Younger
One of my most vivid memories from childhood focuses on a family trip to Florida. My parents were young, just starting a family, I was only about five years old. My brother was an infant or thereabouts. We didn't have a lot of money, not poor but in the conservative boat that my wife and I now find ourselves in.
My parents wanted to take their kids down to Disneyland, or World, whichever one is down in Flordia. Flying would have been too expensive so they decided to drive the family down in a 1988 Izzu Trooper. I still remember that car, it was an early SUV with a wimpy little four cylinder engine and a stick shift that would later burn out on a family trip to Canada to see Niagra Falls. But the Disney trip started early in the morning, before the sun came up on a March vacation. It was still cold out and my parents had set up a sort of bed for me and Doug to sleep on in the back of the Trooper, the seats were folded down and there were pillows and blankets. It was chilly but the blankets were warm and it felt like a little cocoon against the world. I remember the night before my dad had let me stay up and watch a Roy Scheider movie about a police helicopter pilot who is in control of a super gunship....and of course that morning, the back of the Trooper became that gunship and I was too excited to sleep. I was up imagining little adventures, imaging being grown up and wearing a uniform and a badge and saving peoples lives. My head was far away from the car and the many miles my father was going to put in driving down to Florida. All I knew was that in three days we would be swimming and going to the Magic Kingdom and the big silver golfball.....I couldn't remember what it was called back then and I still can't think of the name.
Twenty years later I found myself wrapped up in the back of another vehicle, in the chilly dark living out a different adventure. I was bundled into turnout gear, ear plugs to keep the din of the open cab Ladder truck's engine out of my brain, a knit cap pulled low over my head to keep as much heat in as possible. I stunk of smoke, my shoulders and back ached from the weighted chain I had spent four hours dragging up and down a fifteen foot chimney.
Exhausted I leaned back against the jumpseat, the dim glow from the firefighter in the seat next to me texting her husband gave an errie comic book light to the whole situation. Twinkling farmhouse windows zipped past the truck, as we chugged back to the firehouse.
I'd seen at least 12 feet of active burning chimney, so hot the bricks were cracking and the slate cover was disentegrating. Steam had billowed from the top of the flu when crews inside started spraying the flames with water cans, nearly enveloping us had it not been for the operator's quick manuvering. Bricks had exploded from the heat, pelting my helmet and the air mask I almost didn't put on, thinking "It's just a chimney fire, not like we're making entry or anything."
But on the ride back my mind was 20 years removed from the night's activities. After we'd cleaned up and left the scene, I was in the back of that car awed by the possibilities before a five year old. Imaging what my life would be like, 20 years in the future.
That's what amazed me most, I think. When I was younger I'd dream about being older, being a "grown up" and being able to stay up past nine PM. Last night at quarter to 10, true, past 9 PM, I was drifting off to sleep, dreaming of what it was like to be younger.
My parents wanted to take their kids down to Disneyland, or World, whichever one is down in Flordia. Flying would have been too expensive so they decided to drive the family down in a 1988 Izzu Trooper. I still remember that car, it was an early SUV with a wimpy little four cylinder engine and a stick shift that would later burn out on a family trip to Canada to see Niagra Falls. But the Disney trip started early in the morning, before the sun came up on a March vacation. It was still cold out and my parents had set up a sort of bed for me and Doug to sleep on in the back of the Trooper, the seats were folded down and there were pillows and blankets. It was chilly but the blankets were warm and it felt like a little cocoon against the world. I remember the night before my dad had let me stay up and watch a Roy Scheider movie about a police helicopter pilot who is in control of a super gunship....and of course that morning, the back of the Trooper became that gunship and I was too excited to sleep. I was up imagining little adventures, imaging being grown up and wearing a uniform and a badge and saving peoples lives. My head was far away from the car and the many miles my father was going to put in driving down to Florida. All I knew was that in three days we would be swimming and going to the Magic Kingdom and the big silver golfball.....I couldn't remember what it was called back then and I still can't think of the name.
Twenty years later I found myself wrapped up in the back of another vehicle, in the chilly dark living out a different adventure. I was bundled into turnout gear, ear plugs to keep the din of the open cab Ladder truck's engine out of my brain, a knit cap pulled low over my head to keep as much heat in as possible. I stunk of smoke, my shoulders and back ached from the weighted chain I had spent four hours dragging up and down a fifteen foot chimney.
Exhausted I leaned back against the jumpseat, the dim glow from the firefighter in the seat next to me texting her husband gave an errie comic book light to the whole situation. Twinkling farmhouse windows zipped past the truck, as we chugged back to the firehouse.
I'd seen at least 12 feet of active burning chimney, so hot the bricks were cracking and the slate cover was disentegrating. Steam had billowed from the top of the flu when crews inside started spraying the flames with water cans, nearly enveloping us had it not been for the operator's quick manuvering. Bricks had exploded from the heat, pelting my helmet and the air mask I almost didn't put on, thinking "It's just a chimney fire, not like we're making entry or anything."
But on the ride back my mind was 20 years removed from the night's activities. After we'd cleaned up and left the scene, I was in the back of that car awed by the possibilities before a five year old. Imaging what my life would be like, 20 years in the future.
That's what amazed me most, I think. When I was younger I'd dream about being older, being a "grown up" and being able to stay up past nine PM. Last night at quarter to 10, true, past 9 PM, I was drifting off to sleep, dreaming of what it was like to be younger.
posted by Nick Stabile at 10:55 PM
3 Comments:
I owned a 1988 Isuzu Trooper once, too. I had more problems with that truck. Finally, it gave up the ghost on I-290 in Worcester when the engine block cracked due to blowback from the radiator.
I still owed money on the damn thing.... But that was nearly 15 years ago.
Great post, Nick.
I remember sitting in the tiller cab of an old Maxim, December of1992, driving toward a distant glow that turned out to be three triple deckers fully ivolved thinking I truly was on top of the world, much like I had imagined I would be when I first put my snow boots and Toughskins at the foot of my bed and set an alarm for 0300, then waited.
Thanks for making me think backwards.
Hey Nick, great blog. Your posts are very fascinating to an EMT in training.
There are many things I wanted to comment on but due to time constraints (and a big-a** quiz on cardiac emergencies tomorrow) I will limit my comments to just one.
Like yourself, I also dream of what it was like to be a child. I try not to forget it, the dreams I had and the simple things I thought when I was young. I have this crazy fear of forgetting those things. Somewhere in my mind I believe that if I do forget them, I will become just another cold and bitter member of the adult world. I'm very much against becoming this way. But I never thought of it the other way around, of when I was a child dreaming of adulthood. Pretty deep observation. Really gets me thinking...anyway, cool blog!
Tara V.
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