South End VFD
Sally Jenkins got elected President of the Flame-Ons, the women’s auxiliary arm of our volunteer fire department. The South End is the last place on the island with a volunteer station. All three other stations have paid firefighters. Sally and her fellow Flame-Ons have their hair on fire over this slight and they have vowed to take up arms over it with the fire commissioners, all men, all of who live up north where they keep the manned units in case they themselves need mouth to mouth. Or so Sally opines….
When I debarked the turnip truck here on the South End back in 1977, every station was a VFD. I guess us homesteaders were just happy even to have volunteers. The cops went home after midnight and the closest hospital or clinic was 40 miles away. If you moved here expecting CPR in three minutes or less after your heart attack, well, you had a For Sale sign up on your yard PDQ. And believe me, there were plenty who left.
Sally is one of the new breed of immigrants. She figures we’re living in the past and it’s High Time we stepped into dathe 21st Century. And maybe she’s right. We pay the same taxes as our pampered neighbors to the north. And we got the same incidence of medical emergencies. But … I’m still not one of those who’s all that hot and bothered, even though I’m getting old and decrepit and more and more likely to need that CPR.
The Volunteer Fire Department represents rural to me, I guess. Neighbors helping neighbors, not hiring it out. Sally says I won’t feel that way when I need an ambulance some midnight dreary and I know she’s right, but self reliance is one of the last things I went to let go of. Maybe next to my heartbeat.
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