Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Brotherhood

I was at dinner the other night with my brother (Oliver) and a group of friends (some of which I hadn't met before). Upon seeing the jacket Oliver was wearing, one of the guys asked if Ollie was part of the local fire department, and proceeded to talk about his time as a volunteer firefighter in St. Louis County. Ollie had to leave shortly thereafter, but the guy was excited to hear that I was joining too and had all kinds of great stories and positive memories of the fire service. As I was listening, more than happy to participate in a little shop talk (despite my complete lack of experience), I thought back to a question Oliver asked me when I first brought up the whole Firefighting thing to him (to see if it would be stealing his thunder if I joined too). He asked me if maybe I didn't really want to fight fire, but just was lacking in male camaraderie and wanted some dudes to hang out with. After the great time I had last night, just vicariously experiencing the sense of brotherhood this guy had with the people he used to work with, I'm beginning to take a shine to the idea. Don't get me wrong, I want to fight fire, and I want to save lives, but a little camaraderie sure won't hurt.

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