Editor’s Opinion Chris Mc Loone
A recent post on Facebook got me thinking a little about something that occurred to me a number of times over the past few months—my age.
I am not old by any stretch of the imagination, but I am approaching 50. Last July, I found myself inside on a basement fire. By the time my crew entered the dwelling, the fire had been knocked down, but the basement was charged with smoke. As I descended the staircase to the basement in zero visibility, bumping into the people trying to leave the basement and almost tripping on the hoseline, it didn’t take me long to start muttering, “I’m getting too old for this.” The funny part is, even with the fire out and me being a little out of shape, there is still no place I would have rather been, and I was glad I was able to ride with the crew to that one.
So, there’s the physical fitness part. Then there’s just “looking” like I’m approaching 50. I guess it first hit me around May or June in 2022 when my wife (Jen), son (Sean), and I were at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is my and my wife’s alma mater, and my son, through his high school, is enrolled there and getting college credits. We were there for a presentation on the program, and there were students available to guide us to where we needed to go. After the presentation and subsequent tour, Jen and I were showing Sean where we met, our old classrooms, and other places on campus. At one point, we were walking up the steps toward the university’s radio station, where Jen and I both DJ’d back in the day. One of the guides was coming down the steps and I thanked her again and said, “Have a good one.” Walking up the stairs with my wife and then 16-year-old son, I got my first dose of, “I don’t feel nearly as old as I must look to her.”
When I joined the fire company, there was a life member who joined in 1963, and my first lieutenant used to kid around with him all the time about how the lieutenant had not been born when the life member joined the fire company. I am now at that point with many of our younger members. To them, I am one of the old guys. I’m one of the firefighters standing in the radio room waiting for a truck to return from a call talking about fires from the mid to late 1990s and wondering why the new “kids” don’t find these stories nearly as entertaining as I do. Could it be that most of the people in the stories aren’t active in the fire company anymore?
This brings me to the Facebook post. It was posted by a volunteer chief—a young one—who is also a career firefighter. I do not know the exact context of the post or what inspired it. But, he said (paraphrasing), “Some of you need to hear this: This is a young person’s job.” He admitted that he knew his time would come as well. It has stuck with me for the past few days. I don’t mind driving most of the time to fires or occasionally riding the seat. I don’t mind being a safety officer, knowing that 99% of the time I’m going to on the exterior at a fire. But, I still like knowing that I can don an SCBA if necessary—even though for real, I’m getting too old for this.
But, I also recently had a conversation with one of our senior members who unfortunately is beginning to feel that his input on certain things is not as welcome now as it used to be, which got me thinking even more.
Although 50 is not old, I’m approaching a point where advancing lines; crawling down halls; and enduring high-heat, low-visibility conditions is best left to those younger, more agile, and in better physical shape than I am. That’s just where I’m at. But, I’m still active, I engage with other aspects of the fire service through my job here, so there is a lot I can still comment on and not be shooed away. But, I would not, and neither should you, ever discount the wisdom of senior members, senior firefighters, ex chiefs, former chauffeurs—any of them. The fire company I am part of today was built on their shoulders. The rigs I ride on today, whether the younger members of the truck committee want to admit it or not, incorporate features that were introduced by our life members. Engage them, listen to them, and enjoy the stories. They know our history better than we do.
