The Dodge Retort

What do you do when it’s an hour’s drive to the airport and your flight leaves in an hour? Pray your flight is delayed.

This morning, we set our alarms for 3:35 a.m. thinking we’d leave at 4 and arrive at the airport a solid hour before our 6:05 a.m. departure. Logan Airport in Boston couldn’t be that busy so early on a Sunday morning. An hour seemed like plenty of time to check luggage and drag our sorry butts through security.

But we were prepared for delays as a Northeaster with five inches of rain was pounding New York and New England.

As I dressed, I looked at the FIOS settop box and saw it was 4:59 a.m. The adrenalin hit me in an instant: we had not set our clocks forward an hour to account daylight savings time. The FIOS settop box had automatically sprung forward.

We hurriedly dressed and threw our luggage into the car.

As we drove through the wind and gloom, Ann checked with JetBlue a couple of times to learn if the flight was on time. Of course, it was. No way we would make it. We’d have to rebook and hang in the airport until our new flight left.

That wouldn’t be so hard.

We left the car at off-site parking and sped to the terminal. Whoops…in my haste to leave, I forgot my golf clubs.

Yeah right, Logan was deserted. NOT! Terminal C was jammed with long lines of travelers whose flights the day before were canceled due to the bad weather. I asked a JeBlue agent managing the lines if flight 449 to Fort Launderale had left and she guessed yes. After all, it was 6 a.m. and the door to plane was sure to be shut if it was on time.

The agent said get at the end of the line and rebook. “The line’s around the corner,” she said.

Around the corner! It stretched 200 yards into the narrow hallway leading to Terminal B. That’s after looping around in serpentine fashion in front of the ticket counters. My heart sank. Who knows how long it would be before we left? And we’d incur dumbass fees for rebooking the a flight we’d missed.

Our abilibi should JetBlue have any sympathy on our poor souls was that a flooded street delayed our departure when in truth, it was our addled minds. We’re not above groveling and pleading old age, decrepitude and whatever other nonsense we could trump up.

Actually, we were so absorbed in the Georgetown West Virginia basketball game for The Big East championship last night, we forgot about springing forward an hour. Our team Georgetown (our son goes there) lost by two in a nailbiter. It was an omen. We were coming up two points short on this flight.

Johnnie to the rescue.

“I’m going to go back to the counter to ask if 449 has really left,” I told Ann. I found another line agent. “I’ve been calling out the flight numbers,” she said defensely. I posed the simple question again and she asked if we had just gotten to the airport. I sheepingly answered in the affirmative.

She instructed me to get into a short line. I still had no idea if the plane had left.

First, I got into a line that wasn’t a line. Then, I  got into the correct line with about 4-5 parties ahead of me. Meanwhile, I called Ann who was still at the end of the longest line I have ever seen and said come to the counter. She trudged back with all the luggage.

Meanwhile, I grabbed the first line agent, who called the gate to see if we could still get on. She claimed she never heard us ask about flight 449 when we first entered the terminal. Ann now tells me I asked about the “6:05 a.m. to Fort Lauderdale” and not about 449.

In five minutes, we stood before a smiling counter agent who told us we’d make the original flight. A wave of relief came over us. We flew through security which was empty (the multitudes were getting rebooked at JetBlue), ran to an empty gate C36 and boarded.

All’s well that ends well. The first agent helped make it happen, but had we stood in that endless line, we would have needlessly missed our flight.

The flight didn’t leave for another 30 minutes as more bags and most assuredly ours were put on board.   We’re two hours into the flight now approaching Fort Lauderdale, our destination. Smooth, too, although bumpy on takeoff as the plane ascended to get above the still raging storm in Boston. Luck was with us this day.

Oh, don’t forget set your clocks forward an hour.

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My first call firefighting training session went well and was more challenging than I anticipated. I might as well have left my pencil and pad at home because we jumped right in.

Before I get into the details, I feel pretty committed and have a lot of respect for the folks who are training us. The public service element of firefighting is obvious. We take firefighters for granted, but I suspect I won’t be anymore. Around Boston, you read about them when they die in the line of duty, are pissed about their union contract or have misbehaved largely with respect to booze and drugs (WN has zero tolerance for answering a call if you’d had any booze at all). And we read about their on and off-duty heroics.

Our department, West Newbury, Mass.

To say I didn’t initially do this on a lark would be fibbing, but that call firefighting is so  different from my 33 years as a journalist really motivated me (I’m still blogging and freelance writing, of course). It’s physical, very real and all about teamwork which I find appealing. However, I did cover fires for almost three years at the Haverhill Gazette in the seventies when arson was rampant and frequently fatal. I saw buildings and houses burning from a safe distance and remember the chief Lew Burton running on dangerous steep roofs. Haverhill FD was quite busy and less political than its fractious police department which I also covered. Any comparison of West Newbury and Boston or Haverhill with respect to fires is, of course, ridiculous. West Newbury is pretty quiet, averaging about one fire a year and 40 calls a month, some of them false alarms. A call came in last night during training for a woman locked out of her house…lots of mundane stuff. Not sure yet about mutual aid, but there’s plenty going on in the relatively populous North Shore.

I’m told there is serious attrition from, among other things, health issues given the physical strain of the calls and the training. There’s also people who realize or are told they are not cut out for the job. And you have to retire at age 65 which gives me a full five years.

We jumped right in, got in out turnout pants, boots, helmet with visor, fireproof hood and fire jacket. We also got two pairs of gloves (one for auto accidents, the other for fires), a blinding LED flashlight and radio which sits beside me. The gear is heavy and bulky, exacting its toll on the ladder climb. We didn’t do backpacks (air tanks) at this training, but Bob Pierce had me slip one on at the end of the evening. The backpacking I’ve done and more recently biking should stand me in good stead.

You’re supposed to don all this gear in under a minute. Even veterans struggle with this so I will need to practice.  You basically jump into your boots and pull the pants up over them. When you take your turnout pants off, you peel off the upper half and leave them inside out over the lower half which are on the boots as if you were wearing them. This allows one to quickly put on the pants and boots at the same time. This a “something (I forget) hitch.”

West Newbury's new ladder Tower 28. At some point, I'll be in the bucket 100 feet up.

Word is my gear will be kept at the Garden St. firehouse (Central Station is main West Newbury firehouse) which is about a half mile from my home. They tell me this end of town needs coverage. Glad to be needed.

We climbed ladders (about 25-30 feet), learned a foot lock so you can swing a fire axe to one side without falling backward off the ladder. That involves wrapping the leg opposite to the side you’re working around a rung and then the side of the ladder.  House painters should know this.

Then we carried fire axes to the top roof of the fire station and climbed back. We also practiced leg locks halfway up the ladder and swung the axe at an imaginary burning building. Then we donned masks and put our hoods on backward so we couldn’t see and followed a line (hose) to learn how to escape a building when it’s blacker than night. Key here is to find the three large lugs on the male coupling and follow the hose back from it. Claustrophobia and fear of heights came up a few times and I confess to a touch of both. Challenges are the allure of firefighting.

I found the training fun, physically challenging and highly interesting. I’m looking forward to training next Tuesday when we do knots, learn about lines (hoses) and possibly put out a live fire. The firefighters are pretty accepting of me, the newbie. Bob Pierce I know well and Scott Berkenbush, the new chief,  is supportive. I know a few other guys a little and there are two women in the training.

Garden St. sub-station where I go to don gear when I answer a call.