Lieutenant Greg Brulé July 16, 2017 Physically, at six-foot three-inches and two-hundred sixty-pounds, he was the largest man on the job. He could've been a devastating bully. Instead, he was widely considered to be the nicest guy in the whole department. He'd been in one fight his whole life and, after literally throwing his opponent through a door, profusely apologized while helping him to his feet. Renowned for smashing in dead-bolted exterior doors with only his size-fifteen boots, new guys loved him because he was always down to teach. He was one of the remaining connections to the old-schoolers, the guys who'd been through the fiery 1970s. His enthusiasm for the job hasn't wavered an inch. Indeed, as he relived his career, he spent ninety minutes in an animated state of excitement. This interview took place in his kitchen five years after his retirement in 2011. It's only an excerpt of a much longer conversation. TT-- What I remember, is after Chief Cute retired, and he showed up downtown for lunch, he said the same thing. He was there for like ten minutes and said, "I feel completely out of place here. Everything has just washed over me." What is that like when you go back after (retirement)? GB- I never understood it until--Timmy Hayes was one of the greatest firefighters I saw work a fire, I had high--still do--high respect for Timmy Hayes. He was always a walker. Always walked the boulevard. He lived off of Weeden, up near the Lincoln border, so he would walk from his house all the way to Blackstone Boulevard, do the boulevard, and walk back home. TT- Wow. GB- No shit. Everyday. Relentless. Always saw him walking by the station. He was on the job doing it too, but after he retired, I still saw him. I said, "Timmy, c'mon in. Have a coffee. Let's chat." He did a couple of times, you know? Probably to be cordial. But he started avoiding the station. He started going down freaking Power Road, because I saw him a couple times taking Power Road all the way down. And I ran into him, and I said, "Tim, what's up, man? I don't see you anymore." He goes, "Nothing against you, and nothing against the guys, but it is so totally different. So, so different." You're on the outside looking in, you seem--remember that old saying, "Take your piss and screw" that everybody uses? You know what? You don't have to say it because it's different. So I went downtown, probably like a year ago, and I was looking for some people. I was actually looking for John Dolan, to get a smoke inspection for my daughter's house. Man, I just looked around that kitchen and Alarm Room and I didn't know a freaking soul. It was like holy shit. I went upstairs, I said you know what, I'll go see Barbara (secretary Barbara Pacheco has been the gatekeeper to every chief since the 1970s), and Chief--Benny Langevin was up the there at the time--I went up there and nobody was around, kind of creepy. Even dropping in (at Station 1), A.J. and Patrick (his old crew), they haven't changed. They're still the same. But I still don't drop in as much as I used to because you do--you feel like you're--not invading their privacy, but almost like ... (Retired) Chief Burns always comes in on a Friday. Always. But that was just the feeling I got, almost like I didn't belong there anymore. It's a weird feeling. TT- That has to be kind of strange after spending all that time there. GB- All that time. TT- Even if you're out of the loop for a couple of weeks--vacation or injured--it's been like sealed over and you have to wedge yourself back in and (catch up on everything you missed.) GB- The biggest changes are the faces. You don't realize it because you're still around them, but there's so much attrition on the job, it's a revolving door it seems. How many schools they put through in the last six years since I've been gone, how many guys they've put on six years. TT- I've got eight years and I think 50 guys beneath me. GB- Isn't that incredible? TT- Crazy. And when I got on, it was all top heavy, lot of senior guys. GB- I understand the dynamic of the job--you're not gonna maybe feel it for a while. But when you first get on the job you feel like--you don't want to touch anything, you don't want to say the wrong thing, what do I need to do here--back when I got on in '82, it was paramilitary. There were still guys from World War II on the job. TT- Wow. GB- On the job at Station 6. They call it the Sleepy 6s because you didn't really move too much, and you went up there and it was such an unbelievable difference. They were into cleaning brass, and the brass--Wednesday's brass day so we had to clean all the brass! So I was the dumb kid saying, "What're we doing this for?" You know what I mean? (Laughs) What the hell are we doing this for? It's winter time. The truck would go out on one run, come back-- "Oh we got to get the hose and spray underneath, get all the salt off." What? We didn't even go that far! So I was that young kid, generation gap thing, they're paramilitary. That flag's gotta be out there by dawn and down at dusk. And that's cool. You better have a pot of coffee going all the time because they were into their Joe. I saw the differences--now, fast forward thirty years. I'm sure those guys felt the same way. They wanted to get away from havoc and seek refuge at the 6s. They all kind of hung together, the old dudes would be up there playing their bridge and stuff I never seen before, Crib, but I see it now, where when I was ready to go--you know when the writing's on the wall because one of the main thing's that generation gap thing. Guys on their devices all the time. I'm saying, "Hey, dude, come to the (kitchen) table. Change of shifts. Let's get to the table, you know? Let's get an hour in with the (previous) shift, see what they did last night, what they used last night, what's on the truck, what's going on?" Everybody would be scattered. I'd walk in, nobody would be around. Man, I miss that coffee with two shifts at the table, all the bullshitting, busting balls, having fun, talking about shit, legitimate shit, like how can we better things? TT- Yeah, talking like tactical stuff. GB- Tactical, safety, stuff we deal with everyday. Yeah. And I was like, "Wow, I just feel, I'm not in anymore. I'm on the outside a little bit," you know? I didn't want to become the lieutenant where I would grab a phone and say, "Gimme that phone." (laughs) "You can pick it up at my locker at four o'clock in the afternoon." But that's the way I felt, you know? TT- The technology got that intrusive, right? Because Lemay was talking about the same thing. "Guys would sit around smoking, smoking and joking, and there's one TV in the whole station." GB- But I understand. Going to the computer, checking out all the different things on the computer, it's cool. But time and place for everything. You got all afternoon, man. But, um, but when I'm going to a run in the 5s district, and the guy in the back--now the motor's going like a bastard, we know it's a confirmed Code Red, we're laying a feeder from freaking Goat Hill. I want to grab a hydrant that's high so we're laying it down the hill, so I'm looking in the book (the official department mapbook that has every hydrant in the city) for that hydrant, we're gonna be there in two and a half minutes, we better find out where the hydrant we're gonna tag is. And I hear the guy in the back yelling and screaming. So, got away from what I was doing, we're screaming down the road, sirens are going, engine's going, and he's screaming with the window between us. I slide the window open. "Yeah, whaddaya got?" Thinking he's got something going on. You know? "Hey, lou, you got a hydrant on Whatever Street." Thinking he's thinking what I'm thinking. He goes, "No, lieutenant, I'm just talking on my phone." TT- Oh God. GB- You dumb SOB. TT- On the way to a fire. GB- Crazy, right? So you know what? I said, "Screw it. I'm not gonna address it now. Address it later, man." But I'll tell you what, he made me become this--like I didn't want to be that guy! I didn't want to be that dude. I said, " I'm just gonna let it slide, let it go away." It didn't, man. I was pissed. So I said, "Listen..." The fire was over. "Show me how--did you take a picture of yourself?" "No Lieutenant, I didn't." I said, "Listen, we're on our way to a fire, it's a confirmed fire.." He says, "I had my axe, I was ready to go..." Axe, no. Hydrant gear, my friend. (Second due engine companies are responsible to hook the first engine up to a hydrant) You dumb SOB. Now this was just a guy that was transferred over, but still, young guy, nice guy, but I had to grab it and say, "You'll get it later." And I thought the conversation... he goes, "Well what do you want me to do, lieutenant?" I said, "I want you to be like..." And on rescue, Dawson was on the rescue at the time. They came on together. I said, "Be a Mike Dawson. That's all I want you to do. Watch what he does during the course of the day. He gets it. I want you to get it. Talk to him, follow him around, you don't have to hang around with the senior dudes, be a new guy like him." So I thought the conversation was fine, between the two of us, I thought that was it. I caught overtime at the 5's, so this was later in the day, he got his phone at four. I fly over to the 5's and hear, "Oh I heard you took his phone! Oh, you're a real ball-buster! Good for you, man." (laughs) Who the ... now he gets on the line and the department grapevine goes wild. I'm saying, "Now I got to go back and talk to this guy." But anyway, what I think I was getting at, the writing was on the wall. There was a generation gap, I understand it, I do. But it's a young man's job. That fire that we had (he and I on West Ave in July. Hot and humid), I was fine, I felt great. But the next couple of days, man, (laughs) I'm saying, "Jesus." I got my back, I got my heart. TT-Why not get out while the getting's good. So, let's go back to '82 when you got on the job. How old were you. GB- I was twenty-one. TT- What were you doing before you got here? GB- That's what got me here. Cathy Fugere (his soon-to-be wife), it was 1977. Her brother got on the job. I was at Tolman High School and we watched a huge mill fire right from the second-floor. Middle Street was going fucking crazy. And I'm saying, "Your brother's in there somewhere?" (laughs) Holy shit! It just opened my eyes. I said, "What an exciting job that must be!" So I had never thought about becoming a fireman, but there was the fact that he was doing it, and a year later, maybe two, there was the Narragansett Racetrack fire. So we went to go see that and that's when I saw the beach wagon, the frigging car come in with all the beer. And I'm saying, "Look at this shit." You know, they're trying to hide it and stuff. (laughs). And I'm saying, "Man, these guys are drinking beers." So now I'm salivating a little bit more. I went to URI for two years on a football scholarship, and that didn't work out for me. I knew I was wasting my time, and everybody else's time, and I wasn't gonna waste my dad's money. That was the main thing, I was getting a full ride. Then Cathy got pregnant. We'd been dating since '77. Juniors and high school sweethearts. So URI was a testing ground for that, make sure it was right. But she got pregnant, so it was like, oh man, I gotta grow up quick. So left that, grabbed a job at Rhode Island Hospital, her father was an electrician there. I was working third shift, cleaning toilets, stuff like that. Ran into Bobby Thurber who was working in the ER. I saw the technicians there--he was a tech there--got friendly with Bob, we started talking, he started talking to me behind the scenes, showing me shit--burn victim, this dude was alive but you'd never know he was alive, melted, smelled like a barbecue, but he was still alive. And Bobby was like, "Look at this, guy." Everything was melted. So, the blood and guts didn't bother me. Later, I learned that they brought some dude in that was a dumpster dweller, who had these bugs all bored into his stomach and shit. Grossest thing I've ever seen in my fricking life. (Bobby Thurber's) pouring peroxide and these bugs--I'm saying, "Bobby, what the hell!" It was fascinating shit though, it wasn't grossing me out. The piss and shit, yeah, maybe a little bit. Puke, you know? But this stuff was fascinating, this is crazy stuff. So I was taking some police tests and he goes, "Fuck the police department. You got to go for the fire department. My father just made B.C. in Pawtucket." So long story short, that's where I met Bobby Thurber, fire service, the whole nine yards. I was already working third shift, and I had to supplement it with a book-mobile job. TT- Book-mobile? GB- Yeah. So I took an application for the book mobile. It was parked on a hill. I popped the clutch, the books fly all over the place. (laughing). It was because of that job, the mayor saw my name on an application, and I didn't know the mayor was on the church board with my mother. TT-Oh no way. GB- He goes, "I saw your son, is it your son, Greg? Who put in an application for the book mobile?" "Yeah, he's working hard, gonna have a baby, he's working two jobs..." "Do you think he'd like to be a fireman?" She goes, "He's already taken Warwick and Cranston's tests." He says, "Tell him not to go to personnel, just come to my office. Take out an application." The rest is history. Right? Everything happens for a reason. The book-mobile got me the job. So all these guys, I got on with six guys, they were all pounding signs, working their balls off for him (the mayor) and I didn't spend a day doing anything and all of a sudden I'm number 4. Bobby Thurber goes, "What the fuck!" (laughs). "Who the fuck do you know!" "I don't know anybody!" So I went on in '82. TT- Was...When Kraweic and I were talking, he was talking about specific guys. Because obviously, since he's the chief, he's in charge of a lot of--I think it's the most pressure filled spot on the whole job, being the B.C., only because anything can go wrong, and you're responsible for thirty guys and 80,000 people. GB- They should be getting double pay, not the fifty bucks ($ difference between B.C. and Captain). TT- Right? So I was asking him, "When you would show up on-scene, what would you do?" And he was like, "I always knew who to turn to." Brulé, Jay McLaughlin was another guy, Timmy Hayes' name came up a bunch, Bobby Ogle. He was like, "I would turn to these guys and ask, "What's it like in there? Do we have a shot? Should we get everybody out?" He was like, "I wasn't afraid to ask, but I knew who to ask. Because some of these guys aren't gonna have that kind of knowledge." GB- I think the fact that he was with us so long, you know what I mean? You get familiar, and you get comfortable with guys. You know they know how you operate. Just like A.J. and Patrick (privates under Brulé on E1), I know what they were capable of and how they were thinking, and they knew what I was thinking, without even saying stuff. So if I turned around, I didn't have to ask for a tool. A.J. had the tool, but he was on the job, you know what I mean? He wasn't handing you the tool and going, "Okay, lieutenant, here you go." No. He was on it. So I think there was a comfort level and--you get really familiar with the guys, the way they operate. I think working with Kraweic for so many years ... If I was Battalion Chief I'd say the same thing because it's only past experiences that I have that I can use, so, I think that's maybe why he mentioned my name and stuff. I mean you know some of the good firemen, you know? Back in the day, Chickee and I used to hook up and I would freelance. We would take off from our bosses and jump on Meerbott (a legendary B.C.), who was a downtown lieutenant, and follow him into the fire, work with that crew, it wasn't the right thing to do, we understood that, but we were learning and we were fucking doing it, seeing shit. As time went on, it changed for me, the accountability thing, after the Hargraves fire when he died on Cottage Street. I was Acting Lieutenant. We were back-up line to Engine 2. Engine 2 went to the basement, went around the back to where the coffeemaker I guess had started it, but they couldn't find the seat of the fire. That was the surprising part. It was so superheated down there--now we didn't realize the Ladder couldn't make a hole. There was two roofs up there. They couldn't break through the two roofs. Sand and gravel on both. But there was like a two-and-a-half foot void between the new roof, and the original roof. Heavy workload. TT- And we're talking about bullet proof windows... GB- That's the thing. The fucking K-12s were bouncing off. They ended up, I think over time they ended up just pushing the ladder right through the fucking thing. That's how they vented it out. But in the meantime, it's cooking down there. So I'm at the base of the stairs, and my two guys, it was Russ Renzi and Bruno Marovelli. It's so hot, we're hitting the ceiling just to cool the area down, and I said, "Let's drop some of these drop ceilings, because it has to be right above us." But we were committed to stay at the bottom. The stairs went up both sides. You couldn't see anything. It was banked down, super hot. So I said, "I'm gonna go try and push in one of these air conditioners. You guys stay here, and I'm gonna go right to the freaking back wall and try and find a door, an AC, anything to vent this thing." It's all made up with these movable sound proof little barriers. Now going through there, you're trying to stay as straight as possible-- TT- So you can get back out. GB- The shit is building up. There's shit piled all over the place--office furniture, chairs, tables, desks, file cabinets--the big ones, you know what I mean? Can't budge them. So I finally made the back wall, now I'm working, I'm a big dude, and I'm sucking that air. I hit the back wall and now I'm hearing airhorns outside. Get the fuck out. (air horns are the universal sign to evacuate the structure.) So I was gonna Mayday, but I didn't Mayday, because I said, "Let me go this way. If I can find a window, pull in a fucking air conditioner, I'll go out that way." But I knew those guys--now this was before everyone had a radio. There was only one radio, the boss had the radio. It got wet when we were hitting it and I'm not hearing any kind of communication on the thing. TT- So you only heard the horns. GB- Right. Now I'm hearing bup-bup-bup-bup (mimics the ominous sound of the vibe-alert on his mask going off signaling he was running out of air.) I'm saying, "Oh man, I'm in a jackpot." It's super heated down there, so now it's a pucker-factor, you know? I had it with me, but I never went for it (the Mayday). TT- Did you have a hose with you? GB- No. TT- Solo. Nice. GB- I'm freelancing. I found a door and got out, but I wasn't accountable. TT- They said they were looking for you because at one point you were missing. Like they had already done an accountability. GB- That's right. I don't know. God blessed me that day because you know what? And I was thinking about it (activating the Mayday) I'm saying my grandfather died the year before, in '92, and I'm saying "Jesus, Gramps died a year before me, I could buy the farm." But I had a moistened sponge an old-timer told me to keep in my pocket, and I didn't reach for it, but after the fire was done, they fucking yelled and screamed. AJ (Al Jack) was the acting BC that day, who was also my boss at the time. I never freelanced again. I learned the importance of staying with your crew. TT- Now I had heard the name John Buchanon. He was a well respected guy, Buchanon, right? GB- Yes. Absolutely. TT- The story I had heard from Lemay was that when he came out, when Buchanon came out and was changing bottles, Al Jack was asking him, "What does it look like in there? What do we got going on? Do we have a shot?" And Buchanon turned to him and flat out told him, "The fucking Devil's in the basement and he's gonna kill somebody down there." That's pretty fucked up. GB- That was the only time I thought I was gonna die on this job. The only time. TT- Wow. It was a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day out, and it was just the weirdest thing. GB- It was originally, the adrenaline pumped through your veins because we were getting multiple calls. Then it went down when Engine 4 said, "Oh, it's just black smoke pouring from the chimney." Kind of like a chimney fire. And then they reported, "No, no, we got heavy smoke and fire in the basement." Engine 4 was, I think minus a guy. So it was Engine 2 that really kind of got in there. So I don't know if Engine 4 was feeding the ladder. I'm not sure how it played out, but Engine 2 were basically the guys that got down into the seat of the fire. But Buchanon must've been with the 4's. Because that was before he became a training officer. TT- Now, let's talk about the freelancing stuff. At these events they're guys that are very safety conscious. Everything is by the book. And then there are guys that are very aggressive, they're not afraid to do anything, and then there's a certain level above them where there's just dudes that're actually enjoying what's going on at the fire. They are having a blast, they're wrecking walls--you see the same guys at the end of every fire doing the work nobody else wants to do. You took a certain amount of pleasure doing the job. It provided a high. It was an adrenaline rush, right? GB- But it was controlled. I think you could attest to it, because at the last fire of my career, you were with me, and I said, "Alright, T, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna hit this door." And I was kind of giving you a little instruction. You don't want to have blinders on. The first thing you want to do is scream, "There's the fucking fire!" But, no, man, find out where your windows are, hit them now while you can see them, make your way around the room, see if there's anybody there, scurry here and there, while you can see. Let the thing go over your head, man, you got time. But by hitting it, now you're not gonna see a thing. So you better remember where that back stairway is. So you're adrenaline says, "We gotta put this thing out!" But no. I was more like, "This is pretty cool, let's let this thing burn. I gotta a hand-line that's gonna knock this thing down in seconds. Let's go check out the room, the hallway." I had a fire where there was a death. It was an infant. And I'm not pointing fingers at all, but... we flew in because the guy said, "My child's up there. He's in the second bedroom." It was Christmastime. There was a Christmas tree. I went into the first room, furthest from the fire, figured I'd check that first and work my way down. I was through the second, done with the second, and that's when my lieutenant couldn't get air. He's calling. Now it looks like shit when you're on the stairway landing with no air, but I had air. No line, but it (the fire) was coming through the kitchen now. But again, it was high. I knew what I was capable of. I've seen it before. I've been there. It was a baby in there. TT- Right? you gotta go. GB- You go. So that third bedroom, he's adamant, "Get the fuck out right now. Right now." I said, "I got one more bedroom. I'm just gonna--" and I ran into something, some kind of object, and I hit it, and what I thought was the layout of the floor plan wasn't. I hit some kind of pack-and-play thing where I thought the room should be and hit a dead end and said, "Maybe he's right. Maybe I'll get lost in here." The voice of reason. And he's my boss too. Respect the rank, if not the person. So I bailed and the kid died. Engine 3 ended up making the grab. That was another thing, the comment my officer made later (about how it was our grab and we didn't make it,) and I'm saying, "Oh man, you're saying that to the wrong fucking dude." He's a respected guy, a well respected guy, and I get along with him, I respect him, but he just didn't know what I was capable of. And I thought right from the get-go he was slowing me down because he's talking to the man whose hysterical about his child being up on the second-floor. I thought he (the father) was very clear about it. I didn't think there were anymore follow up questions needed. So let's go! I was separated from the officer, doing my thing, but my pack was on, he wasn't even on air yet, no mask on-- TT- Taking up precious time doing nothing. Now when you were talking about how this job gets passed on from generation to generation, the one thing that struck me was that I had been through EMT-Basic, Cardiac, Fire I and Fire II, I had all the certifications and whatever, but you don't even know what the hell you're doing when you pull up on something. Because you're brand new and it's a lot to process. That's why the West Avenue (fire) was so crazy. Downtown was being ripped up from construction and no one could get to us, and you methodically went from the first-floor to the third smashing open doors with your boots everywhere we went searching for people first. And in my mind I was like, "Well, the fire's upstairs. Shouldn't we be going up there?" And you were like, "Nope. We already know where the fire is. We're gonna make sure everyone's out of the house first." There's a list of things to do. It always struck me, it always stuck with me, and then even when you were getting ready to pop the door, and you let me take the nozzle, I never forgot it. You were like, "Hit the ceiling, hit the walls, look around, advance the line, don't let it get over our heads or behind us" and sure enough that's what we did. The ceiling collapsed on our fucking heads, it was a total shitshow, but there were so many lessons given in one short period of time. GB- Life hazard is always the number one priority. When we got there, the guy was being carried down in his wheelchair, which was huge, because that would've occupied a lot of time. Say the neighbors weren't around, and no one knew that guy was up there and needed that kind of care. That guy would've been priority one. But life hazard still doesn't change. You've definitely got to have your priorities. It's all different. One time, this woman was on a roof on Main Street. She was safe on the roof. It was a basement fire. That was the call. Should I go knock that freaking fire down, or should I take a ground ladder … She's safe. She's on a flat roof. She got herself out of the window, she's yelling for help but you know what? There was a little smoke, not much. But the fire's raging in the basement like a bastard. So that was the call. My boss made the call. We stretched a ladder and got her off the roof, Engine 5 went down there and got pummeled. A snotty nose, shitty fucking fire and they got a great stop. We got a company citation because we got some lady off a roof. I thought she was fine. See, the whole thing about ... I was never a big fan of the awards. It's bullshit. TT- It is bullshit. Were you on the job for Star Gas? Wasn't that 1982? GB- '83. Star Gas was a crazy-ass--WPRO dispatched me to work that day (laughs). WPRO says all off-duty police and fire are to report back to work. The wife goes, "You're not going to go to that, are you?" I say, "Oh yes I am. I'm gonna drop you off, I got my gear in the back, I can be there in no time!" (Laughs.) So I walked over there from Station 4 and what a fucking freakshow. I'm seeing a heavy plume of dark dark smoke, burning like ten motherfuckers. And these blasts of (propane) canisters that were four-feet long. Sailing up into the sky. I don't know where the they're going but they gotta land somewhere! (laughs). Those things probably weighed eighty to a hundred pounds each. TT- Isn't it a miracle nobody died that day? GB- You could taste it, it was so thick. And Engine 4's burning. (Engine 4 was parked too close to where the propane tanks were. Once they exploded they melted the truck.) Engine 4 and the whole building's going and there was a big railcar, a big old bastard, and if that thing blew we were screwed. But Google BLEVE. And you'll see a railcar explode. (laughs). There wouldn't have been any pain (laughs). It would've taken out all of Freight Street. But the thing that got me was the fact that the school was right there. A thousand feet away, there's this school right in the middle of this neighborhood. TT- The interviews from people at the scene, because Lemay has these bags of newspapers, and I went through them all. And you're reading these interviews from people that lived in the area, and they were like, "We've been telling the city that this gas company shouldn't be here, literally surrounded by apartments, triple-deckers and schools." GB- It was nuts. Do you still got the pictures? Because I'm in them. I'm sitting on a master stream with a couple other guys, and we're right at the nose of this motherfucker (the railcar), and they say the worst place to be (in a BLEVE situation) is in the front, because if it does rupture it's gonna go like a rocket, it's coming right at ya (laughs). But since then, I've seen video of the BLEVEs and there wouldn't have been any pain (laughs). TT- Do you know what year they built Station 1? GB- 1912. TT- In some of the research I was doing, Engine 1 is in here at 1804. And Engine 2 is 1808. And they weren't "engines" they were giant flower pots with water that got hand pumped. GB- It's right here. (flips through some pages). Now, I went to Phoenix with the wife and we saw this one displayed in Phoenix. "The Haycart" is what it was called. So I go to Phoenix, and I know that it's there somewhere, but it's a huge, two airplane hanger-sized museum, they got hundreds and hundreds of pieces. You pay your toll to get into the place, go through the turnstile, the first piece that you see is that one right there. (points to the Haycart). It's amazing. It's beautiful. It looks exactly as it does right there. The guy re-did it. TT- Jesus, it says Pawtucket right on it. GB- Here's a little info on the back page. TT- There's the Flowerpot! GB- That's the first one. Look at that fucking thing. TT- Was that in Phoenix? GB- No, no. I don't even know if that thing's still around. Just the pic. TT- The history of this job is so crazy. GB- That's what I mean. You look back at some of these--Here. That's the West Avenue station. This is inside the station. Hasn't really changed that much. (shows me more pictures). TT- No, it sure hasn't. They took the pole out but that's about it. Unbelievable. GB- And look at these dudes. (shows me a pic of old school guys in uniform). That's in their Sunday best, that's the dress uniform. TT- (laughs). Those are some serious hats. Wow. Thanks, Lt. GB- Take care, T
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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
August 2022
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