Between work and the fire department I've been busier that a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest the last few weeks so I really haven't had time to go over my next installment of "Bridge of Sighs" for you. I promise I'll get to it this week sometime and have it posted by the end of the month.
Thank you all for your input on chapter one, it's been a big help. In posting it I did have one windfall. The fictional National Guard unit the main character is in, C company, 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion isn't completely fictional, it happens to be the army unit my father served in during WWII. In using the unit and then posting the chapter, someone doing a search for that unit on Google and subsequent emails to me has steered me towards the 824th TD Bn. Association, located in Long Island, New York. This is really good news because hopefully I might get to talk with someone who served with my father during WWII. I know it's a long shot at best, it was a small unit and most veterans of that unit still alive have to be in their 80's now... My father would have been 80 this past October. So I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hopefully I'll be able to get some answers to questions that have gone unanswered all these years.
On to Barney... I've got a feeling he's going to unknowingly give me reams of material. He's just that stupid.
This past Thursday morning when Barney relieved me from duty at 2 AM I just had one thing to pass along to him. One of the guys from the Deli Mart accidentally took home the key for the ice box and came back later in the evening to drop it off to me. I gave the key to Barney, and told him these exact words:
"Give this key to the owner at 6 AM, one of the guys mistakenly took it home with him and dropped it off to me..."
Simple, right?
Wrong.
Somehow even this simple little thing Barney would fuck up. And in the process almost gets the guy who took the key home fired.
What did he tell the owner at 6 AM about the key?
"Tom found this in the lock on the icebox..."
It's a really good thing I saw the owner later than morning when I was heading over to the firehouse and found out what had transpired. He was about the fire the guy when he came in that day for his evening shift.
He's that stupid. He makes the two main characters in "Dumb & Dumber" look like mensa members.
Onto the fire department. Since they've got a huge big-screen TV with cable I've been spending most of my free time there... I'm making up for all the lost time without TV at my place. That and since the weather has turned to shit I've been hanging out there just in case we get called out. I spent last night and most of yesterday there sleeping on a couch in the upstairs TV room. Tonight, barring anything major I'm definitely going to spend the night in my own damn bed for once.
I'm also going to be taking a few classes here in the next month so my posting may become irratic. I'm scheduled to take the Firefighter 1 class in March, and there's a basic vehicle extracation course coming up given by the Princeton FD I'd really like to take too, but that's at the same time. The assistant chief is going to try to see how I can take both and still not change my work schedule around. I was also going to take a few classes at the ESCAPE seminar in Pipestem come the end of this month, but I thought it would be better to get my FF1 under my belt first because most of the non-EMS classes for firefighters are advanced classes. I have decided to attend the huge party the last Saturday of it though, from what I hear it's usually a blast with live music (and plenty of adult beverages). My department always gets a cabin for the entire week so I won't have to worry about getting home that night.
Right now it's still snowing like a bastard and my pager hasn't gone off since yesterday morning when we had a vehicle roll-over on Rt. 20... I'm going to keep my fingers crossed it stays silent and try to get myself some supper, get a shower and crawl into my bed for a few hours. But I just know as soon as my head hits the pillow I'll get toned out... Snow is supposed to continue tonight into Sunday night.
Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden
4 comments:
SOME people (Barney) just should be stopped before they procreate! Trouble is, there just are WAY too many people like him. I feel your pain. :)
Why would he purposely makes something like that up?? He intended on getting the guy fired?
I would watch my back if I were you, tom.
I love living vicariously through your postings. Better you than me :-D
cmk: Unfortunately he already has at least four times that I know of...
sherri: I just thing he a moron... I'm not worried, I do my job and I'm good at it. I do have to get a pic of him somehow and post it... He's my age, but almost totally bald. If he was normal he'd have a "horseshoe" haircut, but he's still going with that "Mullet" look that looks even more rediculous with his bald grape.
tsduff: Thanks for the simpathy...LOL
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