how to be a volunteer firefighter

recipient:

Oriental Trading/ PO Box 2659/ Omaha, NE 68103-2659

sent:

Vienna Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer Training Schedule and eHow’s How to Become a Firefighter

reasoning:

heading home for Thanksgiving, i was able to get a ride from RVW’s brother (and my friend), DVW.  a car ride with a good acquaintance is infinitely better than a tight, cramped, and long Chinatown bus ride with a bunch of strangers. however, our ride up to Bucks County, PA took much much longer than expected, we hit traffic every single time we entered a new state: MD, DE, and PA. but that gave us time to listen to Kanye’s new album (3 times!), Jim Gaffigan’s Beyond the Pale, and Mitch Hedburg’s Do You Believe in Gosh?

also, the ridiculous amounts of traffic gave us time to catch up. i learned that DVW is in the process of becoming a volunteer firefighter for fairfax county, va.  yes, people actually volunteer to go through classes, exams, and physical training to help out with firefighting duties – for no money. while they aren’t on call, they do get pages when any firefighting activity such as a hazmat spill, or water mane leak occurs, and in some particularly huge, and complicated situations, they will be called in to support. i asked DVW if he was simply going through this lengthy, and expensive (money and time) process just so he could run into a burning building, or fight against a hurricane – for no monetary funding – but out of the goodness of his heart to save people. he said yeah, that and the free gear -> apparently a lot of t-shirts, sweats, and being able to carry around your own complete firefighting outfit in the trunk of your car.

how to be a volunteer firefighter: 

• high school degree or GED, though a degree in Fire Science would be useful
• enroll with your local Fire Department and begin their training
• Physical Exam - test your ability to handle the stresses of emergency services
• EMT Basic
• VISIT (Volunteer In Station Training)
• Level I/II – classroom training about the history of firefighting but also how to tie knots
• EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operators Course) – parallel park a fire truck, and  which alarm is better for a hazmat spill and a cat being stuck in a tree
• hydraulics - the fundamentals of getting water through a pump to a fire

once fully trained, DVW is expected to donate about 20 hours/month, go to the station, temporarily replace career firefighers, act as a standby to other local fire departments, and help out with bingo night (which occurs every now and then). he can serve for 6 months, or however long he wants, continue his studies to become a career firefighter, or just stay on the volunteer lines.

Susan Shapiro – Only as Good as Your Word

recipient:

The Smith Fund/ PO Box 340029/ Boston, MA 02241-0429

sent:

postcard of Susan Shapiro’s Only as Good as Your Word

reasoning:

in Only as Good as Your Word: Writing Lessons from My Favorite Literary Gurus, Susan Shapiro tells of her relationships with several of her most important writing mentors to outline her own story as a writer. she starts with her high school modern lit teacher: Mr. Zucker, her older best-selling author and columnist cousin: Howard Fast, her very first boss at the New Yorker: Helen Stark, colleague, conspirator, and realist Ian Frazier, the unassuming legend Ruth Gruber, the fastidious editor Michael Anderson, and the unrelated poet Harvey Shapiro. in chronicling her partnerships with each, she describes the ups and downs of being a freelance writer: pressures to find the next assignment, dealing with unaccomodating editors, writing about things you don’t necessarily care about, or in the writing medium that is not your particular specialty, and the seductiveness of a full-time, salaried, but potentially very boring office job. 

Shapiro writes of mentor/mentee relationships between writers but her coming-of-age story to be a prominent and prolific freelance writer is more about the lessons learned from the relationships that we all seek out – either for advice, companionship, out of admiration, convenience, or necessity. there are people who are always pushing you to stay true to your craft, not to sell out, or there are those who are realistic when you get idealistic. there are some relationships that seems to be less mutual admiration, and more one-sided, those that just fade b/c one person decides to just cease contact – there are these life lessons about people and relationships, that you can’t keep them all, and they aren’t always on your terms, or any sort of mutual terms. it’s something i’m still struggling with as i realize how true and frequent to the world this scenario exists.

“Hadn’t I been a promiscuous protege myself? i’d cast a wide net, juggling many editors, older colleagues and superiors simultaneously, deserting a few gurus gone wrong, always searching for more gurus gone right.

classroom teaching

recipient:

American Express/PO Box 31511/Salt Lake City, UT 84131-9934

sent:

Margaret Edson(‘83) 2008 Smith College Commencement Address

reasoning:

I finally graduated this Sunday, a day I honestly thought would never come, there were too many times when I considered dropping out, taking a year off, packing up and leaving. so that sunday, may 18th came, and i was allowed to sit in on commencement exercises, my name was in the booklet, and there was a diploma with my name on it, was amazing.

margaret edson’s commencement address started off slow, with almost too many dramatic pauses, probably given that she wrote Wit and is a kindergarten teacher.

Here’s an excerpt. from all the previous commencement speeches i’ve read, it definitely takes a fresh, different… and welcome approach.

We bring nothing into the classroom — perhaps a text or a specimen. We carry ourselves, and whatever we have to offer you is stored within our bodies. You bring nothing into the classroom — some gum, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil: nothing but yourselves, your breath, your bodies.

 Classroom teaching produces nothing. At the end of a class, we all get up and walk out. It’s as if we were never there. There’s nothing to point to, no monument, no document of our existence together.

   But the work you graduates have done was in the classroom with your teachers.
That’s the miracle of today.
Why don’t we talk about it?
Because it doesn’t show up.
There’s not a bar graph for classroom teaching. There’s no data for classroom teaching, and yet it persists this year and the next year and the year after that.

 But the reality that is neither shouting nor training is classroom teaching.
Nobody can touch it because nobody can point to it.
You have it forever.
When it grows inside you, it’s doing its work.