I love this photo, taken way back in October, 1969. That’s the year I was elected Jr. Deputy Fire Chief in Baltimore City. If you look closely, you can see a cast on my right leg (Mom always put me in white socks to complement the heavy, white cast…). Cindy, my sister, is standing above me dressed in yellow. That’s our dad, to our right, looking on. He ended up fighting fire in Baltimore City for many, many years. We were at our local volunteer fire house, Providence, which I blogged about a great deal in January.

This fire engine is perfect in every way, and I used to sketch it from memory when I was just a bit older than here in this picture. I don’t know what it is about this particular engine; it just seems so…modern for 1969. I look at the engines from the show “Emergency” from the early 70s, and none of them look this good…

I don’t know how I was elected Jr. Deputy Fire Chief, but the perks were plentiful–we got to ride the fire trucks in parades, attend a big ceremony and receive trophies and real fire helmets (mine? long gone, I’m afraid. Now that is something I DO regret!). I will have to dig up the pictures of that ceremony and share here in a future post…

I bring this up because that meant a great deal to me then when I was 4, and Braeden is now at an age where I want him to get these opportunities as well. I was going to take him to the Fire Museum this afternoon, but they’re closed until May 1. . . . Not a big deal, as we’ll join when they open. But on weekends like this where we have so much time together, it would have been nice to at least stop by…

Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday!