Association. So at one of the meetings, I was with friend Tom and a couple other nice guys. At the meeting, I said, why, these are pretty great guys, just like the firefighters my father that I admired when I was a boy. I said, these guys are all my age now now, and there were a lot of laughs and fun. One character worse than that crazy insanity. It attracts the insane, it really does. Somebody just said that. One

of the chiefs said that. Somebody said that firemen are insane. You gotta be a little insane, right, Well, we're a different breed if you weren't to start with it reads, Yeah, you start to get like that, and then you get the humor and you get the It's just something about it attracts that type of an individual. You know. It's not the corporate world. So he I'll never forget the way he stressed it to me, because he said to me, Joe, listen, we're probably gonna get on

seventy eight, seventy nine by the time our list numbers come up. He goes, you gotta take it, and I go, Tom, Why I go, I was in the military. I don't want this, yes, sir, No, sir, Polisher shoes inspections and goes, Joe, it's not like that. He goes the training. Oh yeah, after that, it's a frat house and I go, how could that be? And he wasn't lying. And you know, my father actually never alluded to any of that craziness or frat house type stuff, so I thought it was a serious

job. He never talked about it that much, so I had no inkling. This guy Tom. He knew everything about it. The pension. Then the key thing that he stressed to me. He says, Joe, listen, you have to take it even if you hate it. And we get on in nineteen seventy nine. You only have to hate it till the spring of ninety nine. And then I go, well, then what happens He goes, then you're eligible for your pension. And I said, what's a pension? Well, he said, Joe, they give you a half pay

for the rest of your life. I go, but by the time you're forty something years old. First of all, that's Star Trek. To me, nineteen ninety nine doesn't even exist. It's Star Trek. We'll be using phasers and yeah, that is true. That is very true in nineteen seventy nine. You think nineteen ninety nine is like Star Trek. And the proof of that is you know the TV show Lost in Space, Yep, the Jupiter two that took off. Do you know when that was? Nineteen ninety

nine? If you watch that show and they say the Jupiter two is now launching and T minus whatever on July twenty third, nineteen ninety nine. So for me, that's what nineteen ninety nine was going to be. Like, I'm not gonna it's tom I'm I'm gonna be in my forties. Are you crazy? It's not gonna happen. And he said, Joe, I'm telling you just we're gonna be in the same class. Just show up. And so I said, all right, at least they're calling me. I showed

up. And I mean, once I got to the training academy and I saw the the I guess, the type of individuals, and the bosses were all alive. The instructors were all strict, but funny. I mean, they had that same humor that I saw with my father's firefighters that he worked with, plus more of it was the individual fireman that I was actually working and going to the training academy with I mean, you definitely bond up with four or five guys, six guys and something, stayed friends with them for

the rest of your life. And it just was And then they had the in between the training, there was time for laughters and humor. Yeah, and it just started. It started getting better and better, and I all right, I did military. I can do this for eight weeks. I think that was the training academy at the time was eight weeks. Let's what's that guy holy wowing this thing in? Yeah, I was. I was pretty jacked in in prov school. And would you have you had a couple

of mods back then? What'd you have going on over there? He had? Oh yeah, Well no I didn't. Oh yeah, yeah. I didn't discover that world as I got in the firehouse either, because I told you I went to Catholic school. I was an alder boy once I got to Proby School. And those were once we we're going out weeks ago, we're gonna talk about this is gonna be fun. You know, you're gonna have a ball. And I started meeting a whole bunch of crazy one crazier

than the next ball. But is that other picture gun which one with the three the three of them, the three Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, let get to that. We're just fixing that. Yeah, that's the guy in the middle. In the middle is Tom Peller. Well, let's that they called us the Italian Battalion because on the left is Kenny g and Ellie Engine two thirty six, Engine two ninety and me Engine and eventually

Engine three nineteen. But the guy in the middle of two ninety, he's the guy that really pushed the job on me and said, hey, Joe, forget him about it, forget about Tom Pellagreeno the Italian. You guys are Italian Battalion, well with Jane and pelgrinal So that's awesome. But yeah, he talked me into it. And then and then you know, once you get out of the academy. Being that my father didn't talk about it

all that much, I was almost in complete culture shock. Now I went to Engine three nineteen, which is a super slow house on a side street in Metropolitan Village, Middle Village, metrop in between regular residential houses. But they had fantastic senior guys there that it did their time. In all the busy companies, same thing it was the same. I don't like to use the word charming, ingratiating, welcoming, friendly, funny, one guy funnier

then the next. And because they had the downtime, they were good on the meals. I had no. I brought my lunch. I brought my dinner with me because my father never said to me that they prepare a meal. So I had a bag with me. I figured it's like a job, you'd show up with punch clock. I'm a bagging it and they're like, hey, in on the meal. I'm like, what meal? I brought dinner with me? And of course that's humorous, Like, what do you mean they brought a meal with you? Not in on the meal?

You gotta be in on the meal. You have a chicken colored parmejean. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm in on the meal. I mean I remember to this day that first night. So my impression of the fire service was that when you punch the clock out, you go to fire to fire to fire device, and then they would let you go it the next day and you go. I didn't know you could have bunks and couches and TV and and a meal. So next thing I know, like I said three

nineteen was a dead slow company. They're like, okay, the guy's making chicken color palm. Joh. I'm sitting in the kitchen twiddling my thumbs on like any probe, on the edge of your seat, waiting for the big one. And next thing you know, they're putting the meal out. And you know, there was some guys they had had some time on putting the meal out. Let me sit where your bunk is, kid like bunk, all right? They take me upstairs like this that pell Aino is right,

Joe. You know, it's just not to through up that. That's like a common thing we get with a lot of guests that had their fathers on the job obviously before them, that most of the guys back in that time

frame, they didn't talk about the job. The guys get on the job and they almost really are like you, like they don't have any inkling of what the hell's going on, which is like strange to us, you know what I mean, for the most part, like you would think that, I mean, you had a taste of the firehouse, but like little things like that, you don't know about the meal and you don't know about like all these other little things is kind of strange, but it's a common theme.

Yeah, that's my very first night tour. I go, I go to a family party and my sisters and my mother, Well, how was it last night? That was pretty good man. You know, we had this really good meal. We had like two runs and I just soundly couch it. I could see my brother's eyes like, bring the next room, they go. Three night is the busiest night you ever had. You don't sleep in the firehouse, you don't watch the firehouse, and you don't eat meals in the firehouse. Ye. What goes on here stays here. So

apparently that was the thinking. So I can fast forward. Another story about that revolves my brother when his first assignment, when he went to three fifteen. Because I didn't talk, I guess I did the same thing. I didn't talk about it that much. I said, let him find out on his own. So, but what with me? So then I finished chicken colored pomege on dinner Delicious. Then I'm sitting around watching TV. I guess for them, it's a regular night. Okay, so you got a new

probeat. I guess the lieutenant showed me this, that and the other thing. Polish the pole and make sure your mask is up to blah blah blah. But eventually they wanted to get the night's sleep. So I'm sitting in the kitchen and one by one the guy's disappearing up to the bunk room and I'm in the kitchen by myself, watching TV. And I go, Now, what am I supposed to do? And I'm sitting there. I go, I guess I'm supposed to go upstairs. They showed me where my bunk

was, so I took my flashlight. I went up to the bunk oo and like I said, three nineteen, it was a slow company. Go upstairs. Well you catch your first five Joe. Well, the twist to that story is they're like, don't worry about this place being quiet, kid, because every third night we're going to three thirty two. Ahange change and he goes, you're gonna get it. You're gonna get plenty of work, kid, don't worry about it. But that night, I said, okay, I s wintered up to bed. I felt so guilty, like do

I take my pants off or do I need them on? That is so true. I didn't know I always slept with my pants for like the first couple of years because I didn't know what to do. It's the truth. Well maybe I should have my boots on ready to go, And I said, I don't know what to do, so I yeah, so I think I just took my shoes off late on top of the blankets. Am I ready to go? And I guess eventually I fell asleep, and next thing

I know, I had one guy rustling in the bathroom. And you know, next time, I look at the clock and I'm like, oh my god, it's like eight o'clock. We didn't go out the whole night, and I got a chicken cutar palm in my stomach rolling around. So I get up, I go to the bathroom. I go downstairs. The next crew is coming in for breakfast, all the kidding around. Who brought wolves

and jelly donuts? And haven't day kid, you haven't coffee. I've drink coffee in my life, Like I'm not really a coffee You gotta drink coffee. It brob, you gotta make the corfie, you gotta make the coffee. So I made the and I sat down and I go and I guess one of the guys said, I didn't know what getting relieved meant on dates. I knew what it meant, but I didn't know what it was how a. But yeah, so they go, uh, you know, Malcolm's in. He goes, Joe, you want to you want to get relieved?

I go, what do you mean get relieved? And he goes, yeah, I'll take You know, you can leave early if you want. I go on if I'm allowed, and we'll chat. Joe, don't worry, that's part of it, you know, get up. It's not early relief. He'd say, thirty just you know, I got it, and I get my car and I drive home and and my you know, my friends are all I thought. It was like my father thought I was gonna

go home smelling like smoke every night. Yeah. I went home, and I'm like everybody from eight engine fellow, but I know eighty eight engine in nineteen sixty nine. And I was gonna say you too to your friends, but to two thirty six and two nineties, so they were like that, yeah, oh yeah at that time. So yeah, and three thirty two was right in the same battalion as them. Sure. Yeah. So then they said, don't worry about a kid, you're working Friday night. Your

next shift. You know, I'm looking at the calendar. My next shift is blah blah blah, and I'm like, okay, Friday night. He goes Friday night. It's the summer, and you're going to You're going to three thirty two that night. That's okay, what's you know? I guess Okay, So I go. What happens? We get on the rig, they call us, we call them, We passed them on the end of our parkway, and then we park in the quarters and we become Engine three

thirty two for the night. Okay. So I'm like, all right, and the minute we I mean the minute they put us in service, Engine three thirty two respon in ten seventy five by blah blah blah. And then the best way I could describe it to people is the scene where Martin Sheen is coming down the river in Apocalypse Now. And that's what it was like. Riding at two o'clock in the morning in Engine three thirty two. I thought I was in I thought I was Martin Sheen going down the river in

Apocalypse Now. I'm like, we're passing the car. Yeah, what no, No, I was talking to Cooves man. That's a that's a great analogy, Yeah, because that's there was smoke all over the place, the whole the whole area, smoke like smoke. And you know, we we'd be passing a car fire and I'm like, why are we passing this call boy? Because we were responding to a ten seventy five. We can't stop

for a call boy. But yeah, but but you know, and then house fire, house fire, call, fire, house fire, abandoned building call, fire, house fire. I'm like, oh my god, they're like the kid, you're not going up to bed. It's not like back in Metropolitan Avenue. Don't even go. It's not even worth it going up the stairs. Yeah, that's the look he had too, That's exactly the look. That was great. And some of the members in the background,

Yeah, that was some of them. That's freaking awesome, man. And just like riding through that neighborhood at that time of night in the summer, especially because it was you know, hot summer, and I was like, oh my god, this guy's doing this every night. And then yeah, it wasn't like, yeah, I was glad to learn the job and and get catch work and all that stuff, but you know, and I it was new, so I didn't want to back in the quiet, and a lot of the older guys like, hey, if you like it that much,

why don't you make money with me? Yeah, it worked for me mutual. And again, what's a mutual Friday night? I pay you back next Tuesday. You can do that. Yeah, Okay, so you pick it up better and better and better. So yeah, and then let's see, let's fast forward that a little bit. Well, I just relat a quick story. We'll talk about it later on with my brother. But again I didn't talk about it that much with him. You know, it's a job that works better with attraction and promotion. I mean, he saw my

father, he saw me enjoying it. He met all the firemen I work with. They were characters, and there was no other choice of him but to take the test for the fire depart But I'll never forget him saying same thing. I'd never broke him in. I never told him about the meals. I never told him about I don't find that as out. But the one thing I remember him saying, he goes, Joey, I can't grasp this concept. You know, all the jobs I had grown up, you

have a boss and you have to treat the boss with respect. And I go, why what happened? He goes, well, I got to three fifteen and just like me, you know, you don't know what's going on, and you're sitting there and you're wide eyed and you're wonder what's going on. And he goes, and all the guys are in the kitchen, and this lieutenant comes into the kitchen ready to start the roll call at the beginning, and some guy goes, I can't believe I have to work with you.

You buck tooth, blah blah, black filling the expletives. He goes, Joe the way he was talking, and this is his boss, and you don't get fired. I go, no, you don't. I don't know why. But it's one of those jobs that I guess you're allowed to do that, which totally doesn't exist in corporate I mean, you can't probably

exist on anymore either. Probably world's changed drastically. Yeah, but back then, and I'm not saying it was all the time, but you could you could buy especially if the guys very close to each other, you know, and you could say anything at any time. Yeah, you could bust a guy. You could bust chops on a boss in a friendly way, I mean, not me. Yeah, but you're allowed to. But you can't in cooperate regular world. You can't even bust your brses chops, even kindly.

It's you know, the level of power that he has that kind of didn't exist in the fire. So that was the one thing he related to me about being on the farre And then he said, is it always like this? And I go, no, there's going to be busy place and slow places guys. You like working with guys, you know, But the rest of it, yeah, it's you know, it was amazing to me. So then, you know, and I had quite a few tragedies in

my life. Nineteen eighty one, I was working in engine. Three nineteen, you know, we had a fire at my house and my mother was burned fifty five third degree bone and I just I just left somebody relieved. I didn't even hear about it. I just got relieved from three nineteen.

I was driving home and I come down my block and I see them pulling furniture out of my parents' house where I was at the time, And the neighbors came over and they said they just took him all by helicopter to NASA County Burn Center, and she lived for about five days and then she and she passed away, yep. And then after that there was you know, like falling out with my father and stuff like that. So that was tragedy

number one, you know, in my life to go on with. So then that's why I said I was in one fifty one for a while. Because the captain of Engine three nineteen was so gracious and he said, Joe, under normal circumstances, death leaves about a week, but this is beyond normal, So take as long as you want, you know, take off

as long as you want. We'll come with you. And so I was off for about two to three weeks, trying to deal with the grief my brothers and sisters and and I just said, you know what, I can't just sit home anymore. I called up and I went back to her, and he said, Joe, you know, this is a quiet fi I had everybody like, but you know what, it might be better if you go to a double house a lot more got funny guys, and it'll just be better for you to be around that many people. So it says we

got a detail to one fifty one UFO until further words. So I took the detail and those firefighters in three or five one fifty one were unbelievable. It was like they adopted me. They were the nicest, funniest, greatest guys I probably in my whole career that I worked. One twenty nine was pretty great too, But those guys, and they knew what happened, so they were real gentle with me, with you know, dealing with it and it just they were just fantastic and it helped me. But it was a

slower house. I wanted a little bit more work. I still didn't want to commute to the Bronx. So this assignment to one twenty nine came up, and I took it and transferred to one twenty nine, which from the day I got there, I mean, it was what a collection of my lieutenant. My lieutenant used to say, he goes, it's like I'm a what was the movie, uh, the Dirty He goes, It's like I'm working with a dirty dozen, you know, he goes, I one one

character worse than the next, and they were. And we got it, and we got a slew of Proby's in from Proby School and one was one more unique character than another. Matter of fact, the other firehouses around they used to call it PS one twenty nine. He was like a bunch of school kids. And I left. And the characters at this job, including

officers at tracks, it's so funny. So I'll never forget. His name is Captain A todd h He was my captain, and he used to call him a TODs retards instead instead of a dirty dozen, they used to call him a TODs retards. And that was my shift of guys that I worked with. So I again, I was fairly new. I was only on the job three years, so I it was still with the yes sir.

And also so I never forget I walked in to the firehouse and it was really a cast of characters old and young and then recently young that you couldn't even he led them all eight TODs retards. So I'll never forget. I go up to the office to meet, you know, to he's Joe. The Captain's upstairs. Go upstairs and you know, meet him and stuff like

that. So I'll never forget. I walk in, he's got his boots on, and on his boots it says right and left, So you knew which put the boot in, And just as I opened the door, a golf ball rolls between my legs and I, you know, I saluted, and he said, hey kid, it's not that kind of place, you know, Come on in. I'm Captain A Todd. How do you do blah blah blah. Did they get your bunk? You know you're gonna be in the truck company. You know these are blah blah blah. Go downstairs,

have Corfee, meet the guys. Stuff like that. So and another funny thing. I'll never forget it because I wanted to be in a crazy place three nineteen. It was kind of calm. The guys they were funny, but not that real busy firehouse funny tracks, those kind of characters. And I'll never forget as long as I live. I go to go in the bunk room. He goes, yeah, okay, you're on for the night to it tonight. They'll show you a bunk before. So I go to the and I want to get the lay of the place, so I'll

never forget. I walked to the bunker room and on the door of the bunker there's a poster and it says alone in the dark with a bunch of half half dressed men. Oh yes, there is a god. And I remember between the golf ball going through my legs him have been right and left on his boots, and seeing that, I go, I've arrived on my plate. I found my happy place. And it turned out to be everything

but everything, including that great Fineman. Well, we all got about eight to nine probe's out of the next class, one guy greater than the next personality wise, the older five fifes could have been kind to a gentler and characters and knew the job and just everything. It was just great. I would have paid them to be there. Yeah. Now that place is We

were talking about this the pre show a little bit. It was mostly a blue collar area, right, and then it got really occupied by Asians, like uh, that is occupied every every crevice, every room, every everywhere. It wasn't like that when you got there, though, right, it was more no, no, But it very quickly started to turn over. And it's so populated that it's ridiculous. How populated. It's like Chinatown, and they used to call it. They change then they call it yeah,

yeah, roof. He made the capital mistake when it comes to Asians, you know, yeah, bring that up. What do you call them oriental? Called them oriental? No, I had no idea. I've been saying oriental for like only fifty five. Was like, dude, you can't say oriental. I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no idea? Like, man, give me, Yeah, but I get those guys

were running around over that like they were. They were doing a lot of work there, right, like running wise and occupied, structural work, busy as fire aus for call fires because they had the junk yards over there. Jay Stadium. Yeah, it was. It was great. It was a great place to work. It was busy, not too many false alarms. Usually everything we got called out on was something seen. You guys there, you remember that really stuck out that you have any names or anybody really?

Yeah, well, somebody once told me there's really only ten New York City firemen, and all clones of each other. You know. There's a there's a black guy, there's a German guy that's really cheap. There's a weird single guy, and they go, Joe, that's you, and then we're all clones of each other, you know. So yeah, there was a guy, Bob Cook. He was a plumber, great fireman. Great uh,

because he was a plumber. He knew everything about taking locks apart and hinges, and I mean he was one of the great guys, uh to work with their But it just he was piping. He was because I guess he knew the trade so well. He knew everything about it. Well, yeah, you talked about the fires kitchen be able to solve everything, and

that was one of the other things about it. When you sat around, if you had a plumbing problem or a sighting problem, or there was somebody that knew how to do it. Yeah, was what's the guy's name that Freddy? Was Freddy? If he get his last name, probably when you were on your way out, he was probably he probably got Schluick. He was the officer there. No, No, he wasn't an office. He was a tall guy, really tall guy next to you. So well, we had we had a guy, Gary Moroses. He was another great guy.

He used to call him Sasquatch. No, no, he was he was like six eight. Oh my god. Yeah, they used to they they used to make fun of him because they said he the skot pack looked like a vitamin pill on his back. That's how that's how big he was. Yeah, And they used to they used to terrorize him something awful because one guy would wait behind the shower because it's funny, I could be a

little risk. You can't I without cursing. They used to kid him because they go, you know, he's not exactly a porn star in that department, even though he's six even though he's six eight, So a lot of guys would say, well, if you're six eight, no matter how big you are, there proportionately it's gonna look. So what they used to do. They used to wait for him to come out of the shower, and a guy would like hide behind the door and then pull the towel away from

him and run away. And he'd be covering himself up, and they'd say, well, they go, Joe, his hand covers everything. I go, yeah, but his hands as big as a baseball man. Right, he's probably a porn star in reality. But when you and and maybe he would be right, guy's long dipping, you know what I mean. He's going from uh yeah, So then the comedy would the comedy would ensue and another guy would say, yeah, well that's why I don't exercise my legs.

Because I try to keep my legs as and as possible, you know, and you know how that comedy goes, that just keeps going and going and better than the next, better than the next. Yeah, but you did a pretty decent amount of time. He did what eight years in the Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a great time that I loved it. Yeah. And then the whole book thing started to

happen, and again I was no, I'll be the person. If anybody for one two on Ali is listening, they're probably throwing stuff at the screen right now because they're like, I didn't even cook all that much. And when he take a color bombas John blah blah blah and this whole bomb. You know. But I just got certified as a fitness trainer and NUTRITIONUS. I went to n y U. I was starting to do a little personal

fitness training on the side. I just a whim. I took a class at the New School call how to write a cookbook and get it published. Now. I didn't go with the idea, oh I'm hell bent on publishing a cookbook, finding cookbook. I wasn't. I just cooked once in a while in the fires. And when I did because I didn't want to end up overweight and out of shape and unfit. I knew it was part of the job. So I said, you know what, I'm going to try to clean up the meals a little bit. If you guys don't mind,

I'll jump in tonight. I had some time on then. Yeah, I got Joe, you got the wheel tonight make whatever. You know, we don't have to have cheese doesn't have to be eight inches thick on the armagan but yeah, so I said, it didn't have to, you know, so that kind of thing. Just tone it down a little bit. And then I took this course. So Johnsonino, who was in fifty eight engine he wrote the Firefighter's Cookbook back in eighty four, wound up being on a

New York Times best sellerst for nine weeks in a row. And I did. I met on, you know, and I was telling them that this thing kind of happened to me. We actually did a couple of radio show things together. And but he ended up having a triple bypass, I mean, due to his eating. Dudeh his fitness. I don't know. I'm not a doctor, I can't say that. But again, I don't know that fitness was all that big in the sixties and seventies, especially busy firehouses.

They're like, hey, you know, I can't be bothered. I'm a busy fire house. I can't be bothered watching what I eat. Yeah, right, right, Well, Well, I at one twenty nine and at one of the firefighters at work, and I remember he was making mashed potatoes for ten people. He had five sticks of butter. He was peeling him like bananas and dropping him in there and dropping him in the in the thing, which is fine once in a while, but a steady died of

it, you know, career wise. So that's kind of what I was looking out for. So I took this course. The teachers went around the room try to get everybody's ideas for cool. I didn't even have a rough I had a rough idea. Yeah, if I was going to do a book, because I have some background and fitness and nutrition and and there was a successful book, maybe I'll do a healthy one. And that basically that's how I said it. And the teacher said, wow, that's when he

went around and read that's a pretty good idea. We have an editor coming in from Herst Publishing to say afternoon. They they're the guns. Look he's got the gun. Please, you know they would the chop busting I got because of his picture. Yeah, like that is in the wrong. That's a sweet potato. That the airbrush, and they go, look at your crotch, Joe. They blew up the crowd. There's nothing there, you women, you got off that picture far out weighs the ball bus and you

got worry about it. They go take the sweet potato out of your arm, put it in your pants with safe you know, you know, all too well, all too well. And it went, you know, with the chop busting. But yeah, so the teacher said. An editor came in that afternoon from Herst Publishing. She gave her a synopsis on what it's like to publish a book, and she was so strict about it, and

I like, I don't even have recipes ready. These There had seventy five people in the class who went to ten times the training I did, and background worked in restaurants, and so I got don't really. So the teacher ended the client, thank you very much for coming. She opened the floor for a few minutes and everybody was shooting their ideas to her, and she was shooting people down left and right. So I'm not even gonna mention it

because I'm not even that ready. And the teacher said, don't be shy if you have a great idea mentioned you and he goes like, I'll fireman for instance, Joe, would you stand up and say your idea. I said it the same way. I said, listen, I've been a firefighter for fourteen years. Now try to put healthy meals in the fires. It was a successful book and I was on the best seller list, but I

would probably do a healthy version of that healthy Firehouse cookbook. And then he the editor, said, oh my god, what a great idea you know. And she says, come up after the class, I want to talk to you. And everybody, everybody in the class is ready to kill me. They're sitting there with three hundred recipes ready to go, and here's this clown comes in with like a notepad and a pencil, and they did they't

want to publish a book. So then, of course I went back to the fire house to tell them and they were like, you gotta be kidding me. What book you wor aaddy? I'm telling you. I took this class that the hall adding, and then they put it in. I put in. They didn't want it to be New York fireming cookbook. They wanted to that national appeal. So I put it in at a firehouse magazine and he asked for recipes from across the country. I got about sixty to eighty.

I used about thirty or forty in my own. And then guys I work with guys I went to Proby School with around the job and also around the country. Put the thing together, put the proposal together, put it and they said, Okay, it's a go. It's gonna happen, And they put it together. You shoot the cover and next thing you know, it was crazy. It was It was crazy. It was off to the races. And that's the second book. Yeah, that was the second book. Yeah, back to the first one. Let me see the first that's

the one. I happened to just find that one on the well. I aged progressively as the books go on. Yeah, I was gonna say, Junior, how did how did it sell? Joe? How did it do? The first one actually did really well. And then you know, I got a funny story about that. They put me on QBC to sell the book, and the uh it was right at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing. So and you know, you're on for like ten minutes. It's completely business with them. So I could see the clicker on the side.

It was like, you know, one hundred books, one hundred and fifty two hundred eight. Oh Joseph fireman in New York. And he's a cookbook guy, and he didn't doing this healthy Firehouse cookbook. He's a nutritionist and the fitness trainer and and the books and so a woman we're going to take a call from the audience. This woman couldn't have been better. She says, Oh, my grandson's a uh fireman the Oklahoma City bombing, and I'm buying this book to give to him an honor, and I hope he makes

some of the recipes out of it. She couldn't have been better. I looked at the clicker was going like a Roulette wheel. I'm like, wow, holy catch. It was three thousand. We were selling three hundred books a minute. Wow. Well I'm not I'm not shorry about that part of it either, because everybody thought, like, because you're going good Morning America, read first of all those shows, don't pay you. You're promoting a book. And the other thing is the money that you make as a first

time author. Is it what like up? Not a lot? And then they start cutting up. The agent gets fifteen percent. You're not a professional recipe writer. You should get him in here. He's getting someone. Someone's calling them all. Yeah, so uh yeah, my girlfriend does recipe writing. She's got to look over all the recipes. She gets eight thousand dollars,

this one gets this, this one gets that. And by the time they chop it up, and I'm not complaining about it at all, but you don't get the guys a thought like, oh, Joe's gonna be at a millionaire And I'm saying, listen, got eight thousand dollars she charged you eight grand? I mean sheet no. But you know you got to keep your head because you can't say to them, no, I'll do it myself. Because then said, okay, well we'll see in a couple of years.

You bounce around the recipes. So you got to be gracious and say, okay, if that's what you be done, and you do that, I think we have you on Good Morning America, right guns, which one is that's the first one you want to do? Yeah, I think, all right, yes, let me see what we have here for you. This could be bad, this could be good. No, no, no, no, not at all. Sorry. I had to get to the right one. It's gonna be bad, Joe, it's gonna be television.

There's people. That's the wrong. You sent me go to the next one. I mean, you gotta go to the second one. What's the second one? Later a minute? The second one was the twenty second clip you wanted me to play? Which was that the one? He does this to me all the time to worry Asian guy? Which guy? Let me see the white people are Asian guy? Look at his face. I can't help it myself. He's screwed me up. Sorry, you only got three of them. Christ So here we go, Here we go. This is which

one? Is this him? Here? Is this the one? Yeah? Yeah, okay, you know you don't need to have a point weather or even the garden. One I ever had was in the remember that guy Winter minus thirty ring in a tiny apartment with barbecue on the fire escape and then ate it on the blanket on the you're really today really started talking like you know where you work? This is the one, right, God? I didn't like it too spicy because you walk out such a nice party. Hello,

how you doing chicken rice? Yeah, we can do chicken rice, but no spicy, no spicy. It's why you still doing White people hate flavor. To cut it off? Why you be with him so pussy? Can't even have food festival must be planned food festival only. Okay, okay, to get you one. Where do you find these things? You guys? You guys were a trip. Man, You guys were a trip before before doing guys in the firehouse that were about it or jealous or any of

that stuff. Did you ever have any bad? Not too bad, because I didn't. I was totally not arrogant about it. Every time I did anything on TV, I brought them in, you know, I said, listen, this is a team effort, and you know, and for us to go get Chaufford into them by limousine into the Regis filming show with ten of us in the audience. Yeah, so I tried to share whatever. I'm sure there were a few that it was always Yeah, it wasn't.

It wasn't all that bad. I mean towards the end it started to get because then they did a second book, and then you know, they wanted to come to the firehouse a lot and do a story. And again i'd be the first one to say I was pretty average in the cooking department. Eventually I got it better and better, and then I said, I need some chops in this department. So I anted a few contests and I won them. So I go, can you leave me alone? I want to

you guys enter a contest then and see how you do. So I want a couple of contests. But yeah, and I'd like to think I was a good fireman and generally liked. And I wasn't like, hey, you guys are low leaf fireman, I'm a cookbook author or anything like, you know, so I was not in the least And I tried to share it with everybody as much in as often as possible. And I would be the

first one to say I was a little lucky. The right place at the right time could happen to anybody who's happened to happen to me, So share it what you can, whether it was a news article or in person or whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of how I treated it. What was your best meal? What was your favorite meal? Yeah, you're gonna

say the go to or my favorite, my fable. My favorite was, and especially if you had to work, was Thanksgiving dinner and everything from soup to nuts, from the salad to the dessert, to the turkey, to the stuffing, to the homemade cranberry sauce, to make a dessert. No,

that was agna, make the dessert. Just everything about the Thanksgiving and then the fact that you're actually working on Thanksgiving, you know, and you you were saying before Gonzo that you're saying, how the don't tell anybody how the about the meal and the what you know? So I would always laugh. I would always say it was funny. I wasn't married. Most of

the firefighters are married. So then they would get a phone call that working with me on Thanksgiving and we're putting out a beautiful Thanksgiving spread, and then the phone call comes for the wife, Oh, we wish you were here. Aunt Connie misses you, and uncle Bill and Connie, we wish you were And he'd be like, oh, you don't know how old it is for me to be here. And then you hang thee up, give me

the goddamn remote control. I'm so don't exactly they were so like, but to the wife, they're like, yeah, you know, honey, I miss you too, and I just wish I was there because you know how much I love your aunt Connie and uncle Bill. And they're like, I can't stay. I'm so glad I'm here. So it's kind of like we do when we go to the trade shows. The wife said, we go out and din. Yeah, probably mac Donalds or something. Meanwhile, is that Louis like, yeah, give me a sixteen ounce pil a. Yeah,

need a wedge, valid wedge it right. But they caught onto that. She's like, oh, you going out to McDonalds again tonight. So Thanksgiving meal in general, I did like to mess around with desserts, which isn't really a big deal in the firehouse, but if we had the time later on, Like I make a pretty good carrot cake. Again, it's a healthy carrot cake that was in my first so I would make a carry

cake and sometimes Johnsonino was very famous for his rice pudding. Yeah, but I'm certain if there's a lieutenant listening right now, he worked in one twenty nine one night. He said, I make a better rice pudding than anybody on the job, including Johnsonino, and I said, well, I'd like to get the recipe from you, and he wouldn't let me. He wouldn't give it to me, wouldn't let me watch him. And if you're listening, lieutenant, get hold of the show and get hold of me. Sometimes

i'd like to get that wrestling. I'm sure he's retired, but I don't recall his name, but man, and he was the only thing I caught him doing was he was putting like eight or nine egg yolks in the milk, which really thickens it up. So but he wouldn't tell me anything else. He was real secretive about it. I forget his name, but it was a good, real good handful of easy things that guys can do can go from batty to semi healthy. Well, a perfect example is what you

said before bakeing chicken cutlets instead of deep flying them. I had a guy from Latter one thirty one night work with me, and he goes, oh, that's interesting. We made meat loaf and instead of you know, use a leaner cut of beef, of course, but I would make it on a rack so that the fat drippings would all drain off. So that's the way to make meat loaf without it swimming in the junk of the bottom of

it. So it's like a little this little perfectly. Like I said about mash potatoes, Yeah, of course you put four sticks of butter in for eight people. Yeah, of course butter. It tastes great. But what I would do is I would roast garlic like six or seven heads. Roast the gallic in the oven and tinfoil, squeeze the garlic out, and then mix that out. Mix that out with the mashed potatoes. Taste and fine,

you know, one of the taste and fine. So what you know, Like I said, there's so many little things you can do in general. Like I said, the chicken color palmejeon in and of itself is really not all that bad. And most of the Flyhouse meals are protein and carbohydrate

based. You know, chicken color parmejan what is its pasta? No, you have to have a three h piece of sheet rock cheese on the top of You don't have to sheat rock the chicken colored parmesan with a sheet rock sized piece of cheese on it, you can just shred it and put and probably reduce the fat and cholesterol in it by two thirds at least, right, you know, And again I'm not I was never so about it, because there's always time for as long as you're fit already this time, there

is a time to just go all out and eat whatever you want. You know. I think I may have even made that mistake in the urge to be jacked, swollen or whatever you called it, you know, and not taken into consideration that you went to some all hands from twelve midnight to four point thirty in the morning, which is warmly supposed to be sleeping. And then I would come back and say, oh, well, yeah, I

guess that'll help burn off some fat. No that I went back into the chicken color palmejan and dove into it at three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, you earned an extra meal, you know, working extra right after that. But yeah, so you know, I was never a strict one hundred percent advocate. Nobody could live like that for long, you know. I'm even competitive athletes and bodybuilders. I mean they you know, yeah, they trained for a contest or whatever they're doing, but then

they have times when they go off. I mean that a woman, and that's again that we talked about the tradition of eating in and around the fires. I mean, that's part of our tradition, is having a meal together. And that was the other thing I was missing too, is if you're out on the meal because you're dieting, Uh, you don't get the camaraderie. You don't get to sue it everybody. And also and also the good

food and then a gun. If you'll all appreciate this, I'm sure we used to always say this short universal is they would say, free food has no calories. So I go, what do you need? So, you know, a guy would you know exactly where I'm going with this. So a guy would say, Bill, you know dinner tonight. Oh no, no, I'm on a little bit of a diet. Well, liutense going on vacation. The meals free, all right. I mean I said free

food has no calories. You guys would do that all the time. Yea, yeah, yeah, no, I'm not a little bit of a diet. Watch what I eat a little bit of weight? Well, vacation, yeah yeah, vacation. So the meals are on the arm. Oh yeah, I'm in. And of course the universal, the universal firefighter out on the meal but sneaking it at three o'clock in the morning, making a chicken colored sandwich for himself. The seagull I forgot that expression, right, A

seagull out on the meal. But he's in when everybody goes to bed. The guys in one o three they used to take like the dirtiest sponge when they knew that one of those guys was working. They would egg it and bread it and put the cheese on it and sauce and lay it like right on the top. I tell everybody except that person, And I've seen the guy eat it one time. I've seen it one day. You'll eat the ice cream too. Maybe they're not going to eat, but you'll see him

in eating the ice cream. Bro. Yeah, because you know, listen, you're gonna be there for fifteen hours, you know. And because I had a background of fitness and nutrition, I was the first one to help if they asked for it, or listen, Joe, I need to lose weight. Can you figure out nutrition? De it for me something that I could live with. But you know, I guess they would go with all of these crazy uh the Captain of was it two ninety nine? And you

know it was a little overweight. He was asking me. He goes, Joe, you eat like a like a linebacker and you never gain any weight. I go, yeah, because I'm eating regularly. I'm eating right mix of protein, fat and carbohydrate calories. There's exercises, and he goes, I think I got to go in this cabbage soup diet. So I'm like, cabbage soup. Oh yeah, I sort on one of these talk shows.

You eat cabbage soup, like just cabbage soup three times a day for ten days, and you can lose ten pounds of ugly fat instant, almost instantly. I get you could do that by cutting your head off, less painful probably, but I still let Joe. But anyway, but the problem with the cabbage soup diet personally. He was a big man, naturally big anyway, very strong too in the gym. Uh yeah, I said, you have good muscles under there. You just get carrying too much body fat.

You gotta be a cool cardio. Clean up your diet a little bit. I go, cabbage soup is not going to jump started. Plus you have a big appetite. That's how come you do. You're a big man, and for you to be roaming around the fire house sipping on cabbage soup while everybody's eating chicken culor parmesan. It's driving me crazy. So I go. You can eat chicken cutlored palmejan You don't have to load up on the passet. Maybe you have a salad beforehand, eat a little bit better during

the day, not to mention if all you're eating is cabbage. Shoot, you can imagine what the fire I smell like. Oh my god, I go, you're killing us. You're killing us and you're not even losing exactly. Look, did you have a roof? Did you ever work the guy eight Burmeister? Yeah, I know the name. He used to have like an egg sandwich I don't have many yolks and bacon, And then he used to put the bacon fat oil in his cup and he would drink the bacon

oil with his egg sandwich. I'm like, holy shit, it's a sight to be seen, it really is. My mother used to cook eggs in the morning with the bacon fat. Yeah a bacon Germany. Yeah yeah. They would splash the hot bacon fat over the egg. Yeah yeah yeah. I shied away from that years ago. I just used a regular nonstick ship but yeah, that's heart attack waiting to happen. Obviously she passed away early because he didn't habits. But thank god didn't yet Louis, thank god,

a little buddy. They they stayed away from the light, stayed away from the away from the light, little buddy. See hereditary some of it, Joe right, because we had to get two stints just recently. Yeah, there's a genetic factor to it too, But more of it I saw it was not genetic. More of it. I saw it was kind of lifestyle related. And again it's a funny place if as kitchen, that's hard to push information. You really can't push information. You kind of get it,

let it, let it go by attraction. I always said, by attraction, not promotion. So not listen. If you're a fit, you go to a job to lieutenants on the second floor landing with his mask off, he can't catch his breath, he's out of completely out of breath. He knows. I don't have to say anything. Even a fellow fireman, I don't have to say anything. He knows, and he's like, you know, I got to do something about this. So then you're like, okay,

well it's fixable. Let's let's let's do something about it because it makes for better job performance, longevity, you know. I mean I always hear guys, screw the city, screw the city. I go. The best way you could screw the city is enough, live, live forever, live long enough to collect until you're one hundred. Yeah, you know, and I like you ought to be doing like when they're traveling back in time. Bro, that's half all you want to go, man, not just star

trek. Yeah. I have a few fitness related funny stories like that, like that that captain, That's what he said to me. He said, Uh, well, they always have funny witticisms, which amazing. They should be in a comic book. I'll never forget the one guy I was. I wasn't promoning. I was eating. Ah, not the bad gentleman. You know, it's healthy things. Goes had an uncle. It was just like you. Guy got a great build on to me had He had a great build on him. And he was walking across the street one day he

was killed. He was hit by a vitamin truck and killed. I love those, right, I don't know it just like you. He was buried in a V shaped coffin you know, so they always had like a comeback. I'll never I always use the mistake. It's harder as you get alda mentally to go through hard workouts. Lieutenant Wilfred the Wolf smellsing from engine three nineteen and that's how they got their name the Lone Wolf from him. Legendary

officer character like no other. And I'll never forget. At the height of like getting into three nineteen, I was in great Shair and worked out in the base and I come upstairs. I'm all sweaty, pumped up from working out, and he's laying on the couch and he goes, Joe, I tell you what, when I see you come up those stairs, it's like an inspiration to me. And he sits up from laying down on the couch at the milk on he sits up and he goes, it's it's like an

inspiration to me. And he goes, I just like I feel like I should work out. And then he says, he says, I think I'll lay down to the feeling pantses and and the other thing I remember him saying, which is true for a firefighters listening young and old about throwing the fitness and nutrition out the window completely, he says. Most he wound up saying if I knew, if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. That's the one that kind of

that's the one that kind of really thinks. So you want to be sticking around, and it's how does a guarantee longevity, like you said before, accused of had genetics and stuff. Maybe not, but your quality of life is going to be better. And that goes with also being a firefighter. Listen, I never wanted they said, let no man's ghosts return to say

his training let him down. Well, I don't want to be hanging out of a window not being able to pull somebody up because I can't do a pull up or I can't do a push up, or I can't you know, it's a job that requires physical strength and stamming it, you know, and it's part of the responsibility. You lose the I mean, you lose the ability the concept of being out of shape the minute you take the job. It's part of the responsibility of being a firefighter. Now you don't have

to be mister America. You don't have to be a powerlifted but be it reasonably fit. Reasonably fit means you should be able to I say, at least ten push ups, five pull ups, twenty three hand squats, and maybe comfortably jog you know, two or three laps around high school track. I mean that's the low end of the spectrum. You want to be an elite athlete, that's a whole other story, but at the bare minimum, you know. So, yeah, it worked. It worked by attraction.

You know. Listen, if the older firefighters aren't getting it, and they they started to wander into the gym after a while and they're like, you know, what should I do? I say, you know, I want to just try twenty minutes on the treadmill. Good for your hot Well, let that firefighter I told you, Bob Cook, he was a plumber, old school, real old school firement and you know, the whole fitness thing. And then the way I explained it to him on a level that he

could understand. I go, Bob, you're a plumber. How many how many cast iron pipes? Did you take a part that were caked with grease on the inside? And I go, how do you clean it? Either mechanically clean it or you run what hot water or through hot water through it. So I go, So, when you go on a treadmill for twenty minutes, your veins and arteries are pipes and they could get clogged up with what fat. Last I got that you eat plaque, which turned fat,

which turns into plaque. So by exercising for twenty minutes, increasing your blood pressure, increasing your blood temperature by a few degrees, which heats up the fat, and then you're coursing it through your veins at one hundred and twenty bats a minute, which isn't out of line for anybody to be able to do that twenty minutes on a treadmill. And he goes, wow, now do you explain it that way? I get it. It's like old pipes. So if I do three days a week, I go, yeah,

that's fight. Eventually started being on the treadmill three days a week just because it made sense to him that way, right, So there's a way to to you know, not force it down. So you're never gonna force it

down. Somebody's throw it anyway. It was just like the fat offs in the firehouse, Like you know, there'd be like fifteen guys that put in like forty fifty bucks a guy and whoever loses the most weight right when it's not dangerous bro guys, No, no, I know guys were doing crazy wearing the suits and trying to sweat fucking water out right, they weren't. They weren't losing weight. They were losing it because if they five hundred dollars, they're trying to kill all right. I think you had to do it

in like two months. And what I used to say all the time about Freddy and and Baizel all the time they were nice and when they were fat, you like that. Nobody likes ther skinny buyzel. Nobody likes skinny boyzel. Where I need the roly poly fat buyzel. You know what it was? Well, because because under eating to calorie restriction to lose weight, it

it affects your mood too. Like I said, the Captain walking around the firehouse on cabbage soup for ten days was a miserable sob right, especially if he's he's eating cabbage soup and right next to him you're piling down a sheet rocked chicken colored parmesan sandwich and he's looking at it with literally with lust in his heart. Yeah, and I'm like cap let's get the cabbage soup.

Let me write yep, let me let me write you up something that you can live with with the appetite level that you have, and I go with the with the frame and muscle that you have, that fat will go away pretty quickly, yeah, you know, and you'll be left with a you know, pleasing physique. I mean that's another boy product of it. You can't hate that. Don't get me into the wife stories. With the pleasing physique, I'll go off on a whole nother tangent with that. With and

he goes. You know, you know what they would say, It doesn't matter what my pleasing my physique is, it ain't happening. Yeah, yourself, how about that? Do it for yourself right for pride? Yeah,

you know, uh, for your own personal pride jaw performance. You know, listen, you'll you'll you'll also get a kick out of this, because that's the other thing with If you're fig and the other firefighter isn't unfit, you know, and he's I can get just as many chicks as you Banano because you know, you reach around his stomach and grab his crutch and goes. Because this is all that matters you know, and he's I go,

that's not all that matters. I go. Do you think when you step out of the shower and you drop your towel and you have to stand on a mirror to see if you're even ready for it? You think that your wife likes looking at that? I go, you don't have to do not to mention you haven't seen it in about five year bro right, you have to stand on a mirror to let you know that you're ready. Yeah? Yeah, whoa, all right, where are we? COOVII? You don't have any good time. That's where I'm at. We went to Uh,

let's just quick talk about your You made a where was it? Oh? Kid's book? All right? Yeah, I did that. Uh. You know that I always had this sinkling to write a children's book about fitness. It's not really about It's a story, children's story book about an overweight elephant that you know he's getting made fun of. I kind of incorporated the whole fire house life thing into it. And then how another Fireman season and you know there's a twist to the story where you know, I won't reveal it,

but there's a twist to the story. It's basically a fun children's story book I wanted to do, and that one I made. You know, it's completely dedicated to the nine to eleven people. We lost on nine to eleven, So you got the seven on the elephant. Yeah, yeah, my brother was in seven. Later in the book there's two seventy three and one twenty nine on the other firefighters, so it's yeah, it's just a

cute little story book about being the best that you can be. And you know, and that's why I used an elephant because and I think back to my captain too, because they said to my cat, and you know, you'll have a big muscular physique, that's who you are. You're never going to be skinny, but work with what you got. So I said, I used the elephant. You know, an elephant's never going to be skinny, but just be the best elephant that you can. Which doesn't mean you

able to be grossly obese. That's why then the picture looks obese. Beyond obese. Just be a big, proud elephant if that's what your body type is. Where can you guys find the books on Amazon? Yeah, you can find it on Amazon. If they go to my website, they can get a hold of me personal your website Americanfirehouse Cuisine dot com beautiful. Yeah, uh okay, so we uh but when were we was the job you went h went back to the latter one ninety six. Huh. Yeah.

When I transferred out of one twenty nine right when the book happened, because I wanted to be in a brand new place when the book happened, because you know, when you're brand new in a place, there's a little bit of a grace period. And I knew that the book was coming out, and I didn't want to be in one twenty nine because it was It was

crazy. Everybody was there was crazy, and they actually got in a lot of trouble because they were taking Apron runs right after the My timing to leave was perfect because they got in that whole thing with what's his name Van Essen and taking Apron runs, and the whole place got into a lot of trouble. But there was such a bunch of characters. I almost saw it coming, and I said, listen, I got a you know, a transfer. I want to be in a brand new place when the book hits.

This way, the fire flies all lay off a little bit brandw place and you know, and that's kind of the way I went. And nothing disrespectful to one twenty nine. It was a great place to work. But I don't know, I don't know that right after that, they had a bunch of crazy things happened there. I mean, one was those apron run things, and they got all kinds of trouble for that with the union and with

von Essen. You know, a fella they had pulled in a false alarm from the pay phone and got hooked up for that and fire remember that, And you know what a shame story that was because he was a great guy and I have no idea what he was thinking when that happened. Sometimes people do stupid things, that's all they do. And that was one that you couldn't even have a cover story for. And they would have loved to have helped him out, but that there was no helping him out, and he

run up fighting. It's terribly He was a really great guy and he just did something really stupid. I mean, just not thinking, you know, and we've seen that over the years, what the guy do personally in their home life for and you know, I think you alluded to before fighting in the fires also physically fighting. I mean, I've had to restrained guys sometimes. I'm like, listen, you're on duty that mfile and you know, you know, you lose it and you know you hurt this guy, you

know, and it happens. I mean, it's so I was always kind of sensitive to that, you know. And that's even where the chop busting and all the other stuff comes in. And then there's a side to it that's part of the nature of the job. I get it, but you gotta know where And again you said it before I can cut. It's the senior guys responsorbated to say, listen, layoff right. You know, he's starting to take this a little too personal and you're pushing the envelope a little

bit too far. I mean, there's a good story about that that they should learn a lesson, because I can't stand bullies. David c Is you know who that is, right, the boxer David c Is the boxer. Yeah, he had some big mouth typical I used to say, remember the movie Back to the Future, mm hmm. Remember the Bully Biff. Yeah, but remember the Bully Biff. I go Clone Biff about eight thousand times, and that's every new York City. Find a lot of them have that

type of gruff bully personality. So anyway, David sees this guy just like the guy Biff Big, you know that big day. You're a box He wait, what do you weigh on undred and seventy eight pounds? I throw you around a room like a d doll, but doing it in a way that was mean to the guy. And David sees he was a nice guy, but he had to you know, he was he was a professional fighter. And he goes, I could He goes, listen, lay off,

and they told him to layoff, and he wouldn't lay off. But now it started to get personal and he goes, well, so you think you could take me? He goes, and he wouldn't last around with me. You know I could bench press five hundred pounds, And he goes, okay, he set it up. So they set it up and they I wish I would have went to the thing. They said it was a right because a really good boxer and a Biff and a person that doesn't have a box this night and day, and he went in to ring with him, and

now they didn't really like each other. On top of it, and the other guy was really trying to hurt him, and he says, listen, I'm paying with him. But he goes, he's trying to hurt me. And I don't like the guy anyway, and the guy in the corner said, knock him out. So the next round he completely tore the guy apart to the point of being embarrassing, and to the guy apart leveled them.

Which those are the kind of stories I like, they need their come up and you know, yep, but so yeah, So I finished out my career in one fifty two. Then because of the cookbook stuff, I was getting a lot of calls to do like, uh, like, if you go on the Regis Philbin show, if you use Ronzoni pasta a fee And I said, really, I didn't know that, And so then they started.

I started to be like a not an A list celebrity, more like a WS the zealous celebrity wasn't quite Emerald, Rachel Ray or Bobby Flay, but there was a call for less celebrities, cheap date celebrity, let's call it, to do appearances. And you know, you're also in New York City, fine, which holds a little public public in the public eye. So I started doing appearance that's here and there for so so run Zonie was

having a yead there I am with dark hair, how about that? And Martha Stewart, she was a trip, very nice though, Oh funny. I got a funny story about her too. We were doing we were up in her uh West Point, Connecticut is where our studio is. And and again I told you, I shared it. I brought about six or seven five with me from one twenty nine up there to her office. So they had like a waiting room with all glass doors, glass windows on it.

So my six or seven fire fighters from one twenty nine were there, and I said, only these guys alone for too long, you know, because they you know, they're just rife for trouble. So the women's, the women's she had like seventy five women were looking for her, and the women's restroom was right where this glass, big glass window was where all these guys were in this room and they're just milling around having coffee, waiting for her

to put us all on the air. So while I'm rehearsing with her, they come and get her, and mate, they go, Joe, I'm out here for a second, and Martha, come with us. You got to see this. So one of the guys must have rifled through the drawers because there was all women going into women's bathroom. Rifle through the drawers, found a magic marker and he put fight Apartment Petting Zoo and he put it up on the glass FDNY Fighted Apartment Petting Zoo. Women All women Welcome.

And She's like, oh my god. Only these guys alone for too long, They're just going to get in trouble. So yeah, So the summer of tooths, I had just my papers who were in early late two thousand and early two thousand and one, and I was still getting calls to do cooking stuff. So ron Zoni called me up and said, Joe, we're sponsoring the New York Firefighters cooking contest and we'd like you to be one of the judges and also go on TV and promoted. And so they said,

you know, you're gonna do a few appearances over the summer. So I did want to, like, maybe Good Morning America Today show, Right, there's gonna be a big New York Firefighters cooking contests. Get your recipes in blah blah blah, and the winning recipes will be served at the New York City Marathon, and so did a couple of the TV shows. So they on the end of August they called me up and they say, Joe, we got a live WB eleven episode. It's going to be live and they're

gonna do it at one fifty two at your fireouse. Okay, no problem. And they go we're booking the date September eighth, two thousand and one. Okay, yeah, I'm free, no problem. So a couple of weeks went by, It's about the week before they called me up and they said, Joe, the thing is still on for sure, but we don't really get a good signal out in Queens, and you know, plus we have to take all our equipment and people out to Queens. You know,

would you be okay if we did it in Manhattan? And I said, yeah, my brother used to work in lat of seven, not a problem. He goes, no, No, we're not going to be at lat of seven. We're going to be We're using Ladda three on thirteenth and broad Away And I said, yeah, no, you know firefighters that work there, and he said, uh, it's not down not too far from away. My brother's fire houses. I said, yeah, no problem. He said, yeah, we'll send the cost service for you. It'll put you

up at five in the morning. The only thing is they can't do it on the eighth. Are you available on the morning of the eleventh? I said yeah. Never knowing God, who could ever have imagined anything on that scale of any of us? And I said, yeah, I'm available on the eleventh. And they said, okay, Well, the court service, this guy will pick up at like five in the morning, drive you into Ladder three and it's gonna be live. The host of the TV show is

gonna be there. He's gonna meet you and the kid around with him a little bit. And so I arrived at Ladder three at like five thirty in the morning, met everybody. We started talking what's going Oh, yeah, it's gonna do this TV segment. It's gonna be live. Then the host

pulls up at about I don't know, six thirty something like that. Now they were live WB eleven at the studio, and what they would do is we're gonna cut live to Ladder three, Ary Hoff at Ladda three and they're gonna be Larry's making his recipe Joe's making one of the Ronzoni winn winning recipes or entered recipes and they're gonna bring it out on the street and let people taste it and all live. So that was like, yeah, like six thirty. So we did that segment, and then after that segment was over,

you're off the air. The next one is gonna be at like seven forty five. Okay, yeah herd before oh yeah, yeah, We're cut live at seven fourth and then they cut back live again and by that time, Captain Patty Brown came in. I never met him. He's like, oh, are you from the photo unit or I go, no, I'm not from the photo unit. That's the first time I haven't met him. You know, how do you do? So nice to meet you. And

he says, what's going on? Soh yeah, they're doing this. Oh you heard about this blah blah blah, you know e eatining And I said, yeah, I'm just I'm recently retired. They asked me to come and do this thing to promote this content. Money's going to the widow and Children's Fun from Ronzoni and yeah, he says, all right, yeah, make yourself at home coming to kids. So you know, we're kidding around.

Next thing, you know, the next segments at like seven forty five, well live, So me and the host go to the street and people passing by walking word taste this taste that. What do you think? Getting around with them? Behind me is Joe Maloney and another guy both got killed unfortunately, waiting for their family. Yeah, they got their cell phones out and they're calling their kids before they go to school, saying, you know you

could I have a picture of it. They're right behind me with the cellphones talking to their kids like hey, it's daddy on TV. And they're waving in the background. And then they cut again and they go the next segment's going to be at I think it was eight fifteen or eight twenty. The last segment. I was just gonna be the last segment. Eight. The plane hit it by eight forty six. Right they finished the segment, the firefighters are all like goofing around and the camera guy leaves. To this day,

it was it's so vivid to me. The girl is there that worked for Ronzoni and she said, Joe, unfortunately the cost server this guy is in the Bronx and he can't get here for at least an hour. I said, no problem, and they were all kidding around me. They're like, hey, bring food and kitchen, hang out with us. I go, okay, no problem. So I start walking back to the kitchen and they said, besides, I look at you're gonna be stuck in traffic.

So it's almost nine o'clock. You know what you rush wanted to wait till like ten o'clock. So I said, oh yeah, all right. So I started walking back to the kitchen. Her phone rings. She looks at me, she says, Joe, good news. There's another person from the cost service right around the block. You can go now if you want. I looked at the firefights. They looked at me. I said, you know what, I don't want to hold a guy up if he's here. What the heck can on? It's a difference in the car car getting a

ride home. I looked at them all, took my turnout coat, hung it up. You know. They wanted me to do this segment, and you know, and they're like, hey, you got to watch the last few seconds of this segment. The chicks on the TV you're talking about you. And I watched it at the house, watch with them and then I said, all right, fellows, listen, the guy's here. I'm gonna take off all right, and I said, way, I said, I

have a safe tour, and I got in cost service pulled out. By the time I come to sixth Avenue, they were turning out for the World Trade Center. And now I hear fire trucks like crazy. But it's Manhattan, you know. I'm like, so I said to the cow service guy, go, do we fair to put the radio on for a second. He puts the radio on and I hear we interrupt this program. Apparently a small plane. We're getting reports to a small plane is hit the World Trade

Center. And as I go up the Blox, I could look over my joulder and looked out the window and it's a small plane. The amount of smoke that's coming out that And they're like, well, we're hearing mixed stories that it might be a commercial plane. We'll get back to you on it. But it was it would had just happened. And by the time I got to the Queen's Midtown Tunnel, we watched the what do you call it? The radio and by the time I pulled out of the tunnel and got

past the toll. I look over my right shoulder. You could see the World Trade Center. I see the second plane, next explosion. I'm like, was that the part of the first explosion? And then the radio's on and now he's like, no, apparently a second plane. It's beautiful out. There's no way a guy got lost there is He is h a bionics weren't working properly. Something's not and he goes, this is apparently isn't an attack of an attack of some sort? Uh, close the tunnels. The

bridge is gonna be closed, the tunnel and I said that. I turned his car around, and he turned the car around right at the booth, and they said I had my badge out, as you know, because it doesn't matter tunnels closed. Nobod's getting trouble. Police want to have we gotta order to close the tunnel. And then I drove out to Long Island.

By the time I got to Long Island, walked in the door, the first tower was collapsing, and I just I go on watching thousands of people and hundreds of fine killed right before my eyes, and I go, if anybody's there, A lot of three is there? There's no doubt about it. Now my brother Michael, who was out on a disability pension at that

point, but happened to be in New York visiting at the time. Sister lived out in West Iceland, and I had actually asked him to come into the segment and he didn't want to get up at five in the morning. And good thing, because he knew so many guys in lat of three that we would have been hanging out there talking to him and probably hanging out and probably would have took the run, no doubt about it. So he said, Joey, I can't watch this on TV anymore. And I sayid either

can I? And he says, do you have extra gear? And I said, yeah, I do, and he says, come pick me up. They went to my sister's house. I picked him up, gave him some gear. We hopped on the Long Island Railroad. You know, it's a crazy story. While we're on the Long Island Railroad if a woman comes up to us and she says, my husband works with cant Fitzgerald. And they were on the one hundred and tenth floor. I see who guys are going into the World Trade Center. Can you do me a favor? Here's

this picture? Would you look for him for me, and if you do, here's my telephone, please contact me. So he took the number, and so we got to Penn Station. The next day, I walked out of Penn Station with my brother. Of course we had to argue with us, and by then every emergency service in the world is responding. A couple of New York State troopers and a Humma pulled over. Fellas jump in, jumped in and got us as close as we could get. We walked the

rest of the distance. When I turned the corner and God saw that pile of I mean I really I dropped on my knees crying. My brother was actually kinna have to console me, because I knew what we were walking into and what we were going to hear. There's no way that that was going to be a minor event in any way, shape or form. And then just the insanity of like this was done. What in the name of some

kind of statement. Thousands of people are going to be grieving, hundreds of thousands of people grieving over want some religious craziness, I need to come on

already. And then by the time we got there, you know, then you get busy doing what you were doing, which I saw early on there wasn't going to be many people to even saved, which was a terrible part for the pointment that survived it. If you could save people, but there wasn't too many people to say that's and then just to see the level of destruction and I mean, you know, steal as thick as your leg, bent like spaghetti, and and just all of it just was so overwhelming.

Guys. You gotta pitch from the three truck, right, yeah. Yeah. So we started walking around and Michael said to me, goes, Joe, isn't that three truck? And I said yeah, and I saw it, and I go, there's no chance that you know, if they were in the truck, forget it. So then, uh, this friend of ourz that was a Captain Steve Treco, he was in one O eight. Uh, he came over to us with a he goes, Joe, it's not one hundred percent, but we have a missing list. And I knew

what missing men. I mean, they didn't find him yet, but in that pilot was missing. And then you start going down the list, and I said, anything on the guys in lat of three? And he goes, nobody in lat of three made it and yes, I heard later on Patty Brown's transmissions from the forty fourth floor and all of that stuff. And

then guys jumped on the rig too. There what's that They rode heavy, So they lost almost double the amount of guys that they would have lost regularly, like just you know, six guys going out they lost, and I think they lost ten or twelve or something if I remember right, Yeah, twelve. And that's because a lot of fire has had that because it was

the change of toys and not everybody just leaves, you know. But yeah, so and that was just I mean, and then I because I we went back to Lat of seven where he worked and found out five five fights from Lat of seven, Yeah, passed away and it was his. It was his group he worked with. So had he wasn't he had on disability pension, it might have been him to it and all the might haves and should have. And I'm sure you guys got your ton of stories too,

But yeah, I was. I couldn't believe it when I and then I knew when I saw the truck and I yeah, and I believe out of the twelve that passed away, they only found two. I don't think they even found any remnants of anybody from a lot of people. So what I did is after that, I because I had a tape of them alive. That morning, I went and had tapes made, delivered it to all the families, and I go, this is the last moments. You know, if you have any questions, have any questions you want to ask me about

it, you know, it's just it was just. The grief was just. And plus I knew other people. I work with Stan Smagala, he's another friend of mine that it is provy time in latter one fifty two, another one and you have them all, and the stories went on. I mean, the grief that was just, it was just overwhelming for the entire world. And again I don't like to say positive spin on it, but and when people say, don't ever forget, and I'm like, you don't

have to say that to anybody. That event was unforgettable in anybody's mind. What I think people forgot is the outpouring of love and honor and respect and care and concern that went on, not only just for firefighters, for everybody. Yeah, considering what's going on in the world now, the bringing together of people on a world shattering event. And I mean every time I went into the fire haves to get cleaned up, they'd be more and more pictures

of it. And the one that it still brings me to to me is to this day is I remember going to lat Of five because I worked there too with Captain Drenn and know the crazy story, but you know, going to shower at Lata five or at Lata seven. And when I went to lad of five, I knew a couple of firefighters there. Uh, and that's a real local community. They were bringing food into us, the neighbors who couldn't have been kinder and nicer. And I mean it was amazing the

amount of care and concern that the world brought to that. It brought the world together on such a level. And I remember it brought me to teas. I remember looking at the bulletin board, excuse me, and there was a bunch of German German firefighters standing on the apron of their fire house someplace in Germany with their helmets under their arms, salute, salute, saluting, you know, and they were saluting us from Germany. That's the extent of

this. And then every day you'd see Russia and Poland and Czechoslovakia, or and Cheyenne, Wyoming and for you we all experienced. So that's what people say, don't forget. I'm like, listen, I don't need to remind you. A horrible event. We'll never forget that. It's not don't forget that. Why don't you just instead of the word forget, why don't you remember how much care, concerned, love, respect he showed for the fire service and for other people in general. It was a nicer It was a

weird thing, like everybody was pulling in the same direction. It seemed as a country, right, I mean as even global, Like you said, the planet, the planet you know, uh, fireman dies in in all hands in Brooklyn, no disrespect to his laws. But you're not going to hear about it in Germany. Yeah, and you're not going to have guys standing on the apron saluted. So what it did to the world is brought the world to a better place, I think, especially considering what's going on

in the world now, you know. Yeah, So that's what I look at. So when some people say forget is a negative word, remember as a positive words, I go, no, you will never forget where anybody civilians included. You were, if you were at an office, or you were at the gym, or you were a chiropractice, wherever you are in the world when that was going on, you're gonna remember it. You're not

going to forget it. That you can. But how about remembering what you felt after that, whether it was contributing money or time or personal help. Uh uh, A sympathetic ear to somebody that was going through that. That's that's what I want people to use. That word remember, not forget. I didn't know that story. Joey. Yeah, Yeah, I remember stories on this podcast broke because there are so many stories that are never told that we need to get him down. Yeah. I got to meet Patrick Brown.

Yeah, under the worst of the best of circumstances early and the worst of you know. But so yeah, between Loose and my mother like that nine to eleven, and then a little fast forward with my brother Michael with his disability, pension, back pain. He was having some personal struggles with his marriage and you know, and and like I said, we had a falling out with my father years before, and he was trying to make amends and he really was struggling a lot and then but I never knew to the

extent that you know. I spoke with him in July of twenty twelve. July thirty first, twenty twelve, dropped his daughter off at school. He walked to the Valley View Bridge and he lived in Cleveland with his wife. Walked to the Valley View Bridge, had his phone with him, walked eight minutes to the highest part of the bridge, and jumped off onto hard ground. Wow, yep. And you look at his pictures, handsome, well liked, great fireman, great sense of humor, you know. But me

as a brother, and I was close with him. I mean, I had no idea that this was on the table as a consideration. So earlier on you were talking about mental health, and I hope we get to do a show just based on that alone, just from my experiences with it. Also trying to heal emotionally from that kind of a loss and my mother and nine to eleven. And I'm not making that a poor me situation, but and then to lose somebody to suicide, you know, a disease, an

accident, or even god for being killed in the line of duty. I don't know if honor is the right word there's some honor in that. And this is and I say this gingerly because I don't mean to disrespect your brother I got it, or anybody that's taken their life, because at the moment that that arrived, they had their struggles, but then they had a complete and utter mental breakdown to act on it. So I don't mean it in a way that it's disrespectful, but I think you can empathize with me.

Listen, if he died at nine to eleven, I would have been grief stricken to the end. But you could find some solace. You can find some you know, closure, right love. He didn't he loved. If it was me, I would have been in it. I would have did it willingly any event. Searching for the why, Yeah, And the why is like, there's never a why, because you know, I've I've talked to plenty of people and I did a few podcasts on this already. You know, you can't say, well, he was in the middle of a

divorce or a financial crisis, or he screwed up on the job. Well, that would mean everybody that gets divorced takes their life. Everybody that gets foreclosed on the house takes their life. Everybody that has financial issues takes their life. They don't, but some it's and that's where the bullying and then the drawing the line of the senior meant to stop the ball breaking, because you don't know where this guy's lying in the sands where he goes home and

says to himself, I've had it. Nobody likes me at work. I'm a lousy fireman, a lousy father, I'm a lousy husband. Now I'm getting full closed. I'm better off dead and and listen. After my mother passed away, and it kicked around in my head a little bit too, I go, how am I ever going to be happy? I'm a fireman in New York City and I wasn't even able to save my mother and she died in a burn center. Now I got to live with this the rest of my life. But friends, help. I didn't get help right away.

I waited ten years to get help, you know. And I finally said, listen. And that's the hardest thing for a firefighter to admit, you know, I can't. We're never willing to. I don't know why that is such a block for people, because it's again, yes, you can get in trouble with the job, and you worry about your career and stuff like that, But I don't know. When you're that screwed up, you're going to take help wherever you can get it. But the can do

attitude of a firefighter is like, I can figure this out. You know, all right. My wife left me, she's taken my kids. She will let me tell you whatever the issue winds up being, I'll figure it out. And sometimes you can't figure you're out, and sometimes you can. And that's why we talk about the firears kitchen, which should be a ball breaking place, good natured ball breaking place, but it also should be a place for support. So any firefighter in the world, you know when they

say I got you back, Yeah, of course. You run into a job and you know you got the I got the nozzle. You're my back up. You ain't bailing out on me, no matter what, no matter what shit goes down, You're not bailing on you. I know that. But this is that's a given to me. I need your back when I'm struggling with a divorce, I'm struggling with relationship issues. I'm struggling with this guy breaking my balls day and night, every time I come to work,

I got a dread coming to work. And again, we don't know what the line in the sand is for anybody, and all it takes is one more thing. Now for my brother, I don't know what that one thing was. I don't know that he planned it. I don't know that he mentioned one thing to you ever, like what but truthfully, what f And is gonna say to you? Yeah? No, I got you. You know listen, if I and I hope I do get to do a seminar

someday, I'm getting back to doing that. And if I do a seminar, listen, if there's a room of six hundred firemen, I'm sure they got this struggles divorce, relationship, ball busting, financial Maybe one out of the six hundred actually is toyed with the idea like things don't turn around. I can always take my life. But if I announced it to the crowd, I said, balance, listen, I'm on your side. I got get back. I'm a firefighter just like you. I went through a loss

like this. Is anybody in the room ever contemplated taking their life? I would bet not one of the six hundred, even if they were doing it, would ever raise their hand because all the other five hundred and ninety nine look at them like, what are you kidding me? We're in a suicide prevention thing. You're raising your hand, You're talking about suicide. They're not gonna until it's too late, until it's too late. So I again, I don't know what I think. Joe, we talk about it, Joel.

You know we've had some conversations, a lot of conversations about this groom. You know, I think that you know, even for me, that maybe that was an older time, right, you know, even though it's twenty twelve, your brother grew up later. Right now, the kids, it's there. Right when you saw somebody dead in nineteen eighty five, you know, when decapitated of the car accident, you went back and had chicken palm. Right that, nobody talked about it. You didn't feel anything,

you didn't have to talk to anybody. You went home, you had to be here. Whatever it was, you dealt with it right over and over and over and over again. The kids today they know that there's a possibility and there's a lot of options for them to talk to somebody and see somebody.

So it is changing. I think the persona or whatever, however you want to word it, that the help is out there, not maybe you know, like back in the day, you know, you know, talking about your brother or you know that time, because when he grew up, it was different, right, it was just I think that's changed a little bit. That's at least what we're hoping that that's the case. Well, we work on changing in ourselves by bringing this kind of awareness that this could

actually physically happen. You know, when I put a picture of him up and if you ever know in his personality, he would say, no way, no way, no way, how could you? And I have to tell you my first reaction was, how could he do this to me? Right? How could he do this to me? We went through the worst thing in the world, going to ground zero together, and listen, I could use his name. Tony Perella out of one twenty nine took his life when I got the call, and he was a good friend of mine when

I got and he got in trouble with the job. He was working a side job. Great guy, great guy, well built, handsome, well liked, funny, no sign of depression at all. He got divorced, cost him thirty eight thousand dollars. He was complaining about it but not finding a way in the corner. And then he would work in a second job as an X ray tech and they were on strike and he went into work anyway side job. So one of the x ray techs didn't like the idea,

like this guy's got a full time job. This is off full time job. We're on strike. He's coursing the picket line. They turned him in and he got trouble. So the job got him down there and they wanted to make an example of him. They sat him down and said, we're gonna fiore you. You're gonna be in the daily news. You're gonna be oh my. We took it so personal. But like my brother, I never thought this was a possibility. He called me the night before,

the night that he did it. He called me his Joe. Come on, I can't take this, not at wits end, because I would have been there in a second. He's like, I can't believe this shit. Now we're you know, we're working tomorrow and then Monday, I gotta go down to the legal office and they're talking about Tony. You're not gonna lose your job. I mean they might give you a thirty day rip, maybe

to take your vacation away from you, and something like that. You're not gonna lose your job, you know, big deal, you worked the second job. It's not the end of the world, you know. But when I say the end of the world to somebody else might be the end of the world. If I knew that night, after I said Tony, we'll working tomorrow morning, I'll see you in the morning, I go hang in there, but I know nothing about The phone call was an alert. And

later that night he drank a half a batle of vodka. You know, the way my brother did it, and the way most of the people do it. It. It just sickens me to somebody to go to that extent mechanically, even to He went into his garage, took the time to duct tape all the scenes of the garage, and started the car and sat in the cart and and went to sleep. And the next morning we're all smell. I wars Tony. Somebody stopped by his house on the way home.

I never thought like the and sure enough. So my point is, you don't know how far along your mental state is. When I at the call, I was standing in the living room my house, my brother Michael's right of course from me. He met him and I turned white. He goes, what's the matter, and I said, Tony Perela killed himself last night and I collapsed crying in his arms. So he had that information. So

ten years later you do the same thing, knowing what it. Howard personally affected me, and you know, listen to ed Nieces he had so only I know what you're saying. It was a little less. Mental health is a little less not important, but in your face as it is now and available, it was a little bit even looked down upon, you know, even people that have alcohol problems. You know, Ah, he's going to the what did they used to call it, not the rock, the bomb,

the farm? Yeah, right right, So yes, it's a little more I don't want to use the word accepted, but it's a little more. Maybe that is the word. It's a little more acceptable right now to say I'm struggling or but more. There's no doubt about that. Yeah, there's no doubt the mental health is available. But when somebody says that, it's almost like the nine to eleven thing to me, where they say remember not forget, I go listen. He had his phone is in his hand.

He could have called me right, say, Joey, I'm thinking of walking up this bridge and jumping on. But just like I said, if you do a presentation, they're not going to tell you what they can tell you. And this is what they say look for, and just my personal experience from it is number one I look for is when the sense of humor goes out the window. Listen, there's divorce, this foreclosure, there's physical

anomalies. There's people with two pays that get made fun of. I mean, there's all things that go on that you're taking and you kind of let it roll off your back a little bit. But it's when you personally lose. And what we've all had is a little bit of what they call Gallows humor with something rib like nine to eleven. You couldn't make Gallows humor out of that took years. I don't even think it ever was going to be

Gallows humber about it. But you know, like a guy's getting divorced, and there's a time and a place for like, hey, listen, I unders saying you're crazy about or your court a cheating with your best friend and it's horrible, and you know, we'll get through this, don't worry about it. And there's other women out there, You'll probably mean, somebody else he has to come. And but to relentlessly go after the guy to the

point of where now he's like, these guys don't have my back. And and one thing I say is like, and I think of his situation too, is that not every situation that happens you can humor your way out of, get out of whatever. Sometimes and that's where they can do and the toughness of being a firefighter comes in sometimes. You know what, buddy, we're gonna have to lay it down and you're gonna have to gut it out. It might take a day, it might take a week, but you're

gonna have to gut it out. I don't have the solution for it. You know, if we can help you out financially, physically, emotionally, but this one, you're gonna have to take the time and gut it out. It's gonna take time, and you're gonna have to have some patience. And that patience is going to be a little gut wrenching, so you know, and that's where you put it to them. As they can do. Can you do this, because I'm this is where I got you back. If I have to lay down on a bunk with you and put you in

a headlock until this passes, then that's what we're going to do. And if you've got to get in a boxing ring with me and beat the shit out of me to get that anger out of you, because that's really what they say suicide ideas, it's a little bit of self murder. You're angry, disappointed, frustrated, and now you turn to self murder. So we got to get you past the point. And you know't listen, I've seen it, like you said, when a guy loses his temper in the fireouse.

He's got rage in his eyes. He can kill somebody until you calm him down. And then all of a sudden, you know, like, what are you're thinking at that moment in time? You aren't thinking? And that's really what happens then, not thinking. Because I went to the spot where my brother took his life. The police officer took me there. I

couldn't even walk me a defence, that's how dizzying the height was. And I'm like, he willingly walked to this fence and climbed over and just like get him back to what you said, Joe, Like the method is boggles the mind, right, I mean like you said, like the guy sat in the car and went to sleep, you know what I mean, put some you know whatever, had a scotch and but to go to that length,

right to do that. Or we had a guy in two eighty eight after nine to eleven who went home, you know, he was coming. We worked with him that night. He got off in the morning, uh, Gary Salmtani, Yeah, it was the other way around. He was getting off in the day and he said he actually said I'm coming in tonight, I'll pick up the meal, let me know what you want, and never came in. And then he went home and put a rifle in his

mouth. You know, Like so we you know we again we knew that, you know, similar thing, you know, and that guy was a funny guy, like yeah, there was like nothing. He was an anger. I mean he was having issues with his girlfriend if I remember right, But it was but to do those methods, just like you said, when you're saying you're not thinking, like holy not when I see people throw themselves in front of the train, because we go to a lot of them like

there had to be another way than this. I mean, like, I know, but you're of sound mind right now, and they're not salmon but not thinking rationally. It's what it is. Well that's what I said. I go listen. Yeah, and you had to do it in a demonstrably horrible way. Why don't you just take a bunch of sleeping pills and go to sleep. But I'm thinking, I have clarity of thought right now, So I said, listen, if I was going to take my life, I don't want to put a bullet in my head. I don't want to

jump off a bridge. I don't want to hang myself. I'll just take a bunch of sleeping pills. I'll go to sleep easy. But I have clarity of thought now. When they get like that, like I have to act on this. I have to act on this right now. They're not looking to make a statement. They're just like this is the quickest way, in the fastest way. And they get to a place where they say their families. I don't think they think who they're going to hurt, or they're

gone. Their mind is completely gone for that brief period of time. I just watched a PBS special on the Golden gate Bridge, and I think there was three thousand people that jump from the Golden gate Bridge to take their life. Thirty nine people lived just miraculously, somehow hit the water and wound up lived. And they interviewed them, and every one of them, and I'll say this about my brother or anybody else, every one of them said, the minute I let go to jump, I said, what did I just

do? I made the stupid Really, the minute they let go, another guy said, I'm walking. And this is why when I think of my brother or anybody well him, because I know personally. One of the guys said, I was walking to the Golden gate Bridge to jump, hell bent on jumping. Calm, calm, look on my face. I'm ending my life today. I'm going to jump off the bridge, but if one person smiles at me on my way, I'm not going to do it. And he passed people and looked at them. Nobody smiled at him, and he

goes, excuse the language effort, I'm jumping. And he jumped, but he lived. Miracle by miracle, he lived. But his thinking was all I need is one person to smile it and and I'm not going to do it, and he went didn't and nobody smiled at him, and he went and jumped, but miraculously lived. But almost every one of them. That's an incredible thing, Joe like to say, Like in that in that one second after it's they're releasing there, it's crystal clear again, right, like

what the hell did I just do? I can't come back from this. That's it, you know, like I made a decision and I'm But the mind is a tricky you know. It can go, it can go to terrible places, whether it's a relationship. Listen, I've had relationships go south and been devastated and I feel like it's never gonna get any different. But again, and the other thing I read that really spooks me about it, And if I ever give a seminar like this, which I'd love to,

is that they didn't think of it that morning. This has been in their mind a little bit, sometimes months ahead of time. And the way I kind of worded it is it Listen, We've all had our struggles in life, whether it's relationships of financial, getting on the job, getting off the job, retirement, all the things that life can bring up. Disassociation, with family, friends, whatever. But what happens, I believe is it

becomes an It becomes an option. It might be option fifty. Like listen, if my wife divorces me, I'd always bounce back, and you know, I'll meet somebody else, and if the house forecloses, I could work a second job and I'll figure out to get another house. You know,

you always have a way of figuring it out. But then they say, if the divorce goes through and that lose the house, and my kids don't talk to me anymore, and I'm disrespected at my job and I can't seem to lose weight and whatever the things are, then they go, you know what, I could always just end my life. So now it's option fifty. So the divorce goes through another guy at work terrorizing you. You get maybe screw up at a job or something, or now all of a sudden,

now it's all of a sudden's option twenty five. And it starts moving up the ladder. And now all you need is a few other things to not go right. And that's where we said about the ball breaking, and no one went to stop. Is all you need to do is get to work one day and well, this guy. He said, if one person smiles at me, I'm not going to do this, and he goes to the world's an evil place. Nobody smiled at me. I'm out at you.

So again, I don't know what. My brother had his phone in his hand, maybe at the point he was at say listen, if somebody calls me that morning, I won't do it. Yeah. I've talked to a bunch of psychologists and psychiatrists, and it is a difference. Like you had said before, people sometimes say, you know, rashly, I'm gonna kill myself. I feel like killing myself. The next question if somebody ever said that to you is have you ever thought about it? You have you

picked away that you're going to do it? And that is the real red light. When somebody's thought about it and they have already gone over in their head how they're exactly going to do it, that's when you have to really step it up, because that's like life and sirens right there. And I've talked to many doctors who said the same thing, you know, as they and I alluded to before about the humor part, because that's I distinctly remember saying to him in the months previous. I go, when did you lose

your fire house sense of humor? You know? Really? And because he wasn't, you know, sooner or later in the conversation you get around to saying something funny. Mm hmm. You know what, I got a funny story about that? His friend Bob Crowe, who worked with him at last of seven. I know, Bobby Crow topic wrestler or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bob Crow. He was good friends with Bob Crow, sweetheart. What a great guy, What a great guy. But I remember,

and he's pretty funny too. Uh My brother called him up one time and he said to him, and you guys will appreciate this from the firehouse humor and and marriage part of it. He's complaining to Bob Crow and he's like, Bob, you know, I I can't believe it. I've been married, like, you know, seven eight years already, and you know, she doesn't want to do anything, she doesn't want to work, and since we had the kid, you know, you know, I'm not having

sex anymore. And Bob goes, what makes you special? Why why did you think none of this was going to happen to you? It makes you special? So but he but Bob was laughing about it. My brother wasn't. And I do remember in some of our conversations that's what I was saying to him or you know, whatever it was, you know, even marriage. You know, I'm like, yeah, but you're not married, and uh, you know it's different for you and I listen, I've had disappointments

to it, women, I've had disappointments with finances. I have disappointments are housing. And but he started to chip away at the humor, which just would never go right back to Yeah. But you know, and then the basic attitude of life is to be positive. And that's where we talked about the fire's kitchen. They either solved the problem, helped you gut it out, or figure out how you were going to fix it, you know, and that's that can do. Attitude is very helpful, but not in the

mental health area because that area you got to say what's going on? Like Bob Crowchrit did laugh it off, like what makes you specially you think it was going to be different for you? You know, And he's still he didn't. He didn't almost didn't get the humor of it. Yeah, but it's happening to me and what it is. Yeah, you got to you gotta go to I had some relationship issues earlier in my career. At one twenty nine. I figured they laid off for me. I have to give

him that. And one of the guys said, Joe on the thing is, you got to put the time in. He'll bounce back from this, but you gotta put the time. It's gonna suck for a while. Yeah, got to embrace the suck. Thank you. I was just gonna say that Maybee guys. So yeah, if you're getting divorced, you're losing your house, job, whatever it is, it's it's you know, it's gonna suck. And again things that happened to you in life that are bad, you know, you lose your perspective. I mean I remember that. You

guys will remember it. You're around long enough. Remember the guy that blew away the medical doctor because he didn't get three quarters and they gave him half pay. But when you break that down that situation, I'm just gonna use round numbers. Let's say medical disability. He was going to get thirty thousand a year three quarter disability forty So for fifteen thousand dollars a year, you went to jail for murder for the rest of your life and kill the human

being. That's no different than Tuesday. He lost his mind. Somebody should have tackled him. What are you doing so you're gonna get fifteen thousand dollars left every year? Right now, You're gonna get no money and you're gonna spend the rest of your life in prison, get chased around by you know, some big man. Exactly, you're gonna be somebody's boys. I just wanted it before we've tried this up. I just wanted to respond to this to my body. He's been a lot of good comments for him tonight.

You know, everyone doesn't talk about it everyone, but on the odd chance sometimes they do. Like Joe was saying, that guy was just waiting for one person to smile at them. So there might be an instance where this guy or whoever girl might try at least once to throw it out there. And if they do, when you happen to be the person, that's when you ask the next question, which is, well, have you really thought about this? You know, do you have you planned it out? How

are you going to do it? So I agree with the fact that not everybody is gonna say it, you know, but there are people who are looking for that last grasp of somebody to tell them, you know, maybe they shouldn't do it. Yes, And and even though the characters galore in the fires, you can find listen, I found guys that were funny. I found guys that were sensitive. I found guys that were talented. There's guaranteed any fires, USA, there's a guy that you know that you can

talk to that's on kind of on the same level as you. So go to that, right, he may maybe the chance, Yeah, go to that guy, right you know, yeah, maybe the other knit with or bit from back from the future. That's not the guy that you can go to. But I'm sure and there were guys know the guy you'll know the guy that you'll know that you'll know the guy and you say, that's the guy, say listen, I got to talk to you, and he may. You know. That's the judgment call on the on the other party is

to know. And we're not professionals at it, so that'd be the first thing I say, Okay, what's going on? You know, my wife leave me, she's the kids. I go, this is going to have a solution. Uh, let's look at all this. One of the solutions is in suicide. That's the thing you got to get in your head. I don't care what's going on. I don't care if you lose every time you have. I don't care if your leg gets blown off. The solution is never suicide. We'll get a solution to it. We'll get your new

leg, we'll get your new woman. There's a solution, and that's not one of them. So please tell me that that's not on your list. And we'll go from there. And there may not be a viable solution to this, so you know, then we're going to embrace the suck and we're not going to make it last forever because it won't, and but we'll I got you back for the entire time. You're going to need this, whether it's a week, a month, or a year. Good old school tip

there. We got to get to that. It's about it. So you know what, Joe, we're actually thinking about doing another. We will definitely tag you in when we're doing next mental health. That's great. I got what's her name from friends of firefighters calling me Nancy Nancy Carbone, So we're gonna do something. So we'll get you in it. But before we do, I think it's that time. Guns. It is time four of the of the day. You're gonna get better at that. We're like all over

the place. Yeah, my old school tip of the day is I'm gonna ask all the younger firefighters to listen to a song by Kenny Chesney called Don't Blink, Oh my favorite. Yeah, And he's talking to an older man who's like one hundred years old, and he's saying to the like, what's the secret of life and stuff like that, and he said, yes, care for the people you care about, especially your mother and father and people

you work with and stuff. But he goes, you know what, one hundred years goes faster than you think, and don't blink because that's how fast it goes. So my old school advice is to these younger firefighters when you walk in the firehouse and you smell that sweat and leather and smoke inhale deeply because it's a very brief period. You don't see it. When you're twenty five and you're thirty, you don't see it. You're gonna be like us now at night, sniffing, sniff in the air, for some yes,

and even the kitchen and the food and all of that. I just say, you're gonna blink. It doesn't seem like you're gonna blink, and it's gonna be gone, and you're gonna be wanna be wallowing it and brace you said, Embrace the suck. Embrace the joy that you have right now, which is being a firefighter in whatever city you are in the world and the planet. Greatest job on the world. Embrace the people you work with.

You know, always keep care, love, concern and respect forefront, have your fun, break balls, no one to end when it and and no one to have somebody's back when they're going overboard on that. So just embrace it while it's here. Be here, because it's gonna be. It's gonna be, it's gonna be gone, and you're gonna be reflecting. Listen, any one of us, I give my right on to be back in the kitchen making chicken cut with parmesan with a piece of sheet rock whatzerella on it.

They had so many nuggets in that bro that will fall all over the place, right, And to just sit there and just I would just my ears would be ring listening to all the nonsense and the craziness and and for

all of us. You know, if we could do that one with the in the middle of the a piece of goo witzarella hanging out of my mouth and say that a one two nine, respond you got a ten seventy five at Flushing Air you and jump on the rig and out out you go, any one of us who give all right on to do that one more time. So you that are still listening, that are involved in it, embrace it. It goes faster than you think. Nice. That's good. And you know what, now you have to take the second best thing, which

is Getting Salty Experienced podcast. It's the only one that brings the fire house. Get your table, do you? Joe got to be an avid listener. I forget how the line goes in there, Joe, but he says he's talking about like the you know, like the what's the thing that you flip over with the sand our glass? He says, you can't flip it over and start again, That's what he says, Like, as you stand is running out, you can't flip it over and start again. That's like

the best line. Well, this this is gonna be your no brain to gon so play the old school health and safety tip. Okay, here we go. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and unders standing the challenges to help safety and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are

an affiliate of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation. So this is an easy one. We said it in the show. I don't know how many times. It doesn't take a lot to modify your diet. Just a little right, add a little caudio, just a couple of tweaks, and get hit. And not only to do the job the correct way, but also, like we were saying before, you want to collect for one hundred years. You want to be there for your family and your kids and your grandkids and everything

that comes with it. So to me favor, take the sheet rock off the chicken palm, maybe a couple of sprinkles, you know what I mean. I was clean in that tray after man, because the bread and spoke up less with the bread, you don't have to clean it up. This egos got it. Yeah, so Monday, we're off for the holiday, right roof. I believe you're back on Thursday. Joe, great stories, man, I really appreciate it. Talking about doing a little cooking segment.

I mean he might be doing a cooking segment for us, all right, good man, you know I might come down for that one. Man. I'm to give him a couple of those, you know what I mean? Figure it out now, you guys are you? Guys are terrific and thank you to let me relate the stories and I hopefully we reached somebody in the mental health department and the hopefully there's an older firefight out there that's opening his nostrils and leather and what are you dealing with? Sweat? The leather and

the sweat? Yep, so I changed his diet. God fads chopped and I man, a lot of people saying up the game. Maybe you need a little rest in Italy or something. I don't know what it was, but you come back maybe okay, I've been doing okay. You just guys are losing touch, you know, maybe it was long good And when do you have a chat line of people that like respond and say stuff you didn't see him on the side because that's when you when you go back if you

want to watch it again. Yeah, there's a couple ones. I was trying to a lot of people talking about the mental health. But a great show it was, Joe so oh good. Want to go back and watch it. You can see it and check it out. Yeah, excellent. I was waiting for someone twenty nine guys saying they still got tomaine poisoning. Have a great stay holiday, you know, don't eat too much and I'll see you on Thursday. Until then, stayabone, all right, everybody will

see it the big one. Thanks again, Joe, all right, thank you. All right, guys see the top floor. Maybe have a good weekend. Yep.