Lead, follow or get out of the way

There was only one way to describe Brownsville Brooklyn in the 1960's and 1970's.

It was a shithole.

There were some good people living there for sure. Hard working church goers. But there was a lot of shit too. Junkies. Flunkies. Criminals. They pushed the hardworking people out. Often the slumlords would put junkies in a building to force the legitimate tenants out of their rent controlled  apartments. Or they would burn them out.

Anyway you want to slice it the interaction between the fireman and the residents of the shithole were destined to be a huge culture shock. You had the sons of recent immigrants from Ireland and Italy who were solidly middle class with families in the white neighborhoods interacting with drug addled criminals. So hilarity ensued.

Lead, follow or get out of the way

Dad was like me. He told me one day last month"We are the same guy." We never had a cross word in all the years I knew him. The first day I met him I walked into his house before a wedding. He had a hand in his pocket and Mom introduced me as the new guy dating Lisa. He had his hand in his pocket and he looked me up and down. He goes "How you doing pal?" I looked at him and said "Pretty good pally how you doing?" We hit it off.

So we basically had the same political and social opinions with all that entails. In fact at family gatherings we would sit together and have a beer like those two guys in the balcony of the Muppet's.

With all that he saved thousands of the natives of Brownsville. He would give junkies mouth to mouth. There was an epidemic of heroin in those days. The junkies would vomit on him. He would brush it aside and continue the mouth to mouth.

He just loved to tell stories about it though. Once they pulled up on a medical call and there was this dude standing next to a beat up old car. Dad goes "Hey Willie why did you call us?" My damn brother threw me out the apartment" "So why did you call the Fire Department?""He be on the second floor. He threw me out the damn window."

Lead, follow or get out of the way

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

The guys that worked with Dad were truly a band of brothers. He was quite ill but we decided to have a party for his 80th birthday on the 22nd. A bunch of his brothers came to see him with their wives. You see the bond was not just the fireman. Their families were all really tight too. They were always having picnics and fishing trips and events where they would get together and drink beer and eat potluck and let the kids run around and play.

That really hit home after 911. You see Dads guys were all long retired but their sons and grandsons were all on the job. And a lot of them died on 911. Dad was going to funerals all over the city and Long Island and Jersey. My wife knew a lot of them from when they were kids and we went to a few. It is still a scar that we carry.

All of the guys who came to the party had a story to tell. One of them told me a story of when he was a probie. They put him on the nozzle because they always threw them into the deep end of the pool. They were in this warehouse fire and went into this room. It was smoldering pretty good and the was about to walk forward. Dad stopped him and had him hose the whole room...especially this big sheet of cardboard that was on the floor. When he did and it washed away he saw that it covered a big hole in the floor. They had booby trapped it to catch and kill some fireman. Just the first of several booby traps in that factory. They did that all the time. The wanted to kill the fireman. He told me he could have died that day and he never did anything at a fire that Jim Kelly didn't approve from that day forward.

That was how he lived to a ripe old age and is still able to go to fireman picnics with his great grandson.

Lead follow or get out of the way.

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.

Lead follow or get out of the way.....

That saying was on a plague that his fellow fireman presented to Dad on his retirement. I am kinda cheating by posting clips from Rescue Me. He hated that show. Pretty much wouldn't watch any fireman shows or movies. Not Chicago Fire. Not Backdraft. Certainly not Rescue Me even though he did say they got the basic vibe of the Firehouse sort of right.

He never wanted to watch them because he called them all reruns.

You see Dad was just like the lead of that show played by Dennis Leary. The tough rebellious ball busting Irish guy who wasn't an officer or officially in charge. He was just the guy that everyone followed.

Firehouse 283 did more runs in one month during the 1960's than all of the runs in the City of Chicago did for that year.

When his firehouse friends came over Captain Joe Bono who was a probie in 283 and learned his trade under Jim Kelly said....."I never worried about going into a fire if I was with Jim Kelly. I know I would be safe."

The other fireman that were there all nodded their heads. Even their lieutenant who was nominally in charge. The all had stories of things that Dad taught them.

Lead, follow or get out of the way.......

James Joseph Kelly was born on December 22, 1937 in Mineola Long Island to immigrant Irish parents. Shortly thereafter they moved to Willliamsburg Brooklyn where they resided thereafter. They were very poor. His father Thomas was a sanitation worker who was not paid very much money in those days. Unfortunately his parents suffered from the Irish curse and he had a very difficult childhood.

He had the kind of childhood you would see in a movie starring Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien. In fact the person he most reminded me was Jimmy Cagney. A tough no nonsense Irishman with a soft soul for people who needed his help. As a young child he had to step up to protect his sisters. One of them told us many stories of the things he used to do. He never spoke of it. He just did it.  That was who he was.

A Hero falls.....

I have been out of touch the past few months. Especially the past three weeks.

Lisa's Dad has been very ill. He was in hospice at home suffering from the accumulated disabilities he incurred from being a NYFD fireman through the sixties and seventies. Those were the guys who went into fires to save people without any gear. No fancy tanks. Nothing but a hose, an ax and a glass screen in the front of their helmet.