The Fire Hat

Sometimes I go back and review old commentaries from my Vail Daily years – and today I thought I would raid my archives and look for a story with a genuine message.

I grew up during the 50’s in a middle-class neighborhood of row houses on the west side of Chicago; with “gangways” between each house and alleys between each block.  I remember when one of the neighborhood kids moved away (Wisconsin or Iowa as I recall) and returned for a visit with his parents.  He told the gang that where he now lived there were no alleys, gangways or sidewalks—few of us could even imagine such a world—in fact, from our vantage point, the world basically existed between Harlem Avenue on the east, 80^th on the west, Diversey on the south and Belmont Avenue on the north

Ours was a neighborhood full of kids, we all watched the Cleaver’s and the Andersen’s on TV, but we knew that they couldn’t be real because no one’s father wore a tie on weekdays or had a mother’s who wore a freshly pressed print housedress.  We assumed that “our world” was the way the entire world was because the Cleaver’s and the Andersen’s lived only on black and white TV.

The kids in the neighborhood either attended St. Celestine’s Catholic school or John Mills, the neighborhood public school.  Back then, the worst thing you could do at school was to chew gum, cut in line or run in the halls (or for those of us who attended St. Celestine, could add talking in church to the list.)  And being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student when he or she arrived home.

When we played games, we used our imagination.  Your index finger and your thumb were the weapon of choice in our never-ending battle between the Cowboys and Indians.  The good thing about that is that you could just point and shoot and would never miss or run out of ammunition.

Like all neighborhoods, there was an exception, and that was a boy across the street on 76^th Avenue.  His name was Larry M.  He had everything.  He had cap pistols and a bow and arrows.  He had a cowboy suit with real boots, and an authentic Indian war bonnet.  Whatever we played he could dress for it.  If we played cops and robbers, he had a policeman’s uniform with toy handcuffs.  He had a football jersey with shoulder pads, and he even had a baseball uniform before Little League.  (Little League didn’t find it’s way into our neighborhood until I was about 11, and to tell the truth, it took a lot of enjoyment out of playing ball—back then baseball was not a psychological group learning experience—it was a game to be played in the streets for fun!)

When we played war, (which was just about every other day) Larry M. had a soldier’s uniform with a toy rifle.  He had an aviator’s leather helmet with goggles and a fireman’s suit with boots, gloves, a toy ax, and a fire hat.  He had it all.

The rest of us played in our regular clothes and just pretended.  As I recall there wasn’t any jealousy, besides it was much easier for the rest of us to play because we didn’t have to dress for the occasion.  It was a wonderful time of life, filled with tree climbing and fort making, backyard shows, and lemonade stands, and of course playing with our dogs, which were never purebred.

One-day a great event took place on our block; a house down the street had a small kitchen fire.  Two huge red fire trucks appeared and all of us rushed to see the excitement as the firemen positioned themselves and the police kept the neighbors (including us kids away.)

Such excitement, it seemed as if everyone in the neighborhood was there.  All except Larry M, who had gone home to find “the right gear.”  But Larry didn’t come back right away, you see, Larry had put on his fireman’s suit, his special firefighter boots and firefighter gloves but he couldn’t find his fire hat.  He looked under the bed, in his closet, and in his toy chest.  He searched high and low, and finally found his fire hat.  Now ready to go prepared with his fire hat firmly in place and his toy ax in hand, he raced to the scene, but alas, the fire trucks had gone.

There is a lesson in this story for all of us and it has nothing to do with sartorial accoutrements.  The truth is that many of us spend far too much time doing unimportant things and when we do, we miss seeing the fire trucks. The fire hat and the toy ax are now the bigger SUV, the perfect vacation, or the latest computer app; but all too often the fire trucks leave, and we have no idea where our lives have gone, who our children are, or who raised them.

And the holiday season is a great time to illustrate; so, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt if we “re-thought” our endless pursuit of “stuff,” and instead actually watch the fire trucks when they come to the neighborhood.