1958 F.W.D.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Unfortunately here, Momma and myself both had the china virus. We kept it off the bookface for those of you on there. Here's the cliffs notes- Back on Nov 29, our fire dept was dispatched with the Ambulance to a cardiac arrest, which is standard procedure as extra hands are always needed at an arrest. I was part of the fire crew. Back in a former life I was also an EMT and the Medic knew this, so he grabbed me to ride in the back of the Ambulance with him as extra hands. I was "bagging" the patient the whole time- using a bag respirator breathing for the patient who was clinically dead when we got to her. So needless to say I was in close proximity to her mouth and slobber. I did have a mask on. The next day we were informed she tested hot. We all waited seven days to get tested (12/6) and tested negative. Then on Friday 12/11 in the afternoon I started to feel run down and beat up. Started having the Hershey Squirts and when I got home from work, momma took my temp and it was 100.1. So I kicked the daughter out of her bedroom to sleep with Momma and I quarantined myself in her room. Had fever/chills, etc. That night around 1am my temp topped at 101.6 but thats as high as it got. By Saturday afternoon it was done. Like nothing ever happened. I was fine. We figured it was a stomach bug. I went to work on Monday, again no big deal. 

So then Monday Momma 12/14 starts with the liquid poo and the fever/chills and aches. But she also got a hacking cough Tuesday morning after I left for work. Uh oh. Doc tells her to go get tested, so she heads over to the employee health office (she is a Nurse at the hospital) and gets the brain tickle. Meanwhile I leave work and come home Tuesday. Brought a boatload of paperwork with me as it's supposed to blizzard one to two feet Weds during the day (I think we ended up with 8" dont get me started on the weather people....) Later in the afternoon on Tuesday she gets the call- she is hot for the virus. So I call my Doc office but they are gone for the day. Called first thing Weds morning, and the doc finally calls me back around 2pm and tells me to head over to the walk-in care place. By this time it was 3pm Weds and it was snowing harder than any blizzard that Other Dog could exaggerate about. I was at least 15th person in line (not an exaggeration....) waiting in our cars. When you got there you had to call in and stay in your to car and they would take all your information. When it was your turn, they would call you and you walked to the entrance (under a porch roof thank you) and they would come out and give you the brain tickle. I told them I was a first responder and that puts a 24 hour rush on the test but the girl told me that because of the "blizzard" they would probably be late. So I slept in the daughter's room again (hoping against hope that I didn't have it) and waited Thursday....Waited Friday.......(not going to work, either.....) and finally I wake up Saturday AM to an email saying I was hot. Well, at least I don't have to sleep on the daughters plywood feeling mattress anymore. 

So sent my boss an email and spent the last 2 weeks at home. I never had any more fevers/chills/aches after the Friday 12/11 incident. But I did develop a cough and sniffles, nothing bad- I have had worse sinus infections. I did however lose all sense of taste and smell.....Noticed that on Monday morning 12/21 when I went to put on my after shave- couldn't smell it or my deoderant. Nothing. No one home. Even stuck my nose in a bottle of Kelchner's horseradish sauce- nothing!!! As I write this on 12/29. Momma and I are both beginning to get taste and smell back- seems like my smell is coming back slower than my taste. Talked to my Doc yesterday who released me back to work no restrictions, and he said our taste and smell could take 2-3 weeks to fully return. As for Momma, it hit her harder than me. She was laid up in bed and slept for 18-20 hours a day for the better part of the first week. Had a bad cough, too but she monitored her blood oxygen level with one of the finger meter thingamajiggers (like a code reader for humans I guess) and her oxygen level in her blood was never too concerning. 

So Xmas was kind of a pisser. I felt fine (like I said I have had worse sinus infections....) and Momma even felt OK and stayed downstairs most of the day. Thank god she had most of the presents for Extra Small, Small, Medium and Large wrapped a few weeks ago or I would have been screwed. She is feeling better but not 100% (she is on short-term disability endorsed by the Hospital HR dept.) and already got a payment which shocked me. In the past when she has had surgeries they usually work at the speed of molasses in February. None of the kids are showing any kind of symptoms...The School District told us to keep them home back when Momma tested hot back on that Tuesday 12/15. As long as they show no symptoms, they can go back to school on 1/4 no testing needed. 

Be careful folks. It's out there. Did I get it from that patient we were working in the back of the ambulance? Probably. Can I prove it? No. Who knows, I could have damn well gotten it at the grocery store. Or maybe Momma got it somewhere and gave it to me. We will never know. Just be careful lads. By the way here is a picture of Large (17) teaching Small (9) how to weld. Large is in his second year of welding at the Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School. he had just gotten a new self-darkening helmet (the stars and stripes one) and was running some welds to try it out. Small was watching him through his old flip-down helmet and was getting very interested. So Large coached him through some welds but Small was having trouble with the flip-down helmet. Large let him use the self-darkening helmet, and I tell you what, that little boy was happier than a pig in slop after he got to run a few welds!!!! 

 

39 minutes ago, RowdyRebel said:

So with a 2000 gpm pump, and only a 500 gallon tank, that gives 'em about 15 seconds to get the truck hooked up to a water source before you're pumping air? 

Not exactly how it works.....LOL 

There will be several pre-connected 2" hose lines. You pull up on a car fire, deploy a 2" line and go to work. 500 is plenty of water for a car. Especially if you mix in some foam concentrate. Or, going to a building fire, the Officer (guy in the right seat) decides to "lay in....." Truck stops at a hydrant, hydrant man gets off, grabs the end of the supply line that is laid in the rear hose bed. Throws a loop of rope over the hydrant and hollers for the driver to go. Truck takes off and heads to the address. Supply hose flakes out the back. Pull up at the building, crew deploys the preconnected hose and charges it with the tank water until he can break the supply line at the next available coupling and connects into the pump intake. Then he tells the hydrant man to charge the hydrant- positive water source. 

The 2000gpm is to move lotzza water through lotzza discharges. The aerial ladder will have a waterway- that alone is about 1200gpm. Add in a ground monitor....there's 500gpm. 

We had originally spec'd a 1750 pump but the price difference between 1750 and 2000 is pennies. And they are the same pump housing, one just has more discharges than the other. 

I was recently privileged to have seen the Ahrens-Fox truck collection. It is owned by the HME Corporation in Wyoming Michigan. You may or may not know that HME purchased all rights to Ahrens-Fox a few years back. They now have everything- the truck collection, paper archives, all legal rights etc. Here is the truck collection which is stored in one of HME's buildings.

As many of you know, I am on the committee at my Fire Dept to purchase a new ladder/pumper truck. This has been a 3.5+ year project. Just shy of a year ago we awarded the contract to HME/Ahrens-Fox in Wyoming, Michigan. Many of you old timers know HME as Hendrickson Motor Equipment, and of course anyone who knows anything about trucks knows the name Ahrens-Fox, which at one time was the Rolls Royce of fire trucks. HME purchased the name a few years back. Along with the name came the AF collection of trucks (I will post pics in a separate thread), all the paper archives and all the rights and legalities that come with the name. 

Thurs Nov 12 I flew out to Michigan and spent Thurs afternoon and Friday at the HME/AF plant to see how they do things and check on the progress of our truck. They were not as far along as I would have like to have seen (covid delays) but I did get to see the cab which had just been sent to the final prep area to get the welds ready for paint finish. I also saw the engine, transmission and some other components. 

Here are the basics of our truck:
111' aerial ladder, 2000gpm Waterous pump, 500 gallon water tank, Cummins X15 (600hp) w/ Jake, Allison EVS4000 WorldSeries 6-speed trans, Raydan air bag assist walking beam suspension, Meritor disc brakes all the way around. We should be flying out to do the final inspection the third week of February +/- depending on any further delays if any. 

I took about 400 pictures. Here they are. Just kidding, here are some of them. 


Here is our 500 gallon water tank. "23573" is our job number, anywhere you see that it is a component for our truck being staged. 

Our cab in the final prep area, where the rough welds will be made paint-finish ready. Then it gets shipped to the paint shop. 


Someone else's cab being set square in prep for tack welding. .


This is a ladder truck chassis which is almost identical to ours. I studied this very carefully and took many pictures. The customer is Bennington, Vermont. The guys are assembling hydraulic hoses- the start cart is there so they can run the engine to do pressure testing of assembled hoses. 


Many of you know the Hendrickson name is synonymous with heavy trucks and heavy truck chassis components. This was on a gigantic print of many trucks in one of their administrative hallways. This was one of two trucks built for one purpose- to get some mine equipment from North Dakota way up into Alaska somewhere. That's it, one move, one time. Money was no object. After the move, they both sat at the mine site for years until the company called HME and said "Hey do you want these things?" HME sent an engineer up there and he cooked up a deal to buy them back. They were sent back to Michigan where they received a minor refurb and new paint. 


This is how the two trucks look now. They are overseas in a sandbox somewhere. 
Some other trucks on the big print in the admin hallway. 


Our Cummins X15. Set at 600hp. The truck will be governed at 62mph but it should get there pretty quick. 

"23573" Our Allison EVS4000 Trans (6 speed.) 

Our tires (Michelin) and the front and back of the tandems. I didn't want to unwrap the plastic to show one of the Meritor disc brakes.

Someone's cab out of the paint shop, in staging waiting to go onto a chassis. 

Both of these are going west, the Poospreader is going to an Indian Reservation. 

A tandem axle chassis for a 3000 gallon tanker. 

A pretty nice KW Chassis 3000-Gallon tanker. HME will build bodies on pretty much anyone's chassis. They recently stopped selling their own chassis to other body builders. If you want an HME chassis, you get an HME body.

The main assembly area in the plant. The Detroit-Green rigs are US Dept of Agriculture/Dept of Forestry Rigs- most are destined for California a little late. 

I saw this girl, she wanted me to help her adjust her bra or something but I was running behind, I had to get to Gladys Virginia before I was late. 

If you want to see more pics and are on bookface, there are tons more pictures there. Of the trip, not the girl. 

I was saddened to hear the news of his passing. He was one of the greatest actors of our time. No matter the roll he played, he did it with passion, pride and excellence. I never heard anything about him being one of those typical elitist Hollywood types which leads me to believe he may have been a good guy to talk about life on a barstool somewhere over a few beers. My personal favorite of his was Captain Marko Ramius in the movie "The Hunt for Red October." followed by his portrayal as Police Officer James Malone in the movie "The Untouchables." His role as Ramirez in the movie "Highlander" was good too, and of course as James Bond in the early movies. I was just told the other day of the movie "The Molly Maguires", I never saw it but want to check it out now.

And for those of you who are not aware, he was a Veteran of His Majesty's Royal Navy having served as an Able Seaman from 1946 to 1949 aboard the HMS Formidable. 

What are your favorite Sean Connery flicks?