I don’t even know how to start…explain how I feel, defend how I feel or just go take some xanax and forget about it.  I’m a total adrenalin junkie.  Was this born in to me or was it acquired because of my daily hits for the adrenalin high resulting from my 911 job?  Whatever the reason, I love to let my senses soak in shiny things that make a lot of noise and go fast…like fire trucks, rescue vehicles and cop cars.

My first love is EMS and fire.  About two decades ago, I followed a dream or wild hair and decided to take training to become an EMT for a local volunteer ambulance service.  I completed the training portion of becoming a certified emergency first responder but didn’t actually take my state test because reality set in and I realized I lived in the wild…I have another politically incorrect name for it that ends with Egypt…and did not live close enough to the station of the volunteer fire/ems for my area to even consider my value in becoming a member.  The only paid EMS service was in Newton and required fireMAN training also.  I let that dream go…My thirst for the danger and adrenalin manifested by becoming a reserve police officer for a small town about 20 minutes from our house in the country.  It was very hard work for my then acquired age…the physical training was difficult but I had a dream and the drive to do it and I had my friend, Rod, to keep me on track.  Rod and I passed, did the pepper spray training, asp training, trained and certified for our permits to carry and we were on the job.

The Chief of the Department put me into the elementary school 1 day a month to talk to kids about the police and 911 and let them talk to me about whatever and just be a presence.  This was a volunteer position.  After about a year, my dad had died, I had fought depression and gained some weight.  I knew my days of wearing the uniform were over when Rod and I were working a community event…I needed to go the bathroom…after the deed was done, I couldn’t zip my uniform pants…so I opened the door to the bathroom and yelled at him to come in…we had  an exchange of loud conversation where he was insisting he wasn’t coming into the women’s restroom and I was insisting that he was or we weren’t going anywhere..I won…he came in and zipped my pants while I held them closed.  This was our friendship…this was my WOD.

Toward the end of my career at 911, I was heavily involved with the county emergency management..I really thought that when I retired, I would go that route and do something in the related field…

So to make a long story a little longer.  I heard emergency sirens coming a couple of nights ago…then I heard the fire truck fog horns and knew this wasn’t just an ambulance run…this was important and they were making the “get the hell out of our way” noise.  I looked out the front window and saw a lot of smoke hanging in the valley….and then more sirens and more heavy fire trucks and more noise and I had to see what was going on…

In order not to look like your typical rubber neck, I leashed Frannie up for a walk.  It was a fire all right – many departments showed up…fire trucks and police car and rescue units were passing me on the street – loud, bright and exciting.  All the while, I thought to myself I used to absolutely hate the rubber neckers or the idiots who would call the police to see what was going on when they heard a siren.  Here as I was.  My total rush had nothing to do with the house being on fire as all of the other morons standing on the corner with Frannie and I.  I was there for the high.  I was there for hearing the rumble of the arriving apparatus trucks and the sirens and the lights.  I’ve become one of them….

Until next time