Saturday, October 5, 2013

AFD On Display

 AFD Central heart of downtown Amherst

After the deluge of emergency responses last night into early this morning today's Open House at AFD Central must have seemed like the calm after the storm.

Although I'm sure the coffee and cider donuts came in handy.


Smokey Bear and Jada the Jr. Firefighter

Smokey Bear and Kira

In spite of sequestration, a Federal Government shut down and state budget cuts, Smokey Bear managed to make the event, and throughout the morning maintained a happy face.  Considering he was a magnet for children -- mine included -- probably not too hard a feat.

Firefighter 75' over town center courtesy of the quint

Unlike climbing to the top of the quint, Engine 2.  Although Smoky Bear did keep both feet firmly on the ground.   Probably an insurance thing.

911 Dispatch (& the 729): Unsung heroes

A little history:

Human drawn pumper circa 1850s

The infamous Amherst College Alumni Gym fire 1985

And a scary future:


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

God bless the firefighters. Thank you to each and every one. RM

Anonymous said...

Nice post Larry. Just one comment in the interest of accuracy. Although it was purchaced well into the horse drawn era, the antique pumper in the photo was actually hand drawn and hand operated. Firefighters would pull it to the scene of fires themselves and then operate the pump with the long handles on wither side. These types of pumpers are refered to as "handtubs". Some handtubs were in fact horse drawn, however this one was not.

Jeff Parr

Anonymous said...

While we can argue about the balance between compensation and resources ("stuff 'n' staff")versus how high taxes should be, I think all of us can agree that these are truly noble, heroic people.

It's the 8th most dangerous job in the country (DOL stats on workplace injuries & deaths -- police officer is only 10th). It is job that few people could do well, and a profession that few people would last very long in.

Don't forget that in a small community, they often know either the victims or their loved ones -- I know one guy who had to get off the regional dive team after having recovering the body of a high school kid who had fallen through the ice -- a classmate of his son.

And a jaw-dropping percentage of them, an even higher percentage of the "good" ones, have some form of ADHD. They may or may not know it, if they do they likely don't tell people, but an objective/accurate evaluation of our nation's "best" firefighters would find that almost all of them do.

This is why they neither liked nor did well in K-12, a few other things, and why they are so good at their job.

I mention this not to disparage firefighers but to point out ignorant most people are about ADHD -- which is not a mental illness, by definition.

ADHD does not mean "lazy, crazy, & stupid. I don't think we think our firefighters any of those -- any more than we consider all Black men to be rapists & murderers -- even if Willie Horton is both.

It was outrageous when George Bush the Elder used Willie Horton against Michael Dukakas in the 1988 POTUS campaign -- all of us, not just Black men -- were offended by the involved prejudicial presumption that Horton was anything other than an outlier.

I suggest that we need to look at ADHD in a similar light -- there are bad people -- outliers -- in any subgroup of the population. Remember what the word "prejudice" means -- to "pre-judge" a person -- and that it is both ethically and factually WRONG.

Anonymous said...

Ed, are you trying to tell us that you have ADHD?

Larry Kelley said...

Thanks Jeff. Had I known that I would have made the kids give it a test pull (and switched the iPhone camera to video).

Anonymous said...

And a jaw-dropping percentage of them, an even higher percentage of the "good" ones, have some form of "ADHD. They may or may not know it, if they do they likely don't tell people, but an objective/accurate evaluation of our nation's "best" firefighters would find that almost all of them do.
This is why they neither liked nor did well in K-12, a few other things, and why they are so good at their job."


Could you please post where your "facts" come from? 'Cause Im thinking its BS.

Anonymous said...

I have read that people who post long, drawn out, often off topic responses on blogs have undiagnosed mental disorders. Or they have been diagnosed but choose not to accept it.