People always think things are worse now then they ever were before. Now if you just think logically you know that is not true. You know I am a big Western fan and my wife asked me if I ever wanted to go back in time to the old West. I always said no because I didn't want Doc Holiday as my dentist pulling teeth with a pair of pliers.
It is much the same with race relations. You talk about your Ferguson and your Black Lives Matters. Well in the Sixties and the Seventies we had the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army and riots in the streets much worse than anything that is happening now. The FDNY was on the front line.
You see back in the day the Fireman were targets. They would get hit with bricks and bottles as they rode on the back of the trucks. Why? Why would you want to stop the guys that were coming to save you. Part of it was pure hate and despair. The fireman and the cops were the only white people they saw. The only way to get out their frustrations and anger. So they would throw a brick at a fireman holding on to the back of the truck on his way to saving their Auntie's life. Dummies.
Dad and his friends always told stories of those days and the things that happened. How one call box had thirty seven false alarms in one 48 hour period. So how did they fix that. They spread dog shit on the call box so the mooks wouldn't touch it. Tough shit if there was a fire. So to speak.
I do have one favorite story. You see the people in Brownsville hated the fireman but they called them for everything. Fires. Medical emergencies. They didn't have fancy paramedics like they do now. Or rather that system was just starting.
So they get a call and they all groan. It is the address for a frequent flier. An address where there were always domestics. Usually when the common law would go all Ike Turner on his baby mama when she wouldn't turn over her welfare check. Or just because he wanted to smack her around. She would call the fire department to get patched up and not the cops because if he was put in brackets,,,, she would catch a beating when got out the next day. You see spousal abuse was not a big deal in 1969.
When they pull up there is this guy is sitting on the stoop bleeding profusely. With an ax embed in his head. That's right. It is sticking right out of his noggin and he is sitting there moaning and sobbing but still alive and kicking. While the other guys go over to look at this mook Dad goes over to his woman who is standing there chuckling. He says to her "What's going on Bertha? How did that happen?"
"Why that motherfucker axed me about my check so he could go spend it on dice and wine and shit. He axed me so I axed him."
"Fair enough." They brought George to the Hospital and left it to the cops to sort out. Doncha know that they stayed together. Or at least they were still together when Dad retired. They would run into him at the bodega. Of course George had calmed down a lot. He became a sort of solid citizen.
I mean I ax you? Don't judge.
6 comments:
Good one. Reminds me of a story my brother told me about a guy in the ER at Jacoby. The city in those days was gritty with nitty. I visited NYC mostly between 1965 and 1972, so I have a passing familiarity with who and what your FiL was dealing with. More power to him - I cannot imagine having to interact mooks like that on a daily basis.
He must have been quite a guy.
A lot of that was the work of community organizers like Stokeley Carmichael, ho went around whipping up riots.
Carmichael eventually married Miriam Makeba and went to Africa where he died of cancer (justice). Of course, he was the one who got rich off the riots.
Big cities notwithstanding, race relations were a lot better in the 60s than the 70s when community organizing and Radical Chic were in their heyday.
But, yeah, there were a lot of stories of firemen getting shot at in them thar days. Right before the National Guard would be called in. Between the race haters and the KGB stooges running the "anti-war" movement (remember all the protests when General Giap invaded Cambodia or the Russkies went into A-stan? me neither), it was a great time to be a Lefty; a lousy time to be a cop or a firemen.
Out of this came the slogan, "If you think cops are pigs, next time you are in trouble, try calling a hippie "
The thing is ed that fireman are not attacked now the way they were in the 1960's and 70's.
I don't know if it was because of 911 but the vibe is different.
Plus there is a separate FDNY paramedic unit that is always doing runs in the neighborhood without problems.
In that way it has changed for the better.
A lot of the attacks were rooted in the fact that there was a lot of arson for hire and they were trying to stop the fire department from going to put out a fire so they could get the rent control tenants out and sell the building. They didn't get paid if they house didn't burn.
The movie I posted called "Firehouse" lays this out pretty well.
You never wanted to be around when "Jewish Lightning might strike."
Trooper York said...
The thing is ed that fireman are not attacked now the way they were in the 1960's and 70's.
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't anything but ghastly back then.
What made the 60s and, especially, the 70s horrific was the whole Radical Chic thing combined with the "Burn, Baby, burn" fad. Any fire in those days could turn a city block
into beautiful downtown Saigon.
Keep in mind all these "movements" were coordinated by the KGB's useless idiots in this country from the Berrigans to William Ayers to Rap Brown to Wally Konkrete.
A lotta Greek Lightning in Chicago. Working arson cases I got to know quite a few Chicago firefighters. They love to talk food and always appreciated when I would bring some confections when I had to interview them.
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