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.
Hello, Hello, roofy man. Where did you go? You went to Mexico.
As a matter of fact, Jesus, let me a complex shaved the beer too?
You end up?
Bro?
You look great.
Where's the deer? What'd you catch? Where is it?
Well, we might have a picture of that somewhere. Let me see shit eating grin on his face?
Yeah, let me see this.
This is not you.
Look at that live. I think his eyes were open, an't they?
It's looking at like money.
Wow, guy smiled so much from killing him.
Yeah.
Wait, we go back to that. Look at it.
Do you guys notice this? The guys in the chat make sure we comments this guy.
Smiling smiling with a dead dea nice anyway. Welcome back to again sold the Sperienced podcast. It's the only one that brings the firehouse, kitchen table and hot charges from way back, like Bronx ghetto firefighter is to you when the Bronx was burning, Bro, he got him tonight, John Row coming in ship hot, Bro, he was dead. I like it, raw, Oh baby, I like it raw. He thought he saw them more fire in a year than most guys will see in their Korea runs.
Right, look at you pulling?
I really am Yeah, Mike, how are you so? I hear you're Are we allowed to say it? You're getting fitted for your bunker gear and whatnot.
So yeah, it's out there next month.
It's gonna be a firefighter. We me and Louis, we rescued him. We took him. We yanked him right from the the doldrums of being a cock bro right right that gunson.
Yeah, san Diego.
I took him into my arms like this, and I coddled him and I said, this is the way, son, hold on to my coat, follow me, this is where we're going, and look at him out. He's gonna be a real, honest to goodness firefighter.
We can we can bring back an oldie with him like this.
God yeah, I mean, can you imagine the pussies that's going to be falling into his arms broken the fires like, oh god, I don't know. I guess the.
Skip from Murph Pussy Pussy Pussy.
It's gonna be getting so much poon time you won't know what to do with himself. Right now, we allowed to say point time you can poo. Yes, we gotta get John and he he's got a ton of great stories from the key head Tel Yep.
We're gonna do uh Marshall Fisher want to bring him in.
Do two commercials. Probably had to do two commercials first, right, well, a hot job yet exactly.
Yeah, you said it, all right, let's do uh, let's do the new guys, we'll do them light off the top.
Who's that? Wait a minute, capital Nope, not yet, dope there once a month, don't do that.
Oh oh oh hey, sorry guys, we're not gonna do that right now. We're gonna ge ahead of New Jersey Fire.
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Wonderful we got another one of that.
Yes we do. We have the modified Armor tough.
But you've been playing that I'll kill you? Do you play that one pot I'll kill you?
I'll try not to.
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virtually no disruption in your station's operation. Our system is guaranteed from chipping, cracking, peeling, breaking or staining. The tiles are stained resistant and impervious to chemicals or vall tires that are used in the fire service damage one tile, lift and replace without anyone knowing, and once installed, your floor would be easy to clean with just soap and water. Is your current floor slippery? Eliminate the slip with Armor Tough.
One of a bitch. I just want little teaser listen even though they were only once a month. Capital Dude, I gotta give them a shout out. They are awesome family run business capital industries. Awesome. You aging helmet you need done? These guys are on it, man. I watched them do they work at one of the shows that we want to do next to us in the booth, and these guys are legit. Anything you need to don't your helmet to make it look like leather, They'll make
it fits. Yeah, there's a little shout out for them because I love this family. Excellent, excellent. I'm gotta say one other thing. It's my girl and that I forget.
Is it.
Cindy Drake.
Yep, she's there.
Cindy Drake is the I'm gonna say she's the best fan of getting salted. She watches the Cup of John Flago. She's always commenting, she's always in the chat. I'm gonna say she's a super fan.
Bro.
I love me some Cindy Drake. She's always comed doing the right thing. I tried the friend of our Facebook, but I couldn't find it. I don't know, so Cindy friend me.
Take the hint. Take the hint.
Awesome, all right, let's bring him in here, bro, Mike, Yeah problem uh Luke. I mean Mike, bring him out.
Mike, what's the different?
He worked for her twenty six Our next guest worked for twenty six years and what's known as the Iron Horse in the Bronx, of which he'll tell us about tonight. A veteran of the FD and Wise Engine sixty. He comes in with roar and that for this episode two hundred and thirty to get salty experience.
Retired FD and WI firefighter John Rorr.
Here he is.
What's that? Did he say retired or retarded?
No? He said we're all anymore that my daughter goes crazy. You can't say that, dad.
Like I do. We grew up old school. I could say God, you could say.
Whatever you want to say, Bro, take it easy.
You want an army that has a good man, Damn they are.
I like this guy? You ready? So let me ask a question. If you're walking down the street and you see John Raw on the street with that mustache, what do you say, Mike, fireman? Right, he's got to be a fireman.
Absolutely No, don't say cop, that's for sure.
Oh Cop, to bite your tom. Listen before we get too far out of the week too. We gotta be a patriotic. We gotta do one duty from John. Play it up, brother, here we go.
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.
Well, thank you John for coming on the show. Not only is he a legendary I said, legendary firefighter, old school firefighter, he is a veteran and we can't give him enough thanks for that. So I'm gonna say right off the bat, thank you for your service in both Thank you firefighter and uh being in the service. So let's go back, John, Let's go back a little bit. Give us a little early of the of the Raw family where you grew up. A little bit about mom and dad. Stuff like that.
Wow, mom and dad both come basically. My mother was born in Baston, Oh boy, somehow she got to New York. I met my father, my father at age ten or eleven. We're stricten with polio and he had to spend the rest of his life with a leg brace, and his right side was kind of weak, but his left side was over big. And when I would misbehave, which was not too many times, maybe once twice a day he would he would tell me get over here. Now I
could outrun him in a heartbeat. But when he said get over here, I went over there, and his left hand, which was the big side, usually found my ass. And I learned a lesson that if I someone squealed on me, I beat him up. No, I didn't do that. Now you're nice.
You have any brothers and sisters.
I have two sisters, one who has passed away now. The other one lives in with Haveaven Queens Queens. I was born bred in Ozone Park, bought a house there in nineteen seventy three, moved to South Jersey, Oh Jersey in uh in two thousand, I bought the thousand and eight, moved in on nine And I'm still trying to figure out why do people vote for people who were going to raise your tax, raise everything. I could have been in South Carolina where there's almost no man.
I don't understand, amen, brother, So you uh, you come out of high school? Right? Or do you finish high school? You go right into the army? What do you or the I don't know what's oh right? Because it's Vietnam War, right, we all.
On the side of well, go go. Yeah.
How old were you John when you got drafted?
Uh?
Just let's see, good question. Nineteen going on twenty, just about twenty. And in a few short months, I took five stops to get me into Vietnam and I spent fourteen months there. Twelve months is a normal tour. But if you spent extra time and you'll land it back in the States with one hundred and fifty or less days in the service, they just let you go. Really, I counted, I was good and mad, and I counted how long I would have to stay in Vietnam to
go home. And I landed with one hundred and fifty days left, and they said, see, you wouldn't want to be and that was the end of that tour.
Wow. So what was your experience like.
Well, my worst experience was when night hit the airport after they let me go. I got the San Francisco airport to come back to New York. A young girl and a young guy walking down and she came up to me, spit on me and called me a baby killer. Oh wow, So you know, I said right there, and then should I kill her or go home? So I decided to go home. Fast forward many years later. Death the NY the best ceremony I ever seen. They honored
all the Vietnam vets. And I'm sitting next to a marine and he says, you know, a similar thing happened to me. And I was called the baby killer. And I went like this, and I said, and they taste like chicken. I said, God, I wish I would have said that that girl would have fainted underground, but I didn't.
When did they do that? John, What year of the annable of Vietnam? Guys?
Well, it was fifty year anniversary, So I'm going to stay somewhere around ninety seven, ninety six.
I didn't even know they did that.
Yeah, they had that death, that three star general, the Chief Department, another official from the department, and they mind us all up in alphabetical order, and they brought us up three at the time, and they had the active duty guys, five department guys that were in the service, and Congress gave us these little medals, and the three guys would come up, you know, and stand in Three active duty firemen would come up and pin the medal
on you. And God, I'm not lying. I was in a big red one first Inftry division and a guy in sixty engine seventeen truck was over in Iraq as a fireman. He was in a big red one and not making it up. He was the guy that stayed in front of me and pinned the metal Army. Thought that was the greatest honor. Yeah, that one of my guys pinning the metal army. Well, that's the end of that story.
What was the big red one?
The first infantry division? First, you're going to be one, be a big red one. That was a It was the first infantry division in the army, but it was the first one to go to Vietnam and we were actually round Saigon up to the Cambodian border and a little north of that, and that was a pretty active you were in the ship. Well, yeah, at the time, I wound up being a platoon sergeant, which no big deal.
But I didn't have to lift. I was in a mortar platoon, so I didn't have to lift all the heavy yo, get that that, you know, I was a semi boss.
All right, So you did that fifteen months there?
You said nineteen or no, no, no, twelve and uh fifteen months? Yeah, wow, three months? Fifteen months and it was time to go home.
Right.
How do you know how I had a kid by then? My son, John was two weeks short of a year old when I got home because my wife was pregnant when I was leaving to go Vietnam.
What year is this? John? Want you to go over there?
I went there sixty nine, sixty eight, came back sixty nine, right, and you weren't even a dot on.
This I was. I was born in sixty eight. But you said to us on the pre show that you grew that mustache in sixty eight. You've never shared that except for one day.
One day, and then drove it back. My son was born in sixty eight, and he was in ten truck and he's got the best retirement date of any fire in there ever lived. That's six guys, I believe his retirement date nine ten oh one, nine ten oh one. He gets really hurt at a job and they put him out nineten oh one. Wow, how about that? And he would have his groups would have been working that day had he been whole, But he was.
Wasn't his time?
Brother, No, to tell you what was his time? His time was nineteen ninety nine. He worked one tour with me and we were put in for a unit citation. Really we went to a fourth alarm and a stupid deputy chief from he worked in thirty one truck in the eight days and he had medals up his yang. Yeah, and he says, now he did what an engine were first do you did what an engine was supposed to do? I said, are you crazy? Did you see what they? They deserved the unicitation? And then my boss Mike Waters,
good guy, very good guy. He was a volley out in Long Island, in someplace out there in the row vollies. Anyway, they he goes to some meeting out of town where all the volleys go to shake hands. I guess, I don't know. And he sees the chief and he tells him, you know, chief, there was a father's son working that night and you said no to the uni tation. Chief goes, oh, I didn't know that. He said, you never read it. He said, we submitted, I'll approve it. So what does
Mike Waters do? He says, no, you had your shot. And I'm sitting here going, are you crazy? I wanted that unity, it says, but I got the report and that's the main thing.
So were you driving, and he was on the backstep. You were both on the back step.
No, he was on the backstep. I was driving. And they all ran out of mask and the chief didn't relieve them right away, and they didn't come down. So after they came down and they all looked like crap, and he said, yeah, we ran out of masks, but we kept going. I said, why didn't want he just come down and get some more bottles of Then, well, your son was in there, and I couldn't leave your son in there. Then I asked my son. He said,
this is your house. I couldn't leave your house. Go a bunch of assholes.
Let's go back to it.
You should have come down and got a bottom.
When you first got on the job. What made you want to get on the job. Did you have family there or what?
No, well that's a different story. My help I was an electrician, right union electrician, and my helper wanted to be a Fineman kid Santos Rodriguez, great kid, Can you bring me down to forty nine Thomas Street. I said, yeah, sure, I bring him down there, and he's filling on an application. He said, John, do me a favor. I'll pay the fifteen dollars fill out the application. Said why, he said, just throw it out. This week they mail you stuff. I know I'm going to get stuff and full through.
I said, yeah, all right, And so time goes by the union let me down. I was a shop steward and I told the guy who I did Bolton champ and Scotland for the apprenticeship program. And I go to a job and there's a non electrician doing a Bolton chap work of my company. But it was an electrician and I tell him, get your rest down here, go back to the shop, get done. Next morning, I go into the shop and my foreman, who I liked and he liked me, He goes, you ain't gonna believe this.
I said, what he says? The owner of the company came down here. He says, I gotta fire you. He said, what how many shops do You can't fire me? He says, he says, you're gone. He says nothing I could do about it. I go down the union and the union Oh got nothing, Yeah, nothing, you're round. I don't have another job for you.
He says, how do they do that when you're.
The shot on the payroll? He was on six, no show payroll. I called every shop student in New York City that I did find, and they all called the Big Boss. He was the number two guys. They called the Big Boss. All of a sudden, I got a phone call an hour later, Oh, go to offer a shouts tomorrow morning, you're gonna work there. And I go there and then and the boss there goes, Hey, John, And I knew the guy. He says, I don't know what's going on. I was supposed to have you next week,
but I got a phone call. I got to hire you today. I said yeah, and I explained to him what the asshole did. So now the fire departments makes me uh oh sixty. In nineteen sixty seventy seven, sixty five thousand guys signed up for the fire department tests. I don't want to break, but I was one seventy nine on the list. Nice, all right, So I'm top of the list. I go through physical, I do great on that. I'm on the top of the list. So
I'm now that they've screwed me. In the local three, I said, you know what, I'm gonna join the fire department. Nineteen seventy eight, they call me. I got my whole bathroom in those o ball disassemble. You gotta be down at eight o'clock at city Hall. Gets warned, said I can't do this. I got no bathroom this you know I got. I said I can't. So I called a friend of mine up who was a boss on the job. He made me go down to uh Puree and I went down there and they they moved me back on
the list. Okay, fine, So I wound up going later on no problem, and my help will who made me do this? He didn't do so well. He was four thousand on the list. So after a couple of years they get into four thousand. I called him a Santos. You know your numbers coming up, they're going to be calling you. He says, I haven't got anything done yet. They never called me nothing. He said, no, they had to.
You had to be coming down for sudden, he said no. He goes home that night he says to his wife, he says, to my department, never sent me or call me anything. She goes, well, uh, he says, what happened? She says, I didn't want you to be a fineman, so I threw all the melt Local three, but that's another story. He was a good guy. But so I wind up Provy school and I wound up in one of the best flyinghouses.
Uh, before you go there, any guys that we know who was in your proby class?
Uh Steve Shemy, he might have.
I might have heard, never heard never heard them, never never heard of them, never heard.
Where are you in this picture? John?
Right in the middle in the back? I got my hat all backwards.
Oh you still got a mustard.
Yes, I had a mustache.
But not that mustache.
Well, I was younger than it was dark and maybe allow you to.
Have you didn't have a past.
You have a mustache like this in the fly department when I was on I got charges for it.
Yeah. My brother used to chase me around all the time I had. I had a mustache like that too. He used to tell that guy to shave that mustache.
I went down for the medical and I got charges. And that's the way that I didn't care. I told him I'm not shaving it.
Where are you a getting here? Where were you in this one?
Uh?
Bottom right?
So somebody with a mustage all the way and the right on the bottom right there had the mustage.
Look at that you looked at that.
All right? Good?
So almost every guy in there was a veteran except the squad.
Leader, except us to meet the squad leader.
The squad leader was I can't think of his name. He wound up being the he died in the trade center. He was the captain of the rescue one carne. Yeah. Uh, he was the squad father. His father was the chief of department.
Kind of hard to make out he's in this picture.
His father was a Jeans that I do know.
I'm trying to think of where he is. He's there somewhere, all right.
So how do you get Here's the question we always ask guys, how do you get the sixty engine? Did you know somebody.
It?
Oh?
Wait, lock or.
No? No?
If I had.
My choice back then, which I didn't know, because I would have been stupid. If I did, I would have probably said, give me into the fifteenth division. It would have been easy, rob mute from all commute for you Bronx. You have to pay it twenty five cents toll you know what I mean? Noween dollars. So, but I wound up in the Bronx. It was the best thing ever happened. My first tour. You know, I know guys say this
all the time. I wasn't in twenty minutes. First du Grand Concourse one four seventh Street between one four seven nine, and the captain, Oh, Patty, Patty mcgrel says, probe you got the noucle.
Come on, he gave you the no.
I'm going to myself. Holy shit. Back then, when I first got there, we rode the backstep and they only had two masks, and they were in that suitcase right right, and the two guys at the back they wound up going to the suitcase the nozzle in the backup. We went in. So I had Tom Kapiello as my backup, great fireman, and he pushes me in and where I didn't really want to go, but he's pushing me and I'm I'm waving this around down the hallway and I
get to the door. Mind you, I still don't have a mask on, and he says to me, lift out your shirt and put your mouth down there and take a breath like that. Okay, holding my brother and I got in the door about three or four feet. That was it. I couldn't breed them on. And so he took the nozzle he went in a couple more feet. Then the rescue guys came in with till two other guys came in with a mask on and we went out.
Thank God.
And that job. Let me see who got Jimmy Corporate from seventeen truck out of medal? You wound up in rescue one, but he got a medal on that job for saving somebody in that apompment. So I was happy for that.
So twenty minutes so you walk into the firehouse, right. Who is the captain at the time, Patty McGraw.
Ah, he said, he come three thousand miles to be a boss and a box he'll be.
Who was some of the senior men when you got there?
Uh? In that well, you had Tom mahoney, you had uh oh shit, you had Joe mclough and you had Tom McDowell.
What the fuck? Well, Irish guys.
It is the Green Rays.
Boy, Oh, it is the Green Rays. You're right minute?
We had uh Julio him good?
All right? Uh there you go, Mike, did you talken Spanish guy? Thank you? I was wondering.
We had Vernon Richards died in the trade center, Captain Richards, and he was Captain Richards, good guy. Oh, we had quite a few senior men that my brain is not working.
Well, you were the only probe that went there John at the time, rock Osentino came with me. Oh you went with a guinea Yeah right, No where he.
Lived in his own park I used to be no way even better. You know anything about those who Parker say sound I thought he was. He lived right around the corner.
I know what that is.
Yeah, yeah, he lived around the corner. Me and him coupled nice and uh, yesterday it was he sent me a thing yesterday. It was the forty fourth anniversary of our turning.
Grade of the attorney first grade.
Turning one of the grades. I don't know, uh, because.
Back then it wasn't how many years was it?
It was four grades four, three, two, one and thank god? And then you were then I got then I got paid.
Right, I went. Guys in the truck, What guys did you have there in the truck at the time? Uh?
Who cares?
Jesus quite the table truck.
The truck had some great guys. There was a fireman called Peter Zincas in the truck. Oh, you're showing me a picture of the Germans.
That's what it was. Okay, Remember I was talking about sixty.
These are Germans that came over.
I don't want to start yourself.
Rover bus ever around and the firehouse gave them a lunch and these guys were Germans were great. And I'll tell you a story about fter nine to eleven about Germany.
Okay, we'll get it tod that I was the president of the.
Students and the job thought I was a travel ager. They called me up and they said, bring all the Germans over. You're the president students. I said, yeah, we want you to get fifty people together because they're going to be sent over to Germany. I said, do I look like a travel as to you? Are you kidding me? What do I know? They said, yeah, get some you know, you could bring your wives or something like that.
So I got.
I said, I didn't want to get the guys from like the first division because they would get more money and more things and the Trona. So I got like forty one engine. I got something company you mean squad forty one? No, I won't.
I knew it.
They were forty one engine for most of my career.
And trying to bait them bro I'm trying to bait him.
You see that on that one. Real quick, I'll change the subject. I get detailed though Squad forty one. I walk in the door and there's a young lieutenant there and he goes, hey, hey, you doing. What are you here for? I said, I'm detailed from sixty to forty one. He says, oh, we don't need anybody go back to sixty. You probably get sent somewhere up. Okay. Well, at the time, Jimmy Lafferty, who I worked with for over twenty years, he was the man power pull for Sock. He did
demand power and he calls up sixty. He says, who's the asshole that just sent to forty one? Oh? John Roup put them on the phone. So I get on the phone. He says, hey, asshole. I said yeah. He goes he went to forty one. I said, yeah, Well, he just called me and said, don't send me an Indian guy. I owed, you want sock guys or truckies? I said really, I said, you know what, send them a prob trucky if you can this way, I said, I have twenty five years on a job. Send them
a prob right, I said. I did more truck work, probably than he did. Anyway, the battalion sends me the nineteen truck, one of the best truck companies around. I get there. They're going out to a job, so I rushing that I can hear them, and the boss goes. I said, who's gonna Who am I relieving? He says, the guy's not gonna go now he knows there's a job going on. Go in the the nineteen truck had that truck with the phone booth on the side. Just go in there. You're the second roofman. Not a problem.
So I go. I go in there and we go to the job. Go up to the roof. We're doing it with pulling the siel and that doing it. Go down, go down to the search. Now I see there's one all by himself, all right, So I walk up to him. I go, hey, assholes, you're talking to me. I said, well, you're the only asshole here. I said, you know what, I couldn't work in your ship, Alfred, but the guy who does the man power pull I worked for him over twenty years. He told me you didn't want me
because I was an engine guy. I got more experience than your hold backstep and guess what, I just had the roof with one of the best truck companies on the job. So guess what, You're an asshole. So he got, I can get you in trouble. I said, Well, is a friend of mine and I'm president of the studens, so I know a lot of people downtown. Try your best shot, buddy.
Oh right.
That was the end of that story.
Did you work with him as a fireman, Vanison?
He was in forty two, right, So a couple of times I was over here.
He worked in busy place man.
He was, oh yeah, forty two.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what. A lot of guys discounted and didn't like him because, oh, you can't be union guy. You can't be. You never hurt me, You never hurt anybody. I actually knew in the fire department. Guys had a heart on for him. That's their fault. I don't you know. I'm not. You do what you gotta do. I know what I got.
We had him on the show, John. We had him on the show about two three months ago, and he pulled no punches. He answered any question. He's like I got on the high bro. He was.
He was.
He was great he's great.
I've just seen him at the stupid decaraye, right, oh, and I gave him a little what for a little bit for what? He comes up behind me and he at the stupid decaray and he's rubbing my shoulders. Now I don't know who it is, and he's doing that, and I go, yeah, whoever you are, you must have been a trucky because she got soft hands. And I turned around and said, oh, this Tommy. I used to be able to call him Tommy. It's like ed when no one was around, he was around. Yeah, so that was that.
Did you did they have thirty day details back then?
Did you go to the thirty day details?
Yeah? To the truck. They didn't have that.
Oh you mean to go to the truck? No, No, I asked to go to the truck by Captain Canals. He was seventeen truck. But Patty even create the Irish spy, said you can't be going to those fakes body. We need you in the engine.
That's what I was gonna say. You never wanted to go to the truck. You always liked the engine work.
I was stating about going to the truck. But like I said, my captain when he put his hand on your shoulder and he said, no, you're staying in the end. I said, okay, And then I liked actually having a hose in my hand and putting fire out. You know that. I used to say to the truck my son was a trucky and my mother up for bid make she rest in heaven. She asked them. She goes, oh, what's the difference between the answer and the truck. So I said, well,
the truck. They go up to the fire house and a fire building and they go, I break down out book and she goes and she looks at me, and I said, then the engine comes in and they put the fire out. The truck don't put the fire out. Now, why would they do? They can't put it out with them, they got these books. They can't with the fire. No, they standing there and watch her. No, they can't do that.
I said, ay do Hey, John, I watched.
He's been I am watching live. Is what he's saying.
Honor to call your friend and brother, and I wish you all the best. Honor to call your son a brother. Firefighter Also in the job shirt Michael Tom Mike Thomas, thank you.
Answer question for you, John, where they come up with the name Green Berets. Why do they call them the Berets?
Stole my question?
Or the the Emerald Society Band, the pipe band. Yeah, in the basement of sixty seventeen Billy, Yes, And there was a bunch of Irish.
Bies fus seek oaks seek.
I'm telling you now they were I'm German, German Irish, and I'm telling you I learned to hate the bag pipes. Pipes and it does squeak can kill that catter? Ready for Christ's sake, you know, I love the band, but you can only take so much, right, so they but they started that in the basement.
And that's where they came up with the Green Beerrays. What what year is that about?
Let me see, that would have to be sixties, the late sixties, I guess mid the late sixties.
And when did they come up with the named Green Beer Rays in.
The sixties before me?
I don't know.
I got that. And there's still the Green Bereys, even though I venture to say that the Irish population in the firehouse has gone down.
Yes, probably that wasn't the truck and the engine. It was just the engine that with the Green berays, both both and the chief.
The chiefs would have a green beret Onto and Joe McLaughlin. You had a picture of him earlier standard of the firehouse. His mother, that guy, his mother made all the original green berets.
Oh really, yeah, you would knit them.
So if you had an original.
You got the picture of them with the upstairs. I have.
This one there you go.
I would say she made half of those because some of the guys were new and I don't know where the how they got their bearrats from. Wow, but uh anyo at the time on the joble no other guys do have time.
On We were talking in the pre show how you were talking about like in house watch with it you weren't allowed to watch TV that had like what year we talking about, like seventy nine.
Uh, nineteen eighty, early eighties. They would have the television in a little cutout and a sliding door. And if you've seen it not the battalion chief they lived with us. It was fine with them. But if a deputy came or higher up live de door older and you pretend like you were reading now they got a uh what do you call folding bed comes out? Now? Right, all
those things. Murphy bed bigger television. But it doesn't matter because they're all on this right, all on the phone, you know what I mean?
Yes, oh, we know.
What's amazing you have that.
What was the busiest business?
Get runs?
What was the busiest night? You can remember that John.
Fifteen, all hands are better and one night.
Fifteen all hands or better? In one night three.
Came up as chump change to you know, to relocate to sixty seventeen. And when two ninety hit the Sharborough Bridge, they are ninety to the Bronx, acting six to oh, and the Bronx said, yeah, two ninety you're sixth section of sixty engine sponsor box SO and SOS whatever. And then when you get done, if you go to sixty, don't hit the computer.
You know, all hands are better and one night to one.
Night to her, that's nice and that was fun. Yeah. I wound up going to about four of them, right, you.
Was serious about that.
And it was in April.
It wasn't even in the winter.
April I think it was, or maybe it was March something like that. It was not summer, and it was crazy, mostly all hands and you know what some of if they've seen smoke from five blocks. My it's in all hands.
Yeah. But yeah, Well, any any fires that stand out to you?
The fire with my son fought a long first two that stood out.
The ship that's a I never heard that job before, nob A lot of those those moments.
The tanks now the gas tanks. They were on fire down one hundred and thirty second Street day and me last fire by stood out.
Oh what was It.
Was a commercial building and we were second to eighty three was first due, and I'm following the line and it wasn't charged yet, and then when it charged, I didn't realize it was dark, completely black. I was by the truck entrance and you know the truck has like four feet around it higher. Well, when they've charged the line, I didn't know better, but I went down the four feet right on my right shoulder and that wasn't good. It's tore my rotor coff So that was my last job, being my last job.
What year did you start driving?
It depends on uh, you mean as a real chauffeur.
Not a company, No, as a as a Saulfaur chauffeur.
One of the chauffers might have been under the weather. You might say, you know he he caught a cold or something down in the basement.
Ah, I got you and not fit for driving?
Well, sorry, we're going down. He got to about one hundred and forty and the rick stops, and well, everybody on the backstep is going, what the hell is going on here? And we look in the front and his head is on the steeling road, allegedly allegedly on the steel. And the captain, who wasn't too far behind him, says, row, get up here. He said, what he says, I know you drive. You drove a truck in private life, so you're driving.
I said, huh, how many? How many years you have on at this point?
At that point? Eight?
And when did you get the seat?
Hey? So I got and so I got down there and I'm going, thank god that every Sunday morning we had drills. So I knew what a hydrant was, you know, So you know, so I hooked up to the hydrant and I sister took a line off me, so I knew where to put it in the water, and I gave it to him. Little did I know that forty one and eighty three also came down and took lines off me. Because it was sixty. And now they're calling
for water. I'm going, why are you calling me? And I look in the backstep and there's two lines hanging down, so I grabbed one of them. I put it on and I said, here comes your water. I didn't know what you was rich.
Oh make it.
I'm happy. And when I'm not so happy, And now the deputy finally shows up and eighty three and twenty nine just get on hygrants and blah blah blah blah, and helped the shaw for for sixty leave me alone and finally get the water. And after the job, eighty three lieutenant comes down. He's yelling at me. I asked for water. I don't want water, And I said, what would be nice if you guys actually took the hosing
handed to me? So I know what the hell I'm doing, I said, I only became a show for about an hour ago on the fire at the fire well and that was the end of that. That was my first job.
That's when I had that ross relief valve. Right, you had the when you had to crank back when it trickled out of the pipe, right when you're in the max.
Oh, we never had a back. American France did, yeah, American France, and I forget the first one was nineteen eighty something whatever it was, but never had a mac o.
Susan Murray loves you.
And Jennifer Foley want a chat as well.
And Jennifer Foley she's on that. Another daughter.
Now you let him marry an Irish guy, John, you let her mary an Irish.
Kany you look at the irishman.
She didn't marry as good to Foley and Murray. What are you thinking on Maurial Murray, they're gonna marry Germans. No, I got three sons, they're old roars. And then my other daughter married a Greek glick.
What do you got?
Six kids? He's a great guy. He's upstate now killing for defense.
Oh like louis nice?
So you lleye quiet, I'm hunting weapons.
You got? You got six kids? Six kids? Cause and gotta got a television. We haven't had one since.
Good for you. Six kids and only one of them became One son became a fireman.
And one became a correction officer who just he got hurt, had got hurt on the job, had a knee replacement. And it's hard to get out of the corrections. They put him back to full dirty. He goes back, they gets into another You know, the convicts don't give a crap job attacktic. So they attacked him again and he had to get a second knee replacement.
That sucks.
And I might as well tell you this. He beat the crap out of someone on the job. You know, they attacked him. So he was a big he's a big guy. He beats him up. They soon, so they go to their Bronx. Bronx convict, you're gonna win. So he lost and they don't. They don't cover you in a correction department.
Wait a minute, wait you tell me that the convict one?
Yes, well, no you didn't win the fight.
He no, he won this the lawsuit. Yeah, what did not supposed to have? Right you was talking about.
Top You see a correction officer in the Bronx. They always the copy gonna win and the correction officer ain't gonna win.
Right now, Going back when you when you got to sixty, what was what was the neighborhood like? Was a like crime infested crack with I mean cracked eighties is the crack?
Yeah, yeah, crackers, whack yeah. We had a liquor store next to the firehouse with about I would say fifteen eighteen locals, and within three years there might have been two of them left.
They all.
They didn't like move. They just died dead from We had more shootings i've been. I responded to quite a few guys that I have one guy this best. When I was a chauffeur at the end of my career, I had this captain. He was a real asshole.
No.
When when I pull up to the firehouse, you gotta turn a little bit, so you get back in and I'm facing the projects across the street. Here comes the guy out of the project and another guy behind him shoots him night in the back of.
The head mob style.
He's getting out of the rig yelling to the guys in the back, we got a guy shot across the street. Get the medical bag. I said, stay in the ring. We're gonna back this bad boy up. Get bricks between us and the guy with the gun. And he says, are you giving orders? I said, well, are you going to be an asshole? And go? With his shooters still off the seat. Now we go into firehouse. You can see the guy going down the block. I said, okay, let's go cross the street, and we got proby Branda Broby.
I felt bad for him, first time he ever seen anything like just and they's got brain mattter coming out of his head. He's still moving a little bit. And I told the probe he's gonna be dead within the minute. I'm telling you right now. And he craps out in the provs like, oh, oh, I can't this, Oh this is bad. And the cops come and says, I'll get in your car. We'll go around there and let's see if we can find the shooter. I said, guys, he's going to get one of us killed, right comes back
five minutes later, now that the project's over. Over there, got hundreds of people all around this, you know, watching what's going on. And he comes back and the cop walks away from me and he shouts at the cop if we see him, I'm going to pull you up and tell you I got him. I said, guys, let's go back in the fire house. This knit it's going to get us killed.
Yep.
And by the way, his name was Alanagan again wolf again.
Oh.
I was the Comisarf sixteen years. In my fifteenth year, calls me into the office. He says, you know, I don't like the idea of one commissof I want to make it second Commissar. I said, hold your thought, cap, I'll be right back. Ran upstairs, got the paperwork, got all the money, came down through it on his dests. I said, you'd better make two because I'm out. He said, well, I'll make two, he says, I said, you can't make any it's the firehouse. Everybody in the firehouse votes for
commisar R. You got one vote. The sixty four guys in the firehouse, you're one of sixty four.
Is that the same captain asshole?
Yeah?
So I go.
I go in the sitting room, which is right next to his office. He can hear every basically almost everything that's going on in the sittingroom. I'm there with some guys and I'm telling my tailor woe. All of a sudden, his door slams. He goes out to the house. Watch all in the front of the firehouse. Fireman rowed to the house to the engine office, and they going always calling. He's calling you now, So I said, well, I ain't
going in there now. All you got, I said, I ain't going in there, and I don't go in there. Five minutes later, out there the house watching again, fireman rowed to the engine office. He says, a second goal, you gotta go in there. I'm still not going in there. I'm sitting there. Third time he comes out of the office, he comes into the sitting room. Can you hear me calling you? I said, you knew I was here. Why did you go out to the house watching broadcast that
you want me to androw off? Why did you just come in like a gentleman and asked me to come back in? He didn't say a word. Come in your office. I go in your office, hands me back the paperwork in the money. He says, okay, you'll be the only housewatch only commissaw commissarw So. I said, well, okay, you could have started that conversation a long time ago. I said, but you only got one vote. Or if you want, you know, you can ask everybody to vote me out.
It's fine with me. I doing it for almost fifty I was over fifteen years.
It's a fucking factless job.
Commisso, I have before letter name or HR four letters. He misspelt it twice on official paperwork. This spelled it. So I find this out and I said, okay, so I'm on the watch. He gets a phone calls name is Lonigan, and I'm going luka goo. One guy goes in the office. He goes, he's calling you any of my name? He says, no, that's your name for him. So he picks up the phone, captain and just chicks up. So now he gets another phone call and I do
it again, lulau luka. Who picks up the phone. Then he comes out to me and goes, why are you doing this? I said, when you spell my name right, I'll pronounce your name right.
Got it for you, broy.
For you takes ship from nobody, takes.
Ship from nobody.
You the Were you the senior man when you left there?
Yes? Bye bye?
Quite a bit right.
Oh, here's one thing. Being a chauffeur. I always took the junior guy in the engine. I don't care how many years or months or minutes he had on a jock. You I would clean the rake on a day tour. You polish your brass. That was that was my thing. Every day tour I cleaned the rake. The junior man would polish your brass. We had some things that were brass. Okay, talk about senior man. I'm retired. I'm retiring. I gotta show you this. I had to retirement party. Oh look what they.
Gave me bread. That's nice, bro, Bring up a little higher, Bring it up a little higher.
John turn, turn a little and he gives me a apology. Breath over and he said, polish your own goddamn brass.
That is nice.
It's heavy, too solid brass. God, But Joe, I pulled.
Up some pictures from nineteen seventy nine in the Bronx. I want to know if this is what it looked like when you were up there, go ahead.
Was there any fire? Yes, that would be closer to fifty engine eighty two engine uh north of eighty three engined. We had a lot of projects by us.
You had, John guns, Oh yeah.
That looks good. I think that the people probably moved out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then the other we have was just just uh kind of look right here.
Yeah. I mean you know what, I feel sorry for those people.
John. You know what, people, especially the young kids, they don't realize what that You show these pictures and they have no idea what it was like up there. In the box.
Do you'll tell you what that Uh, it's it's said, Yeah that was said, and uh, you know what, what can you say? Yeah, it's it's terrible and they you know why, department did a lot of work. As you could tell we, uh, saved a lot of buildings.
Yeah.
I didn't want to ask you though.
Right, Foundations saved a lot of foundations, Mike.
I didn't want to ask because you spent your whole career there. You didn't really bounce around too much twenty six years there. So sometimes progress is faster in other areas of the city than others slower, vice versa. By the time the mid nineties came around or towards the end of your career four to oh five, was the area substantially improved or did it take a longer time?
Absolutely? Okay, I'm trying to think of his name. It was a priest, his brother was a politician whatever. He started coming up with money and they were building houses. They were kind of attached down the block, like you know, two story jobs, and they built a lot of them, and uh, you know you mentioned seventy three, forty two, they had a lot of them all around there, and everything and the neighbors started being nice.
Uh.
When built where Freedom Land was in the Bronx, they built co Op City that emptied out the Grand Concourse, the Green Concourse. Most of those people moved to co Op City, right, and a lot of the people that got burnt out in the South Bronx go to the Grand Concourse, which Babe Ruth lived on, by the way.
Really, yeah, but you had I mean there are a lot of buildings. You would go to the same buildings over and over, sometimes in the same night, right, I mean you'd go to a fire and be back there not too long after.
I'm not too proud of this, but I'm going to tell you an incident. I got the nozzle going upstairs to a fire. Say it's on the third or fourth floor. I forget, and here's a guy coming down with a suitcase. Okay, And as he's passed me, he tells me, oh, my son is in the apartment on the fourth floor. So I accidentally stuck out my foot and he tripped all the way down the stairs. And it was an accident, rightly, it happened. Yeah, it was the noise left in the apartment.
But he could suitcase. Yeah, you know because uh sometimes and it's this is true. The landlords would tell them you better be out by Friday night. Of course they had lightning coming, and there was a derogatory term they used to call Jewish lightning. You know, I personally didn't care for that term, but they called the Jewish lightning. The neighbor would sell the building to the insurance company.
Right, I mean back then too, if you got burnt out of your house, you you pushed to the front of the line for subsidized housing right to a lot of the people. A lot of these people would have their bags and everything packed sitting on.
The curve fifty first Street and offered the Grand concourse was a watch the avenue or something like that, whatever it was, one to the left of it. They had the office there where you would go in and get the new apartment right and we would get cold there quite often because they'd have a line right then you'd go up to the front of the line and get
a new apartment. We would get false alarms there quite often because every time they pulled the alarm, everybody have to get out, and now they're going back in and you know, to.
The front of the line.
The line. Yeah, so they would do that jack asses. We would go there all the time. It's like Jesus Chris, you know, we're going back there again. And then we found out for one party. Yeah, they keep pulling up fregget alarm and and just to get in front of the line. And they get two thousand dollars for new furniture.
Right yep. So you pull up to a job and people will be on the curb with all their bags and all that ship. Absolutely they would go to the front of the line.
Man, I mean, you know, it's it's a shame, but it happened. And now on the bottom of the Bronx by Bruckn the boulevard there there used to be what would you say, not you know, off not off buildings that they used to manufacture stuff and this and that, and they turned it into like soho really yeah, I'm telling you all these yuppy yuppies people moving in there because they're only two or three stops on the fore
train to get downtown, you know. And uh, all of a sudden you go to opt in the Bronx and Bruck the Bulvard. The old people are not the animal, it's the young regentrified. Oh yeah, yeah, I you know, I'm not used to walking into a bar the guys have a retirement party and want of the bars and bipructional bulbar. I'm not used to walking in the bar down there and see nothing but white people. Yeah, I'm going, where am I?
Yeah?
This ain't the South Bronx that I know. And the guy goes to me, what are you doing? They said, I'm looking for retiring Oh that's the other bar down
the other corner. And I walked down there and there was my guys down there, and there was a lot of govern white people of the guys in there too, And I'm going and then that's telling me, oh, yeah, this building here, this building here, and now if you went up to one hundred and thirty eighth Street, well your building, not all of them, but a lot of them are down and new projects going up and it's
all jetified. And I'm going, well, I don't know if that's good bear and different because they kicked a lot of people out, I don't know where they're going.
Yeah, I mean I drove through not too long now, maybe a year ago. I drove to Bedstyle right, asked one eleven and two fourteen, and I'm like this yuppie moms pushing baby carriages, people on bikes. I'm like, what the hell happened at bed? Stuffy?
Go on one eleven and two fourteen? Go to the stupid meeting every month. A whole bunch of them, about twelve of them. Good guys. But I give them the business every time I get. Of course you do, of course, I said, you know, I tell them you guys do any work at all.
You're like, oh, you don't have a we don't have a partner on, but you're gonna tell them if he popped on he's not in DV.
Come on, Oh jeez, it's still he said, between nine and we had there's still a slight chance.
He was struggling chat.
Why was their house the only building on their block? But all that it's so good? Why they lost every other building?
Now? Actually there's a lot of uh those two stories, yeah, two story projects on the board.
We got a cap they're old. There was a lieutenanty I became a captain of seventeen. Dave Maxwell, big guy could take all the smoke you ever wanted to give him. He was a great fireman. But that's Probrary left. Now they're good. They're a good house, except Canossie hates them.
Kenosi hates what oh right, right right right?
Yeah? You know why?
Yes, yeah, I do.
It also life and and Canossi still blames them.
Yeah, what the hell was I just gonna ask you ship while.
You while you pondered that, I was just gonna I want to real quick.
Before while you go to the bathroom.
That's I'm talking with John Roar here in episode two Hudred and thirty to get Salty Experience. I mean, there's a lot of debate with gentrification that's not going to be settled here, that's for sure. But I'll ask you this as someone again he spent twenty six years watching one neighborhood evolve from one direction to another from seventy nine to five.
I mean, is there a little bit of pride from the.
Standpoint that had you guys not done the work you did, the neighborhood would have never have been a position to change in the first place, because.
A lot of that was due to the good work of the FDLI.
There were a lot of good people. Don't get me wrong. South Brons had a lot of good people of course, yeah, and they had networks young.
Yeah.
And we used to give a lunch to the seniors from my Downald block was the Senior Center and we used to make a big lunch. Itb be about one hundred and some people. We would give lunch show every year. And one woman told me, she says, do you notice that a lot of old people past your firehouse early
in the morning. I said, well, not, you know, not that, not that I'm outside looking at old people, I said, But yeah, I say, she says, because the old people early in the morning go shopping and go back into their house because all the young guys that are not so nice, they're out to at night and they sleep late in the morning. So we go out so we don't get robbed or picked on or whatever. And I said, I never really noticed that, but that was from one
of the seniors that we know. And I said, wow, I never noticed that, but I feel bad for that. You know, we have people shot all over the place, and there's nothing like going to you know, somebody that's still living, you know that's shot and you're waiting for an ambulance. Which Lincoln Hospital was a block away from the firehouse, and we get there, and we got to wait fifteen minutes for an ambulance. So one time a guy gets a woman gets shot and one of guys, me and him go down.
We see it.
He puts his finger in the bullethole to stop the bleeding because the engine didn't get out yet and a cop car was dead, and he he dumps her in the cop guard with his finger and he says, Lincoln, hurry up and brings it to link it fifteen minutes later and Enables showed up. Now they're gone, sorry too late. Yeah, you know, and they would happen all the time. Uh Ams, they pick and choose, you know, unless, of course they
got so many calls that they couldn't make it. But you know, because up there there are a lot of.
Coals, especially back then, and they didn't have a lot of resources either. This as well before the FDNY merger.
Uh well, you got news for you. The only reason they want us be cauld We get there first and we kind of stabilize the situation. Yeah, and then there's a lot of people that might be a little bit overweight. And when two girls show up and you look at the patients and they're not going to pick him up. So the engine of the truck has to pick him up up and bring them downstairs and put them in the air blots. And there's some mighty big people. Yes, no,
they might eat too much a little bit, you know that. Ye.
I want to ask you about the scene we're talking about Brooklyn and the Bronx, the legends, the turnout between Brooklyn and the Bronx where they're running everybody's rock because I started at Brooklyn too, So you're running to the rig or you're sorry, so you tell me about it. What was the turnout like in the Bronx? Your first, do your first, do your second, do your second. Do there's no beating anybody in.
You're right if you if I'm going to a job on the show, I'm going.
To a job.
I can see it's a job, and I could see eighty three coming their first two I'm second to. I don't want to let them have the hydrant. I'll take the next hydrid because their first I'm not gonna Oh, I'm not like Brooklyn. You know what I'm talking about. Here we go companies in Brooklyn, they beat your ass in. If they were fifth due, they're racing down like I've broke details in Brooklyn and I've seen the act that
I'm going, Are you shooting me? You're trying to beat that engine in their first your second, dude, give them their duke, because if you get them their duke, they'll give you your duke.
Don't work.
Yeah, forty one is a different story. No, they're not a squad.
Oh they're in a hance tension.
Yeah, well they they had a Captain Adams. I love that guy. He would try to get on the rigging. You know, we only had first do boxes going west to the firehouse, the second due box going west. Basically it was a harlem all right, going north with fifty one engine was we only went three blocks and then we were second due go in the other direction south and east three blocks. In eighty three we had a keeny weeny little first do area, but we still do.
You know, we were doing five thousand change runs there the year, and uh a lot of them were first do because for some reason, the projects were a nemesis, you know, and uh a lot of it was some of it was bullshit.
You know.
They go to uh they went from to compactors. They used to not be compactors. But they went to compactors and for some reason they loved to light the compact us up on fire. Then it was bullshit though unless one hundred and thirty Hry. We had a report of a man on fire and we got there and we went in the door and they were shut shitting in the hallway. There was a man on fire ship. Yeah the movie.
What what are the buildings did you have there besides projects?
Well, when you got down the next block was all.
All tenements as those are.
They were a lot of fun. Yeah, and then you went south you would have you know, businesses, you know, one three Atry was like a stores and all that commercial good stores down there. And uh, I gotta admit we didn't do too well.
Sometimes that's what says we can do.
So good, you can do so the head star and you know, and we had one show for Patty McAndrews. I love the guys. He's no longer with us. But the more fire he's seen, the more pressure he'd give you. And if you had a juice and a half, you know, two and a half inch hose and you're trying to hold a hose and he's pumping that bad boy up, you he off the ground and you go were off the ground and going, yeah, can you lower the pressure? Yeah,
there was a lot of fire. Yeah, but I can't put it out because I'm flying.
How did you h How was your relationship with Rescue three?
They were good? Yeah, good, Well, seventeen trucks sent a couple of guys up there, you know, yeah, and uh, you know, they were all right by the time. We had a great job with Rescue three. And a lot of times a lot of companies would come back to our quarters and somehow they would disappear from them, you know, from the operator's floor. I don't know exactly where they went,
you know, but they would disappear. So the one night, you know the brons, you know, you steal stuff and the fire you know, a relocated steal something, and they eventually you'd have to go to their firehouse and steal it back. You couldn't see you steal it back. So Rescue three came to our quarters and they back then the quarters. So we stole the bumper, the bumper, the bumper of the off the truck, and they didn't realize until they got home. The back bumper.
We talked.
Went home and they called us up, your son of a bitches.
I didn't know that was a Bronx thing. I was told it was a prob be doing. I would go to another firehouse and not steal something.
It was all over. There was a thing that looked like a bomb or a torpedo or something like that. I bet you that made twenty firehouses in the Bronx. Everybody stole that, really, and no one, no one to this day knows where it started. You know who owned it because they went to every firehouse, and we had to show that this is great. Forty two engines stole something. Of matter of fact, I think it was the torpedo, and we go up there to relocade and we're looking
at it, but they came back. We could steal it, right, So our show for Tom Mahoney, good guy, Greg guy, He goes, all right, I'll figure this out. So forty three would run in with forty forty two would run in with forty three engine. Right, So they get a fire together forty two, two and forty three. He calls up the dispatcher, which I wasn't too crazy about, and he says, we want to relocate the forty three. So we said, do you want to go to forty two
so we could steal that thing back? He says, we are, but we're signed to forty three. They're at the fire We're going to forty two. Steal that they they'll never know who was up to. And it was good. We took it back and it wasn't a week later it was gone.
It's gone.
Yeah, somebody stole it.
We had I'll tell you a quick story. We had a plaque about this big it said to eighty eight. It was yellow gold with chrome letters. Right, So we go to a job and we didn't realize it. We get back to the firehouse. It's gone. Somebody stole it off the ring. About six months later, we start getting postcards from guys who are going all over the country on vacation and they send a picture of the thing, like Hey, I'm in Disney World having a great time. To see you soon.
That's good.
They were all over the world send the pictures. You know, they would cover their face, but they would have the plaque like yeah, I'm in Germany, I'll see you soon and take care right. So yeah, yeah, and then.
You got what's with us? Yeah, Well, hasn't it before has Matt was there that that was a you know what they did inspects upstairs? Yeah, on the second Florida, I did six weeks there doing inspections. Oh man, yeah, not nice. No, I didn't like that at all. Yeah, you know you had to go out and give violations out, and so you know, every once in a while they're going, how many violations did you give out? I mean, well,
you know I have to see them. They said, you're going to go in those buildings and you didn't see a violation? I said, no, don't I know? Yeah, give me a list of what violations I should be looking for. You know, I gave out something, but it was like what am I going to bust people's shops for now? If it was a real violation, you know, bad fun. But yeah, oh that you had two doors going out. One of them you know, like you know that have
two doors. One of them was kind of not you couldn't open it or if you didn't give them a violation for that, But I had the other door next, But now I would give it out.
See you learned. Yeah, so let me let me tell you. Let me tell you the end of that stories, Like did you ever get it?
Back.
Eight months later, there's a knock at the door in the morning before roll call and the the plaque sitting outside the door. I'm like, nobody else, Nope, just a plaque. We put the plaque back on the rink. Right about three months later, they send photos in an envelope of some she had to be about four hundred pounds girl in the shower urinating on the plaque.
Whoa man? Now, some of the guys that think we discussed that before.
What you might know where they're from.
Oh, I know who they were. I know exactly who they were.
And they didn't tell you the girl. So this way, you go knock on the door and say I want to thank you for somebody.
Somebody called over there and said, you know what's you know, it's great of that fuck of that chick pissing on that plaque. But you know what's terrible. One of you guys is probably fucking that broad.
I'll tell you what. None. Yeah, that's terrible.
I know why you're laughing.
It's not the visual I was hoping to witness Monday Night. But nevertheless, I tell people the truth.
I tell people that the best comedy show you'll ever see in your life is a firehouse kitchen.
Oh my god, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, you'll learn that you can't make up the ship that happened to learn that.
I don't know about that happened. They might be a little dry.
And we're getting him ready, though, John, We get him ready. He knows.
And I hope you put a fire out your first day.
Thank you're putting out fires. He's putting fires. We don't even know about it. He's putting out fires.
Oh God, tell about the women that come up with the uniform.
Oh man on the batch monies.
Yeah, what we had one of the first women on the job. You did sixty zales.
Hmmm, related to me.
We got by it.
Oh with.
The one that was a lawyer that started the whole thing. I can't remember her name.
Bred Brenda Burkley, all right, Brenda Berkman.
Brenda Burkman, the two of them. You know, back then, if you were proby, the captain get you laid off for no reason at all. He just said zero on the account and you're gone. Well, they both of them got laid off, and they sued. She sued, and they got went to court and the same liberal judge said, down the Stuffisco ecosps door. You're back on the job. But Zey couldn't come back to us. She went to in Harlem where they do the inspections on the second floor,
like to eighty eight. So she was doing inspections for like the next ten twelve years. Then the job, in their wisdom, let her go out to the Rock and teach show for training. She never drove a day to life.
That's a minor technicality, John, come on, mine of technicality.
And then she went to seventy engine got to be the busiest firehouse in the world. And this is the truth. If you guys can look it up. Look up nineteen seventy. I think it was five, maybe three, but seventy five or seventy three. They did twelve runs.
Twelve runs.
Where are seven the engine not the city island?
Oh it is city Island.
Yeah, yeah, twelve runs, twelve And New York City Fire Department does not allow you to put a report in a monthly report runs runs a working report negative you have to have a positive number. So one is a positive number.
Yeah. I've heard a lot of.
Stud over the year.
Yeah, I've had months.
They didn't do any runs back then.
Guys used to go home, right who lived over there and leave the two doors away?
Yeah, and what he do is he put his boots on his too, and that told the boss he was working. Yeah. They didn't get because what we're doing allegedly, Yeah, and allegedly were you working when the college kids came around and were teaching you about being nice on the job, You mean, you know, inclusion and this is nice. Well, they went to sixty seventeen and I want to tell you the right groups were working. Boy, oh boy, he went up one side of these people and down the
other side of the people. It wasn't nice. I have to admit it was not nice. Right because these young college kids, they they did didn't expect this. Well, fast forward about four months, three months, we go to seven the engine relocate because they were going to get this instruction and they're out of service, so they had to get someone else there. They can't go out of service or off the island without someone else being in their fire. So sixty engine gets called to go there. Same college
kids over there giving them the instructions. So we're out by the house, wash mind ow business and I'm a coffee drinker and I said, I gotta go get a couple of coffee. You I don't care what's going on. So I go in there and I hear them talking about my firehouse. How rude and how nasty these guys were. They're the worst human beings that God have created. So I got my coffee. Excuse me, I got to leave now.
But you're saying about how being nice. Well, you're talking about my firehouse and my guys and me, I said, I don't think that's very nice to you. And I walked out the door, and you should have seen the expressions on their face, like, oh crap, what did we just do? Well, you don't learn about people if you if you're not going to be nice.
But nice goes both ways.
Bro, try to be nice, but if you're not nice to me, I'm going to be up one side and down the other.
Let me ask you a question, John, what do you think was the best time in your career? Like, if you look back now, what was your favorite years in your career?
My first when I was down the chauffeur.
When you first got to the firehouse.
When I was down the chauffeur, and well, I'll give you an example. I always love to be a nossel man. If I couldn't be a Nacevan. I wanted to be the backup you guys. You know I was always wanted to be in the frog.
Right.
So this kid, Dennis Hodgs, great guy. Me and him used to have little rivalries. And I'm on the back step, he's on the back step, and you know we actually now we're inside, not actually on the back step of work, we're inside the rig. And I said, yeah, I'm going to get the nozzle today, said bullshit, I'm getting the nossele today. Well, we go to a caught fire. I get out the rig and run to the back. I got the the hose. He comes back, gives me an elbow, loosens my teeth up. But I go down to the
ground and I'm like, shake it up. Now. The other guys come out and all like trying to help me up, and oh, John, what's going on? I said, Oh, my tooth just loosen, losing to tooth. And civilian comes over and he goes, hey, guys, you think you could put that car fire off?
I hope you beat his ass after that. Bro uh.
M hmm. I was all shaking up and I'm going I don't know what to do.
Because the guy came over and said, you just got knocked the funk out, son.
It couldn't have been an even fight, you know what I mean? He was, so we kind of left it alone. And then later on that day we had another little fire and I got to the backstep and there was no Dennis back and punched me this time.
Listen, no elbow. What happened to the Bronx and gentleman bro What?
I don't.
Exceptions to every rule there are?
Which Bronx are you talking about?
Ah?
No, you know we were gentlemen to the other companies. Oh have your little in all right. One more incident Vietnam VET. I had a guy in the fire house and will not mention his name, but he's called me a baby coller and I said that bullshit.
Stop.
He said, oh, you're a Vietnam VN. You were baby killers. He said. I said no more. He calls me again. I said, you do that again. I want to beat the balls off you. He did it, and after about three shots, he's down on the ground and I got two or three guys jumping on me trying to get me off of him. They go wow, you went crazy, I said, I told him, you warned them. Bro, that phrase hits me hard. I said, because I was called the baby killer in the airport going home, I'm not going to take it.
Good for you.
And since then we were good friends up until then, and we still are good friends.
Now.
We got over the apology and I said, yeah, I'm not apologizing for hitting. You deserved it, he says, yeah, I kind of. I kind of get where you were coming from now.
I said, well, do you still go back there?
That was yeah, but you know I got mad and that was the only time I actually lost my temper in twenty five years.
Do you still go back there at all?
Oh?
Yeah? We have Christmas ing uh December eleventh at the in by the Thrives and neck Bridge. There's a thing, and then they have the Christmas Party. And every summer on September they have Long Beach Party on Pennsylvania Avenue and on Long Beach on the beach and we get about one hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy five guys. You know, they go all the way back as.
Far as you can go Long Long Beach, Long Island. Yeah, Oh, I look right, Yeah, yeah, you're on the beach. I look right there. Well, i'll come on down.
I'll let you know.
Thank you. Well, I'm going to see you at the stupid.
Day John John Rice goes there.
Oh does he? Oh? Yeah, the son of a gun.
Yeah, these things happened in your backyard. You don't know what's going on.
John Rice will be coming on the show.
He'll be all about him. So I don't know.
He was a seventeen truck guide, right, He wasn't in the engine.
No, no, he was one of the ponies.
Yeah, one of the pies.
But he did.
He did go to ninety one engine as a lieutenant. Yeah.
Well, what can I tell you? Yeah, good, good house.
I think we got him on. I don't know what this is the twenty third of December.
John's Rice is a good guy.
Yeah, a little too tall for me. But he said the anything about you. I don't know what the fuck he was talking about.
That. He's a he's a good guy. Good find me. And I don't know how he was as a boss because I never worked on him. I didn't only imagine it would be good guys, so you can imagine good guys and bad guys.
You know, Wait, which guys are, because sometimes the brothers say, oh, he's such a good guy, a good guy, good guy, But you're like, yeah, I don't know about that. What is your definition of a good guy? You know?
I was going to save that for what you say to a new guy coming in.
Well, for your old school tip of the day. Yeah, don't bring it up yet. We're not there yet, We're almost there. Not yet. Favorite porch you ever worked with?
John favorite bors? Yeah, John Lennard. He came from Harlem, musician fifty nine and I believe yeah, right, And he came over a little bit of a nut job. Well you gotta be and good guy, really good guy in short working and sometimes things would go a little astray when he's working. We called it the Lenny factor, right, And but he was a good guy to work with and fun, fun, fun guy to work with. And I'm
still in touch with him. He lived down he lives up in Rockland, but he has a US down at South Florida, and uh, he invited me down a couple of times. I gotta go see him down there sometime, and uh, we go out on buildings and I did a lot of my you know, shopping, I might say when we were out on building for the house and we were doing shopping one morning and the deputy calls and give me a ten ten or whatever that thing was. Where are you because we're supposed to bet a building.
So he has all the cards, and it says and he picks out a card and he tells this pressure to tell the deputy where we are, and everyone in the riggage.
No, not that rite, anyone but that one.
And it wound up being the whole first alarm with uh where you worked has matt and a lot of because it had more has mad ship in it, and and goes, why would you give me this.
Because she was shopping?
Well, I didn't say were no, Oh my god, it was everybody's gone. Thank god. I was a show outside, going this is not good because more and more rigs are coming, and rescue come and and uh and all that other fake of forty.
One, oh, picking up a little friction.
I love the old The guys are great, but then when they became a squid, guys from Brooklyn and Manhattan, the rescue wannabes would come, and you.
Know, it's all coming back to me now. Gods, because when I would go to the Christmas parties. He would say the same thing. Oh you're from squid ah uh.
You know that they all want to be rescue guys. So they go into the squad to jump up to be a rescue guy.
See, I wanted to be I wanted to do work, and I still wanted to go to first two engine works. So that's why I went there.
I was, well, now that we've brought this up, I don't know if I told you, but I was in squad before that other incident. We go up by seventy five engine and we're told to go above the fire and certain. So I'm up there and I hear help me, help me, help me. A little Spanish guy take the door, go in. It's a little biking and he's got his hand on the mattress of the bed. He's got this little voice, help me alby, all right. So I pick him up. I said, can you walk? Yeah, take him
out of the apartment. I rush him to the stairway. I get him below the fire, I said, can you walk you? See, I said, go downstairs. They got an ambulance down, they get some oxygen. I go back up there and searching again. Guy from forty one. Hey, you made a grab, Paul Good, I said, I didn't make you a grab. I made a removal. All of a sudden, at the end of the job, the boss comes up to me, I'm going to write you up, as said, what did I do? I thought I did something wrong.
He goes, no, you made a grab. I said, I made a removal. Don't write me up for nothing. He goes, no, but I was told I said you were told wrong, But he didn't write me up.
That's good frog.
You know, this is the second time I turned something something good Vietnam. I turned down the Purple Heart.
All right, what do you mean you turned down of Purple Heart?
Because it was stupid. That's why I was too target right, And we're getting shelled, and we're shelling out, but we're running out of rounds, and the rounds come in a box with metal bandits. We only have one band cutter, so one guy's cutting, but we needed more. So I grabbed an axe and I got the box between my legs and I'm hitting the bands and breaking them, taking the rounds out and all that motor rounds. Well, just as I'm swinging the axe, a round comes down and explodes.
I don't know close to me, but I didn't get injured by it. But I was swinging the axe and went right in my foot. Oh, it went in about an inch into my side of my foot right now, medic. Medic, I'm walking over to him, and he goes, why would you put an axe in your foot? I said, asshole, I didn't just put it in man, you know. So I take my boot off and it's January of February, which is the rainy season in Vietnam, and he wraps my foot up so much I can't get the boot
back on and it's not but mud. So I said, well, this ain't gonna work. I took it. So I took a lot of the bandage off and got my boot on the best I could, and I was went back to try to get some work done. So the lieutenant goes, I see what happened. I said, yeah, you know, that was kind of bad. He says, yeah, I seen it. When the round hit you lost your axes and you went right in your foot. I said, yeah, So I'm going to put you in for purple heart. You'll get one.
I said, I'm going to get a purple heart for putting an axe in my own foot. I said, I'm going to tell guys who got shot up almost a leg? Oh what'd you do? I put an actione in my foot? Yeah, stupid for you. Now now go back to go coming fifty sixty years later, I said, oh shit, I wish I took that purple off because in Jersey, or at least in my township, you got purple heart. You don't pay any house, you know, property tax?
What, No, man, you should have taken that purple hot.
Bro that's ten thousand dollars. Hell yeah, so in it this way, that's that's a story and a half.
But damn, John, let me ask you a question. Seeing what you're sawing Vietnam, you feat that when you went to the fire department, you're a little more uh, I guess calm or prepared for what?
Yeah? Yeah? After?
What's going to rattle you? After Vietnam?
Yeah, wouldn't rather be I had snipe, but we killed al barber on the wire. A guy would come in. A lot of the Vietnamese would come on, you know, any anywhere you were. They cut your hair, They do this or do that for a couple of you know, of the Disney money that they got out the Monopoly Bundy looks like Monopoly Bundy over there though that the US had, well, you know, you give us so many
a dollar in Vietnam, it's like a million dollars to them, right. Well, a guy would come in and cut your hair for the next like pennies. And one night we're getting income and in the from the on the wire and we're killing them and one of them was al Barba. Well that's nice in the daytime and he's trying to kill you at night. Should happened, you know, so you.
Were ready for anything you saw. The job was nothing compared to what you saw.
Now.
Yeah, well you know, uh tell me that some bad luck. We lost guys in seventeen, but they we didn't lose the guy since the seventies.
Right right, and.
You know, well other than you know, uh not eleven. But it was like, no, you know, everybody goes to the fire. Some guys get hurt, but they you know, nobody gets hurt to where they're gonna die. You know, they might get an injury like this billy loss and a freak accident. He's forcing the door and he twisted his leg when he's forcing the door and he snapped his bones in a couple of places and that was the end of him. He never came out. And I'll tell you what a great guy, this guy, Billy Losson
was great firemen. He had nineteen years and ten months on the job. I was the commisar and you've got twenty years. We get your ring. He wouldn't take the ring. I didn't do twenty years.
God didn't we have him on the sholf Billy Lawson save you might have?
Yes, yes, what guy right right five? Did you know that after he did his fire duty he became a nurse out Long Island?
Yes, I think I remember retire from that registered nurse. But he was a short guy right like a little ye.
With me.
Yeah, Rice was telling me about how he would never wear a mask never ever. He had a little band downery were once in a while.
He's in one of the pictures I gave you worried at a fire smoking. Oh yeah, yeah, you go, that's him right there. And I want to tell you something.
What a tough son of a bitch, right, tough.
Son of a bitch. And uh, yes, when my when my son worked with me. But he wasn't working, but he went to the fire anyway.
All right, John, one more question here, best nozzle man you, best nozzle man you've ever seen other than yourself? Can't count yourself best nozzle man you've ever seen me?
No, that would be wow. Wow. I actually sold a lot of guys if I you know, you have a lot of good nozzlemen. Yeah, wow. I'll tell you what. I'll reserve that for another day, because all right, I don't want to just say oh him and then put five other guys that were really good.
I put you on the spot, I know it.
Yeah, but there were a lot of good nozzlemen. Hell yeah, a lot of good guys, A lot of guys. Sixty engine had an abundance of good guys. No to admit that seventeen truck was excellent toke, And don't you know, I kid about the truck and I kid about you know, forty one does the job, you know even though this quids.
Were you there when they had a seventeen second section?
No, uh no not. That was just before I got there. And we still had a couple of tours where they would line up some other engines outside, right, you know, and you know because we were doing the work. But hey, I rode the backstep when I first got there, which was unbelievable. And they had John John John Mitchell. I don't know if you heard of him. We called him Hollywood because he got so many metals. But he's the
truck officer. And we're riding the backstep and one or two of the guys you know, on the side because they want to see where we're going, and they're blocking the tail lights and selled screaming at us. You can't block the tail lights. We don't know when you're going to stop, and we go, hey, look not to nothing, but you know where we're going, so you know where we're going to stop. You know we're not going to go past the fire. Yeah, you stop at a hydrant? Yeah?
So who was that? Garrett? Guy?
Schneider is the father. You want a good one?
There you go. You asked for it, we got it.
We got on the screen. Then I'll give you Yah.
We had a couple of guys from seventeen too, and I don't remember who the hell they were now, I can't remember.
Yeah who, Yeah, on your show.
Of seventeen too? Was he seventeen two? Holy Ship with two hundred and fifty shows in right, Mike, what do we got thirty shows.
And you do it once a week?
How many weeks we were doing twice a week? We got to get back to twice a week. You know, we get a guy like you that'll last for over a week. John, you know we got a guy. No, yes, no, no.
It's easy to talk to you guys.
You know I've done hurt.
Don't you just tell me when it's wisdom time?
Is it wisdom time? Do you have any other thing you want to share before we get to wisdom time? John?
Uh, twenty five years goes like lightning if you start on the job and all of a suddenly, oh real quick, Yeah, I get hurt my last job, all right, And I lost my lungs at the World Trade and I was there for about four months, right, So I got bad lungs, but I don't I keep going on the job. I don't tell anybody about my lungs. And I lost them in oh one. But now I'm getting my operation at the latter stage of four because I lost my shoulder.
So I get an operation in again, No. Four, and I finally I have to go down to the medical office because my shoulder bad. And I go down. Then the doctor looks at my paperwork and he goes, hey, you haven't had medical in years. I said, that's bullshit. It's in the medical you're missing it somehow, that's in it. He said, bullshit, he says, go in the back. I wanted to complete medical, so I know I'm gonna.
Pick it up. That's it. He's over.
I can't get past the first thing on the lot, so they mark it down. I go back and he goes, you're done. That's exactly what he said. You're done.
That's the worst part. Somebody tells you you're done.
He says, your lungs are gone. I said, really, I was wondering why I could breathe. So anyway, that was the end of my career. And now I knew I wanted to do like four or five more years, but I couldn't do it. But anyhow, I go on light duty for a little bit, and I said, this is blody. I went up put my papers in. I said, I can't do five years of like duty. It's not going to work. I said, that's what I'm done.
And that was the end of my career.
If I didn't tear my shoulder, probably just four or five years.
You gotta run around, you gotta you gotta hide from the medical bro for the three years.
I had other guys. You know, I need a mutual, I know, you know, medical was coming up. I need a mutual and they to do it.
That's a great well they take care of the see you man. That's the right thing, the right thing to do.
Bro.
All right, gons I think it is time now for some words of wisdom from five more?
Is that is it that time?
Yes?
We get.
Hold on, hold on all right, I don't want to get there you hold on you ready, premature, premature?
Two seconds?
Sorry, all right, where we go.
I'm gonna hit the sound effects for you right now and then we're gonna we're gonna bring you right in here.
Sorry, here we go. It's time for the old school tips of the day, day day, and dr you.
Are my timp of the day is for the roby day. Just comes in the firehouse first, Turk. When you get to the firehouse, listen to all the senior men. Some are really really great, some are not so great. It's up to you to know find out the difference, because who's who's the good guys and who's the not so good guys. Take all the advice and the good guys, and take the advice from the not so good guys and take that with a grain of salt, or you judge.
But do great guys, everything they say is golden, and remember it and do it for the next twenty years. That's my tip of the day.
Thank you, John, excellent John. I never worked with you, but you seem like a great senior man. I wish I could have got a chance to work with you.
But I appreciate that. And once again, your own press. It's my breast element they gave me. And when the said goddamn bread.
Ah, all right, we got to do a couple of quick commercials guns. What do you got? Oh?
Only thing we have is uh health and safety tip.
That's it.
That's it. We have the two play it.
Here we go.
The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS, personnel, and other first responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Falling Firefighter Foundation.
Alright, I got two health and safety tips tonight. The first one is try not try not to avoid your medical for years and years in here. No avoid early detection is the key. The second ding you're going to bring up with Thanksgiving approaching and all that comes with the gluttony and the drinking. Everything everything in moderation. That includes exercise, that includes drinking, that includes eating everything in moderation. That's what I got, John, great career. I'm glad I
get to know you a little bit better tonight. Uh just from the Stuben Day I got to say too. John was the one who recruited me in Provy School to join the Stuben Society. And I loved every year that he broke my balls about being a squid, even though he doesn't remember. And I will see him at the Stuben Day Christmas party with my brother. I just put it on the calendar.
Excellent, good, good, Yep, we will see that. Enjoy it, guys. I want to thank you. Guys. You were great for me, and you know I have a great holiday season.
Yeah, John, thanks man.
You stay safe when you become a fineming young man.
Yeah, thanks excellent, Mike, Thanks for you going. It goes quick like that, Mike. Thanks for filling in for Roofie tonight, probs coming in even though he's under the weather a little bit. I appreciate that. So good. You got a stuff at that moment?
Is that?
Man?
It's like right there, I'm my God, right at the end of the show. Now it's gonna still give me trouble.
All right, we are back. I think next what is it next Monday? Next Monday? I think we got Deputy Chief Di Dominico coming on. Yeah, I know him. Yep. And have a great Thanksgiving fellas. Oh before I forget man, oh man, look at this what I got today from my buddy Paul Hanshagan. It's his next book called Rescue Squad, The Origins of Rescue One Fire Department, the City of New York, nineteen fifteenth and nineteen twenty five. It is available right now. We will be carrying it on the
website for Christmas. Uh. It's a great, great book. It goes along with this one hundred Years of Valor. Yes, missus, Foley, we love you too, Love you dad. Awesome. Johnny did a great job with your kids. It shows with the fire department, with being your senior man and everything involved. Don't forget to watch a cup of Joe and Tim Fuego send it into Coops podcast at youmail dot com. And started a new segment also. It's called the what
is it? Mike the Unforgotten Heroes. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna go over every single line of duty death back from eighteen sixties until present.
Wow.
So catch that out, you know, like that and again John, hang around for the post show. And we appreciate you coming on a great career, great mustache. Thank you for your service both in the fire department and protecting this country. And all those people say baby killer fuck, then they have no idea what they're talking about.
Amen, Thank you, appreciate it. Yep, stay safe to you guys. Care.
Oh, Mike got two shout outs. We have a lot of duty death. I'm sorry, Yes, that's what we're here. God, thank you.
You want to do yours first? You want to do Mikey's.
Let's do os first, okay, and then Mike you can do his.
I was gonna bring this little image up here that we have.
Yes, last night, Wednesday, November twentieth, Chief of the third Battalion, John Walsh lost his life while in command of a fire in Wilkinsburg District. Chief Falls was sixty years old and a thirty seven year member of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire. Please transmit the five five five five. We will rest in peace. Brother, rest in peace. Sorry about that, Johnny Albanize, We got it done, all right, Mike ed All right.
Let me just share the screen real quick. I want to give a shout out to some of my colleagues here. So if you can see my arrow from left to right, this is Christy Crescenzo, Nick Amandola, Bryan Sweeney, and Joji Aquino. Congratulations to aw for these gentlemen. They were just promoted this past Friday and the ceremony the rank of lieutenant. Uh So, Chris will be on a lieutenant on our D shift, Nick on the B shift, Brian on the A shift, and Joe G as we affectionately call him,
on the C shift. They worked hard, they passed their written exam and look forward to seeing those gentlemen in those next chapters as fire officers.
So congratulations for I still be telling you. Hold on to my coat, young Michael, follow me.
Hold this. You'll be doing the introduction. I'm I'm Michael, and I'll be saying I'm sorry.
All right, guys, Thank you, Happy guys. I love you, guys. You guys are the best. Man as always, off fans are the best. Be safe, remember everything in moderation. Watch some football, eat some food, and take a big.
Watch the Giants.
All right, guys, until next week. You know what I always say, stay low.
And go go ahead, Mike, but you got off, you do Off.
Hurts signed off ahead.
No, No, I'm gonna give a little shout to uh to Ronzi tonight. The Knob is the job, baby, you know.
On behalf of Kob's Gonzo John Roar and all of you on my colonne. We'll see you next time. Be advised, tones are dropping. Transmit the seventy three.
Good night, Happy Thanksgiving, your boise