I sort of expected it to end there, but the next thing you know, I’m being interviewed by three people from city hall and one of the chiefs. I’m being signed up for psychological profiling, physical agility tests, etc. I’m pretty sure I’m in over my head and won’t be asked back.

Months go by. I hear nothing. I’m pretty certain I’m not wanted. I feel like a manuscript sitting on a slush pile somewhere in ol’ New York.

Yeah. Just call me Mr. Optimism.

Next thing you know, I get a letter and a thing saying that orientation starts on September 11th, 2 years after the terrorist attacks in New York. Needless to say, it’s easy to remember the date I started.

In that year, I went through fire training:

We were a lucky class. The local outlet mall in town had gone out of business and they gave us free reign to tear the place apart. We cut holes in the roof, smashed down doors, chopped holes through walls…

I studied harder than I ever had. I had a real penchant for the fire stuff, often getting the highest scores of the class whenever we were tested, which NEVER happened to me in high school or college. I discovered I have no fear of heights. I also learned quickly that I’m good at rescue. I did well whenever we had drills where we’d crawl through fire and smoke to try and find a (fake) victim lying there. Never knew I had it in me.

Then of course, we had EMT class. Though I may have said it before, I’m not much of a test-taker. Sure, I did well on the fire tests, but the EMT tests really grounded me and made me realize how dumb I really could be. Maybe I’ve got some affliction, but the 5-6 months of EMT class put the hurt on me. I didn’t read any other books but my text. I stopped watching movies. I spent a lot of free time at the station with other probies learning what I could.

Even still, I failed my final EMT test the first time I took it. I missed a passing grade by 1 stinking point.

Determined not to give up because I truly loved doing it, I took the test a couple weeks later and got just under a perfect score. Boo ya!

But I ended up making it through the year humbled, but unscathed. I also got married in there somewhere, too. I think it was April. Was it April??? (just kidding, honey)

Of course, all during our training, we were asked to respond to calls. I remember one that was particularly grisly. I can’t give the details, but it took all 4 or our stations, a helicopter and our ambulance ended up with a dead body in it.

Over the years, I’ve been on all sorts of calls. Plenty of heart attacks where I’m breaking ribs while giving CPR, driving the ambulance like a life depends on it, and rolling up to a fire scene that has the entire doghouse (the place in the back of the fire truck where we sit) saying “Holy #@%*!!!”

We also go out to schools and block parties, have kids show up for station tours and all sorts of different things. We’ve sent people to places where the devastation from hurricanes is too much for their own resources. We cut people out of wrecked cars.

Anyway, today is the day I become ‘vested’ within the fire department. I’ve got another 15 years left and if the first 5 years are any indication of how quickly that time goes, I’d better buckle up. I swear it was just yesterday that Laura and I (before marriage, before kids) saw the sign and I thought, Hmmm…maybe.

Glad I did.