Editor’s note: Tom Brennan, our revered technical editor and former editor, passed away in April 2006. Tom shared monthly here his wisdom and knowledge of the tactical aspects of our industry, but he also wrote about the social side of the fire service as only Tom could. We are very pleased that Tom wrote down some of these interesting, funny, insightful, and colorful stories. We are very proud to have the chance to continue to provide for you the random thoughts of our dear friend and brother. Please note Tom did not change any of the names, as he felt none of his friends mentioned in these pieces are “innocent.”
My father and my grandfather were firefighters. Both were a product of old traditional Irish heritage when it came to family. I can only surmise the facts about my grandfather because he was killed with his whole company while fighting a fire in a Brooklyn Gas Works plant in the 1920s. Grandfather was the favorite male child and was responsible for all the siblings. His parents were at least two generations of natural-born American citizens, as none can trace any arrivals of Brennans or Clancys in the New World or departures from family locations in the Old World. Much of this was because of an age gap and the closed-mouth type of communication in our family.
My father was in his 40s when I, the oldest of three boys, was born in Brooklyn, New York. We lived for almost five of my years in a top-floor rear apartment of a three-story walk-up in the Midwood section of Flatbush. My brother Bill was born 16 months later. He was named for one of my father’s brothers who died before I was born-another event that we were never to hear about. Bill and I shared a rear room until we moved to a two-story duplex in more rural America-the borough of Queens.
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