Reading and riding
A progressive department in Texas has found a way to get children interested in reading: If they participate in a special reading program, they get to ride on a fire truck. The program has been very successful and, surprisingly, it is not the “celebrities” who donate their time to read to the children who have become the big draw but rather the chance to ride the apparatus.
Potato plug
Members of FDNY went on a water leak call. They had shut the valve off under a resident’s bathroom sink, but the valve was worn and still was dripping lightly. So the FDNY members had asked the resident, who was of foreign descent, for a potato. They were going to jam it into the pipe’s end for it to swell up and stop the annoying drip until a plumber showed up.
The resident went to get a potato from the kitchen and returned with a box of instant potatoes. The look on members’ faces was priceless!
That’s not a burn!
A department in the Southeast had a working fire in a house owned by a “pack rat.” You have seen this type of house—newspapers piled to the ceiling; old mail, circulars, and catalogs on every surface; items saved over the years “just in case they come back in fashion.” (I have a friend like that, and I always say, “If she ever had a fire in her house ….”) According to a captain at this house fire, the owner came out of the house, and his face and neck were black—the firefighters thought he’d been burned by the fire. Turns out, he was covered with palmetto bugs (you Northeasterners read: big cockroaches) that had nested in one of his numerous piles of newspapers and had been disturbed by the fire.
Did you lose weight?
One department had a deputy chief who was bragging about his diet. “I’m losing like crazy” is all the members ever heard from this guy. He was losing, but not like crazy! The members switched the deputy’s bunker pants with another member’s who was two sizes larger than him. At the very next fire, the deputy put the pants on and was holding the waistband out with his thumbs, exclaiming, “See, I’m losing like crazy!” (He was wearing a size 46 pants and he was a 42!) The members all knew, but he didn’t. They just encouraged him to keep losing. Even funnier was watching the 46-inch-waisted deputy trying to get in to the 42s!
Be careful who you sue…
A true story from the International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI): A North Carolina man bought expensive cigars and insured them against fire. He put in a claim that they were destroyed in a series of “small fires.” The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious–that he had smoked them. He sued and won. The judge upheld the policy stating that they were insured against fire no matter what type or how big or small. They paid out $15K. After he cashed the check, they had him arrested for 24 counts of arson. His own testimony was used against him as he “intentionally set the fires.” He was jailed for 24 months and fined $24,000.
The Yenta
Diane Feldman, a 21-year veteran of PennWell Corp., is executive editor of Fire Engineering and conference director of FDIC. She has a B.A. in English communications. She has been a yenta (look it up) for most of her life. If you have a story for the Yenta, e-mail dianef@pennwell.com.
