GA_Dave

I recently spent almost two weeks in North Carolina, finding two more Mack fire apparatus to add here.

Former Engine 7, Hamlet, NC
1968 Mack C-95F
1000/500
#1629

6 hours ago, Brocky said:

Great!! A little elbow grease and polish and it should look new..

We trailered it from the barn where it has been stored to the fire station, after we removed a bird's next from one of the hard suctions.  It has just over 27k miles on it and just over 1100 hours on the pump.  The tires are the same ones that were on it when it left in 1986, so they are high on the list for replacement, possibly by the end of the week.  I hosed it off yesterday afternoon, but it needs a thorough scrubbing.  The pressure washer at the station is broken and the regular hose didn't have a nozzle, so I had to use my thumb.....  So glad that nothing has changed since I retired!

B85F-1338, delivered to College Park, GA in 1958. It served until 1986 and became a parade apparatus for American Legion Post 50 in College Park. Post 50 relocated to Peachtree City, GA about 10-12 years ago. Today, the Mack came home to the College Park Fire Department for good!

3 hours ago, mackey58 said:

They already own us

US?  Is this the same "us" as the "we" who were recently "doomed"?  Again, I ask, who is us?  Don't speak for me, I am neither owned nor doomed.  My life is good and I am happy and content with the way things are going. 

Most of them didn't start it, they just got sucked into it.........

3 hours ago, 70mackMB said:

Even more disgusting is the US Citizens who allowed this to happen (AKA the left, liberals, democrats) are the ones fighting the hardest to keep them here!

5 hours ago, 70mackMB said:

How did you get my number?

3 hours ago, Joseph Cummings said:

Sam Walton believed running a successful business boils down to 10 simple rules

 

1. Commit to your business.
Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.

 

2. Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.

In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

 

3. Motivate your partners.
Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Don't become too predictable.

 

4. Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.
The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them.

 

5. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.

 

6. Celebrate your success.
Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition.

 

7. Listen to everyone in your company.
And figure out ways to get them talking. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.

 

8. Exceed your customers’ expectations.
Give them what they want — and a little more. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do.

 

9. Control your expenses better than your competition.
This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

 

10. Swim upstream.
Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

 

You can read more about Sam's business rules in his book, Sam Walton, Made in America: My Story.

They threw all that away right after Sam died!

I took a trip there on Google Maps as soon as you said firetrucks!  I found five.  On the other side of that Campbell Express trailer sits an open cab American LaFrance 700 Series.  It saddens me to see this Seagrave just sitting in that town, in the condition it is in now, with junk piled all over it.  It was a beautiful rig when I shot it in Masontown, PA.

1 hour ago, mackey58 said:

Yeah we re doomed.open ur eyes 

Who is this "we" you speak of?

My eyes are wide open and I am quite pleased at the way things are going right now.  Not everything is perfect, but I never had expectations of perfection.  I certainly do not feel "doomed".  It was like we were in a raging river, being swept closer to the plunging waterfall and we finally managed to get ourselves turned around, and now we are fighting against swift currents to get back to calm waters.  It isn't easy, but we are heading in the correct direction. 

The stock market concerns me little, I have no dependency on it whatsoever.  My current financial situation is better than it has ever been.  I am not worried about the tariffs as I purchase very little that is not produced in the US.  Life is good and getting better.  The sky is not falling!

B-85F-1218 was a 1957 B-85F 750/500 delivered to Bethany, CT.