Joe Gildea- March 5, 2018
Joe Gildea was putting out fires thirty years before the young guys on our job were even born. Like most of the probies who came on during the 1960's, Gildea was taught by the World War II guys. Attention to detail wasn't a catch phrase, it was a way of life. He, like most of the old school, out of modesty, was reticent to discuss the details. This interview was conducted in the Engine officer's room at Station 4 thirty-one years after he retired. This is part of what he said ... TT- Why don't we start at the beginning as far as what year did you get on? JG- I came on in 1966. On Thanksgiving Day. November. And the chief put me--the chief at that time was Monast--and he said "I'm gonna put you on Ladder 1 because you're the tallest person in your class." We had just gotten a new 100-foot aerial and I was three inches taller than everyone else. TT- Is this the tiller truck? JG- The tiller truck, yeah. And I had been driving trailer-trucks for five or six years, so I was very good at driving. It amazed the acting lieutenant when I went on that I could drive the truck so well. It was a new experience to climb into the tiller and drive that. TT- How old were you when you got on? JG- Twenty-six. TT- What did you do before you got on? JG- I worked for New England Papertube as a tractor-trailer driver. All over the east coast. TT- So you were a driver? JG- Yes. I drove well (laughs). I did it all my life. TT- Were you ever in the military? JG- No. I couldn't get in because it was between--Korea had just ended, Vietnam hadn't started, so they were getting rid of people. I was six-foot three-inches, one hundred and thirty pounds, so they said, "You're well under weight. We're not accepting people now, we're trying to get rid of people." I didn't get the chance. I wanted to. I signed up for the Army but they weren't taking people. It was ironic that a month later I got a letter from Uncle Sam saying, "We Want You." so I got on a bus down at the post office on Broad Street, and everybody was in there with bandages on their knees and everything else, and I'm sitting there reading the newspaper and they're saying, "How can you be so calm?" I said, "I just went through this a month ago. It's old hat. They don't want me." They said, "No way. I got this bandage for this, and this is wrong with me ..." So I got in there, and the doctor that was giving the physical down at Field's Point, down on Allens Avenue? He looked at me and says, "Geez, didn't I see you not too long ago?" I go, "Yeah." He says, "Well what the hell are you doing back here? We refused you.” And I said, "Uncle Sam said he wanted to see me." So they said, "Here's a ticket. Get back on the bus and go home." (Laughs.) So that was my experience with the military. I wanted to go in the worst way after high school but it just didn't work out. TT- Right on. JG- Then I had to go to work. I went to work. TT- So by now you're twenty-six, driving trucks, got on the job and did they have academies back then or did they just throw you in. JG- There was exactly eleven of us in the academy. The training officer trained us for ten weeks. You had to go through eighty hours (Up until 2017, for 142 years, Pawtucket's Fire Academy was unpaid, held at night twice a week after work, and on Saturday. Regrettably, probies are now put through a state academy instead.) We went through it. Joe Clifford was the Training Officer and he gave the class and everything else. This, once again politics entered into it, everybody in the class got on eventually, so it took about six months before we all got on. And they started another class right after us. TT- Now in those days, when you got on, did you get assigned places or was there a bid? JG- You got assigned. They put you where they wanted you, where there was a space for you. That was it. TT- When you got on, the rescue was pretty much a station wagon, right? JG- The rescue was a red van-truck. A delivery truck. Before I went on it was the big police truck, the big square box truck, used as an ambulance. TT- And they didn't transport, right? Costigan's did that. JG- Costigan Ambulance transported everything. TT- Now the gear back then, we're talking about tin helmets, rubber gloves ... JG- Yes. You painted the helmets red when you were on the ladder truck. But they were terrible and they hurt. They got tighter and tighter around your head as you went along. And they didn't protect a whole lot. TT- Meerbott was saying they used to call the gloves "Melt-aways" because that's what they did when they got heated up. JG- They would too. Yeah, yeah (laughs). TT- I heard they had airpacks in the 60's but no one really used them. JG- Well, the airpack's another thing. When I came on in '66, well, in '67 they got their first two airpacks. There was one put on Ladder 1. No, I 'm sorry, in '66 they got the airpacks because Ladder 1 had one when I got there. The other they put in the chief's trunk. The chief of the department, who's not going in anyway. That was the extent of the airpacks. Well, my first fire was a couple of weeks after I first got on. And my acting lieutenant said, "Don't go near that," he says, "because if the chief sees you near that he'll want you to put in on and he thinks you can walk on air with those things and you can't." So that was our experience with the airpacks. Eventually, every truck got an airpack ... TT- But years later. JG- Years later, years later. It just went that every year they bought a few more and this and that. TT- Even then I heard some of the old school guys wouldn't wear them. JG- They didn't. They didn't. The old-timers said, "What the hell are you doing here with airpacks on," and everything else. (laughs) Because I can remember going up--To supply the airpacks, there was a bay of tanks. Airtanks. That was down in the cellar of Station 2. They had a fire up on Newport Avenue, the old Dalton Theater. So I got the tanks filled, and brought them over so they could have spare tanks, and the lieutenant of the 8's, which is now the 6's, he says, "What the hell are you doing with them things? We don't need them, we're firefighters!" And I had my things (balls) busted to no end because I brought the spare tanks. TT- Now Chickie used to talk about the sponge. Did you ever use the sponge? JG- No. No. I just went in. TT- Now you got taught by the World War II guys, right? Those were the guys that came back from a bloodbath--I heard they were very by the book. Cleaning the undercarriage of the truck after every run in the winter ... JG- The older guys, yeah, it was--that era was really before me, but some of the old-timers that worked that era, they carried it on. At certain stations it was, after you came in from a run you had to wash all of the wheels, underneath and this and that. We didn't have to do it downtown, we were fortunate (laughs). TT- Now when you got on, who did you look up to? You don't learn this in a book. Who was teaching you. JG- My acting lieutenant was Frank McVeigh. TT- Al McVay's dad? JG- No. But Frank McVeigh, he was a private. His boss was Zagrowski, and he was an acting Battalion Chief. So everybody--that's what happened back then. If someone was out, the next guy moved up in rank and this and that. So they put you in charge. So he (McVeigh) was acting up until he made lieutenant a couple of years after I was on. He was great. He was a fantastic man and he used to go out in his car, on his three days off, and he would drive through the city, and he knew every street and every box, every hydrant, and he used to--that's what he used to do in his spare time. There was no part-time jobs for him. He just drove around. He was fantastic. Absolutely. He taught me everything I knew. TT- So how long were with him? These are the Ladder 1 days from 1966 to when? JG- Til we started the Fourth Battalion. TT- And then you went to Engine 2 what year? JG- No. I stayed on Ladder 1 because my then lieutenant was Edgar St. Germaine, and he had a lung disease, and the city didn't want to retire him because they thought it would start an influx of people retiring on heart disease and lung disease. So they left me in charge. So for ten years, I was in charge as an Acting Lieutenant on Ladder 1. I think I'm getting confused. It was a long time ago. They had to have made the Fourth Battalion five years after I was on, because I think I worked for Frank McVeigh for five years, and then I was in charge for nine years as an acting lieutenant, and then I went over to Engine 2 because I didn't like the lieutenant that was finally coming over to Ladder 1. Then I made lieutenant and stayed on Engine 2 for five or six years. TT- Back in those days, who were some of the guys around you? I hear Ray Gilbert's name a lot. JG- He was up at the 6's when they were on Central Avenue. Him and John Payne. All of these guys had either come from Broadway or somewhere else. They weren't downtown. They didn't like downtown. (laughs) I went on with Ray Masse Sr., Tommy Heaney, Dick Ryan, Frank Sylvester, Jack Doyle, Andy Monahan--these were all the guys that I went on with. TT- Tommy Heaney's name came up when Chickie was describing quality guys. He said they used to call him Skull. That was his nickname because of his head. JG- Yeah, he lost his hair early in life. (laughs). Somebody called him that and it stuck with him. TT- Chickie said he was a tough fireman. JG- He was an excellent firefighter. He and Ray Masse were both on Engine 2 and they stayed there most if not all of their careers. I also had Paul Keenan and Steve Smith downtown and they were excellent firefighters. Kenny Moreau came on and we brought him along and he did an excellent job on Engine 2. That was my crew, the three of them and myself. TT- So when you got on in '66, how did they dispatch you guys? Are we talking street boxes? JG- Everything was street boxes. There was a box on almost every corner. TT- Now these boxes are numbered. And when they would get pulled, there was a tickertape showing up in the station? JG- It would come into the station on two ticket tapes. They had a backup. It would come in and it would punch out holes in the paper that came off two reels. The paper would read 5-2-2-3 or something like that. The first number was the district that the box was in, and 2-2-3 would be the street. And we'd have a card to pull out, 5-2-2-3, so they would pull out the card and it would have the address of the box. TT- So it was a four number system. The first number was the district and the 2-2-3 was the street. JG- Right. It would, the box that is, it would usually be on the corner. TT- So the ticker tape went for how long? JG- I don't know. That was after I left. TT- Wow. So it went into the 80's? JG- Yes. TT- I also heard that you guys got dispatched by phone? It would be one ring for the engine and two rings for the rescue? JG- This is true. At night, if it was a box alarm, the big bell would ring. If it was just a rescue run or a call by telephone, one ring would be rescue. Two rings would be engine and the ladder. So you waited to hear what the rings were and everything else. Then they would dispatch it over the air. TT- Now, as a ladder guy, I'm assuming you guys were using axes. Was this before the chainsaws? JG- Right. TT- The chainsaws were like the '70's? 80's? JG- We got into chainsaws, we had a big one on the truck, but it was mostly axes. TT- Like men. JG- (laughs) TT- You didn't have any fear of heights, obviously. JG- No. I didn't. (laughs) TT- It's fun up there, right? It's fun. I used to be a roofer. JG- It is. TT- When you're in charge of the ladder, you're pulling up thinking about placement, the wires, the guy climbing up behind you, you're responsible for him, there's a lot going on in your head, right? JG- Yup. TT- Let's talk about some of the fires. This was before smoke detectors, right? Everybody's smoking cigarettes. You guys were busy. JG- The very first fire I went to, I came on on Thanksgiving Day. And Chief put me on the rescue that day and I almost choked myself to death that day swallowing the candy I had in my mouth (laughs). Back in those days, for Thanksgiving, each person was given two hours off to have a meal with their family. So they had to have a new guy substitute for the two guys on the rescue. So I went to the rescue for the first time. But then a couple of weeks later we had a fire at Gormand's Furniture on Main Street, which was right next to the Main Street fire station. (laughs). And that's where I was telling you about the airpacks and about how they busted my chops for showing up with extra tanks (laughs). So this was my first fire and it was spectacular and everything else. Engine 1 was the old Ahern's Fox (This is a legendary apparatus. Ahern's Fox made fire trucks from 1920 until the 1970's. Pawtucket bought one of the only "Fire sedans" ever built in an alleged kickback scheme that spanned many years. It was an open-ended contract, and the rumor was that the mayor was using these unchecked funds for his re-election campaign. But it was a very capable pumper and used for decades. The Ahern's Fox last known address was in an upstate New York fire museum.) And they put that right up in the middle of Park Place. And it was fed by three different hydrants and it fed water for everybody. Every line there, it just came out of the Ahern's Fox with its big bubble on the front. (It was distinctive because of a big chrome sphere above the pump that smoothed out pressure differentials.) That was my first fire, and my second fire was Christmas Eve. We had a fire on Grace Street which was across the street from St. Mary's cemetery. But it was the house behind a house. It was a converted chicken coop and this and that, and the first call came in as a rescue run. And the rescue went up, knocked on the door at the front house and they said they said they didn't call the rescue and everything else, so they left. And then they got another call for a fire at the address that was behind the house they'd already been to. And when we got there the fire was roaring. We lost three people in that one. TT- Wow. Three civilians in the house? JG- Three civilians in the house. What had happened was that they had one of those old kerosene heaters, where you tip the big bottle over, on the side of the stove? What happened was, it was a cold windy night. A cold cold night. And there was one entrance in and out. The Christmas tree was here (motions to the front door), the heater was over here (motions to the kitchen). The kerosene had leaked onto the floor and drifted across the floor. Well, because it was so cold and windy they were pushing the heat. And what it did was it lit the kerosene and followed this path across the floor and lit up the Christmas tree. Back then it was all natural Christmas trees, so it was dried out. TT- That thing must've been roaring. JG- That was their only exit. There was a baby inside this bedroom (motions), a mother and a child inside this bedroom (motions), and the mother went in to grab this child, the father grabbed the other child from this one, and he went and he couldn't get out. So he jumped out the back window. But when he jumped out, his hand hit the window and the baby fell back in. The mother came in--they could feel the crib was right here. She got to the crib but she couldn't get any further. Now the rescue again, going to the scene, was the first ones on the scene, and Tommy Kiley got into the window right here, he could feel the crib, so he pulled himself in the window and he went down because of the smoke and everything else. So we got him out and took him to the hospital, but the mother and the child both were in there and that was something terrible to me, to start off, because I had never seen death or anything else. TT- So two kids and the mom died? JG- Two kids and the mom died, yes. One was a baby. Just months old. We went by it. We knew there was another one in there somewhere, but we must've walked right by it because it looked just like a doll lying near the sink. Finally we picked it up and saw that it was a child. So I went home and at the time I was divorced, I had a three-year-old son and when I walked in I was supposed to pick my son up for Christmas and everything else, I just told my mother, I was living at my mother's house at the time, I told my mother I will call up and tell him I won't be there to pick him up. She said, "What's the matter with you? You look green?" And I said, "I had a bad fire." And that was it. I went to my room. Spent the day in my room. It was terrible. And it got nothing but worse from there. (laughs). As we went on, you know, the sights that we saw, back in the day, we counted up I think it was, when I left A-Platoon for D-Platoon, counted eighteen fire deaths. TT- Eighteen? Jesus Christ. JG- That's a lot of deaths. TT- I heard the 60's and 70's were just raging. Like we just talked about--cigarettes, no detectors, no safety. JG- And this was when they had just put the highway through, so we had a lot of vacant houses, they were re-doing Mineral Spring Avenue and everything else, and that area had a lot of vacant houses. So they had a lot of places to play in and everything else, light them on fire, so we got good experience because we had a lot of fires. TT- It seems like the fireload for you guys was unbelievable. So, you had the Christmas fire, the three deaths, and as these things started to roll through, there were big events. I remember hearing about Star Gas... JG- Star Gas. That's another one. I was in that one too. TT- Your name came up at Star Gas. JG- It came in, again this was the time I was in charge of Engine 2, and we were substituting people to equalize the overtime, so we had one gentlemen came in for the morning shift, and then at noontime I remember Mike Levesque came in, and he says, "It's a nice hot day out there, boys." It was in the high 90's. Humid day and this and that. And everybody was filling their gas tanks to have cook outs and everything else, and Mike says, "Good day to have Star Gas!" TT- What? JG- Yup. Well, don't you know, half an hour after he was sitting down at the kitchen table, bingo, Star Gas came in. We went in there and we went in the same way as everybody else. And they said, "We need somebody on the other side, on the Industrial Highway side." To wet down these tanks. The railroad cars. So we went around and laid a line from Cottage Street right up to the where the tanks were. And I can remember there was a tanker truck coming right at us, and we were trying to lay a line, and I was saying, "Get out of the way, get out of the way!" And he's giving me one of these (the finger) and everything else, and so all of a sudden one of the tanks exploded and flew across and hit the side of his trailer, and he saw that in his mirror and the next thing you know he was almost on the sidewalk across the street to get out of our way. (both laughing) But yeah, that was fantastic. Star Gas. TT- Talk about balls, I had heard that you were on a 2½ inch line directly facing the tank. It was a tanker car loaded with propane? JG- Yes. We were cooling the tank. That's all we were trying to do. TT- Brulé said you would've been the first ones killed if that thing exploded. JG- The way they looked at it afterwards is that everybody would've been dead. Everybody in a mile area would've been dead, and it would've leveled everything, because the tanks were empty. They had just filled up the big tank from the railroad car. The next thing you know Central Falls was coming in and asks the Battalion Chief, "Where should we set up?" And he said go around to the Industrial Highway and lay another line." They laid the second line, so we got more water. The next day, Chief Couto from Central Falls came over and we went back and were looking at the tanks. The railroad car tanks. And they were bent and everything else and had started to melt. He said that if they had blown it would've taken out everything and everyone. TT- I heard tanks were landing as far away as Broadway. JG- Freddie Fisher was standing on a roof taking pictures. He could see them 500 feet in the air. And the bottoms of them, when they exploded, were coming at us like frisbees. TT- What was the closest you ever came to getting really--were you ever in a fire where you were like, "Maybe we should get out of here." JG- Not really. We got into fires and we had one down on Webb Street. This was late in the afternoon. We fought the fire. It started in the cellar and it came up, went across three floors, so we fought it all the way up. We got up to the third floor and then they put the aerial up and hooked up the master stream and it drove us all the way back down to the first floor. That was one of the toughest fires I ever fought. But I never really got into so much danger where I couldn't find a way out. We did have some really smoky fires but we just did it. TT- What kind of guy was Tommy Heaney? JG- Personally, he had two children and a wife. (I made the mistake of conducting this interview at the 4's. We got dispatched several times and this break was the longest. We lost the whole train of thought.) TT- So we were talking about Japonica Street and other moments of danger. JG- You were saying danger, I wasn't afraid at most of the fires, I felt confident and everything else. But the day after Star Gas, when we went back and saw and reviewed- (dispatched again.) TT- How did you handle all that you saw? Did you internalize it? Booze it away? Bring it home at all? Guys handle it differently. JG- We did a lot of drinking afterwards, you know, reviewing fires that we had, but we never brought it home. Very very seldom brought it home. There were enough problems at home. They didn't need to know what you were going through. We kind of kept it in. But we did have a lot of conversations at the Celtic and other local establishments (laughs). There were several bars that we went to. TT- By being together you were able to process it. JG- Absolutely. To relieve the pressure and everything else because they knew exactly what you were talking about. Whereas if you brought it home, they had no idea, and they put their own emphasis on things you didn't even think about. It wasn't appropriate. TT- You retired in 1988? JG- 1987. I did twenty-one years. TT- How old were you when you retired? JG- Forty-seven. TT- After you finished, did you do another job or were just retired? JG- Well, when I was at Roosevelt Avenue, across the street was Collette Travel. On Exchange Street. And I used to see the buses pull up. I was very close to John McConaghy, and he and I had a little painting business on the side. And I said to John, "You know, if I get off of this job, I'm gonna down and drive one of those buses." Somewhere. Anywhere and this and that, and get to see a lot of things because I love to drive. Well, we were down in West Warwick one day and I said, "Hey, Pawtuxet Valley's right down the street. Let's go in." I went in to see the manager and I said, "I'm a firefighter in Pawtucket but I was thinking about driving one of your buses." He said," We'd love to have you. We have several firefighters working for us and everything else. Next week we'll set up a road test for you and go from there." I said, "Fine." And I left. I didn't think anything of it. Well, needless to say on Friday morning I got a call from Pawtuxet Valley, which was two days after I had just been there, and they said, "What're you doing over the weekend?" I said, "Well, I'm working tomorrow night in the fire station but then I'm off for four days." "Well, can you get the night off?" I said, "Why?" He said, "I want you to go to Washington." (laughs). I said, "Washington? I haven't even gone for my road test." He said, "Yeah, but everybody's in Washington, so this will be your road test to see if you can get down there." I said, "I know how to get there but I don't anything about the town." He said, "Well, you'll be going with two other buses so just follow them closely." So that was my road test. And I started there and eventually said I think I'm gonna retire from the fire department and go there. I went there full time once a spot opened up. I ended up all over the east coast and Canada driving a bus. TT- Do you have any regrets? JG- No regrets whatsoever. I miss the job 100%. I miss the camaraderie and everything else, but no. I think that it filled my life completely. It allowed me to do all these different things. I was a truck driver for five or six years, then I was a fireman for twenty-one years, and then I worked eighteen years in the bus company. It was different but basically the same. I was a driver and this and that. The funniest thing was when I was working driving a truck before the fire department, I was driving all kind of hours to all kinds of places, and I was making about $400-420 a week. Where the average pay for a fireman was $60-80 a week. So everybody looked at me and said, "What're you, cuckoo? You're gonna leave this job where you're making over $400 a week, and go to a job that pays you $80?" And I said, "Yeah, but I'm gonna get security." And this was a thing that I lived by. The security. Because come December, if they have a layoff, I'm gone from this company. If I go on the fire department, I'm secured a job for life. That was my thinking back then. And it worked out perfectly. TT- Any other events stick out in your mind? Narragansett Racetrack. Were you there for that inferno? JG- That was a farce. I don't know how much I can tell about Narragansett Racetrack. We parked Engine 2 up behind the grandstand and pumped from the hydrant right there. And we had a lot of friends that came by and they knew it was a hot day and they would bring us a case of beer. So the guys that were there, we told them, "go up to the engine. On the back is a couple of beers." Well, the next time I went up to the truck there was eight cases of beer lined up and everybody was in and out and in and out (laughs) so that's why I said it was a farce. It was an easy job, just a big one. It was huge. No danger there except for us. TT- (laughs) That's a back in the old days story. JG- Everybody showed up with a case of beer for the firemen. TT- God, I'm jealous. JG- (laughs) TT- The community was looking out for you guys! Can you think of anything else? It sounds like you had a great career. JG- I enjoyed it. And I gotta say I think that some of the people I worked with or for were great firefighters. And they taught me an awful lot back then. They were grassroots firefighters that shot from the seat of their pants. Jerry Gendreau, on Engine 2 with Tommy Heaney and Ray Masse, and they would honor the ground Jerry walked on because he was a great firefighter. He ran into a little trouble later on in his career because he wanted the promotion and crossed the picket line. But he didn't leave the job with the best of thoughts about the job. But he was an excellent firefighter. I can remember going into Beattie Street on a fire. It was a room like this. I was working on the engine. I was inside the room and it was smoky and I saw this red glow on the wall and I'm trying to hit it with a hose and everything else, all I'm doing is creating smoke. Jerry comes in and says, "What the hell are you doing?" I said, "There's fire in that wall somewhere. I can see the red glow." He says, "Shut the hose off." So as it cleared there was a light up above the bed with a red shade on it and that's what I was hitting. But that's the type of guy that he was. As soon as he walked in he kind of realized it wasn't a fire and that I was new. TT- Gendreau? That's his name? JG- Gendreau. We took all of these things with a grain of salt. That's how you got through them. And you had confidence in the people you were with. I went to a fire on Roosevelt Avenue. A car repair place. And it was a cold cold night. I had a new rookie with me named Mike Szczoczarz. TT- Oh yeah? JG- We got there and started putting the fire out. The building was ripping. We were putting it out and Mike says to me, "Jesus, this ain't bad. It ain't cold or anything." I said, "Well, wait until we put the fire out." Next thing you know we put the fire out and our coats and everything else are flaring up like skirts, the hoselines, the big 2½ inch hoses are frozen solid. We had to get the pickup to drag them back to the station to thaw them out. That's how cold it was. Another funny story, you know? TT- Sounds like you had a great career and had a lot of fun. JG- We did. We were serious there, but we never took the seriousness away from the fire. We came back and joked. It relieved the pressure. We did a lot things, softball tournaments, charity events, a carnival on Barton Street. And everybody worked together. Also, we were all Pawtucket back then. Not like today where you guys are from all over. That's why these families grew up together. TT- What kind of guy was Ray Masse Senior? Was he like Ray? JG- Same thing. Yup. And we grew up together. Ray, Barbara, and junior, and Tommy Heaney and Sue and his two children, and we'd be at their houses or they'd be at our houses. It was family. Jimmy McShane lived across the street, he was on the fire department and left to go to the electric company. TT- What did Heaney do before he got on the fire department? JG- He was young. I think he just came on. TT- Was he on before you? JG- No. We went to the fire school together. He was in my academy. Dick Ryan, all of those guys. TT- Now, Ray Masse senior had a heart attack right? Was it at work? JG- No. He was at home. He was home at night. And the toughest part of that was they got a rescue run to his house and they knew there was a problem. So they called Bob Thurber, Chief Thurber, to go in first, because they were related. And Chief Thurber's wife was Ray Masse's sister. So, yeah, when he saw him he had one leg out, like he was just getting out of bed, and it was tough. For all of us. I have to give Chief Thurber credit. TT- It affected a lot of people. JG- It did. He was a great guy. He was well-known and well-liked. TT- Well, if you think of anything else please call. Feel free to let me know, because like I said, I'm just collecting information and typing it up. JG- No, this is great. I enjoyed it. Good luck, too. There's probably a million stories. I enjoyed the job immensely, and I'd say it took me three or four years to get comfortable being away from the job. TT- That's what everybody says. JG- And then because I tried to influence my son to come on the job, and he thought private industry was the way to go, and he didn't listen to dad and everything else. But he found that this job was very adept to what he wanted to do. And be secure too. From what I've heard he's a doing as good a job, if not better, than what I did when I was there. It's great. It makes you feel proud that he'll follow in your footsteps. It's a different story today compared to back in the day when we only had cloth and wood and none of the plastic. That was just starting. Not the chemicals and everything else that you people are dealing with now. TT- Right? It's gross. When I came on we slept with our bunkerpants in the dorm at the 2's. JG- Not anymore. TT- Too true. I really appreciate you coming down, Joe. It was great to meet you. The interview ends. He stands up and takes one last look around the Engine officer's room at Station 4. "Some things never change," he says.
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March 30, 2018--
Ralph Domenici came out of the steel mills and was a member of the Pawtucket Fire Department from 1973-2004. He and his wife each worked two jobs, raised six kids, and are now enjoying their retirement. This interview was conducted in his kitchen. This is only part of what he said ... TT- I love those pics. Especially the one of Chief Mercer. I never would've recognized him. And that's also the first time I've seen Tommy Heaney. RD- I had more pics but I don't know where they've gone too. TT- Take us back to the beginning. What year did you get on, and how old were you? RD- I got on in 1973, I was almost thirty-two. Back then, thirty-two was the cutoff. If you were older than that you couldn't get on the job. So I got in August of '73 and I was thirty-two. I just made the cutoff. This was also when the four-days on, four-days off started. That's why they put on the extra guys. TT- So it went from three days, three nights, three off, to four-on, four-off. RD- Right. TT- What did you do before you got here? RD- I worked in the steel mill. Newman Crosby was on Columbus Avenue. Back then that was the big money. Back then, I lost a hundred dollars a week to get on the fire department. But I knew it was getting ready to close. And it closed three years after that. TT- No kidding. So like, you were working there in 1969-1970. RD- Yup. TT- You saw the future and knew it was gonna close down. Newman and Crosby you said? RD- Yup. TT- What kind of steel were they making? RD- They made steel for almost everywhere in the country. They made some big big things. A lot of guys on the job--Kenny Noiseaux for instance--he worked there. He got on right after I did. And another guy who died, Kurt Richards, he worked there too. Frank Sylvester, who I don't want to talk about. TT- (laughs) Are we talking about fabrication steel? Like I-beams and girders? RD- No no, not that kind. The flat stock. Like for the sides of toasters and things like that. TT- Stainless steel. RD- Right. TT- How long did you work there for? RD- Nine years. TT- So basically after high school you just went to work. RD- I did. TT- Any military time? RD- National Guard. TT- You ever get deployed anywhere? RD- No. TT- So you got on in '73. What was your process? Did you have an academy or did you just go on the job? RD- We had an academy. Two nights a week and Saturdays. TT- Just like ours forty years later. Incredible. Unpaid? RD- Yes. TT- Same here. How many guys? RD- Thirteen guys. Twelve finished and one guy quit for some reason. I don't remember why. TT- Now as far as when you got on, who were some of the guys you looked up to? Those are World War II guys, right? RD- Some of them were. When I started on Engine 4, Ray Cody was the lieutenant. Ray Gene, who is still alive, and Willie Plant, who's still alive as far as I know. I can't remember who the Battalion Chief was. TT- Now those were the guys you looked up to? RD- Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, they'd been on ten years ... I think Ray Cody had thirteen years. It was funny, back in those days it was all politics as far as getting promoted. In fact the guy who was in charge of the house, Frank Cavino, he was just some friend of a politician, and they put him on the job as a lieutenant. TT- (laughs) Come on. RD- He was in charge of the Broadway station. (Laughs) TT- That's crazy. Wow. Safe to say there was some shenanigans going on with the promotions. RD- Oh yeah. TT- So in 1973, they had airpacks but not everyone was wearing them, right? RD- Used to be there was one regular sized one, and they used to have one they called the lieutenant's airpack. It was about half the size. It was about that big (motions two feet apart). Nobody ever used them. If you used them, they laughed at you. TT- Right? RD- Those guys used to put a sponge in their mouth. TT- The sponge guys. Chickie was telling me about them. Were you a sponge guy? RD- Yeah. You had to be. (Laughs) RD- One guy, Leo Masse, he smoked alot. And we'd have fires--like a kitchen fire, smoky as a bastard, you know what I mean? And you'd come in and barely breath, and you'd be crawling on the floor, or in a bedroom for a mattress fire, crawling around on the floor, and Leo Masse would come in and give you one of these-- "Hey!" He'd be standing up, "Hey! Come on, get up. Get up. Let's go!" You'd be spitting your guts out and he'd be standing there. (Laughs) TT- Leo Masse? RD- Yeah. TT- That's the first time I've heard his name. Sounds pretty old school to me. They were talking about Timmy Hayes doing the same thing. Walking around with a cigarette in the middle of a fire. RD- Different day. TT- So you were right in that transition point where they were going from the mills to where we are now, which is still kind of struggling along. Talk about the Fourth of July. A lot of people that didn't grow up here have no idea exactly how much mayhem there was for eighty years. We're talking 200 runs a night, bonfires, house fires ... RD- It was only us, Pawtucket and Providence, that had nights like that. We used to send an engine company to Providence. Warwick sent an engine company to Providence, and they used to run with like 15 or 20 engine companies. Of course they're three times the size of Pawtucket. But we had our share of runs. Some years we'd go out at eight o'clock and not get back until the next morning. They'd have runs all lined up--the Alarm Room would have runs all lined up--and you'd clear one run and head to the next. You'd clear Grace Street and sometimes be sent all the way across the city for the next one, depending how bad it was. TT- So you guys were just running around all night. Now this went from the 1920's until the early 2000s. RD- Yup. TT- Brulé was talking about some guy showing up from Wisconsin, and he was like, "I heard Pawtucket's the place to be on July Fourth." RD- They used to come from everywhere to ride on the trucks that night. Or follow them around. It was crazy. TT- Chickie was saying it was still a sailor town back then too. Quonset Point was still open, the Navy, the fishermen. The weekends in Pawtucket were a bloodbath. Busy busy busy. RD- Yup. TT- Let's backtrack. You started off on Engine 4 and how long did you stay there? RD- Probably two years at the most. I went to Ladder 3 on Columbus Avenue, spent maybe four years there, all the time trying to get downtown but I didn't have enough seniority. I wanted to get on Engine 2, and after I finally did, I stayed there the rest of my career. TT- So you were like seven years in before you got to Engine 2? RD- At least. TT- So we're talking like 1979, 1980? RD- Yes. TT- Now who was downtown with you? Who was the crew? RD- The crew at that time was Tommy Heaney, Ray Masse Senior, Jerry Gendreau was the lieutenant, and on the ladder was Dick Ryan, Kurt Richards, and Mike Noonan. TT- What happened to Kurt Richards? RD- He had cirrhosis. Never drank, or very seldom, he'd maybe have a beer here or there. But Kurt and I went to school together in Seekonk. TT- People said he was in shape, he was squared away, knew his shit, but died of liver disease and wasn't even a boozer. That's heartbreaking. RD- It was. TT- Was he still on the job when he passed? RD- Yes. TT- That must've been brutal. RD- It was. TT- So you got downtown, you're with the fellas, now Tommy Heaney, I heard some funny stories about him. Just being a nutbag. RD- He was by far the best firefighter I ever worked with. I learned more from Tom Heaney, and Ray Masse as well, but I think Tom was even a step above Ray. They were just super super firefighters. TT- Chickie said the same thing. He said Tommy Heaney had balls as big as his head. RD- He sure did. TT- Now when we talk about Heaney, I don't even know this guy. Haven't even seen a picture. I just know of him. Now, when you got downtown, how long had he been on the job? RD- Probably like sixteen years. (Shows me a picture) TT- Oh, that's him? Wow. RD- This is the shift downtown. These guys all retired. TT- Who are these guys? RD- That's Mike Brindamour, Tim Mercer, Tom McGarry, Tom Heaney, Dick Fuller and Mike Sholas. This pic is Joe Burns, Bob Thurber Senior, Frank Boisclair, John Mensa, Farrel, and Bobby Hammond. (Brindamour would go on to become Battalion Chief, Mercer became Assistant Chief, Burns, Boisclair, and Thurber were all Chief of Department at some point). TT- Wow. Great pics. Now as far as Heaney goes, you were saying you were learning from him on the fireground itself. How to read things, when to break this, I mean we're talking about the basics of firefighting. RD- Yes. TT- Did he ever say who he learned it all from? RD- He worked with Gerry Gendreau, I think he's still alive. He was one of the guys that crossed the picket line, so at the end we had some problems with him. But he was a hell of a firefighter. I'll give anybody that crossed the picket line even back then, if they were a good firefighter they were a good firefighter. What they did I didn't believe in, I didn't condone, but they were good firefighters. Gerry Gendreau was one of the best. TT- Wow. So Tommy Heaney, he descended from him. RD- Yes. TT- Then he taught you and Chickie ... RD- Yes. TT- So you were on Engine 2. What year did you make lieutenant? RD- 1988. TT- So you were fifteen years in by then. RD- Yes. TT- And what shift were you on? RD- A-shift. I was lucky I didn't have to go to another shift in my whole career. TT- How many total years did you work? RD- Almost thirty-one. TT- Wow. And all that, other than Engine 4 and Ladder 3, it was all Engine 2, downtown. RD- Yes. But we had a lot of transfers back then. You didn't know where the hell you were gonna be. TT- Now let's talk about the gear. We're talking about tin helmets, melt-away gloves--the gloves were so terrible they'd melt on your hands-- RD- (Laughs) Yup. They were freaking rubber gloves. All you had were hip boots, and most guys wore them rolled down, unless you were going into deep water or something, your khakis were ruined from here to here (knees to waist.) You'd bring them home to be washed and the wife would want to kill ya. The old jackets that they had-- TT- We're talking vinyl jackets? RD- Some were vinyl. One time on Engine 4, it had to go out for some work. Their back-up was an old Maxim, but it had no roof over the cab. The roof was wide open. So you'd be driving in a rainstorm and it would be coming in on top of ya. TT- That's crazy. You were there for the EMS transition, when it started taking over. I mean before 1980 no one was calling 911 for headaches, stomach aches, right? RD- Nope. TT- It never happened. People aren't like they are now. There's been this kind of generational shift where now people call 911 for everything. As far as close calls, did you have any? RD- Not really. I was really pretty lucky as far as that. I always considered going down into a basement a close call every time because you didn't know where the hell you were going or what was down there or not. And there was probably only one way out--the way you came in. And if you get turned around down there ... You had to keep your hands on the hose--don't let go of the hose. TT- Bob Thurber Jr said the same thing. He almost got killed three different times in basements and he hated them. RD- Yeah. TT- Hated them. The worst part is just getting down there because you're basically walking down through a chimney, right? RD- Yup. It was dangerous business. TT- And you guys weren't even wearing air packs. RD- Back then the radios were pretty bad, as far as there was only one walkie-talkie and the lieutenant had that. And back then, (he whispers), most of the lieutenants stayed outside. TT- (laughs) RD- So when you went down that basement you didn't have a radio or nothing. You were just going down there bare-assed. TT- Jesus. Now let's talk about the Narragansett Racetrack fire. Some people don't know that Pawtucket had a state of the art race track for horses that was nationally known. Are we talking about 1978? RD- Something like that. We got there and I think I was on Ladder 3 at the time. Or Engine 3, one of the two, I can't remember. Anyway, we got there before the 6's. So we get there and the barns were going like hell. The horses were going crazy. TT- Did they get the horses out of there? RD- Some of the jockeys were there, the guys that cleaned the stables, we were helping them pull the horses out but if you read anything about almost every kind of animal, like my two dogs out there, we were pulling the horses out and letting them go, and you'd turn around and they would be running back in. TT- Oh no. RD- You know? That was their home. And they were scared to be out of it. And the next morning when the sun came up the barns were gone. They were like this (makes an EKG like line to show lumps in the ash). It was the horses. Everything fell on top of them and they were dead. TT- Jesus. How many horses are we talking about? RD- I don't even remember. Had to be twenty-twenty-five horses. TT- That's awful. Talk about big fire, it sounds like when you guys pulled up it was ripping. RD- Yes. TT- How'd it start? RD- Back then the guys who took care of the horses were kind of street people. There was straw and hay everywhere and the theory at the time was that someone tossed a cigarette. TT- You were there all day. RD- I don't remember what time at night-- TT- Oh this was a night fire? RD- It was a night fire. TT- What about Star Gas? Were you there for that? RD- That was the day they had the golf tournament. I was with Timmy Mercer, Gary Pappas, and somebody else, maybe one of my brothers. He used to come every once and a while. And we were at the backside of the Pawtucket Country Club, like near Seekonk. We didn't hear anything, didn't know anything, we came back and we were looking around saying "Where the hell is everybody?" "Oh, don't you guys know that Star Gas finally blew up?" "What're you talking about?" Then off in the distance you could see the smoke. I said to somebody, "Well, should we go?" "Oh they got plenty of help." "Good. That means more beer for us." (laughs). We never heard anything, no explosion, no nothing. TT- The younger people reading this won't realize there was a time when there were no cell phones. Anyway, Chickie said he'd already had one too many and the chief just said, "Go back to where you were." RD- (laughs) TT- Now let's talk about the picket line stuff. What exactly was going on with that? they were trying to break the union by wanting people to cross it, right? The picket line was basically broken by how many guys? RD- There was probably six or seven. At least. Some of the guys, like Gerry Gendreau, Frank Sylvester who was a big big union man in the steel mill before he went over there, I can't remember the rest. They were just looking for promotions. You know? And they didn't care about the rest. We were fighting for outside testing and they were offering to promote guys or they were gonna run a test and promote guys by the old process and we didn't want that. TT- Which is why no one took a promotion for years. Because they were political and not based on merit. Can you think you think of any other events? RD- We had a big fire on Front Street. Down Central Avenue, you know where Collette Travel is now? TT- Yes. RD- On the other side of the street was a huge mill. It ran like 500 yards. Massive place. And it started, we were on duty that day, but we were up on Smithfield Avenue doing CPR training. The box came in and Joe Burns, who was on Ladder 2, he got there and said, "This is a Code Red." I was on the rescue with Frank Sylvester and Gerry Gendreau came down and when he crossed the Exchange Street bridge he called the Alarm Room and told them to send everybody. Make it a General Alarm. That's how bad that place was going. TT- So as far as General Alarms go, you might see three or four in a whole career, so it's a pretty big deal. (General Alarm is a mandatory call back of all off duty personnel. With 32 on a normal shift, that means 128 FFs.) RD- It is. TT- That thing sounds like it was ripping. RD- Yeah, the whole thing went down. From one end to the other. We were fighting it and fighting it but we were just backing up, throwing as much water as we could but you couldn't put it out. TT- You couldn't stop it. Like standing in front of a train. RD- Yeah. Exactly. TT- What year did you finally retire? RD- 2004. TT- That's a long career. Any injuries? RD- Just a knee, but that was the only one. I was very lucky. Never got burned. TT- Do you have any regrets? RD- No. Actually yes. I wish I had gotten on when I was younger. (laughs) TT- It's true. I got on late too. I was in construction and other stuff so I didn't get on the job until I was thirty-eight. RD- How long you been on now? TT- Nine years. But it's true, if you get on early you get that extra jump. What made you decide to join up? RD- The mill was closing down. I almost got divorced because I lost $100 a week taking the fire department job. And I used to get a lot of overtime at the mill and the fire department didn't have any OT. It was always just straight pay. I think my first check was $115 a week before taxes. TT- How did you deal with it? You never brought any of it home? Just did it the old school way and went and a had a few beers with the fellas and talked it out, right? RD- Pretty much. I had six kids, so I always worked two jobs. My wife was a nurse and she always worked two jobs. With six kids you had to. In fact one time, when I was on the fire department and she was a nurse, with the six kids I was eligible for food stamps. TT- Jesus. RD- I got food stamps for a while, I think for a $100 they gave me $80, so it was only like getting ahead twenty bucks, that's how low the pay was. TT- That's terrifying. We haven't had a raise in like eight years. It is, you're right. Sometimes it's a struggle. Six kids? RD- Yup. TT- What was your second job? RD- I installed carpet. TT- The whole way through? Carpet and FD? RD- Yeah, and every once in a while I would work Pelletier Trucking, the rigging company over here? I used to work for them part time. If I wasn't installing carpets I'd go work with them or vice versa. I always had to have two jobs. TT- Can you think of anything else you'd like to talk about? RD- No, that's about it. I loved the job. I wish I had gotten on earlier. It was a great job. TT- Fun, right? RD- The only thing they had back then that you guys don't have now .. they used to sit us down, every cycle, usually your second day. They'd sit you down at the table just like you and me right here. Everybody on the two trucks downtown had to take a seat at the table and do street drills. TT- Quizing each other on the streets. There wasn't no satellites or GPS back then, right? RD- If you went out the door and didn't know your street, when you got back you sat down at the table with your street book, the lieutenant would make you sit down and go over every one of them again. TT- That's the old school. And there was more self-discipline back then. We're trying to get back to that now, because we've had such a flood of new guys. I'm not even nine years in and I've got eighty guys beneath me. RD- Wow. TT- Crazy turnover. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Too many new guys and not enough old guys is not a very good recipe. Some of these newer dudes don't get it, and need to be put back in a line a little bit, so the older crowd is flexing back. But the old school way, as you know and Chickie used to talk about it, you didn't go in the kitchen and sit down and have a coffee and read the paper before the lieutenant did, right? You always made coffee, you cleaned, went through your street-books and protocols, like it's a job, right? RD- From what I've been told about the new guys, I'm sure there's a lot that are really good, but I'm sure you got some real nags too. Like we did too. Guys that wouldn't go into fires. I just see it right now--I was talking to somebody who said guys come in and sit around the table and nobody talks to each other. Everybody's on their devices. TT- Brulé was saying the same thing. It was driving him crazy at the end. "I don't want to sit around looking at my phone. I want to talk to somebody." Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. RD- It was my pleasure. TT- Sounds like you had a great career. RD- I did. Thanks for coming over. |
AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
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