WINDOWS
EDITOR’S OPINION
The light of each new clay promises a thousand opportunities to grow.
The telephone pager buzzes. Not again, I think. How many calls can one person take in a day? It’s four in the afternoon and my mind is starting to wander to the recliner, a cool drink, and that mystery novel I never finished.
The voice at the other end snaps me out of my funk. He’s a well-known international fire service/industriai training consultant, and I’m glad to hear from him because he’s always interesting, entertaining, and well-informed.
“Do you have any familiarity with what they’re doing with the public works department over in Aardvark?” he asks. “They’ve got a disaster preparedness program that the fire service just dreams about. And the heavy equipment to match. What a resource!”
“Never even heard of it.” I hear myself saying.
“Neither has the fire service,” he replies, candidly, “and shame on us….”
The phone rings. “Hey, bud, look out your window. Can you see it?”
It’s Glenn. I walk over to my 7th-floor window. All I can see is the usual 5:30 log-jam on Route 80.
“No, what is it?”
“Look southeast toward Jersey City. See the smoke?”
“No…” Damn, 1 think to myself, never hare the scanner on at the right time. I click it on. “Can’t see Jersey City from this window.” I say, pressing the side of my face up against the glass to try to get a glimpse of the fire.
“They have a big toxic dump fire with a heavy smoke condition —they’ve had to evacuate sections of Lower Manhattan. They’re drafting out of the Hudson River, and FDNY’s there on mutual aid.”
“Wow … hold on a second. Glenn,” I say. punching in the Jersey City frequency. The clips of radio communications I’m picking up confirm his description.
Henry walks in, drawn by the radio traffic. I repeat Glenn’s details for him.
Henry laughs. “But isn’t Glenn in San—?”
“Yeah, he sure is. A fire in our own backyard and I hear it first from a guy 2,000 miles away. Can you believe that?” 1 say . “Say, Glenn, how do you know all this, anyway?”
“I’ve got my sources,” says Glenn mysteriously .
“How can they be allowed to let their dirty politics get in the way of what’s best for the service?” I say. “They’re not the ones putting it on the line every day …” Of course, this was like asking why the world is round, but I’m so stunned 1 don’t know what else to say.
She replies. “In the end. they ’re interested in one thing:
preserving their own world. They’re protecting their reason for being and their comfortable position. They couldn’t have the fire service rise up on its own because it would leave them in the dust. So they react by throwing some major obstacles to cripple the leader of the movement. Idealism can’t stand in the way of profits, you know.”
“And other than the ‘big players,’ nobody really knows that this is happening.” Of course.
“The situation is made to order for them,” she says. “Hie fire service is so busy with their shoulders to the wheel — and so busy just fighting for fiscal survival, for god’s sake— they don’t have a clue about the political turf battles that go on every day.. .”
“Well, then I’m — ”
She w aves me off with a wan smile. “Don’t be so naive. I know what you’re thinking and it won’t work. Anyway, do you think anyone will listen…?”
1 couldn’t help thinking, What if? I knew there had to be others thinking the same thing. They draped the flag over him and we followed slowly, solemnly down the aisle, our hearts dragging behind us. What if the lessons had been learned, practiced? I looked at the children. Not even old enough to understand. We were outside now. There they were, a sea of navy-blue uniforms. Proud, so proud, at that moment as proud as they could ever be and yet as sad as they could ever be. But then, what ift It had happened so many times before. The same deadly scenario, the same gut-wrenching end. Y’ou live with it, you expect that it could happen, but then it happens and you think. Why? Same way it happened a thousand times before. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? The music was playing in my head and I couldn’t turn it off.
Windows. Maybe a lot of light shines through yours, maybe your house is dark. Maybe you have a bright house but never spread that light around. You may have to break out your walls and put in some big picture windows, if you will. Find the means to make the knowledge work for yourself, your department, and the fire service.
In a world of mega-information, it’s very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. The information you grab onto and use plays a large part in defining and shaping who you are, both individually and collectively. It will assist you in achieving—and maybe even help in redefining—your goals.
To accumulate information and knowledge is to grow. Let it not be said that the fire service lives in a dark house. Windows. Does the light shine on you?
