1773 Days Gone

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Me: No one raindrop feels responsible for the flood.

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Tomorrow is the first anniversary of our first unchaperoned date, the day we met at Grand Central Station, walked all over central Manhattan and Central Park, had dinner at a revolving restaurant over Times Square, and wandered around the city in a tiny sporty convertible as the theaters were letting out, searching for the route north, with the player blasting BNL, him singing along, and me flirting with taxi drivers trapped beside us. We were together about 14 hours that day, talking steadily, and by the end of the evening and the first kiss in the Poughkeepsie train station parking lot, where I had left my car that morning, and where he drove the two hours to take me back rather than put me on a late train, I was already falling hard. I found him fascinating then, and still do. His mind is unbelievably fast, his heart is soft, and his old-fashioned chivalry is sweet.

Happy anniversary, Sweetheart.

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Local newspaper. Article today about the village volunteer fire department.

Back when I was on the rescue squad (EMS), five or six years ago, there were somewhere between 75 and 85 active members (could have been a lot more - for some reason 90 sticks in my head), all volunteers. Most were firefighters, perhaps 18 were EMS. This is a relatively sparsely populated rural area, and when I joined I was expecting that the ambulance would be called out perhaps a maximum of three times a week.

I was shocked that we, the EMTs, were called out an average of three times a DAY! The firemen took out the heavy rescue vehicle to automobile accidents once or twice a week. The full firefighting apparatus was called out perhaps once a month, if that.

It was a little annoying that the firefighters got all the glory, and the EMTs seemed to provide most of the service.

Anyway, the newspaper article was about the loss of volunteers. The local fire company is down to 30. Quite a drop. They're desperate for volunteers. I don't know what the ratio of EMTs is, but the company handled 1100 callouts last year, and EMS had to be the majority. These people mostly have full time jobs. There are usually a minimum of three people riding the ambulance on a call. They have the radio with them at all times, and when it burps, whoever's on call punches out at the job, or tumbles out of bed, or puts the baby down, or changes direction on the highway, and heads for the fire station. With so few EMTs to handle so many calls, it's got to be pretty disruptive to their lives.

"They" said that the problem seems to be that with the economy down, people can't take off work for the training and the callouts, not to mention that many are now working two jobs. The town is afraid they're going to have to hire professionals. That's going to affect taxes, which will make it even worse for those folks already working two jobs.

In a brief moment of sheer madness, I considered volunteering again.
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