Wearing a Fire Engine Disguise

I took my daughter to the high school playoff football game, so she could hang out with her friends. I dropped her off in our little car. The lot was beyond full when we arrived, and the entrance was barricaded. I pulled up alongside the barricades, completely outside of any moving traffic, to let her out. She was rummaging for something for a minute, and a school security person walked over and rapped on my window, telling me to move along.

Now maybe there was a legitimate reason I couldn't be there, but I haven't thought of it yet. I was still in the driver's seat, she was getting out, the car was running, lights on, not remotely appearing that I might be thinking of parking there. But OK, no problem, she grabbed her stuff and I left.

Near the end of the game, she called to tell us she was almost ready to be picked up. I heard her friends chattering, and offered to bring 17 down to pick her up and take some of her friends home. She was all aboard for that plan.

I had completely forgotten about the barricades and security people by the time I arrived, but just as I approached and saw them, trying to figure out where to park, they saw me and just automatically grabbed the barricades, moving them out of the way and waving me through.

Well, OK then!

So I picked up my kid and several of her friends right at the ticket gate. It made quite a scene, not unlike when I picked my boys up after school one day.

Picking your kid up in a fire engine and also taking some of her friends home raises her stock, as well as your own in her eyes and those of her friends, especially the guys. For real? Your dad owns a fire truck? Big fun was had by all, especially since the home team won big.

I promise I wasn't trying to play the traffic folks, really, but that was just too funny to not share.

The Ripening of Squad 6

One of the biggest tasks in the Engine 17 project is getting her painted red again, or "ripened", from the lime-yellow coat she currently wears.

While that major task awaits, the other unit at my place was successfully ripened today.

As a result of a consolidation of fire protection agencies, the older apparatus in the district still bore markings from the two previous agencies that came together to form a new one. Squad 6 was one of them.


In every other case, the contractor was able to simply remove the old markings and apply new ones, in some cases extending a white stripe on the door with stock decal material. Squad 6 was the only unit, in the 22-vehicle fleet of various colors, that was white with a painted lime-yellow stripe, and the contractor had no stock lime-yellow that would match.

Solution? Cover the entire stripe with a new color. Hey, how about red?

She looks nice with her new stripe, doesn't she?