...but the after hours Activites were the Best

"Rogue" commented the other day on my blog, " I love these stories Bill. You have so many colorful experiences to share about the good old days. We had fun, worked hard, laughed and cried"...

... volunteer fire departments scattered across our country depend almost entirely on their local communities unwavering support for them to even exist.  Those big red fire trucks don't come cheap, neither do all the life saving tools stored inside them.  Without community members pooling their money together no department could afford to continue operating.  Our little fire department perched out in the Illinois Valley was no exception.  The volunteer firefighters were constantly looking for ways to keep our fire department in the public eye through community outreach programs.  Our favorite event to participate in each year was the infamous Lions Labor Day Celebration held at Jubilee Park towards the end of each hot summer time...

...of course we manned our own quaint little I.V. Firefighters fund raising snack bar located along the right field fence line snuggled in close to the softball field where many games were cheered on during the festivities.  We always were able to raise a few hundred bucks over the three day weekend that we normally put towards some special project we had going on in the fire department at the time.   Weather it be for some newer rescue gear we wanted that the fire departments main budget couldn't afford, or adding the money towards another set of "Jaws" we needed for our growing community or even as simple as new ball caps with the I.V. Fire logo printed on them for the volunteers to wear proudly around town.  Nooo, the snack bar was not what we all anxiously awaited for all year long, it was the annual Labor Day Parade that marched it's way through downtown Cave Junction that we yearned for.  We never joined the parade route to just be in the parade itself we signed the parade entry form so we could win the Grand Marshall's Trophy every year.  It was quite prestigious to bring that big trophy back to the main fire station and place it along side all our other dusty pasted victories. Every year it took a more outlandish idea for this years upcoming float because all the other community groups in town were vying for our winning trophy also...

...like the time we decided to extricate (tear apart) a car with our "Jaws of Life" while we traveled down thou the parade route rolling through the middle of town.  We wanted our crashed vehicle to look realistic when it was mounted on the oversized trailer bed (16 feet wide) we had built for this years exciting demonstration.  "Moon" Ewing, who's day time job was working for the local cement redimix company. He drove their big front end loader up to my mom's, located across the street from our station, where our floats often times were assembled in secrecy behind the old shop out behind her house.  We chained the beat-up old car into the bucket of the loader with the feeble front grill dangling out the front of the enormous loader bucket.  Our evil plan was to roar out through the field in the gravel yards loader and smash into a huge tree stump located along the edge of the forest, giving us that real-life look smashed into the front of our car after it had been involved in a horrible crash.  Ten or fifteen of us firefighters hunkered down as "Moon"  tore out through the field in the loader...

... SMAAASH, after the dust sort of starts clearing we see Will holding his nose with both his hands and see the smear mark left from his nose smashing into the loaders thick front window, but the dent left on the front of the car was perfect.  We sawed the stump off and placed it along with our car prop on the trailers bed. By now the swelling was beginning to show on Will's nose and I think someone ran into mom's house real quick for some emergency ice.  We added a bunch of brush strategically on the float for that realistic "we left the road" look.  The next dilemma we encountered was when moving the float to where the procession route began... getting out my mom's driveway.  We had built the darn float so wide we couldn't fit between her driveway and a power pole blocking our only escape route.  Kind of like the guy who builds a boat in his own basement then can't figure out how to get it out of there. We didn't have time to go get the loader again to rip the power pole out of the ground, plus the PP&L guys would sort of frown on us doing that anyways.  Finally we "MacGyvered" a rickety bridge across the ditch along the State Highway and we were on the way down the roadway leading into town, taking up THE WHOLE HIGHWAY.  With our emergency lights flashing from our engines we escorted our monstrosity to the parade staging area. 


With cars being forced almost entirely off the road by this years winning behemoth the oncoming vehicles occupants simply waved at us and hooted encouragements towards us as we passed by.  They had become accustomed to their local firemen's outlandish behaviors by now.