Shepherding Outdoors

CHRISTMAS PARADES

BY WALT MERRELL

I was never asked to drive the firetruck in the Centreville Christmas Parade … and, perhaps, for good reason.

Hannah and I had not been married but a few weeks when Mickey Barton came knocking on our door. At the time, I had never met him, but looking through the glass in the front door, I summed up pretty quickly that, “He ain’t a Jehovah’s Witness.”

“Who is it?” Hannah yelled from the kitchen sink. She was washing dishes left over from Saturday lunch, and she was trying to decide whether to dry her hands to welcome a guest or keep washing because I was going to "shoo" whoever it was away.

“Don’t know yet,” I said, cracking open the door. Mickey was wearing a Centreville VFD shirt. I was not in the FBI, but even I recognized that as a “clue.”

“Afternoon, Sir,” I offered as I stepped out on the porch. I had yet to determine if I was going to invite him in or not… after all, we’d only lived there for a few weeks, and we didn’t know anyone except the Murphy family up the street and the next-door neighbors with all of the dogs. Mickey smiled and stuck out his hand to introduce himself. We shook and exchanged pleasantries, and he welcomed us to town.

Not big on small talk, Mickey got down to business quicker than a Pentecostal Evangelist at a tent revival. “You ever been a volunteer firefighter?” he asked, leaning in with an expression of curiosity on his face. The question caught me off guard… my words fell over each other as my mind searched for the very simple response. I expected an invitation to the church two blocks away or a complaint about my dog… I never expected to be asked if I was a firefighter. Some seconds later, I finally managed to chuckle through a “noooo.” Perhaps uncertain as to why I was giggling, Mickey laughed a little, too.

“Well, have you ever thought about joining the fire department?” Mickey smiled all the way through the question. What kid has not daydreamed about being a firefighter? I couldn’t possibly deny that I had thought about it… but thinking about it in some fantastical fashion and actually being asked to do it are two entirely different things.

“Do what?” Hannah’s voice echoed down the hall and jumped over my shoulder. I could tell from the tone that she was completely opposed to the idea of me running into any burning house… and who could blame her? We were newlyweds, and she had not signed up to be the wife of a firefighter. I was in law school at the time, and, outside of the time I spent working on a small farm in Shelby County, my life did not involve much risk. “Oh, no! You aren’t playing hero and leaving me a widow!”

Hannah was still down the hall and had yet to come and properly welcome our guest, and I could see that the conversation was going to digress quickly. So, I gestured up the hall to Hannah and pulled the door shut so that “us men folk” could finish our conversation. Looking back through the glass, I saw Hannah stop her march down the hall, put both of her hands onto her hips, throw the dish towel over her shoulder, and turn and sashay back into the kitchen.

“Something tells me she doesn’t like the idea very much,” Mickey said with a grin on his face. “I reckon she doesn’t,” I agreed, “but tell me more.”

For the next twenty minutes, we sat on the front porch steps and then migrated into the living room. Of course, Hannah was hospitably Southern, as her mama raised her to be, welcoming him into our home with a wide smile and a pitcher of lemonade. The more Mickey talked about what being a volunteer firefighter meant to him, the more it meant to me, too… and the more Hannah softened to the idea.

“You’d be the closest firefighter to the station if you joined us,” Mickey offered. “The station is right there…” he pointed through the window and down the street. “You’re only a few houses away.” I looked, knowing his effort was simply for demonstration, but I knew where the station was.

Hannah sitting on the front porch of our first home.

“That’s one of the reasons we decided on this house,” I offered, “because it was so close to the fire station. Figured it would mean we’d be better protect ed.”

Without missing a beat, Mickey chirped up, “You’d sure be protected if you were driving the firetruck.”

Another fifteen minutes or so, and Mickey left as pleasantly as he’d come. I assured him we would pray and talk about it, and I invited Mickey to give me a call in a few days. And Hannah and I did… talk and pray about it, that is. Then we rented the movie, "Backdraft," a 1991 blockbuster about life as a Chicago firefighter. The movie did it for me… “Those guys were heroes… who wouldn’t want to serve like that?!?!” The movie did it for Hannah, too… “Those guys were nuts! Who would want to die like that?!?!”

So, we prayed about it… discussed it some more… and ultimately, I won a two-out-of-three game of "rock, paper, scissors"... so, the decision was made.

I called Mickey and shared my excitement. Mickey, celebrating with me, suggested we do some training as soon as possible. I was eager to oblige, so the next Saturday, I spent most of the day at the Fire Station learning how to run the pumps for Centerville Engine No. 1. It was not an overly complicated process, but very important, nonetheless. And, given the fact that Engine No. 1 may have actually seen service time in World War II, knowing her subtle finesses was a deli cate matter, indeed.

Perhaps I exaggerate… she was a mid '50s or early '60s one-ton Chevrolet truck with dual rear wheels and a three-speed manual transmission. Engine No. 1 had definitely been surpassed by the department’s other trucks when it came to modern conveniences, but she made up for it in consistent reliability. She had a big round Cagney-and-Lacey-type rotating red light smack dab in the middle of the dulled red cab. She carried several hundred gallons of water, and could pump out multiple hoses, including a brush fire hose on the front of the truck. On the back of the truck were rails for men to hold on to, and a platform where they could stand as sentries—though our department policy forbade any rear riders—and atop each sentry’s post was another rotating red light.

By the end of the day, I could not only drive the truck, but I thoroughly understood the pumps and all of the mechanisms. I knew how to attach a hydrant hose to flow water into the truck from the nearest hydrant, and I knew how to pull and attach hoses—no more than two, for that was all the pump could handle—to the outflow valves for the men to fight fires with. “I think you pretty well got it,” Mickey offered as he patted my sweat-soaked shoulder. “Next hot call we get, she’s all yours.” Nervous, but brimming with machismo, I grinned and said, “I got it, L-T.”

A few weeks went by, and all was quiet. Thankfully, Centreville was not a hot bed for arsonists, errant fire works, or nuclear explosions. But unfortunately, with each quiet day that passed, I feared my muscle memory was fading, too… “What if I forget something?” Days passed still, and rust began to set in, so I went down to the Station a few afternoons and went back over all of the truck’s working… but never cranked it or pulled it out of the bay.

The following week, I was in the middle of my Saturday projects when my pager sounded three tones. “That’s us!” Adrenaline raced through my veins, and instantly sweat beaded on my forehead. I consciously talked to my self about staying relaxed as I grabbed my gear, gave Hannah a hug and kiss, and raced for my truck. In hindsight, I recognize how frightful that moment was for Hannah, but in the heat of the moment… I neglected her. I do regret that.

Of course, I was the first one to the station! I threw my gear bag down on the concrete floor and unzipped it. Inside sat my turn-out trousers, already pre-positioned over my boots. About two seconds later, I was fully suited up. I unplugged the “ole Girl” from the battery charger, threw open the big rolling bay door, and, in one swift swoop, pulled the cab door open and launched into the seat! A second later, her big, noisy engine roared to life… like the fat lady at the end of a long buffet line, her growl echoed out of the block build ing and into the street. My mind was racing through the checklist… two switches flipped to the “on” position and the sirens started screaming too. I revved the engine... “Help is on the way!” I screamed out loud as I let off the clutch and the truck pierced the veil of the bay door and blared out into the street. Goose bumps covered my entire body… I felt alive!

Alive that is, until I heard metal crashing against metal and felt the truck struggle and grunt… “What the…” I searched both the right and left fenders. “I didn’t run over anything.” Then the sound of more crashing filled the confines of the cab. In my side view mirror, I saw the subject of my calamity… the bay door dangled from the tall red light that was mounted atop the sentry post at the rear of the engine. I immediately realized that, in my haste, I failed to raise the door all the way, and now I was dragging it down Highway 82. But only for a moment… for about 50 feet down the highway, the door dislodged and came to rest smack dab in the middle of the road.

“Centerville Engine 1 to dispatch.”

“Dispatch, go ahead.”

“Uhhh, yes ma’am. Would you ask a City Police Officer to report to the Fire Station? There is debris blocking the road.”

“Chief to Centerville Engine 1.”

“Go ahead, Chief.”

“Engine 1, did you say, ‘debris’?”

Like I said, they never asked me to drive the fire truck in the Christmas Parade… and I guess they never will.

Walt Merrell writes about life, family and faith. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, he enjoys time “in the woods or on the water” with his wife Hannah, and their three girls, Bay, Cape and Banks. They also manage an outdoors-based ministry called Shepherding Outdoors. Follow their adventures on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at Shepherding Outdoors. You can email him at shepherdingoutdoors@gmail.com.