So the other day I was listening to my favorite radio talk show host, Dori Monson. He read a news story where an “adult” was injured slightly while playing “Lighter Fluid Tag”. His clothes had caught fire and it seems he was burned a bit.
Duh… Apparently the game is played by squirting some lighter fluid on your own clothes. The fluid is lit by someone else while you try to put the fire out. You are “IT” until you put it out and can then light someone else on fire and the whole process starts over.
Well this led to a radio discussion of how stupid these guys were but it didn’t take long for the conversation to change to all the stupid things the rest of us had done, including some surprisingly near death experiences. Turns out these morons weren’t that different at all.
So at dinner that night Ali asks me to tell the story of “Dodge Darts”. Apparently mom had put her up to it. Well I told it and of course then realized it needs to be put on my blog of stories.
So here goes nothing…..
This story begins in the 60s when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My family was headed over to Bill and Marilyn Porter’s house for dinner one night. David and I were dressed and ready to go while the rest of the family was pulling it together. It was cool fall evening so we were wearing sweaters with stylish baggy sleeves.
We headed outside and before we know it we found a dart with a sharp metal tip. We tossed it around for a bit and then we had the bright idea to begin a game of “Dodge Darts”. We had never played before and rules were not established. That didn’t matter as each of us soon realized the dart is thrown at you and it was your job to avoid it.
Because David was 10 years old, was much more skilled, and carried an ornery streak, he was much better at this than I was. Before we both knew it he had landed a solid strike in my inner forearm of my left arm. He looked at me, I looked at him and neither of us had the nerve to pull it out. At this exact moment my parents came out the back door with the announcement. “in the car, let’s go”. I acted quickly. Knowing my dad would be furious at our stupidity I did what any smart kid had would do. I pulled my rolled up sweater sleeve back down to my wrist and hid the dart under it. “That’ll fix it”, I thought. “We’ll just deal with this later”.
Well the drive to the Porters was at least 15 minutes to get from our house and onto the base. We had a good dinner but I really wasn’t in the mood for much food. The dinner had been served and all the kids were in the backyard tossing balls, climbing trees, etc. I, for some reason, felt more like sitting inside with the adults and remaining still. It had probably been about an hour and a half since the initial impact and I was turning green.
My dad came over and said to me, “Son, why are you sitting in here with us old folks, why don’t you go out and play with the others?” By this time I was about in tears from the pain in my arm. I tried but couldn’t utter a word. I simply reached down and pulled the sleeve of my sweater up to my elbow exposing the dart still stuck in my left arm.
Well I don’t remember exactly what happened after that. I am pretty sure my dad pulled it out….hold on…yeah it’s gone. I don’t recall what kind of trouble I got into for that stunt but if history repeats itself I would guess that I went to bed as soon as we got home and David was given seconds on dessert.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
"a helluva job”
It is my experience that firemen are really just boys who have grown up enough to play with fire and do it legally. During training sessions we built our own fires, the bigger the better, and practiced putting them out. The day we were given an abandoned house “to burn”, was like winning the lottery. It was what we enjoyed doing.
That being said, there is nothing worse for a fireman, especially a volunteer, than having days or even weeks go by without a fire call. I know that this sounds weird, but it gets depressing. Well this story begins at the end of a 3-week dry spell for fires in Bishop California.
Our pagers went off at about 4:00 in the afternoon. “Attention Bishop Volunteers, Attention Bishop Volunteers, we have a report of a brush fire in Round Valley near Horton Creek Campground, Please respond.” Immediately my heart pounded. Was it excitement, was it joy, or a combination? Who cares!!
I responded to Station 1 and knew that we were to take the large brush trucks. I jumped into Engine 14 and looked to the driver’s seat to see Hugh Henderson. Hugh had joined the fire department a few years after I had, but was very experienced and I had no concerns about responding with him as the Engineer. I preferred to be “just” the firefighter on this rig anyway because the action was better. I would get to stand on the front deck and run the permanently mounted nozzle as Hugh slowly inched the former military AWD vehicle through the fire scene.
As we approached the scene, which was about 10 miles from the firehouse we could see a large column of black smoke. We got so excited that we looked at each other and then shared an enthusiastic high five amidst our whooping and hollering. We knew that there was going to be lots of action and we would tackle a good portion of it.
As we pulled onto the scene we could see that nearly 60 acres were already blackened, smoldering or on fire. The area was completely fenced with a barbed wire and 6x6 post fencing. We came to a stop and Phil Moxley, the fire chief, stepped up onto the side running board. He looked at us and he said, “There is a CDF (California Dept. of Forestry) truck that has gotten themselves in a bit of a pickle. They went too far into the fire scene and the engine on their truck has died. They can’t get it restarted and the crew of 4 is in danger. Go in and get ‘em out.” Knowing there was no time to find a gate to enter, he looked at the fence then back at Hugh and said, "take it out".
Hugh put the 6 wheel drive vehicle in low gear and we proceeded to simply drive over the fence line, knocking down fence post and wire as if it were made of balsam wood.
We went directly to the stranded crew, attached a chain to the front of their vehicle and with little or no effort we were able to pull them about 200 yards into the burn area** and to safety. Here the CDF mechanics would be able to restart the engine without any concerns of safety.
(note: ** When you are on a brush fire and you are in danger of being overrun by a fire that may have turned back, the safest place to be is “in the burn”. It’s hard for a fire to come back through and burn an area that has been burned previously. It might be smoky, but it is safe.)
Once this crew was safe we could put our efforts into fire suppression. By this time Engine 9 had also arrived and between the 2 of us and one small dozer from the US Forest Service, we knocked that fire down in a few hours. Our tactic was to attack each flank with a different rig and try to pinch it at the point. This took careful work as the fire could always flare back up behind you and surprise you. Once we and Engine 9 met at the point we had pretty much surrounded the entire fire with only a few small spot fires within. This allowed the local hand crews, staffed by prisoners, to complete the mop up work.
The engine crew we had saved still had not been able to get their rig running so we really handled the fire all by ourselves, even though it was within the jurisdiction of the CDF. And to top it off we managed to keep it from running up the face of Mt. Tom, which would have been extremely disastrous as the fire entered the Inyo National Forest.
As if the fire fighting that day hadn’t been enough, the crowning moment was when the Chief for the CDF station came on the radio and said for all of humanity to hear, “you Bishop boys did a helluva a job out there today.”
That being said, there is nothing worse for a fireman, especially a volunteer, than having days or even weeks go by without a fire call. I know that this sounds weird, but it gets depressing. Well this story begins at the end of a 3-week dry spell for fires in Bishop California.
Our pagers went off at about 4:00 in the afternoon. “Attention Bishop Volunteers, Attention Bishop Volunteers, we have a report of a brush fire in Round Valley near Horton Creek Campground, Please respond.” Immediately my heart pounded. Was it excitement, was it joy, or a combination? Who cares!!
I responded to Station 1 and knew that we were to take the large brush trucks. I jumped into Engine 14 and looked to the driver’s seat to see Hugh Henderson. Hugh had joined the fire department a few years after I had, but was very experienced and I had no concerns about responding with him as the Engineer. I preferred to be “just” the firefighter on this rig anyway because the action was better. I would get to stand on the front deck and run the permanently mounted nozzle as Hugh slowly inched the former military AWD vehicle through the fire scene.
As we approached the scene, which was about 10 miles from the firehouse we could see a large column of black smoke. We got so excited that we looked at each other and then shared an enthusiastic high five amidst our whooping and hollering. We knew that there was going to be lots of action and we would tackle a good portion of it.
As we pulled onto the scene we could see that nearly 60 acres were already blackened, smoldering or on fire. The area was completely fenced with a barbed wire and 6x6 post fencing. We came to a stop and Phil Moxley, the fire chief, stepped up onto the side running board. He looked at us and he said, “There is a CDF (California Dept. of Forestry) truck that has gotten themselves in a bit of a pickle. They went too far into the fire scene and the engine on their truck has died. They can’t get it restarted and the crew of 4 is in danger. Go in and get ‘em out.” Knowing there was no time to find a gate to enter, he looked at the fence then back at Hugh and said, "take it out".
Hugh put the 6 wheel drive vehicle in low gear and we proceeded to simply drive over the fence line, knocking down fence post and wire as if it were made of balsam wood.
We went directly to the stranded crew, attached a chain to the front of their vehicle and with little or no effort we were able to pull them about 200 yards into the burn area** and to safety. Here the CDF mechanics would be able to restart the engine without any concerns of safety.
(note: ** When you are on a brush fire and you are in danger of being overrun by a fire that may have turned back, the safest place to be is “in the burn”. It’s hard for a fire to come back through and burn an area that has been burned previously. It might be smoky, but it is safe.)
Once this crew was safe we could put our efforts into fire suppression. By this time Engine 9 had also arrived and between the 2 of us and one small dozer from the US Forest Service, we knocked that fire down in a few hours. Our tactic was to attack each flank with a different rig and try to pinch it at the point. This took careful work as the fire could always flare back up behind you and surprise you. Once we and Engine 9 met at the point we had pretty much surrounded the entire fire with only a few small spot fires within. This allowed the local hand crews, staffed by prisoners, to complete the mop up work.
The engine crew we had saved still had not been able to get their rig running so we really handled the fire all by ourselves, even though it was within the jurisdiction of the CDF. And to top it off we managed to keep it from running up the face of Mt. Tom, which would have been extremely disastrous as the fire entered the Inyo National Forest.
As if the fire fighting that day hadn’t been enough, the crowning moment was when the Chief for the CDF station came on the radio and said for all of humanity to hear, “you Bishop boys did a helluva a job out there today.”
Monday, May 4, 2009
Where in the world is Alessandra from?
For years we have been astounded at the individuals that will ask Alessandra what race she is. She has had school chums ask her if she was part black, part Mexican, full Mexican or Asian. I mean to tell you this has happened probably 40 or more times over the past 8 years or so. It’s uncanny.
What is even stranger is that people will ask her are you “fill-in-the-blank”? And the most common fill in the blank is “Guatemalan”. I once was talking with a ward member who had served a 2-year mission in Guatemala and I asked him his opinion about this. His answer was, “you know I can see it. Put her in native dress and she definitely would pass as a Guatemalan native”. Crazy!!
Anyway the reason I bring this up, the other day Ali was cleaning her room and came a cross a notebook where she had written down a few of these exchanges with strangers and/or school mates. Here are a few good ones.
1. The three of us are at Taco Bell in Yakima. Ali is holding our table while Melodie and I order the food. Her hair is braided very tightly for a week of Young Women’s Camp. A 60ish black woman walks by and stops. She says, “Who braided your hair?” Ali replies with “My mom”. The woman says back, “Oh is she black?”
2. Troy, a black student in the high school band, asks Ali to produce a picture of her mom. He wants to figure out why she turned out so “not white”.
3. While on a trip to Washington DC after 8th grade a young lady, who has one white parent and one black parent confesses that she thought Ali was always of the same parentage.
4. During a band performance the Saxophone section queries Ali.
Saxes: Are you black?
Ali: No I’m not.
Saxes: Asian?
Ali: No.
Saxes: You mean you’re white?
Ali: Yes.
Saxes: You sure you’re not Puerto Rican?
All this racial background and there’s no college money. Where is the “Guatemalan/Part Black/Asian/Maybe Puerto Rican College Fund” when you need it? It’s just not right.
What is even stranger is that people will ask her are you “fill-in-the-blank”? And the most common fill in the blank is “Guatemalan”. I once was talking with a ward member who had served a 2-year mission in Guatemala and I asked him his opinion about this. His answer was, “you know I can see it. Put her in native dress and she definitely would pass as a Guatemalan native”. Crazy!!
Anyway the reason I bring this up, the other day Ali was cleaning her room and came a cross a notebook where she had written down a few of these exchanges with strangers and/or school mates. Here are a few good ones.
1. The three of us are at Taco Bell in Yakima. Ali is holding our table while Melodie and I order the food. Her hair is braided very tightly for a week of Young Women’s Camp. A 60ish black woman walks by and stops. She says, “Who braided your hair?” Ali replies with “My mom”. The woman says back, “Oh is she black?”
2. Troy, a black student in the high school band, asks Ali to produce a picture of her mom. He wants to figure out why she turned out so “not white”.
3. While on a trip to Washington DC after 8th grade a young lady, who has one white parent and one black parent confesses that she thought Ali was always of the same parentage.
4. During a band performance the Saxophone section queries Ali.
Saxes: Are you black?
Ali: No I’m not.
Saxes: Asian?
Ali: No.
Saxes: You mean you’re white?
Ali: Yes.
Saxes: You sure you’re not Puerto Rican?
All this racial background and there’s no college money. Where is the “Guatemalan/Part Black/Asian/Maybe Puerto Rican College Fund” when you need it? It’s just not right.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Me, Bucky and a Standby Crew
Bishop Fire Dept had a well-established rule that rookies of 2 years or less could not ride on the first responding engine unless he was the third man. The logic being that the engineer had to run the pump upon arrival and if you were the only other first responder you should have more than 2 years experience and know what hose to deploy and how to do it effectively and safely.
This rule applied to both Standby Crews and a full response fire alarm. Let me explain the difference. 9 times out of 10 our pagers would go off and we would respond Code 3, full lights and siren, to the scene. Other times we would be asked to send a “standby crew”, which meant send one or 2 trucks to help out with a situation or to check out a situation further pending a full response. We would drive the speed limit and not use any lights or sirens to respond to a standby call. Examples of a standby crew call would be to help free a horse whose foot had gotten stuck inside a cattle gate, or maybe to a small brush fire the size of a bathroom that had no chance of spreading.
This particular day in 1985 our pagers went off, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, Attention Bishop Volunteers, please send a standby crew to the 2900 block of Mesquite Drive to check a report of an electrical smell”. I responded, as did others, to Station 1 and Jeff “Bucky” Stewart was firing up Engine 10. Bucky was always excitable and did all but order me into Engine 10. He wanted to get going and didn’t want to wait. I reminded him that I was a rookie and shouldn’t respond in Engine 10, to which he replied, “it’s only a standby call…get in”.
We headed west on W. Line Street and less than a block later our pagers went off again. “Attention Bishop Volunteers, callers report a heavy electrical smell.” We continued on and once more our pagers went off 2 blocks later, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, we now have a report of smoke coming from electrical sockets”. As we debated whether we should hit the lights and siren our pagers went off a third time in less than 5 blocks, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, this is now a possible structure fire”.
By this time I realized someone was going to have a word with me about why I was on Engine 10 as a rookie. I was getting more nervous and our pagers went off one last time, Attention Bishop Volunteers, attention Bishop Volunteers, we have a fully involved structure fire, please respond full Code”.
We were at the intersection of W. Line and Home Street, a distance of only 7 blocks from the firehouse and this call had escalated from a standby call to a fully involved structure fire. Amazing! I looked at Bucky and wondered what he had gotten me into.
We arrived on scene to find the fire was contained in the garage, but it was ‘burning good” as we used to say. As Bucky put the PTO in gear and started the pump I pulled the 1 ½" line off the middle compartment and stretched it toward the garage. We carried about 400 gallons, our pump at full capacity would deliver 150 gallons per minutes; so that meant that I had just under 3 minutes to get a handle on this fire all the time praying that Engine 4 would be right behind us.
Well, we did a good job that day. We managed to knock the fire down enough for Engine 4 to come in and complete the mop up with its payload. The assistant Fire Chief, Stan Lloyd came up to me and complimented my efforts, turned to walk away and then paused. He looked up and said don’t get yourself in that situation again, Perkins.
This rule applied to both Standby Crews and a full response fire alarm. Let me explain the difference. 9 times out of 10 our pagers would go off and we would respond Code 3, full lights and siren, to the scene. Other times we would be asked to send a “standby crew”, which meant send one or 2 trucks to help out with a situation or to check out a situation further pending a full response. We would drive the speed limit and not use any lights or sirens to respond to a standby call. Examples of a standby crew call would be to help free a horse whose foot had gotten stuck inside a cattle gate, or maybe to a small brush fire the size of a bathroom that had no chance of spreading.
This particular day in 1985 our pagers went off, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, Attention Bishop Volunteers, please send a standby crew to the 2900 block of Mesquite Drive to check a report of an electrical smell”. I responded, as did others, to Station 1 and Jeff “Bucky” Stewart was firing up Engine 10. Bucky was always excitable and did all but order me into Engine 10. He wanted to get going and didn’t want to wait. I reminded him that I was a rookie and shouldn’t respond in Engine 10, to which he replied, “it’s only a standby call…get in”.
We headed west on W. Line Street and less than a block later our pagers went off again. “Attention Bishop Volunteers, callers report a heavy electrical smell.” We continued on and once more our pagers went off 2 blocks later, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, we now have a report of smoke coming from electrical sockets”. As we debated whether we should hit the lights and siren our pagers went off a third time in less than 5 blocks, “Attention Bishop Volunteers, this is now a possible structure fire”.
By this time I realized someone was going to have a word with me about why I was on Engine 10 as a rookie. I was getting more nervous and our pagers went off one last time, Attention Bishop Volunteers, attention Bishop Volunteers, we have a fully involved structure fire, please respond full Code”.
We were at the intersection of W. Line and Home Street, a distance of only 7 blocks from the firehouse and this call had escalated from a standby call to a fully involved structure fire. Amazing! I looked at Bucky and wondered what he had gotten me into.
We arrived on scene to find the fire was contained in the garage, but it was ‘burning good” as we used to say. As Bucky put the PTO in gear and started the pump I pulled the 1 ½" line off the middle compartment and stretched it toward the garage. We carried about 400 gallons, our pump at full capacity would deliver 150 gallons per minutes; so that meant that I had just under 3 minutes to get a handle on this fire all the time praying that Engine 4 would be right behind us.
Well, we did a good job that day. We managed to knock the fire down enough for Engine 4 to come in and complete the mop up with its payload. The assistant Fire Chief, Stan Lloyd came up to me and complimented my efforts, turned to walk away and then paused. He looked up and said don’t get yourself in that situation again, Perkins.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Alessandra – Seldom at a loss for words
I have a couple of stories that will illustrate Alessandra’s vocal skills. Not only can she talk a lot, but she can “say the darndest things”.
1. Until she entered Kindergarten she spent much of her days at “Mama Gail’s”, which was at Gail Paul’s, her babysitter. It seemed like so much happened during those short hours that during the 7 minute drive home she would just talk my ear off. If she got done with her stories before we got home then she’d just start back at the beginning and go through them again.
One particular day, when she was about 3, my mind was mulling over a technical problem at work and I just wasn’t up for any noise beyond what was already going on in my head. As she began a rerun of story she’d just finished, I stopped her rather abruptly. “Ali”, I said “you’ve gotta stop talking, I need to think”. There was a brief silence until I glanced over at her and noticed she was quite upset. She looked at me through her glistening eyes and quietly said, ‘I just don’t know how to stop”.
2. In the mid 90s we got our first cellular phone. It was that ever-popular Motorola flip phone that weighed about 2.5 pounds. One day when she was 3 years old we let her place a call to one of Melodie’s friends. They talked for just a few minutes and then she hung up. She handed her mom the phone back and with no emotion whatsoever said, ‘hmm, now I know how to use a cell phone”, as if it was on a “to do’ list to be checked off.
3. About this same time we were driving in my pickup on North Main Street in Bishop. A 60s era Chevy El Camino passed us on the roadway. She exclaimed, “Hey Dad….look at that thing. It’s not really a car and it’s not really a truck. What’s the point?” I looked at her and in all the seriousness I could muster simply uttered back. “That’s a question that no one is able to answer.”
Oops….gotta run, Ali’s calling on the phone.
1. Until she entered Kindergarten she spent much of her days at “Mama Gail’s”, which was at Gail Paul’s, her babysitter. It seemed like so much happened during those short hours that during the 7 minute drive home she would just talk my ear off. If she got done with her stories before we got home then she’d just start back at the beginning and go through them again.
One particular day, when she was about 3, my mind was mulling over a technical problem at work and I just wasn’t up for any noise beyond what was already going on in my head. As she began a rerun of story she’d just finished, I stopped her rather abruptly. “Ali”, I said “you’ve gotta stop talking, I need to think”. There was a brief silence until I glanced over at her and noticed she was quite upset. She looked at me through her glistening eyes and quietly said, ‘I just don’t know how to stop”.
2. In the mid 90s we got our first cellular phone. It was that ever-popular Motorola flip phone that weighed about 2.5 pounds. One day when she was 3 years old we let her place a call to one of Melodie’s friends. They talked for just a few minutes and then she hung up. She handed her mom the phone back and with no emotion whatsoever said, ‘hmm, now I know how to use a cell phone”, as if it was on a “to do’ list to be checked off.
3. About this same time we were driving in my pickup on North Main Street in Bishop. A 60s era Chevy El Camino passed us on the roadway. She exclaimed, “Hey Dad….look at that thing. It’s not really a car and it’s not really a truck. What’s the point?” I looked at her and in all the seriousness I could muster simply uttered back. “That’s a question that no one is able to answer.”
Oops….gotta run, Ali’s calling on the phone.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Who’s Gonna Kick Daddy’s Butt?
When I joined the fire department in 1984, they gave me a BFD ball cap and a badge. Eventually I was given a white uniform shirt with Bishop Fire Department and American flag patches, etc. This shirt along with a clean pair of Wranglers and cowboy boots combined to make our “dress uniform”. Why we had a dress uniform is beyond me. We seldom wore them except during Fire Prevention Week each October, at parades and solemnly at funerals.
Regardless of the reason I had one, I was very proud of it. It was a source of much pride and unfortunately, in my case, much trouble.
The story begins in January of 1988. It had been a cold, snowy day in Bishop and when we all got home from work and school it was decided that we would go get some dinner. The four of us (pre Alessandra) all piled into our 1986 Nissan Sentra and headed through the dark of the night to El Charro Avitia on North Main St. We liked going to this place because Melodie knew the owner and half the time he’d walk by us and take our bill from us before we could pay it.
While driving there, a large Ford truck turned into the lane next to me and nearly cut me off. When the driver saw how close it was he made a pivotal decision. Rather than slow down and come in the lane behind me, the driver gunned it and whipped in front of me, fishtailing as he did so. This only served to further fuel the ire that had welled up almost instantly.
The actions of the driver caused me to presume it was a 17 year old local boy with no common sense and I began the chase. I pulled up along side of him just to see what this idiot looked like. Without any thought to the matter and certainly no thought to the potential outcome I whipped out my fire department badge and flashed it at the driver. After all, this kid wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my badge and a cop’s badge. He needed to learn a lesson and I, in my wisdom, had appointed myself the teacher.
As the badge was flashed I realized this wasn’t a kid at all, it was an adult. By the look on his face I could tell he had taken notice. Well….it didn’t matter; even adults, lousy driving adults, could use a scare now and then.
I pulled ahead and by this time had passed my destination. Chips and Salsa were calling and I wasn’t going to waste any more time with this guy. I pulled into the Copeland Lumber parking lot so that I could turn south on Main St and back to dinner. I look in the mirror…geez this guy pulls in behind me and by now I can tell he’s a big dude.
I’m already getting looks from Melodie for flashing the badge, but I take off anyway and head south, but this guy follows me South on Main St. Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my wife, because she is awesome in every situation. However, the first words out her mouth are, “he’s gonna kick your butt.” She repeated this several times as I headed south.
Cara and Charlotte unbuckle themselves and start defrosting the rear window with the sleeves of their jackets, all the time 5 year old Cara is asking, “who’s gonna kick daddy’s butt…who’s gonna kick daddy’s butt?” I tell the girls to sit back down and put their belts on. They do so as Cara asks again, "but who's gonna kick your butt daddy?".
By this time I decide that if that is going to happen it’s going to be at the police station. I drive there and park on the side of the station, all the while I was pretending I never saw this guy following me.
With all the confidence that Melodie had recently instilled in me I stepped from the car only to find he had parked behind me and was exiting his truck too. This guy was huge, probably 6 inches and 100 pounds bigger than me. He called out, “hey, I wanna talk to you”. I looked up and feigned that I was surprised to see him. He continued, “man I owe you an apology…I’m a retired state police from Nevada and I was way out of line back there. I was trying to get your attention, didn’t you see me?” I answered that I hadn’t seen him behind me at all.
After a few minutes of his apologizing and my accepting of his apology, he asked, “so what were you doing here?” Once again, quick on my feet, I declared, “this is the police station; I was going in to file a report.” Of course we agreed that there was no reason to do so.
After about 5 minutes of visiting by the hood of his truck we shook hands and departed company. The whole time the occupants of my car were staring through the rear window at the exchange we were having. I entered the car to Melodie’s silence. Finally she broke it, “what happened”, she asked? I thought for a moment and said, “I gave him a warning.”
From that moment on my fire department badge went on a long sabbatical, only returning to my possession in time to wear it to a funeral of longtime firefighter and friend of the department, Bobby Richards.
Regardless of the reason I had one, I was very proud of it. It was a source of much pride and unfortunately, in my case, much trouble.
The story begins in January of 1988. It had been a cold, snowy day in Bishop and when we all got home from work and school it was decided that we would go get some dinner. The four of us (pre Alessandra) all piled into our 1986 Nissan Sentra and headed through the dark of the night to El Charro Avitia on North Main St. We liked going to this place because Melodie knew the owner and half the time he’d walk by us and take our bill from us before we could pay it.
While driving there, a large Ford truck turned into the lane next to me and nearly cut me off. When the driver saw how close it was he made a pivotal decision. Rather than slow down and come in the lane behind me, the driver gunned it and whipped in front of me, fishtailing as he did so. This only served to further fuel the ire that had welled up almost instantly.
The actions of the driver caused me to presume it was a 17 year old local boy with no common sense and I began the chase. I pulled up along side of him just to see what this idiot looked like. Without any thought to the matter and certainly no thought to the potential outcome I whipped out my fire department badge and flashed it at the driver. After all, this kid wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my badge and a cop’s badge. He needed to learn a lesson and I, in my wisdom, had appointed myself the teacher.
As the badge was flashed I realized this wasn’t a kid at all, it was an adult. By the look on his face I could tell he had taken notice. Well….it didn’t matter; even adults, lousy driving adults, could use a scare now and then.
I pulled ahead and by this time had passed my destination. Chips and Salsa were calling and I wasn’t going to waste any more time with this guy. I pulled into the Copeland Lumber parking lot so that I could turn south on Main St and back to dinner. I look in the mirror…geez this guy pulls in behind me and by now I can tell he’s a big dude.
I’m already getting looks from Melodie for flashing the badge, but I take off anyway and head south, but this guy follows me South on Main St. Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my wife, because she is awesome in every situation. However, the first words out her mouth are, “he’s gonna kick your butt.” She repeated this several times as I headed south.
Cara and Charlotte unbuckle themselves and start defrosting the rear window with the sleeves of their jackets, all the time 5 year old Cara is asking, “who’s gonna kick daddy’s butt…who’s gonna kick daddy’s butt?” I tell the girls to sit back down and put their belts on. They do so as Cara asks again, "but who's gonna kick your butt daddy?".
By this time I decide that if that is going to happen it’s going to be at the police station. I drive there and park on the side of the station, all the while I was pretending I never saw this guy following me.
With all the confidence that Melodie had recently instilled in me I stepped from the car only to find he had parked behind me and was exiting his truck too. This guy was huge, probably 6 inches and 100 pounds bigger than me. He called out, “hey, I wanna talk to you”. I looked up and feigned that I was surprised to see him. He continued, “man I owe you an apology…I’m a retired state police from Nevada and I was way out of line back there. I was trying to get your attention, didn’t you see me?” I answered that I hadn’t seen him behind me at all.
After a few minutes of his apologizing and my accepting of his apology, he asked, “so what were you doing here?” Once again, quick on my feet, I declared, “this is the police station; I was going in to file a report.” Of course we agreed that there was no reason to do so.
After about 5 minutes of visiting by the hood of his truck we shook hands and departed company. The whole time the occupants of my car were staring through the rear window at the exchange we were having. I entered the car to Melodie’s silence. Finally she broke it, “what happened”, she asked? I thought for a moment and said, “I gave him a warning.”
From that moment on my fire department badge went on a long sabbatical, only returning to my possession in time to wear it to a funeral of longtime firefighter and friend of the department, Bobby Richards.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Another Face to Face Encounter with a CHiP
** Be warned. This story will make no sense if you read it before you read the post below. Proceed at your own puzzlement **
So one afternoon, about 2 years after the day I said NO to the CHiP officer I was traveling in my silver Nissan pickup eastbound on W. Line St. Alessandra was in the pickup with me, probably in her car seat, and undoubtedly talking. This talking may have been the root of the problem because where the speed limit lowers drastically from 45 to 35 and then quickly to 25 I was not paying attention to my speed. This implies that I was paying attention to Alessandra’s stories, but that may not be true either. I digress.
Somewhere between the 45 mph zone and the 25 mph zone I was traveling about 35 mph, or possibly more. Next thing I know lights are flashing behind me and I am pulled over between See Vee Lane and Sunland Ave. It’s the California Highway Patrol.
Interestingly he pulled in front and then walked back towards where I was stopped. I recognized him immediately. It was THAT officer. I braced myself for the worst. I knew this was going to be costly.
He approached my window and we exchanged all the obligatory documents and he stepped back to his car and presumably “ran my plates”. As he walked back towards the truck he noticed the red and white “Fire Dept.” reflective sticker mounted above my license plate and took silent notice of it. I must have come back clean because he gave me a warning to “keep your speed down”, and he sent me on my way.
I was stunned. I expected to be cuffed and stuffed, leaving Ali on the side of the road to walk home or something. Nonetheless, with warning in hand, I watched him walk back to his car to leave so that he could ruin someone else’s day.
He got about 30 feet from me and stopped in his tracks. He raised his right hand to the side of his head and snapped his fingers together as the light bulb when off. With the precision of an Nazi SS officer, he turned sharply around on his right toe and with reddened face marched quickly back to my window.
“Oh crap, here we go”, I thought. He arrived at my window and stuck his right pointer in my face and said, “You’re that firefighter from Collins Road aren’t you?” I said “yes” and braced for the onslaught. He was speechless. He was so red in the face he just stood there for about 30 seconds and couldn’t utter a word. Realizing he had already given me a warning he resorted to pointing to me once again and saying, “I’ve got my eyes on you Perkins.” With that he marched back to his vehicle and departed.
How I escaped that, I’ll never know. After he drove off, I took one look at Ali and she continued with her story.
So one afternoon, about 2 years after the day I said NO to the CHiP officer I was traveling in my silver Nissan pickup eastbound on W. Line St. Alessandra was in the pickup with me, probably in her car seat, and undoubtedly talking. This talking may have been the root of the problem because where the speed limit lowers drastically from 45 to 35 and then quickly to 25 I was not paying attention to my speed. This implies that I was paying attention to Alessandra’s stories, but that may not be true either. I digress.
Somewhere between the 45 mph zone and the 25 mph zone I was traveling about 35 mph, or possibly more. Next thing I know lights are flashing behind me and I am pulled over between See Vee Lane and Sunland Ave. It’s the California Highway Patrol.
Interestingly he pulled in front and then walked back towards where I was stopped. I recognized him immediately. It was THAT officer. I braced myself for the worst. I knew this was going to be costly.
He approached my window and we exchanged all the obligatory documents and he stepped back to his car and presumably “ran my plates”. As he walked back towards the truck he noticed the red and white “Fire Dept.” reflective sticker mounted above my license plate and took silent notice of it. I must have come back clean because he gave me a warning to “keep your speed down”, and he sent me on my way.
I was stunned. I expected to be cuffed and stuffed, leaving Ali on the side of the road to walk home or something. Nonetheless, with warning in hand, I watched him walk back to his car to leave so that he could ruin someone else’s day.
He got about 30 feet from me and stopped in his tracks. He raised his right hand to the side of his head and snapped his fingers together as the light bulb when off. With the precision of an Nazi SS officer, he turned sharply around on his right toe and with reddened face marched quickly back to my window.
“Oh crap, here we go”, I thought. He arrived at my window and stuck his right pointer in my face and said, “You’re that firefighter from Collins Road aren’t you?” I said “yes” and braced for the onslaught. He was speechless. He was so red in the face he just stood there for about 30 seconds and couldn’t utter a word. Realizing he had already given me a warning he resorted to pointing to me once again and saying, “I’ve got my eyes on you Perkins.” With that he marched back to his vehicle and departed.
How I escaped that, I’ll never know. After he drove off, I took one look at Ali and she continued with her story.
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