Well, I alluded to this post yesterday and here it is. The Great One's birthday.
No, not Gretzky, at least I don't think (frankly I don't care enough about Wayne's birthday to hit the Google machine) it is.
The Great One, if you don't know, is the Great Vincenzo, Vinnie, the Chick Magnet, the Croatian Sensation aka Bryan. We were partners at the firehouse for eight years uninterrupted and that, class, ranks as the longest I ever worked with anyone over the course of my career.
Now, before I dive into this particular group of further fables from the firehouse, I'm going to use a quick segue into an endorsement of my favorite podcast "Firehouse Problems Kitchen Table Solutions" starring Seth Rainwater and Kyle Jones, both from El Dorado, Arkansas. Seth and I attended the IAFF Political Training Academy in February 2015 and in addition to a great education, we had more fun than you're probably supposed to in a class. So click on the link and check out their podcasts, they do a great job and obviously enjoy doing it. My personal favorite is Episode 23 featuring everyone's (?) favorite blogger. One of their regular bits is called Nicknames and Mustaches and there you have a high quality segue. Because Vin has more nicknames than any other single person I know.
Vinnie came on the job about six months after I did, at a different station and a different shift. So we never really had much interaction for the first few years. He takes great pleasure in telling anyone that will listen that when he first saw me he thought I was gay. I don't know why he thought that, getting a straight (see what I did there?) answer out of him is never easy. But regardless, that's what he thought. We started working together around 1997 or 98 and, miraculously, never got written up for anything. Now that the statute of limitations has expired, and pretty much anyone else that might be offended by our on duty hijinks has retired, I'll try and put a couple out for the general public.
Vin and I both got along really well with our Lieutenant back then, though he had a reputation for being... crusty. And we were fortunate in that the other members of our crew tended toward... unique. So, basically had we chosen to, we could have run naked up and down Main Street and it would've been fine because the boss was busy corralling knuckleheads.
We didn't, btw. And sorry for any visuals that might have caused.
We did, however, tend to disappear for long periods of time. Vin did most of the cooking at the firehouse so, of course, shopping for said cooking fell on us. And Fightin' Medic 2 would head off to the local Dominicks (pour some out for a departed grocery store chain) to take care of business.
Business, in this case, included making the rounds of pretty much every department at the store. The ladies in the bakery almost always had snacks for us so we'd start there. Then backtrack to the deli counter where one or both of us would chat up whoever happened to be there that day. From the deli we'd make our way over to the meat counter to see if we could get a hookup from the butchers. We usually did, btw. Not free, but a nice discount or at the very least they'd point us in the direction of the best sales. A quick stop by the service counter for more chattery with the ladies working there and, in due time, we'd make our way through the rest of the store to finish shopping. It wasn't unusual for this little expedition to last for well over an hour, which is about 45 minutes longer than it should have taken.
If we weren't tied up on one of our shopping trips, we were very likely prolonging our time in the Emergency Room after dropping off a patient. The regular routine would be to deliver a patient to whichever room they were assigned to, wait to give a verbal report to the nurse, and while one medic wrote up the paper (later electronic) report, the other would clean and restock the ambulance. All of this would generally take 30 or 40 minutes, depending on how in-depth the report needed to be. I don't think we ever made it out of there in under an hour, certainly not once we got transferred to Station 3, conveniently located across the street from the hospital. We had doctors to chat with, nurses to flirt with, many important things to do there, you know? It actually had certain fringe benefits, relationship building like that. Feeling a sore throat or sinus infection coming on? Ask one of the docs for a "Z-pack" and voilà; no office visit, no wait, no fuss, no muss. No joke, that alone was awesome. Of course, that was back in the good old days. You can't get away with that stuff now.
I think, however, my all-time favorite Vinnie story, one I've told dozens of times to a variety of audiences is this one-
It starts with Engine 3 and Medic 3 going out to do fire inspections, a regular part of our job. Vin and I were on M-3 but we were, for whatever reason all doing the inspections together. If I remember right, our Lt. for the day was an actor. That is to say, he was on the list to be promoted to Lt. but hadn't made it just yet. On this particular day, one of the businesses on our list was a beauty school. Is that the right name? A place where cosmetologists are trained? At any rate, it was, as you might imagine, populated by young, attractive women. With five firefighters doing the inspection. What could go wrong? As we wandered through the business, checking fire extinguishers, emergency lights, exit lights and the like we would chat up the students, all in good fun, of course.
When we were finished, as the Lt. was going over what we'd found with the manager, I did a quick head count and came up one short.
"Where's Vinnie?"
"I don't know, not my day to watch him" was the reply.
Now, since he was my partner on M-3 I couldn't very well leave without him, so I decided I'd better investigate further. As I walked through from room to room he was nowhere to be found and he's not an easy guy to overlook, you know?
But, as I walked past one of the salon stations with the curtains drawn, I heard a high-pitched giggle. I stopped, backed up and looked under the curtain. I saw two pair of feet, neither of them his. But then, I heard a lower pitch giggle and, throwing open the curtain I saw...
Vin. On his back on a salon table. Getting his eyebrows waxed.
"Really dude?" I said, laughing.
"What? They said they just learned how and wanted to practice. I needed it done. Perfect timing!"
That's the Vinnie I know and love, always looking to help out someone else.
Happy birthday friend. I hope you have a great day.
Love ya!
Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment