Steely Eyed
Another cup of
coffee and I will be fully functional this morning. Walking to the
kitchen, I catch a glimpse of myself in the sliding glass door. I am
wearing my favorite fleece pants – bright blue - with laughing
SpongeBob Squarepants on the front and a white t-shirt with little
brown circles stuck to the front of it. Those little brown circles
are what is left over from my bowl of Cheerio's this morning.
I stop and turn to
face my reflection. It is not the square jawed, steely eyed look that
you'd expect a firefighter to have. Even when I stand straight up and
suck my stomach in, I am not a heroic looking figure. I look more
like I should be pushing a shopping cart full of my belongs down the
street. I pick the Cheerio's off my t-shirt and feed them to my dog
Boomer, who is waiting patiently by the door to be let out.
I am not sure if it
is fate or destiny but the things and people that have changed my life have
often found me when I was not looking for them. Everyone single
person has a hero in them, capable of extraordinary courage. Firefighting has given me the gift of seeing a lot of everyday hero's that I would have not normally seen.
I could not have
imagined what was in front of me then. Hero's and heroic things look
a lot different to me now.
What follows (in
random order) are some of the stories of all those remarkable people,
places, and times. I hope you see the dedicated men and women of your
own communities and the everyday hero in these stories.
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