There were about 20 to 25 volunteer firemen all together. They adopted me as their mascot, I guess. My mother lettered shirts on her sewing machine for all of the firemen with “Spencer Fire Department” on the back and each of their names over the pocket. Mom also made me a shirt, same color and design. In addition she made a raincoat, rain hat and found boots that I placed right next to all the real firemen’s equipment.
I remember also the brass pole. I was told that when we first move to the fire station I was just a little past two years old. One afternoon at nap time, I was missing from my bed. After searching everywhere, my parents found me sound asleep with my teddy bear right next to the opening to the brass pole. It was about 30 feet to the cement floor below. This prompted them to construct a wooden enclosure with a lock around the brass pole opening next to our apartment door opening.
After I was a little older, almost three, my parents told me that I had asked so many times to slide down the pole like daddy did that they finally decided to let me try. Mom said she got at the top and dad waited at the bottom and I would grasp the pole like the firemen did and slide down the 30-foot pole to the ground level 30 feet below.
Not every kid has the opportunity to live at a fire station like I did, and as I look back it was a very exciting experience. Playing on the fire trucks whenever I want to was another benefit I experienced... This, of course, was before OCIA and all their safety rules.
The fire station itself was a very interesting place. Down on the ground floor was where two very large fire trucks were parked waiting for the next time they would be called into action. My dad was assigned to the Laverne fire truck when we first moved there. Ted, the other full-time fireman, was assigned to a smaller and older fire truck. A pull cord next to the trucks opened the large doors at the front of the station. One pull and they would rise to allow the trucks to pass out of the station. I recall there were large springs that allowed the doors to open automatically. This was again before all the new electronic garagedoor openers.
The main part of the fire station where the trucks were parked,was a very large area to me at the age of 3. In the rear behind the trucks was a rack where the firemen placed their boots, raincoats right next to mine! There was also a very large workbench where Ted repaired things, I guess. Ted did most of the repair work there at the fire station because my dad was working, when he was not ‘on call’ as a mechanic for my grandpa Rich during the day.
At the very rear of the ground level of the fire station was an area where mom and dad did our laundry. There was also a shower room, again very large in my eyes as I remember it, used where the firemen could shower. There were also lockers placed there for the personal items belonging to the firemen.
Dad always helped mom with the laundry, when he was home in the evenings, because, I guess it was very dark and a little scary going way back there in the dark. I remember we had a Maytag wringer type washing machine. There were also two rinse tubs that my grandpa Rich had made for mom out of two barrels. They had drain spouts on the bottom and I am sure if he had patented them he could have very easily. Cold water was placed in them to rinse the laundry soap out of the washed clothes.
In the winter and when it was too cold to hang the clothes outside to dry, they were hung in the same room where the washing machine was. In the summer and when the weather was such that they would dry outside, there was a small patch of grass out the side door of the fire station where there was a clothesline. This was also the only place with grass that I could play.
All this happened in the mid to late 40’s B.C. & B. T.V. (Before computers and Before Television. What in the world did we do after supper to occupy our time? Well, we did what most other families did; we played a game that today very few families play call “family time”. In the evening we would open the large doors to the fire station, get some chairs and sit and watch the cars and trucks as they passed by. I would continue playing fireman with my “pretend tricycle” fire truck and put out fire after fire every night.
Picture of me on my tricycle
I remember also the brass pole. I was told that when we first move to the fire station I was just a little past two years old. One afternoon at nap time, I was missing from my bed. After searching everywhere, my parents found me sound asleep with my teddy bear right next to the opening to the brass pole. It was about 30 feet to the cement floor below. This prompted them to construct a wooden enclosure with a lock around the brass pole opening next to our apartment door opening.
After I was a little older, almost three, my parents told me that I had asked so many times to slide down the pole like daddy did that they finally decided to let me try. Mom said she got at the top and dad waited at the bottom and I would grasp the pole like the firemen did and slide down the 30-foot pole to the ground level 30 feet below.
Not every kid has the opportunity to live at a fire station like I did, and as I look back it was a very exciting experience. Playing on the fire trucks whenever I want to was another benefit I experienced... This, of course, was before OCIA and all their safety rules.
The fire station itself was a very interesting place. Down on the ground floor was where two very large fire trucks were parked waiting for the next time they would be called into action. My dad was assigned to the Laverne fire truck when we first moved there. Ted, the other full-time fireman, was assigned to a smaller and older fire truck. A pull cord next to the trucks opened the large doors at the front of the station. One pull and they would rise to allow the trucks to pass out of the station. I recall there were large springs that allowed the doors to open automatically. This was again before all the new electronic garagedoor openers.
The main part of the fire station where the trucks were parked,was a very large area to me at the age of 3. In the rear behind the trucks was a rack where the firemen placed their boots, raincoats right next to mine! There was also a very large workbench where Ted repaired things, I guess. Ted did most of the repair work there at the fire station because my dad was working, when he was not ‘on call’ as a mechanic for my grandpa Rich during the day.
At the very rear of the ground level of the fire station was an area where mom and dad did our laundry. There was also a shower room, again very large in my eyes as I remember it, used where the firemen could shower. There were also lockers placed there for the personal items belonging to the firemen.
Dad always helped mom with the laundry, when he was home in the evenings, because, I guess it was very dark and a little scary going way back there in the dark. I remember we had a Maytag wringer type washing machine. There were also two rinse tubs that my grandpa Rich had made for mom out of two barrels. They had drain spouts on the bottom and I am sure if he had patented them he could have very easily. Cold water was placed in them to rinse the laundry soap out of the washed clothes.
In the winter and when it was too cold to hang the clothes outside to dry, they were hung in the same room where the washing machine was. In the summer and when the weather was such that they would dry outside, there was a small patch of grass out the side door of the fire station where there was a clothesline. This was also the only place with grass that I could play.
All this happened in the mid to late 40’s B.C. & B. T.V. (Before computers and Before Television. What in the world did we do after supper to occupy our time? Well, we did what most other families did; we played a game that today very few families play call “family time”. In the evening we would open the large doors to the fire station, get some chairs and sit and watch the cars and trucks as they passed by. I would continue playing fireman with my “pretend tricycle” fire truck and put out fire after fire every night.
Picture of me on my tricycle
This activity I did of putting out imaginary fires, one after another drew the attention one day from a reported from the Spencer Times, one of the two newspapers in town then. I have since lost my copy of the article, but it was a small write up featuring my tricycle fire truck and me!
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