By Bill Adams
During one morning coffee with the Raisin Squad, I had mentioned something about turnout gear. I can’t even remember what it was. Anyhow, when stopping at the station a couple days later, one of the white hairs was lying in wait, ready for an ambush. He waved around a photograph he miraculously pulled off his computer – probably with his grandkids’ help. It showed a good worker in a large shed or outbuilding of some sort with lots of nasty looking smoke and some pretty beat-up firefighters. The caption said, “high heat and humidity was brutal.” The troops looked whipped.
My nemesis excitedly pointed out what was obviously a chief officer standing well out of the smoke plume – resplendent with black slacks, dress shoes, and a spotless white shirt with his portable radio in an over-the-shoulder carrier strap. He looked official. The white hair started: “You wouldn’t let us get away with that.” I replied he was correct, adding everyone on the fireground should’ve worn full rubber goods. “They’re turnouts; not rubber goods. Rubber goods went out with the horses.” I shot back that the proper terminology today is PPE (personal protective clothing). He returned fire: “I don’t give a hoot what you call them; he ain’t wearing them.” This white hair sounded like he was blaming me for the officer not wearing rubber goods.
He kept it up: “You know, you started all the hubbub around here about wearing gear.” I said it was an unwritten and seldom enforced policy that was generally accepted well before my time. And besides, I didn’t get a white coat until the mid-1980s. “It don’t matter. You said at a meeting if we saw a line officer not wearing his gear, you wouldn’t get mad if he accidently got wet.” I said some officers didn’t always wear their rubber goods while admonishing the black coats (the troops) for not wearing theirs. He wouldn’t let it go: “Dammit – they ain’t rubber goods. You know what I’m talking about!” He was starting to shake and foam at the mouth – not healthy for an older person. On the way out the door I said I don’t care what you call them – just wear them. You’re supposed to lead by example.
A couple days later, RUBBER GOODS came up again. A couple of the geezers said there wasn’t too much in the trade magazines about keeping gear clean and keeping dirty gear out of the cabs. I agreed there hasn’t been much written about clean cabs and where to store rubber goods on a rig. One white hair: “Does that mean you don’t care anymore?” I said I didn’t say that, adding every day you see pictures of helmets propped up against the windshield on rigs going down the street. “You’re changing the subject.” I went home.
About a week later the harassment continued. “Hey – didn’t you write about storing gear a while back?” He knew I did. He was just setting me up. (https://www.rigspot.com/features/2020/02/more-on-clean-cabs/) “You thought it was important back then. What changed your mind?” I told him lot of people wrote about it back then and some still do today (https://landing.clarionengage.com/lion).
I mentioned life was simpler when they used to hang rubber goods on the sides of rigs. I wanted to tell him life would be much simpler and calmer if they didn’t let old people like him in the fire station – but he’s younger than I am. His blabbing might get us all tossed out.
He fired back, “Yeah, I remember those coat and boot rails, but when responding, it was kind of dangerous to crawl up in the hosebed to grab’m and put’m on. It was just as hard as lighting up a smoke when riding on the back step. Besides, they don’t use the rails any longer – there ain’t enough room. The new breed wants high compartments to carry stuff they’ll never use.” Fortunately, none of the young guys were around to hear that.
One semi-rational geezer asked where firemen (they were called that back then) stored their turnouts on rigs without crew cabs. He made a good point especially if they didn’t put their gear on before climbing aboard, adding even if they put everything on except the helmet – where did they store it? I brought in a photo from the article showing how much room a set of rubber goods takes up in a compartment. One set of gear takes up over five cubic feet of space and it was packed in tight. Storing a helmet alone probably takes up the space of an 18 pack of long-necked bottles of your favorite adult beverage.
Another white hair said it would be interesting to find out how and where departments store firefighters’ rubber goods; and how often they cleaned them. He asked if the clean cab concept is still alive and how are individual departments addressing it. I mentioned there’re too many variables between career, volunteer, and combination departments. In the volunteer entities alone, some may store gear in the stations, or on the apparatus, or even issue to the people to carry in their personal vehicles. There can’t be a single policy to fit all departments.
He said I should write an article about it. I told him to have a field day and to try it himself. I wasn’t going to do it. I think it was Mark Twain who said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” We old people ought to.
