GETTIN’ SALTY EXPERIENCE PODCAST Ep.253: CAPTAIN STEVE ELLIOTT

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, I got a big hello today. Hello pee wee.

Rob Procaccini, Johnny Albany's pull Berg a member, Thank you.

Not Procaccini's not a member.

He don't have any money to do that, Bro, he's big doylecy b Doug Doyle, Doyle O Fox in there, come out, QC Beast is a member. Yet you know what they don't realize how much work rough?

You know?

I mean Gators River Here about one more overtime tour the Procaccini work. Bro, I'm gonna fucking vomit. There you go River at six. Welcome dude, Welcome, Bro. He's a member. Weinberg member, Rob.

Not a membercket.

Yeah, do we have that? I think I have something like that I'll do.

I'll tee you up for you, Rob, Brocaccinis, Man.

He's doing this he's actually doing this.

You know what, He's going down to a burtle beach for three weeks.

Yeah, going down there, Yeah, five ninety five to become a member.

Can you get a bag on a cup of coffee for five ninety five?

You get it straight?

I'm gonna say you can you get one ninety five? You can't even get a cup of coffee in a bagel for four ninety five. But yeah, he's gonna get all original.

I went to reunion.

You did well. God bless you, God bless.

You eighty guys.

Bro.

Yeah, I saw something that said the biggest the busiest company in the world, history of the world.

I still don't know what's name.

You think that's a little oh my, here it is. What do we got? World busiest fought?

Did you see what you did?

You mail one of those shirts to me or even coops from a free T shirt?

Just a free T shirt.

I don't want to take for any of that ship I got.

I got two guys.

Question, did you have a straight face when you had that shirt printed up? The World's busiest?

True guys?

I got two guys?

What I got two guys out of all those guys I had Steve Luisi corned he I don't think he's gonna do it.

And I'm saying to you, when you had those shirts printed up, did you do with a straight.

I heard you, but I didn't hear you. You understand what I'm saying, all right?

I wrote in the world.

I saw what you did in the world.

I don't want to say it anymore. Play the commercial, maybe, maybe, pro you'll inspire a propacina to take four ninety five.

Out of his fucking pocket and get paid for the membership.

Oh did we move it? You can't move that, shiit?

I moved it to the top.

Oh you did you something?

Okay?

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Just hit that join button riding our YouTube channel and become part of the brother us. Support the show, celebrate the job, get and stay salty.

They know enough. They know enough about the history of the Halligan. They don't need to know no more.

That's that's something other people do.

Yeah, you know what, play my little man. I talked to Vince today.

I love that.

Mister asked me, what's going on? I said, you didn't send me any information? Because what information do you like? I got to know the product. I can't go out there and I don't even know the name of the product. Call it whatever the hell? To get the square?

Get the square, the name of the company.

How about you send me that.

I'm attack, attack on.

One of them. Here we go.

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We got the cheese man in the chat. Gee, didn't we lock you in the downstairs?

Yeah?

Get it out.

I'll play Jimmy's commercial really quick. Then we'll get the captain. And he had lost to Jimmy all the time. Now his kids are fine men and Newark kids going to work left and right.

Yeah, he was sending me a bunch of friends. He was actually down here not too long ago.

Good Lord Kya live in LaVita Loca.

Do it here we go.

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The importance of their work.

New Jersey Fire has represented Scott since Earl Scott entered the SCBA business at the end of World War II.

Bingo rough.

You got a guy with a lot of stories, both fire and non fire. Funny stories, but the man's been to a lot of.

Companies.

You ready, Yeah, I'm ready's.

Coming to the stage, cap Steve Ellie.

With the girls like throwing a.

Pen out a couple more seconds.

Yeah, that's.

You, guys.

Thanks for having me, guys any time.

But before we get deep into the weeds here, we gotta get patriotic.

Since we are on the move, us a baby country in the history.

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.

Darren Phillips joined us there. He is member, by the way, Darren Philip.

Remember everybody that's in green is a member. So thank you, guys.

Well, I see who's not in green rhying Copuccini.

But go ahead, right, all right, let's start way back, because this man's dad was on the job for thirty years, so let's go back.

We'll go back as far as high school. He was an upstate guy, right.

Upstate, that's it. I used to say Suffolk County north to the city guys. They used to break my balls and say, yeah, where do you live, kid? I said, I live in Brewster. They said, yeah, that's upstate. I go, no, it's not nine. The state is north of Brewster. Like, that's upstate. You across the fucking bridge. Okay, fair enough, Brewsters.

So that's up by Westchester somewhere up that way.

Yeah, that's about.

Forty miles from the Bronx. Yeah, Suffolk North.

I call it the Bronx. The Bronx.

So we don't got to ask you what, oh you went to?

What school did you go to first in high school?

Yeah?

One famous person, former alum is Michael Imperiali from the Sopranos. If you ask him, he'll tell you he's from Mount Vernon, Ohio.

You forget hi about it.

We got about got him.

Did you know him from school or was he different yet?

And no, I never heard of him. I like it.

I was an English class right, he was an English class well man?

All right, So we know how he got into the job, right, Your old male was on the job.

Yeah, my father did thirty years Uh wow he uh. He pushed me to take the test and I actually took the test for the fire department when I was in high school. I was like seventeen years old. It's a great picture of the old man in the that's the fifth division, Frank Fellini. So my father started out in fifty engine. His feet, he was a big man. And that your dad on the left on the right, the deputy is Frank Fellin. Yeah, my dad is the boss with helmet on, all right. So he started out

Yeah.

What now that I look at this roof, it's starting to click. I might being that smart, but.

I putting them together, I'm smart.

Yeah. So then he went to a thirty seven truck in the Bronx and he retired out of fifty two engine in nineteen ninety seven. Korea. Man, No, that's it just me. Yeah?

Is that fifty two and fifty two?

Yes, sir, right off the Henry Hudson's fifty two.

That was the first company that ever had the same number in the same house way before ten fifteen times Riverdale. Right, yes, yeah, yeah, man, after you take the test and then you shove off as a marie.

So I decided to Uh. My high school had Navy ROTC. So while I was in high school, we had the whole program where you learn about the customs and the courtesies of the military. I had instructors that were Marines and they sent us on class trips to do Marine Corps boot Camp, Navy boot Camp, and Office Canddate school. So for four years in high school, I was fully immersed for a week in all these programs. And I said, you know, that's that's what I want to do. So

It looks like you just you just snuck over the boat. No bicky Bannie, big bicky Bonnie.

Whatever.

So I went to boot camp, which was thirteen weeks of hell, and then I went to the School of Infantry. And after that I came home and I went to school. I went to Western Connecticut in Danbury, Denbury, Connecticut.

Did you go to Powis Island for boot camp?

I did.

That's where all marines east of the Mississippi go.

All marines.

What is this do?

Right?

Then this doesert storm? Yeah, so I'm in college. I do a year of college, right, and uh Iraq invades the country of Kuwait in the summer of nineteen ninety and uh I get a phone call on a Thursday night and they said, pack your shit, take your car off the road, and fill out of will. We're leaving this week. Really, I think we had like four days notice. And they shipped us off to Pendleton in southern California. So we go out to Camp Pendleton and they hadn't reserved.

Said it kind of fits pretty good in the FDNY exactly.

Yeah, they can't do it to the fireman. Yeah, So they activate us, they ship us off to Hawaii, and the next thing, you know, we say, all right, now we're going to the Philippines. Philippines, I gotta go back. I got class next semester, I gotta get back. And then when we leave the Philippines and so we're going to go to the Persian Golf and the President extended the ninety days to uh I think three hundred and sixty days, so we were in it for the long haul. So then we go to.

Sally Baby. Yeah, he went to Camp Penalty. I remember him. He did the same thing. Yeah, you didn't.

Buy yourself a wife in the Philippines like I did, did you?

I did not.

I did.

So we get to the Persian Golf and they have us do a rehearsal amphibious landing in the country of Oman. So now we're like, this ship's real. And then we go to Kuwait and where we land in Saudi Arabia, we spend I guess I don't know, about a month or two in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And those were the photographs that I put in there. That's a great photo of my fire team with our hum V behind us.

No, yeah, you look kind of bad ass there.

Yeah. We were hungry and tired and cold and wet. This is a an airfield that we had taken. We utilized Cobra helicopters to take out this airfield. And you can see that there's no roof on that hangar. That was an airplane hanger. And these are Russian T seventy two tanks like seventy era tanks that the Iraqis had used, and of course we destroyed quite happily.

That was kind of like I remember that, I mean the war like they were kind of giving up. I mean, I know there was fighting and stuff obviously, but yeah, we took.

A lot of surrenders.

Yeah, yeah, right, they were hungrier and tired, more tired than we were, and they were happy to surrender. That that last photo. It's hard to believe that we landed in Kuwait the same way, the same technology that they used in nineteen forty four World War Two. That's an amphibious craft where it's just packed with marines and they lower that ramp, they beat it, and then we.

Just walk right off when they storm Normandy, right, it's unbelievable.

Yeah, what did that feel like getting off that thing?

Like actually bizarre, you know, to be on that craft and think that this is the same way they did it in Normandy. Of course we didn't have the same defense that we didn't meet with a machine gun fire when we got off of the thing, but it was the same technology and it's it's still utilized today, which is hard to believe.

The guy that invented those things.

Was actually a fisherman down in New Orleans, and I think his name was Higgins, and they call those things Higgins boats, and he invented those because they were like in the swamps and in the deltas and they were going for crawfish and shrimp and they're very low and they don't draw a lot of water, and then you can lower the ramp and you can drive vehicles off and truth.

Yeah yeah, I mean you guys went, well, you guys went all the way through and then they stopped you before you got into bed there, right.

Well, some of the the army went into Iraq, the Marine Corps, we went into Kuwait. We liberated Kuwait City. Oh you went into Kuwait, that's right, yeah, yeah, right, Kuwait City.

So then after that the oil things burning, right, yeah, it was one of those photographs there, those those oils, the oil wells were burning.

All the time. That's the photo there that that's midday.

You see the color of that sky.

Yeah, man, how are the Kuwaiti people? Were they happy to see you guys?

Oh? Absolutely? Yeah? Yeah, they met us with open arms.

Yeah sure.

How about the women were they throwing themselves out?

You I didn't see any women. We stayed far away from that.

Yeah, well you couldn't see. And they're all covering up.

And there exactly you see the eyes on her on that one.

Very hairy feet though I don't know, knuckles, hairy knuckles. I mean, so, how are you there for?

We were only in Kuwait for I don't know a couple of weeks, and then they put us back on the ships and then they sent us to Somalia.

Because you were doing it, Steven.

We were doing it. We had to evacuate the US embassy in Somalia, and if you recall in nineteen ninety three, two years later, they had the incident with the black Hawk down.

Yeah.

Yeah, my uncle was actually then ambassador in that embassy there.

During the black Hawk down, he had to get his family out of there in a chaplain.

Well why didn't he leave when we came? We were there in ninety one. We evacuated the embassy. Yeah, and then we left Somalia and we thought this is great, you know, we're finally going home. And a typhoon had come through the Indian Ocean and hit the country of Bangladesh, which is just east of India, and it killed one hundred and fifty thousand people.

What.

Oh wow, you don't hearing that one right, Like, yeah, that was summer of ninety one. That was probably one of the top ten deadliest typhoons in the history of the world. Wow. Yeah.

So we got set to uh doing the world typhoons.

So we went there for humanitarian efforts and then uh we went to the Philippines again after that, and uh, Mount Pinatubo erupted the volcano in the Philippines.

I said, man, we're never going home.

I building, Yeah.

So we got shirts made up that said Fifth Marine Saved the World tour like a concert shirt. It was nuts.

Yeah.

So then uh, we get home and we got home in July July. Third next day was fourth of July, which was appropriate. We had a nice party and I called my investigator and they said, you know, there's going to be a class next month in August. Good news and bad news. I go, what's the bad news? She goes, you you haven't had a medical in six months. They expire, so you can't go into the next class. I said, wait, hold on, hold that time out. I got called twice when I was twenty my list number I was at

A fireman.

Exactly.

It makes no sense, such an arbitrary rule.

And then they had another class in April, and I missed that class because I was deployed. So of course I told my father. I said, yeah, they're not going to put me in the next class. They're gonna defer me again. And he said, no, no, that's bullshit, and down.

This hold on son.

So as luck would have it, when my father was a fireman, luck is a beautiful thing.

When my father was a fireman in.

Fifty engine, he had a captain named Carlos rivera ah, and it just so happened to my luck that he was the fire commissioner in nineteen ninety one. Wow. So my father made a phone call and lo and behold, they had an opening for a medical ex am. I got a new physical, and in August eleventh, I was in the fire.

An amazing set of circumstances, very unusual set of circumstances.

Wow, every time somebody mentions it, it kind of baffles me.

So you going to Proby School, which has been a joke by then, was coming from Paris Island.

You're like, yeah, it.

Was eight weeks. It was a little bit of a joke.

I actually was treating my squad.

It made me a squad lader. I treated like they were a bunch of marines and they looked at me like, you know, what's wrong with this fucking guy? Yeah?

Anybody any famous guys?

You know famous? I don't know about famous, but I'll tell you what. There's only a few of them left. Doug Batterbury is and I think he's in three h three.

I don't know if you guys know Doug. He's still around.

You got Tommy kaneen and seventy five Engine Murph.

And Rescue three.

Uh. Yeah, that there's only a handful of guys left.

How big was the class?

Only one hundred.

In that class?

I don't remember that name. No.

Yeah, so you have high list? You were on my that was the eighty seven test, Yes, yes it was. What was your My number was seventeen fifty two. My list of one in ninety three.

Four fourteen who he was.

He was one and four around then.

Bro, it wasn't falling around.

Yeah.

So being probed school and they call your name and they're like.

Oh yeah, thirty truck. Yeah look again. Yeah lucky. You know, some guys get lucky, you know, man, the old man. Yeah, you were just as young as you did when you were in the Thanks brother. So you probably don't believe me, But I didn't know where thirty Truck was because my father didn't talk to me in Provay school about where I was gonna go, where he wanted me to go.

Right, So I walked in there. Did you say that to the guys like, listen, I don't even know worse you listen, I don't know what the fuck you guys, cubes, it's worse.

So we're in provy school and they tell us all go to your firehouses. Were graduating tomorrow. You gotta go to your firehouse, bring a cake, knock on the door and introduce yourselves and get your group number. Blah blah blah. Right, So I go to the firehouse and they're not there. So I knock on the door and I wait, and I think I had my the guy I did the carpool with with me. So we waited for like an hour and a half and the companies didn't come back,

You know, I'll go visit the firehouse tomorrow night. I wasn't thinking.

So the next day we graduate from the academy and I go to the firehouse with my parents and the girl I was dating. The men were not happy.

No cake.

No, I had a cake, and then the men were not happy. So we get We get to the front door, and who answers the door? But the Captain Abe Hayman was my captain and he was He was a fireman and seventy one engine.

A lieutenant in twenty eight truck.

He worked in the war years, and he worked with my father, and him and my father embrace on a big hug and he invites us into the kitchen and we're sitting at the kitchen. I got my mom, the girl I'm dating, my dad, and all the guys start filtering into kitchen. And now, mind you, I'm twenty one years old and the captain is pouring me a cup of coffee. You want some milk and cream with that?

The men were not happy.

We had no I didn't know.

They were very upset.

They don't forget that.

They just a yeah, yeah, So I got my group number, I left the firehouse, and I paid dearly for it for the next back in the street. Exactly so. I remember one of my first runs. I don't know if it was the first run or the second run.

Uh.

A grade, a first grade class.

Had come to the firehouse school kids, and one of the guys says, hey, Proby, I want you to show them the rig, open every compartment and show them every tool. It'll help you, you know, be familiar with the rig, and it'll bore the ship out of them and they'll leave. So the kids we get a run. I usher the kids out of the firehouse.

Let's go.

You gotta go, you gotta go. We have a run. We got a report of fire. I run back. I close the compartments in the rig, I get dressed, I jump on a rig, and we tear out of the firehouse. We make the left onto Lennox Avenue, and the entire contents of the rear compartment empties.

Out onto.

The beat goes on.

Baby. Nothing like starting off your first day.

Yeah, so we get back to quarters.

This is what this is what not to do. Sure, you close the compartments, close your first door.

I knew you were going to say that.

So we get back to the firehouse and they send me around the corner with a radio, and I was basically begging and borrowing to purchase all the tools that spilled onto the avenue from.

The locals in the neighborhood.

Yeah, so I think I spent my first Yeah.

So did any of the Obviously some of the guys there besides the captain that knew your dad, right, did they Yeah?

Military, right, So my father knew all four of the officers, Captain Hayman, he was the captain at the time. Then you had Jack McDonald is a photograph with me and Jack when I was getting my thirty patch. Jack was a fireman a twenty eight truck. He did a life saving rope rescue. He got a Gordon Bennett for it. He wound up becoming a battalion chief and the president of the union. He was a great instructor, great fire officer, and he was a big mentor to me at the

Yeah, did you feel like they were a little tougher just because they knew you were you know, your dad and they knew that you were in the military, just not you know, you know what I'm saying in a good way. Tough in a good way at that point, right, you could.

Say that I was very intimidated. You had guys.

Everybody there was twice my age. You had guys there that had children that were my age. Wow.

Yeah, So it was intimidating. Nick.

I remember he was on vacation and I think the first time I saw him, we were out on a run and he drove past the rig and he screamed at me, I got a babysit you.

Yeah.

He drilled us hard. He he took that rig out every single tour, rain or shine.

He drilled with us.

He taught us our trade and made sure we knew what we were doing and where we were going.

You ever run into a guy in your career that loved the job as much as him?

No, I listened. I met a lot of guys and runs through his veins. Bro. He's the type of guy you could go to Chicago, Boston, Detroit and drop his name and guys.

Going everybody, I know where you go.

It's unbelievable.

The last year, Hey, you know, Nick, it's unbelievable. Yeah.

Who else do you think that that you, uh, you know, took took you under their wing kind of thing, you know what I mean? Who else did you feel like? There was guys a little younger? And how much time did Nick have at that time? Oh, Keith, I mean how much.

I'd tell you he probably only had like twelve to fifteen years.

Yeah, but he acted like he was the senior man.

He wasn't the senior man, but he acted like he was.

Yeah, was that younger guys that you felt like you like you were you the ones?

Uh? But they put my class in and then four weeks later they put another class in. So four weeks after I graduated, Craig Sweet came to the firehouse. So we were both progised to guys and we were there together for six years before another probe became. Wow.

Yeah, so what about the middle of the road guys, Any guys in the middle of the row like that's what we were saying that you kind of.

Yeah, I mean there were so many. Al Grogan is one of the photographs that I'm going to show you. Uh. Al was a great mentor.

Uh.

He was a wonderful fireman, a family man. Everything about him, I say, is with the utmost of respect. And then lo and behold, twenty five years later, his kid gets on the job and he sends him to twenty three truck and uh, one of the proudest moments of my career. I love that man, absolutely absolutely.

Yeah.

So you know, here's a kid that he he trained and broke in and now his.

Uh that trust trust you trust you enough to do that to his Yeah, I.

Mean, well, no, no greater respect.

Yeahd t any pictures of the Ferry truck that we've been talking that you you know you're not paying attention.

I'm paying attention, said later, if you want to.

Go, I'll talk about that, Greg. Greg if I remember right, because we had Craig he was he was in the military, right or his dad was.

I think his father was in the Military's fallow was in twenty eight truck. Highly respected man. So here's a photo. This is a pre bunker gear. So we're wearing rubber boots and we wore our harnesses right over our dungarees. And that's myself, and then next to me is Anthony Shallow. I was in his groups. Then Kenny Harring, two men that I really looked up to and respected. They trained me, worked with me all the time. Then nicolelo and Al Mullinari is the last one. I think Al still on

We have just a picture of the old school rig back that was.

Our first rig that was a mac And I think the striking thing about this photograph if you look in the background, every single one of those buildings is vacant.

I look at it that they're all.

Bricked up man in the background, a bunch of tools on the floor there. I do.

Guys running off with Elliott must have been working state.

Did you feel like most of the buildings were like that in the in the area when you got there, not most of.

Them were vacant. I think we probably had one hundred and fifty vacant buildings in our first two area, but predominantly tenements, then brownstones and projects. Yeah, so I got a good mix of building construction and types.

Yeah, right, And then my.

Second day tour, we caught a job. My first day, you caught a job on your first d My first day, we caught a job. So this is before they had the fast truck. There was no such thing as a fast truck. So if you were third due, you got put to work. So we get there third due, and they sent us to the upper floors. We did searches, and then I think we went down to the fire

To quit, right.

Yeah.

Basically get used to seeing that.

I got a class.

Let's talk about the class too, medal you got while you're in I don't.

Have any good pictures of that fire. That fire was in a project.

How long we are by them?

Maybe five six years?

Oh? All right. We were at a box and we were taking up and we were backing out of the block because of double parked cars, and civilian pointed up and said, ye know fire mean, look, there's a fire. So we got into the building. Another situation where twenty eight truck I think should have been first due on a ticket, but we wound up getting in first. And the show for John Barry crackerjack fireman, excellent fireman. He says to me, I think the stick is going to

So I just opened the window.

I slipped in and there was a woman unconscious on the floor right undneath the window.

Wow.

So I took her back out onto the tip of the aerial and uh, because that was the only room that wasn't on fire, the one we put the aerial too, and I held her on the tip of the aerial.

She was unconscious, so there was no way I was.

Carrying her down.

Oh no, no way going down.

I don't think.

I don't think I could have carried a Teddy Bear down that thing.

You would have taken the express route down.

Yeah exactly.

Yeah. So I just held her on the tip of the aerial and then uh, after the brothers put the fire out, we went back into the window and then took her in the interior. She made it. She made it.

I think she was seventy years old. Yeah she survived.

Yeah, tump old bird.

Yeah. Those women, they went to more fires than I did.

You would get there, open up the door, the woman would be like, yeah, it's two rooms in the back on the Yeah.

Yeah exactly. And I got my face piece on taking it down that area.

That will be like putting on a Santa clous.

It wouldn't have been pretty.

I have to say this, So I think I've said this before on the podcast. So I got on May ninety three and I was just like throwing myself into the job.

Right.

I loved the whole thing. Fire is right. Wasn't buffy about the rig and what year and the engine and all this other bullshit. I just wanted to know who was working, right. I just wanted to learn. And I remember I say this. I remember sitting in the watch even I would obviously always take the watch. Whoever had

Right.

It was just over and over and over to like ridiculousness. And I would look at the map. We had the map with all the firehouses, right yeah, and I would like you just made me think about this before twenty eight thirty.

Twenty three, very close together.

I mean, when you think about you guys had to be running in like we ran in with the same companies, but not always you guys are running in with the same If you stayed in your groups, you were probably seeing the same guys as multiple times. Twenty four right, and it was just like this incredible And I remember saying like after like I think I was there probably

Nineteen ninety one forty truck was number one in the city for osws, which one forty truck there were number one in the city and we ran in with them all time.

So they were one hundred and.

Twenty fifth Street. There were three firehouses one hundred and twenty fifth Street. You had thirty five or fourteen thirty six engine were by themselves.

They got closed and O three.

They were back to around the corner from each other, right around the court.

They're two hundred and fifty feet away from each other, right and then on the west side of twenty fifth Street, you had thirty seven and forty and uh, we were one hundred and thirty third Street. Eighty and twenty three is one hundred and thirty ninth Street, sixty nine twenty eight, one hundred and forty third Street. These firehouses are right on top of each other, and Manhattan at the top of the island is only a mile wide.

Now, how would it were they like?

Because I know the Bronx is like, it's your whatever you are on the ticket, that's what you do. Brooklyn is like, I get there, I first due what was it like up there?

And so we were gentlemen. If if we were first doing the ticket, excuse me, If we were second doing the ticket and we got in and the first two company was nowhere in sight, then we would take it. But if we saw them coming, we're not gonna cut them off. We're gonna wait, let them in the block. And if we had any details on the rig from Brooklyn, we would drive even slower because you knew that they were going crazy in the back of the rig.

What the fuck you guys doing?

But you know what, And again, if you if you're working so closely with these companies. Yeah, you know two ninety one oh three, you know, to get to one oh seven, it's it's like thirty blocks, forty blocks, Like it's some ridiculous thing.

We would go five blocks in any direction. That's when you weren't first do.

Anymore, right, that's crazy, So you would think that. That's why I think that comes from, even in the Bronx is it's you're so close, right that it would be stupid to try and screw somebody out of something just because this time out.

Bro, When I was in too ten, here's two ten, here's two nine to one on two, they were close, bro, and they would come down myrtle l abe, one of the first ones I ever had. I was leaning.

Back like this because I thought it was going to be a crash.

Holy oh, they're a little closer. They're a little closer over there.

Different worlds, yeah, Yeah, it's interesting how different areas of the city act so differently.

Yeah.

Different.

When you talk to the guys who were there for a while when you got there, what did they say, It was like like during the fucking war years over.

There, man, they would tell stories that were unbelievable, right, yeah, unbelieva.

Meanwhile, you think you're going to fight like you and you will go, oh yeah, right, you like holy shit, Like it's got to be comparable.

I can't imagine its busier than the imagine, right. No, but it was because these guys knew their job.

And they knew it well.

I listened to the old audio and I laughed myself. Sterical man like his companies going all over the place. No available companies, you know, send me what you got.

My father told me.

My father told me the night Martin Luther, doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated, there was like thirteen old Hands or greater fires in the sixteenth Battalion. And he told me every fire company that came into Manhattan and operated in the sixteenth Battalion.

That night got a unit citation.

Wow, thirteen old hands fires. I mean there must have been companies from all over the city getting in first two.

Think about I was just going to say that too. Think about a second or third alarm by thirty truck. Yeah, every company in the whole north of Manhattan.

Is there, correct, right? I mean, so now you've got relocators everywhere.

Your backfill and everything whatever you can backfill as quick as possible. You're not sending somebody from South Queen. I mean you can right, It's going to take them for three hours to get that.

And I remember several occasions where we would come back to quarters after a job and there would be a pile of shoes on the apparatus floor because the relocators courted job. That was great. Yeah, good night.

What's the most jobs you ever went to? Thirty in a tour?

I remember more than one occasion where we went to three or four jobs in a night. Yeah, there's a photograph there, the black and white photo. I think that was in the morning. It was, as we affectionately called it, a Harlem sunrise, and that was probably a three job night there. So on the left there is Ali Pasha. He did like ten or twelve years in the engine and then went across the Florida truck and did another twelve years in the truck. Wow. Then I mentioned Al Grogan,

Yeah, get away from me.

Yeah.

I saw him carry people under one arm and climb up a ladder and down a ladder like it.

Was a child.

He was.

He a big guy.

Yeah, he was a big dude. It was a big really strong, great fireman. And then next to him is Craig Tweet. We came on together. It was four weeks after me and he eventually uh went to Brooklyn. I think he went to one thirteen and then he got himself into Rescue three and retired out of Rescue three. Right, and his father was in twenty eight truck his.

Most day of rufe ol prescy. He's got that picture of his dad hanging from the rope like.

Correct, correct?

Yeah, goode because on my list right here it says formed a life saving rope. Yeah, So go through it, don't leave anything out, give me all the details out, all of them.

That previous picture on my right is Al Grogan, on my left is Jimmy Current. Both of those guys were working and I remember it very vividly because it was the first night that we had bunker gear, so it must have been the fall of ninety four, and it was our second job of the night. It was a middle of the night and once again we catch a job and it's not our first do area. So we roll in. It's forty trucks area, but forty's out, they're out something else, so thirty seven's got the line. We pull up.

There's people all over this building.

I fire on two floors and the fire escapes are filled with people.

So Jimmy Kurrn was the chauffeur. He put me up to the roof.

I had the roof position. I went up the aeriel and he said to me, I'm gonna take the aerial away because I got to get these people. I said, okay, And I remember getting up on the roof and twenty six truck was up there with me. So we took the bulkhead, we took the skylight, and in the rear of the building there was a shaft. It was probably eight foot by eight foot and it was enclosed, so there was no way to get into that shaft with a portable ladder.

There was no access from the rear and I.

Peer over the side and fire is on two floors in the front of the building. Now I'm in the middle towards the rear, and there's a woman on the floor above and smoke is chugging out of the window below her and over her head as an elderly woman. I said, all right, there's only one way to get her.

We gotta go.

So I told radar to the officer and the inside team let them know where she was, and twenty six truck hooked me up and lowered me into that shaft. Yeah, it was a little nutty because when I got to the window, she wasn't there anymore. I said, she either jumped or now she's unconscious, right, So I maneuvering myself so that I could get into the window. I got into the window, I unclipped myself from the life saving rope and she was there on the floor unconscious.

No way.

Yeah, so I picked her up, and then I said, how the hell am I going to get her out of this apartment? Because there's no way I can pick her up and go back out that window. Put the rope back on myself. So fortunately the inside team had made their way into that room at that moment, and we were able to take get drag her out and carry her out through the interior to building. So I was very fortunate that it was successful and then we were able to save a life. But she made it too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then Jimmy Curran, the guy that was the chauffeur.

I think he grabbed like three people at that job, and uh he.

Went to Metal Day that year. He got two separate metals for two separate fires.

It was insane. And then one the one grab he made, he went into the window and there was an unconscious guy on a wheelchair. So he picks the guy up, throws the wheelchair, and goes back out the window onto the aerial ladder and he's taking her down the taking the guy down the aerial and one of his frigging legs falls off. He's got prosthetic legs, so everybody in the street is screaming his legs off. Crazy shit.

Did you get a medal for that day?

I did not get a medal. We got a unit.

Citation really take the unit. I think Jimmy.

Might have gotten a metal because he grabbed like two or three people and we got a unit citation. Yeah, that was that was.

Great going on a rope.

Well I didn't take her out on a rope, so that's probably why the chief didn't.

Not what you you went over the side on it.

You listen, you're you're comparing that now, right right, you take somebody off a ladder. I see it online all the time. Oh, nice grab. I'm like, dude, that's not a grab. Like I taking somebody out of a window. It's not a grab. Right, Well, if they're unconscious, it is talking about treking a woman out from.

I agree, I agree. That's a removal. That's a removal, right. You don't get medals for that pretty exposure.

Well, this is what I'm saying. Nowadays, things are, you know, a little bit different. You know, back then there were guys doing you were just doing your job, you know what I mean, the cheap would Did.

You get the Al sasset for that one?

No?

That was when I was in four truck. I got the Al Sassin medal?

Did I skip ahead? Oh yeah, I'm sorry?

Yeah, yeah, coops, there's I'm falling all over the place.

I don't know, I don't know. Full out of his pocket. If you throw a couple of those pictures up.

I'll talk about some of the pictures.

He put some of those pictures up.

Oh, are we done with thirty Truck or no?

Uh no, there's a couple of pictures at thirty up there. That was when I got my front piece for thirty got off probation. That was Jack McDonald. He uh he was one of my lieutenants. Like I said, he was a fireman in twenty eight where he got the Gordon Bennett for a life saving rope.

Wow.

So there were a lot of life saving ropes in Harlem and they still are.

I think I love that shirt this.

Past metal day, uh the polo two guys from twenty eight Truck got a medal, a guy from Squad forty one. Yeah, there's life saving ropes done on a regular basis in the sixteenth to time. I think just because of the types of buildings and it's just just the way it worked out.

Every year there was always one. And I understand the same thing, like how has that happened? Crazy buildings? But again, we don't have really enclosed chafts in a lot of areas in the city, you know what I mean? Like that's like you said, that's a perfect scenario that people can't go anywhere. You can't get a lot of there, you can't get the aerial there.

There's a photo of a group of us on a rooftop there.

If you can find that guns.

Uh did I show to you before?

I don't think you brought it up yet? Do it? Do we?

When we went over it, you didn't see it right?

No, earlier I saw it, but you haven't shown it yet.

Since we're on.

The rooftop. Rooftop the whole company standing up on the roof proby picture because.

You can find it, don't working. I mean, I'm gonna go and look at it. I find it. No, you did it.

You can't give me the pressure some little bit.

So that's me on the left.

Then the next guy is Bruce Garcia.

Bruce Garcia did a life saving rope in probably ninety one or ninety two.

I had just got into the firehouse. He went to the rear of the building.

He sees a guy hanging out the window on the top floor, and the buildings don't connect in the rear, so he goes to the front and I guess because it was nighttime and because of the smoke condition, he didn't see there was a fence in between the two roofs. There was no way for him to get from one roof to the other for the exposure. So he put his fingers in the chain link fence and swung his body six stories above the street around that fence to get over to the other roof with a life saving

His son was asking Eve how he did it. Did you ask him how he gets his balls in his pants? A lot of big one at a time, I don't know.

Yeah, a lot of courage. His son went to seventy one engine. That's Bruce Garcia, he's deceased. Then the next guy is John Barry. I mentioned him. John was a great fireman. He was always at the right place at the right time. The center guy, that was John Murray. He was the senior man when I got to the firehouse. He probably had twenty five or so years and you

I like it.

And then Craig three is the last one.

He's the one that ended up in Rescue three and we came about four weeks apart.

That was one of our first multiples.

Yeah, that's what we named from the multiple.

Yeah, that was a good job.

I got one more Proby pick of you.

So this is I was a drill instructor at Proby School. The Fight Department has hundreds of guys that served in the Marine Corps. We had a Marine Corps Association and we get together every year. The Marine Corps birthday is the tenth of November and we celebrate it as if it's our own. And I got to meet a lot of great guys on the job through the Marine Corps session that I never would have met otherwise. Joe backert

Teach them a lesson.

You look like Joe Hagen's with the hacktab.

Yeah, well he did, Haigin said when he was on the show. He's still one of my favorite shows actually, but he said how he loved Like again, you never know, you think it's gonna it's not for me, right whatever, you know, and it all of a sudden you come out of this thing two years later, and it's like, you know, a little in a thirty year Korea or whatever. Right, all of a sudden, there's this little thing that you could look back on and you say, yourself, man, that

Yeah, I had a lot of fun. I was there twelve years, and I was single the whole time.

He had some panties going at him, no doubt.

So fast forward to two thousand and one. I'm making a grab at a window and I'm holding onto the child guard. I'm at the tip of the portable. I'm in the third floor.

I'm opening the window the child guard, let's go.

I fall off the ladder. So I broke two bones in my leg. I tore a couple of ligaments. I tore my hamstring, I tore my calf, I broke three ribs. Long story short. I was at a commission out of work for a year, like duty medically for a year, and then I signed up to drive the one to six battalion for a year. And one of my best friends, Paul Conrad, he's a deputy chief. Now. We grew up together. We've known each other since we're eight years old. We got on a fire department. There's Paul there with my

I'm trying to fix my leg, and I'm trying to.

Get back to work.

He goes, well, why don't you come to study.

Group with us.

We meet once a week.

You know, we drink some beers, we'll throw some questions each other, and we'll study. I said, all right, get me out of the house. So thanks to Paul and the study group, we we persevered and I got promoted to lieutenant. Look at that, Yeah, very fortunate.

So yeah, you wind up on your feet.

Yeah, my feet hurt from landing on him.

So I go down to Midtown and Tom Jensen is the third division commander.

So I call him up and I go to visit him.

I say, Chief, you know, I put on my class as go to tell him who I am, and then I'm signed to his division. He goes, I know who you are. He was a fireman in thirty truck. Now he's the third division commander.

How so you know if you came from thirty and now you know you got a guy from thirty bouncing around like what else.

Could Yes, that's how it works. That's how it works, you know. I mean he didn't give me a list number, but he took care of me. So I was working in a fifty four engine. I think I was doing a vacation and a guy by the name of Bill Carlson was in for truck. You may have heard of him. No, good, good dude, he says to me. Do you like it here? I said, I love it here. I didn't think I was going to between getting promoted to lieutenant and going

I said, well, I would love that. So the battalion commander at the time was Charlie Williams.

He was a captain of two eighty three and he worked in hallm back in the day, worked in the rescue and he was friends with Patty Brown. Patty Brown was a captain of sixty nine engine when I was a proby, So you know, I did the right thing and he endorsed me. Charlie Williams endorsed me, and I got the spot in four truck.

What is it like working in that firehouse?

Man?

Nuts man?

That's nuts Well, first of all, it's two thousand and three, so it's very fresh after nine to eleven, and that firehouse unfortunately lost fifteen guys. Wow. So that front door was like incredible a museum. I mean, first of all, it's a block from Times Square. You got all the hotels, all the theaters, you got all these buildings with tons of people in them.

It was like married. I was not married yet.

By the way, I don't want to get off track, but you're god to go back to the picture of him and his old lady.

You've done good, bro. You're a part of that I am married up club. Check it out.

Yeah, that's my second wife.

Good for you. That's all right, buddy. I'm on my third all right, good for.

You, good for you. You know shit. Yeah.

So I did five years in four truck and we had a great time there. We went to Good five and we went to a lot of weird ship. We went to the subways, a lot of weird ship. I had the Cory Little plane crash. He crashed into MD I was working for that. We had cruise ships that crash. I had a submarine crash next to the Intrepid that was tied untied off the dock and it was slamming into other boats. We went to that. We had a helicopter crash in the Hudson River. That was a funny story.

Yeah.

They threw everybody off the boat all the tours, and they filled it up with fire companies and and guys.

From rescue one, I guess.

And we went out there and and we saved eight people from the helicopter.

Every single one of them survived.

Wow.

Yeah, a shameless plug right there for this guy.

Yeah, the beast gets a nice uh very little.

That's awesome.

So he was like a DJ on the sign and he was a fireman I think in Newark or some shit. That was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we saw a lot of crazy stuff, helicopters and planes and subways, high rises and then if we were lucky, we're ninth and tenth Avenue. We had five story tenements, bread and butter Ah, how did you.

Deal with the traffic.

You can't let it bother you because it will It'll drive you crazy. I know I would. Yeah during the holidays, forget dude, if I want to.

When I was at sixteen truck, if you went on a run, yeah, even if it was a full slot, it would take an.

Hour to get back to the funny house.

Correct, all these people coming to look at a stupid Christmas tree?

Yeah?

Yeah, so that's that's all you had. You had to make a mental like note to yourself like.

Yeah, I mean that are You're gonna go crazy?

Well, there was a lot to look at.

There were some sites.

Yeah, yeah, here, how about the triple sub cellar you like that?

Oh?

Yeah, those were fun. These were fun. It was fun swapping bottles while you were underground. Yeah, fun, good stuff.

Yeah, I don't remember reading that in the riggs.

Yeah that you have a lot of junior guys, did you learn?

Yeah?

It was great. I got to train and it was unique to be in that position. I was always a young guy in the job, and I was in a firehouse with a lot of senior guys, and then to switch roles like that, and now to be training guys. It was great. And and some of those guys are captains and chiefs.

H the guys that were under me, which it feels good.

I'd like the transitions being a boss.

I did not.

I did not like that transition.

That's like the spotlight there man.

Yeah, And the phone rang off the hook truck officer department, phone truck officer, DEPARTMA phone truck off all the time. And I would get questions that I just you know, I would shake my head and scratch my head, like, uh, they're at a construction site on tenth Avenue, and uh, they want to move the hydrant?

What do I gotta do?

What?

Say?

What?

Yeah? You want to I don't have Yeah, there's a couple of four truck pictures there.

To get to that.

Dude getting ready. I would to move a hydrant over on.

Sorry, my boy, Davy Turner, Oh yes, I did, my guy.

Yeah.

This must have been a crazy time of year. Yeah.

So we had a stuck elevator and we got some guy named Ryan out of the elevator.

Ah, him in the center.

He's a little guy, right, He's a little guy.

Yeah, a little guy with a lot of money.

He's got some money. He has a handle that it puts his gloves on and takes them off for him. He doesn't even put gloves where do you?

Yeah, you know the ship in the corner and that's that that elevator.

Huh. Yeah, the elevators of Midtown were sucked up. They worked, they didn't smell like piss, and someone had music in them. That was in New Year's Eve. There's a picture there with the Lombardi trophy.

Yeah.

So there's a guy from forty truck and he's working part time as a security guard for ESPN in Times Square. So he comes to the firehouse and he's got the Lombardi trophy and he goes, you guys want to take pictures with the trophy.

So the real trophy.

This is the real deal, the real trophy.

He's going to a party at ESPN and he's got to deliver the trophy.

He works security for ESPN.

So we all take photographs with the trophy. I got a great shot there. Then he takes out the special cloth to clean it off. He got all our fingerprints off, and then he puts it in this big patted box and he locks it with like three locks and he says lou Can, I, can you do me a favor?

I go, what's that? He goes, Can I leave the box in the firehouse?

I work in forty truck and I'm gonna go out for a little while, but then I'm gonna.

Come back and get the box. I said, okay, no problem.

He leaves me. He leaves the Lombardi trophy in the firehouse locked up on the apperass for and he leaves. He comes back. It's about four o'clock in the morning. We come back from a run and he's banging on the firehouse front door.

He can't get in.

He doesn't have a key, he doesn't know the combo, he's legless, and he goes, I'm gonna lose my job. What happened? He goes, I lost the key for the trophy?

Unbelieva, Hello, mister George.

How might you pay for the for the new guy?

Twenty bucks?

No, too much?

Too much?

Lost the key for the Lombardi trophy, which is sitting in the firehouse. I said, well, you know, do me a favorite, get that trophy and get the fuck out of.

Here before somebody gets in trouble, before I get blamed.

Yeah, shit, all right, We have one more we get marked big ah.

Yeah, that's uh Saint Patrick's Cathedral. On one of the anniversaries of nine to eleven, we always go to mass at Saint Pat's and Cardinal Dolon invited us up on the altar for a photo. I thought that was a great shot. A big guy all the way in the back. Bro.

Yeah size, there's there's another guy right next to him.

I think that guy is a fireman out in Limbrook Maguire.

That's Ray Maguire.

I think that's long ago. Was that guy gets in every.

Everywhere on the other side.

It's unbelievable that you knew who that was. His brother, him and his brother like, well, it looks like Ray because it is.

That's a huge bitch.

God, you're right tonight, tonight.

That's a big bitchny.

Sorry, sorry, right, we love you, love you. Right.

So did you actually ever stop uh studying or you kept studying the whole time?

I was very fortunate.

I was a lieutenant for two years and they gave a captain's test, so we never stopped studying. And then uh I passed the captain's test with the steam pipe explosion.

Yeah, so that that was the.

See that must have been seven. That was uh Park Avenue and forty second Street. So we come down seventh Amn, and we make the left on forty second Street. Rescue one is in front of us, and as we're going towards the site, all you see is thousands.

Of people running towards us.

Now remember this is post nine to eleven. Yeah, and all these people are running towards us.

We go, what the hell? And then in the middle of the street you.

See thousands of high heeled shoes. The women were just kicking their shoes off and running for their lives. Wow. And then when we got to the site, there was a tow truck in the hole and the guys are just coming out of steam and bricks raining down on top of the rig. And there was a city bush on Lexington Avenue. So we went up to the bus and the chief We couldn't talk to the chief on the handy talking. There was no radio communication because this

What happened to tow Trusty.

I think the tow truck driver was killed. And the woman he was with that was in the truck, I think she she got like severe burns. She went to the burn center. Yeah, it was it was a mess. Yeah. Yeah, that was nuts. And it's not something that you trained for. It's not something you ever expect to see.

Uh, it's Manhattan odd ball.

Manhattan odd ball.

There's so many of them happened.

If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

It's gonna happen in Manhattan.

Yeah.

A lot of chiefs that go up the chain make sure that they work a stint in the ninth Battalion or the third Division.

Uh.

My captain when I was in four truck was a guy by the name of Mike Myers. You might have heard of Mikey, Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

So he started out one seventy five, he went to rescue four and now he's the chief of training. Yep. So he was a captain when I was there, and then he went to the ninth Battalion, or I should say he stayed in the night Battalion. Then he went to the third Division and went up the chain quite rapidly, And that was the thing to do. I had division commanders. I mentioned Tom Jensen, before, we had Tom mccavanaugh, we had John Sudnick.

So it was no.

Accident that these guys became three and four star chiefs.

And they worked in Midtown.

I think they were all told, like, you know, if you're a rising star, you got to work there.

Yeah, so you get you study, you take the captains tests were on that list.

That was a tough test. That was a test that only like two hundred guys passed. Really, Yeah, they made that test really difficult, and I was right in the middle of the pack. I think I was probably like one hundred and ten, maybe somewhere around here.

You find you know, you find your where you should be as an officer. And then then yeah, promoting captain right, And.

I felt like, you know, becoming a captain is no different than being a lieutenant as far as being on the rig, your responsibilities are a little different, but as far as being a company officer and being on the apparatus, there's no difference.

I'm gonna bet that this guy gets a good spot as account. I'm gonna go on a limb here. So once again I got lucky.

And one of the guys in the sixteenth Battalion, the battalion commander, Frank Donnelly, I just happened to drive when I was a fireman driving the sixteenth Battalion, oh five years prior. H He calls me up and election He's like, Steve, Yeah, he says, listen, Uh, twenty three truck is going to open up. The guy scored number one on the chief's list, Jimmy Brosie. He's now the head of the union, the

So I said, sure, you want my left arm.

I'm all right, arm, what do I gotta give you? And he says, did you just sit tight? And when he gets promoted, I'm putting you in twenty three? I said, thank you, sir, And I just waited. I bounced for about two years, and uh, well you did bounce that long. I did. There were a lot of captains in the division when I got promoted. And you know, the nice thing was I worked a lot of city wide, so I had not worked in other borrows previously. So I started off in Harlem. I go to Midtown and now

It was great, cool, a lot with Big Philly Tofano.

I worked with Phil. I played with Phil.

Also, Yeah, great guy man, great guy you play at football.

I was a wide receiver and I kicked.

Yeah.

I gat you played in high school too. I was gonna ask you before that.

Yeah, I played in high school and I played one year in college. It was Division three.

Sot an sure.

Yeah, wood he was a big dude.

Man.

Yeah. I had a pair of gloves when I played high school football. I was a ligneman and I had lineman gloves. They were padded and they were really good gloves. And when I came to the fire department team, I still had them. I gave them to Woody and he wore those gloves. He goes, man, these are good gloves. Yeah, they're expensive gloves, and he he wore and he loved them. And I loved Woody. He was a great guy. Everybody knew him, loved him.

Two guys who went to Too Young Bro both of them Philly, Philly and Woody.

Yeah. And I was good friends with Tommy Cullen. He was in in place I think to ninety.

I don't know.

I think it's on Long Island.

Heard you know, I actually heard that the busiest fly company in the world, in.

The world, in the world.

Yeah, I just read that somewhere.

He transfers from ninety to Squad forty one.

Tommy call it and I said.

To him, I go, what the hell are you going to squad forty one for nobody likes them? That's okay. I'm from two ninety.

I've been I've been hated my career.

Tommy Collin was killed on the eleventh, along with another two dozen guys from the football team.

That sucks.

Yeah, that was a guy that was uh Sterling right, Sterling was if.

I remember Bronco, Broy Fletcher, Patty Lions.

Oh, Patty Lyons, so many names. Okay, he was a good guy.

Sometimes when I look at the the photograph of the three forty three, a guy's picture, and I go, oh, yeah, I forgot he died too, It's just it's overwhelming. It's it's beyond the comprehension.

It really is.

You get up to the truck over there. Finally, when do you go there?

Two years? So two years so I got promoted in eight and then twenty ten, I get assigned to a lot of twenty three.

And I followed there. I got all that thought, Yeah, did you work in thirty truck?

Yeah?

When I was covering Nicol what to do? Then go over there.

I told him to.

Slow down, turn on the blue lights in the rear. What lights are a police cause.

That sounds like bro, you do that perfect?

Twelve years Yeah, a little working tools, our baby carriages.

I love it.

Yeah, wow, that's great. All right, So you go up to twenty three and uh, you know.

Something about your dad? What were you saying?

Oh right, yeah, oh yeah, my father was a lieutenant eighty engine So it was a unique experience. I had worked in the firehouse as a fireman. There's my pops medal day and eight. Wow, that was the steam pipe explosion metal that we got, the Al Sasser medal.

Oh, I was gonna ask you if you got a medal for that? Should look down right here.

There you go.

So yeah, so it was a unique experien Pretty sure the guy's gonna be leaning over like this.

He's got some medals, you know what I mean, Mexican War General.

The NYPD badge. I think it's gonna up here is.

Your pop's still around.

He's still around, and you gotta get him on a show eighty two years old. No him, he'll be on a show. He'll be talking for four hours, three another hour kill us. When he worked They called him Larry the Lip because he never shut up.

Yeah, we'll get him, we'll get.

Him, We'll get him. Yea.

He worked in the South Bronx in nineteen six, so there's a picture. I put that in because I was not on a job. Then this is in the late seventies. And if you look in the center at the photograph, that's the Crossbronx Expressway and this is looking south.

So I guess it's an aerial photograph.

I thought this was from the movie War in the World.

It does look like it, right right, So in the center of the photo where then the Cross Bronx Expressway is, that's the firehouse. That's forty six engine and twenty seven truck, and it's right next to a police precinct.

And then from the par you could see it when you go you can.

Still see it. Yeah, So that's Washington Avenue just to the left of the firehouse, and then you can see like a black border there that's Third Avenue and Rescue three incidentally is presently in this photograph as well. They're just south of forty six and twenty seven, so you could see how that.

Place looks like London during World War Two.

Blitz Creek.

Unbelievable.

That is that little does that say we are here on that little thing, which.

As you are here, because that is a photograph that's in the firehouse. It's hanging up in the firehouse, and I took a picture of us. Said, man, I gotta show these guys this photograph.

So I know they were busy in Brooklyn.

I know there's good fire stories around the city, but the South Bronx was in its heyday, was a war zone. Yeah, that's crazy.

A lot of the kids playing in the burnt out cars there's no buildings around, or the jumping out of the second story on a pile of.

Mat I talk.

I talk about when I was a kid, we used to go upstate. We used to take the Major dig in past Yankee Stadium to get on the GW and I remember those buildings that were right there before you get you know that rep before you get it. It's always traffic there, it's always backed up. But I remember as a kid looking at the back seat, all those

I mean, look at what the Bronx is burning.

That was That was a Dinkins thing. Mayor Dinkins had paintings on the window, someone holding a cup.

Of tea, drink tea.

Yeah, it was ridiculous.

So it didn't look like a vacant building.

Yeah that we've been to fifteen times before.

Absolutely, And now you go past those buildings and nice, but you know, oh.

They've been renovated. Yeah. Yeah, they pumped billions of dollars into those neighborhoods.

You having some hipster in.

That eventy seven World Series when they had them.

There was a fire in the outfield.

Yeah yeah they were burning, Howard Brown.

Burning the Bronx is burning.

Yeah, you ain't shipping.

Yeah.

Those were the guys that taught me.

They they learned in the South Bronx and Harlem back in the hey day when they were going to fires all the time. And that's uh, those were the guys that taught me.

It must have been going to so many fires, bro, like you think every period think they go to work but those guys.

You can't fathom the amount of matter work that those guys.

My father said, nobody did twenty fours. They did straight towards.

They worked.

And everybody in the Bronx, every fireman in the Bronx lived in the Bronx.

I was gonna say all lived in the Bronx, man.

Yeah, nobody was commuting. You're taking the train to work.

Is your dad originally from the Bronx.

Yeah, he's from Soundview in the Bronx.

Yeah, he's a Yankee fan guns.

Yeah, from the Bronx.

Yeah.

I mean he used to go to football games and baseball games at the Polo Grounds. Oh man, we gotta get this on, bro. Now, it's projects.

We gotta get it is it is? Yeah, we gotta get the lip on.

Great, what you could be with him, and you could speed him up if he gets hung up.

You know, there's no speeding him up.

But he had a couple of We've had a couple of eight year old guys and their son as well. They just sit on the sideline and they say, hey, Pop, tell them the story with this. Yeah, like just to keep them on, you know, on Yeah, because they forget a lot of shit, I forget.

I forgot shit too.

Yeah eighty two.

You're just talking about what?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh I I wanted to ask you before we got too far, but you got when when the Laaney got there, or you weren't gone by that.

No, I was gone al ready. I got promoted on three. He must have gotten there right after.

He painted a picture of his first couple of fucking months there. He had a hot time.

Just it sounded pretty similar like.

It was a tough place. Yeah, yeah, you just remind me another story. A couple of probes were working in in fifty nine and thirty and there's two probies on the house watch in the middle of the night, there's a knock at the door, and fifty nine to thirty had a lot of verbal alarms, with a lot of fires that were verbals, and you were talking the days before cell phones, so you either use the payphone or

Somebody came knocking on the door and they said, the fire in the Chinese place. So I gotta go to out of the proby. I was sitting on the watch with the guy. He gives me radio. He goes going on around the corner. It's the middle of the daytime. See what's going on. I turned the corner. It's blowing out like fucking three windows on the top of the Chinese.

I was like a paddic to run back to the far. I didn't even guve the radio.

I ran back.

Awesome things. What not to do?

Right? Patty Lee is in the chat. That's all the tenant He wrote little Why didn't you walk past Whitecoff Avenue when you were a kid in uh in Queens? So Whitecoff Avenue like that was like ridge with and that went like from the good area.

Nick Obacca, you were going downhill if.

You went past Whiteclough, it was like falling off a cliff, man, it was just like right there. And then you know one twenty four was on Saint Nick over there and talker truck.

So, dude, I'm there in the seventies there.

We'll never forget one time of My father owned the camera store Nickoboaca Avenue in that area down there, so I work with him in the summertime. You drive up past, he takes me down. Wilson stops the car and he says, I want to let you know this is white. Dad works three jobs to keep you out of the ship. And I used that.

On my.

Did you ever see the picture If you ever see a picture from Nickobaca Avenue where one twenty four is parked and there's like ten factories on fire and everything.

His father pictures from the camera store, walked out with a one ten camera to some of.

The best far is that tanker truck one?

Yeah?

Yeah that was Billy.

Carlson's father was a captain.

Yeah, yeah, all this Carlson Carlson, you heard him. He'll see him on the boat trip. He always comes.

That fuck.

Dude again, you talk about Keith, it's he's like Billy's kind of close. Right, Yeah, he's yahout.

You would say, we're.

Got a little buffed Tom and Keith a little.

Yeahs the buff he's just he just got he's.

A little buffy.

But but Billy, he's buffy.

Yeah, yeah, he loves all.

Was a member of the New Jersey Metro Fire Photographers Association. He used to bring a bustload of the Buffs to the firehouse every year. Oh yeah, yeah, and then he would bring him. He would bring him to rescue three. He'd bring him to the firehouses and hopefully they catch a job while they were driving around the city. Ah, look at that.

Well all right, just went down and bring it.

Oh no, little Birdie Turpin now like nugget, little nugget, a little nugget.

Yes, Jose, there wasn't v im on Nikoboker Avenue.

Yes, I don't remember that.

That was the Yeah, I think it's still left.

That was bred, white and Blue. Right, they had the stars and ship all over.

Yeah. Yeah, man, all right, all right, where are we back at?

All right, let's look at some more pictures.

Yeah, come on, Pete, pick them up.

Well he's got he's twenty three now, Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah, this is.

A great shot. This is all the captains that won six Battalion minus sixty nine Engine.

So uh rolf, I told you look at a rack on the guy's chest. Man Mike Gaffney on the left, he's still in fifty nine Engine. John Gormley is a battalion chief down the seven Battalion. Jimmy Leach in the pipe band, he's retired myself. And then Matt Hagen, he was the captain of eighty Engine. He just retired recently. Wow.

Yeah, it was a great shot. Yeah, it was a great shot.

I blew it up a little bit, so you have another one.

This is after an early morning jab job. The boys in twenty three, Uh, absolute professionals. They always did their job, they did it well. They made my job so easy as the captain, and I have the utmost respect. My My goal was always to make the guys as good or better than I was, and to be half as good as the guys that taught me. And these guys are all better firemen than I ever was. They're great guys. They always were in position, they always did the right thing,

Like Disney World, you just have to show up.

Was just show for full law. Robi told me that, Oh yeah, so Rob knows the guy on the far right there, that's Scorbo. So Pete Sorbo got on the job. I think he got I.

Know, I know, yeah.

So Pete got out and O two and I was still in thirty. So I remember when he got on and made remember Probi in twenty three and then in twenty ten I get promoted the captain, I get assigned to twenty three. He's still there, and of course I snatched him up to be my chauffeur. He was a chauffeur, extraordinary, great fireman, funny as hell. We had a million laughs.

You had to sit there and you had.

To converse and talk for at least an hour. And there was a guy that was a lieutenant there, Mike Galgano, and he was the.

One I know, yes, familiar. He was a fireman in one to twenty.

I know him.

And then he went to Squad two, Squad one, Yeah right, instead I rescue too. I think he went to Squad one. But at any rate, he was a lieutenant in twenty three truck and that was his rules. After the meal, I want you guys to sit here, and we're just going to converse.

And we called it the Galgano Hour.

And uh, guys who put their phones down. There was no television, and we would just sit there and we would laugh and tell stories and joke and it was just a great They still do it now, they still do it.

It's a great audition, great audition.

That's been for many, many years. And uh, I think it's a it's a great lesson for a lot of young guys. You know, put your frigging phone down, have a conversation. You might learn something.

Yeah, you guarantee put the phone down already.

Man.

And imagine, I mean when I got out, cell phones would kind of just they weren't as prevalent.

As they are now.

But I see even when I passed the firehouse, guys outside on the cell phone.

From and I've worked in many firehouses in the sixth division that had signs right outside the kitchen no cell phones.

That's awesome.

Yeah, most firehouses have TVs in the dining air, some do not, and a lot of firehouses now have to sign no phones because people are on their phones the entire meal, or they're watching TV in tire mill.

And you can have twelve guys not even fucking looking at each other, you know.

Yeah, I don't get it. I go to a diner and I see four young people at a diner and they're all eating their food with their phone like that, right now, why'd you go out to eat?

Yeah?

Freaking stay home. I don't understand it.

Yeah, maybe QC Beas Maybe you can put that question if QC Bee's becomes a member, you know what I mean.

Yeah, well we have a new member.

By the way, I'll put it up to Captain Ellie. Were there for the eighty twenty three second alarm and quarters?

No that happened, Uh, probably the end of two thousand and eight. I got the spot two years later. So I was the recipient of a brand new firehouse.

Yeah, yeah, there's Mark.

Thank you Mark, Mark.

Yes, I want to share that.

What I'm going to say another name, Ganza you know what to do proppuccini.

Oh, which one do you want? Actually? Because one? Which one do you want?

Now?

Are you dragging him?

Oh?

Oh?

Oh?

Which one do we want?

For QC Beast?

But fixed income?

Yeah they have but the uh which what am I playing for them?

Though?

Come on, oh my man, I was gonna play the birdies.

But okay, Rob knows it was Thanksgiving Day two thousand and eight.

Sorry, it's QC Beast.

Hold on a minute, ready.

Macaccini works.

If I got to hear about one more over time of he's working one more tour all over time, I'm gonna fucking vomit.

Guy, he's always working over time, but he can't afford fortnight.

What's the matter?

What's getting all worked up over here? Easy?

You have told me, don't put those fucking guys questions unless they played for it.

That was you.

Sorry, we got we got a photos that got a couple of saving two for.

I forgot about.

Yeah, there's some legends in this photogra So McCluskey talks a lot about e J. Tierney.

E J is the one who's front and center there.

We lost him to nine to eleven cancer and this was a dinner in his honor.

I think it was the chiefs dinner.

And this is just a crew almost all officers, but all guys that worked in the sixteenth of time in the companies or chiefs. So that's an amazing photographs.

Left, who's that kneeling down all the way on the.

Left, I'm not sure.

I thought that was that's that rock over loup Ronaldi.

No, I'm not sure who that is.

They're great.

I'd have to look at a bigger photo.

A lot of dust in that picture, a lot.

Of dust, you know. I know what I hear when I see that.

A lot of chiefs, A couple of staff chiefs in there. Yeah wow, Yeah, that's like who's who the sixteenth Battalion in the eighties and Grace right there?

Yeah, all right, there we go.

A couple more photos, I think.

Yeah, oh oh, here we go.

Oh good lord.

So that was affectionately known as the missile strike. It looked like that building got hit by a missile. Where this was on one hundred and forty fourth Street in Manhattan and on the corner of Broadway.

I thought, I was crazy.

Good thing they were working on the building.

Did this guy this guy went into the apartment with two gallons of gasoline poured all over the apartment and threw a road flare and there and ran out and we got there and it was it was a sixth story building. We were kind enough to make it a five story.

I usually say we didn't do some good.

No, we didn't do so hot that day. This is the same building, a different corner. So there was fire throughout that entire top shug shugging. That building was like one hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty. That was one of those best jobs in my career.

Yeah.

That was the first time I ever got on a handy talking and told the chief we're bailing out of this place. Yeahs coming from that Mike Malarkey had the nozzle and eighty engine. I was screaming at him to open the line up, and he said it was wide open right over our heads. It wasn't cool and ship, what are you talking about it? Yeah, Milwaukee that that job probably ended three careers and no doubt.

And there were a lot of hurt feelings too.

Let me tell you hurt feelings in three quarters.

Yeah, all right, got another job for you.

This is a this is I think fire on the second floor, communication up to the third floor. And the reason I posted this picture is because I remember it. It was on September eleventh, I think in twenty twenty. So we had all gone down to the trade center and paid our respects and they came in to do the night tour and we're in this apartment. We put the fire out and the kid in the bucket comes in. Off the bucket is Carlo Sarrow. His father was killed

I mean, it's all the time. I know, Angeline's son just got on the job, right, I mean, it's just every time I see that. You know, I say all the time, fucking social media is a cancer. You know,

To have three legacies in the fire department at once. I wanted to tell all three of them to sit in the corner.

Not yeah right, It's like I'm gonna be.

Yeah, yeah. If you get hurt, I'm gonna be pissed off of you.

Yeah yeah, David private Ryan stay here.

You lost some of the good men. And uh, it's great that these guys, uh and girls are carrying on the legacy of their fathers. Yeah yeah, I was immense pride.

Steve and I were talking during the pre show and I was trying to figure out how many members have joined since nine to eleven family members are part of FT and Y now and I was just trying to look it up and there's no I can't find it out with them, it's.

Over one hundred, it is.

We got to we got the Geese boys.

Where did Allen's kid go?

He just went, you know, he's probably I think he's in the Canama now right now.

Yeah yeah, so many guys. Yeah yeah, So that's why I posted that picture.

No worries. One more great two more good jobs. Your last photo jack job.

That was the one I mentioned. Pete Sobo was the chauffeur. We had Timmy Dawn and Sean hanniberg uh Brady wear them. They were all working this fire. And I don't know who took this picture. Is a great photograph. I don't have that many photographs of fire pictures.

That's a great uh. That to me is like when I say all the time, like on the on the thing, if I post something like when you turn the corner, yeah, and you and you see fire out the window, like that's a perfect thing. Like you're like, that's a good job.

You could tell that's a nozzle man's dream.

It's gonna be a.

Good jobey inventing. Yep.

Yeah.

And you know it's funny. I don't have a lot of pictures of when I was in thirty because it was before.

Us cell phones.

Now we got citizen app we can get photographs of the job.

Well, we've been there on the way.

Yes, you can get a build them size up on the way. It's crazy. Whatever are is?

He said, one hundred and fifty five.

I believe that because what I say over one hundred I believe that.

Yeah, no, they said Ageline, that's where Angeline's son went. One fifty.

Yeah, oh, one fifty five. Okay, that's great, it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, there's so many guys. I mean, I don't even want to list them from memory because I know I'm gonna miss so many.

But there's so many guys. And like I said, and girls.

That are on the job now their father's Paris on nine to eleven, and uh, what a wonderful tribute and honor to their follows and to their legacy.

You got a bunch of guys in off my house rough even boys, boys. What's his names? The daughter from uh.

From oh Smith, Yes, Joseph.

Yes, Smith was in has Matt Yeah.

Yeah, he was in a busy engine company before.

Yeah, she was in she was in thirty nine. We were at the same time.

I think she's still there.

She went to has Matt or the has Matt engine. Yeah. Yeah, what's the mad engine in Queens, like a seventy four.

Yeah, that's where she went. She wasn't thirty nine engine.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah.

I think she was the first one, right, the first family member to join.

Is that what he did? She was He was one of the first ones.

I think she has and I believe her father was a marine as well. We brought a piece of steel down to Quantico, Virginia. If you guys ever happened to go to Quantico. There's a museum, the Marine Corps Museum, just off the path, not inside the museum, but outside, just off the path, there's.

A two pieces of World Trade Center steel and.

We have all the names of the guys from FDNY that were killed on nine to eleven that were in the Marine Corps.

Nice.

Yeah, all right, that's down a Quantico.

Yeah, another one. I got two more.

So this is just.

Another one of the proudest moments in my career. This is a metal day, I think in twenty twenty one. The guy in the center is the recipient of the Gancy Medal, the highest medal that you can receive. Wow.

He also did a roof rope rescue.

He rescued a five year old girl in a top floor window at a job in Washington Heights and Abe Miller is his name, And there's one of the proudest moments of my career. I think that this outshines any accomplishment that I ever had. To have a guy in your company receive the highest medal and also for roof rope rescue. What a proud moment. Not only did he get the Gancy Medal, but he was also invited to the White House and President Biden gave him the Medal

Steve, I'm gonna, I don't wanna. I had the same exact scenario. That's the guy I was in squad boss in the squad and bones McCoy right. He he got the Gancy And when we got the word, I was out fishing with my chauffeur who was in the squad. We were out fishing and I sat down and I was like overwhelmed, like how proud, Like I was like to have that, Like I couldn't believe like it was as if I got it.

Yes, that's how I felt. I told him, this is one of the proudest moments in my career. And I was so happy for him.

I agree. I was so happy for that guy.

And like I said earlier, it was always my goal as a company officer to make my men greater than I was, greater fireman, and I think I achieved that. Those guys are absolute all stars. I would follow any one of them anywhere.

I agree. Yeah, and that guy Bones John McCoy. He I called him Bones because of Star Trek, but he uh, he was one of the first guys that came to the squad after nine to eleven.

Yeah, and you know he you know he we took a shine to him right away.

Man, he was a good dude then. Yeah, he just got the.

Get your fucking shine box.

I don't know if you heard, I don't shine anymore.

I don't know, while I.

Don't know shines anymore.

Yeah, this is the last one you wanted to show.

Oh, so that's uh full circle. This was in the middle of the night.

I was I got a phone call. I was working at twenty three. I got a phone call. They said we need you to go to the sixteenth battalion. One of the chiefs has a family emergency. We need you to get there as soon as possible. So they moved one of the firemen, Tommy Furlong, he's in the photograph there. They moved him over from eighty engine and made him the acting officer in eighty. And they took the boss from eighty and put him in twenty three. And I went to the one six battalion. I got there not

You're not how to do it.

So this this is on the corner. This is on the corner of one hundred and thirty fourth Street and Lenox Avenue, a half a block away from thirty truck. So it's a full circle, full circle moment. I think if you look closely in the picture you might see one of the tools that fell off my rig that first week.

You had to be like laughing at yourself, like what that's going on here? Man? Yeah, like a.

Circle right around the corner from where it started.

So that was one of my last fires as an acting battalion chief, and it was right around the corner from the firehouse.

Yeah, how'd they send you off? How was your last tour?

Uh?

I was having some issues and I got hurt, so I wound up tapping out and then uh I did my last year, unlike duty at the academy before. Yeah, so I didn't have a last tour in the firehouse, so to speak.

Yeah so, but I.

Had a good career. Like I said, my feet from landing on them all the time, always landing on my feet. I was very fortunate, very fortunate or what else.

Yeah, I've never done this before.

I had pop time, pop time. Some guys have cop time. I have pop time.

The more this is what I say, the more we do this. It really comes down to if you do the right thing wherever you are, even if you're not in the best place at that time, inevitably you're gonna at the more time you do, you're gonna come around and somebody's gonna know you happened with leeb Right, he got on the squad because the guy you know knew him. Sure, Chief Richardson knew him when he was bouncing in three twenty three. Right, And it's just the same thing happened

I always to say it's it's not only who you know, it's who knows you.

Really, it does matter. If you do the right thing, people are going to try and yeah, you in their spots, you know.

So don't sending you one more picture?

That said me, all right, oh boy, I hope it's a good one. I hope it's a good one.

Rob.

Just send it somebody straight to my email. Could you do that?

I said to you my phone.

Okay, yeah, okay, give me a few seconds.

Carl. Somebody said, Carl Sharrow. Three sons and a daughter on the job.

That's correct. Yeah, for sorrows yep.

Wow.

Yeah, it's a lot more than we probably think.

Giving their mother some gray hairs.

I would love to get that information. I'm not going to try to do that for next time. I always they.

Actually took a photograph. I saw a photograph that had all the legacy kids at the Fire Academy one picture. Yeah, probably about two or three years ago.

That's pretty cool.

And there's more.

Yeah, I got another one coming in Hot off the Press via gans Off the press, it's of somebody else.

But oh.

Come on, come on, come on, take the money and run. Pull it up right now.

So while you're looking for that photo, I did fourteen years in twenty three truck and I asked someone to senior guys, guys that worked there in the eighties, I said, do you ever remember in the history of the company someone being there, captain being there longer than you know, ten years? And they said, no, I don't think that's ever happened. So they think they think there has been a they think the longest tenured captain in the history of the company. Wow, thank you, good for you, cap.

Hell yeah, oh.

Yeah, okay, let me see if I can blow that up while you guys are looking at it.

That's Danny Quinn on the left, and he's uh, he's a lieutenant in a place I think one twenty I don't know where that is, somewhere.

Maybe three letter three number that job.

And then Pete Sorbo, he was my chauf for Extraordinary. He's since been promoted to lieutenant and he's at the Rock. I think he got promoted about two years ago. So yeah, that's a great photo. That must have been when I first got to twenty three because uh little Quen Yeah nice and clean, nice and white yeah clean, yeah, what do you have it? Now?

Where do you got to live? The little man Cave?

I think they're hanging in my garage.

Yeah yeah, tower load of two three and now he's in Tower lad of one two.

Oh one twelve.

There we go there, just give me a few seconds.

Coming in hot right now, hot from David Williams somebody else that we were just speaking about. There he is Joe Angeline the third going a lot of.

One fifty a. Look who that is next to him? Brough your buddy.

Big al Yeah how big?

How Benjamin from Rescue one?

Yeah that is that's Davey Williams from Rescue one. He's got that rescue three forty three rescue rate that he tastes the places.

He's a great guy.

Guy.

Won't answer my phone calls when I asked him to come on the show, but he's a great guy.

On than that, I love Davy. He must be watching tonight if he sent me.

That must right my gun.

Sorry made a little bit bigger for us, And you wanted to get a little close flat top on this guy's.

Head, Williams's what Kirk Lester said.

You can always tell what decade he was by his hair, and he said the flat top was the eighties.

He was a military guy too.

I think he was like a mind guy, one of the guys, and I forget what he was Vietnam Gay.

It'd be great if he came on the show. He could tell us the story.

Dave, Yeah, come on, one more military guys story. When I was in the Marine Corps, we had a company gunny gunnery sergeant. His name was Mike Curtin, and he was a cop in the seven to five precincts. And my cousin, Robert, Robert Yeager was also a cop in the seven five And when Curtin went to es U he became a sergeant.

He went to SU.

He brought my cousin over with him, and Curtin, Vigiano, and Delera, all three of them were killed on that truck two in Harlem b SU. And my cousin Robert fortunately was out and for Totten serving warrants or some shit, so he was spared that day. I had five cousins that were city cops. All of them survived that day and of course myself. So we were a very lucky family. I thought i'd mentioned the Vigianos and Carton. My Carton

The family we didn't do what we talked about it in the free show. We wanted to mention Georgie mont right.

Yeah, yeah, So his his funeral, I believe is tomorrow.

He was dispatcher in Brooklyn, right right, So we'll raise a glass to him as well.

Baby baby.

Got drinking tonight.

No, okay, I'll save it for the weekend, right, I think.

That time right now?

Gun?

What time is that? My friend? It is time for of the day. There he is taken away, cap.

I guess my old school tip would just be simply to uh, seek respect, not attention, be humble, but be confident, and always set the example because you never know who's watching you. You never know what kind of example you're setting, and who's trying to be inspired by the example that you're setting. And you never know. You might train a guy someday who becomes a captain and then.

You send your son to his firehouse.

It happens. It happened to me. So leading by example is of the utmost importance. When you don't feel like drilling, when you don't feel like doing the right thing, someone's watching you.

So do the right thing all the time.

Do the right thing.

First part.

Yeah, humble, I love that.

Yes, that's what you should aspire to do in your career. Be respected and not just get attention, because we all know there's no better compliment than that guy's a good fireman.

Excellent. Yeah, great show, great, thank you.

Thank you, bro.

I'm humbled, And what an honor was to come on. Oh, I appreciate you having me.

Hey, by the way, do you ever see Procaccini's old lady? We call them thiss iss Procaccini's husband going on.

We don't really, we don't really talk.

Like any shout out. I never met her anything.

So thank you for everybody made comments, left comments and the.

All that stuff.

Thank you very much.

When you got guns held in safety tip, oh.

Ship, thank you let me grab one.

Oh you know I'm gonna use one ahead, Okay, okay, here we go up.

The First Responders 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 Fallen Firefighter Foundation.

This is a simple one, bro.

It's been hot as fuck out, so drink and stay hydrated. Because by the time you either see your dark piss or you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated. So make sure you're hydrated throughout the day. And that is the old school health and safety tip. Who do we got next week?

Ruff? I was just gonna mention that next week is the holiday. It's July third is a Thursday, so it's been a little tough to fill that spot. So we might have to figure something out this week. We have some time after that. We're booked until September.

Basically, if Davey Williams would call me, maybe we can film a show like on a Wednesday, a Rescue one show and post a Rescue one show and post it on a Thursday. If Davy Williams would call me and we could do that with Hash Hagen. I already got a Hash, I got Muley and possibly Joel Davey Williams come on, we'll do a rescue one show.

If he may be watching right now, I.

Don't know he could be, but anyway away.

All right, guys, that's all I got. Great guest, great career caps.

Thanks brother, Thanks, enjoy your retirement.

I ask you a.

Question, have you had the dream yet?

I've had a couple of repetitive dreams.

One one way, you can't find your bunky gear, and you get.

I have no gear and I'm on the radia.

Everybody has it.

Everybody has that. That's amazing. And another dream that I've been having is to try I call myself and make myself available for overtime. Excuse me, I call the division and uh, I realized, yeah, I'll take it.

I realized that money.

I got no gear.

That's it, man, I have no gear. I gotta run every guy I talk to.

Isn't that weird? That's that's weird.

Repeated dream. I still have it. I'm out ten years, I still have it.

That's crazy. Yeah, and I call work and I make myself available for overtime.

I'm available money.

Yeah, I don't know how they're gonna pay me, but i'm available, right, excellent?

All right, guys, we'll figure something out for Thursday. Until then, stay low Ago, thanks for tuning in, and take a couple of shekels out of your pocket for thanks.

Thanks for having me man, Thank you.

See it was an honor.

All right, guys, have a good night in South Florida. Enjoy I love that