Risk Takers ...
Our job in itself made us all "risk takers." But being a nudist and trying to live that way at the fire house was difficult, even for someone like me that has shared many stories of being naked in almost all areas of the fire station.
One of the things I swore I'd do before I retired was to Drive a Fire Engine Naked! We had a reserve engine at our station. I was an old crown with a manual trans. It was to be driven once a week for 2 miles ... just to keep it running and the fluids running through all the parts. I had about a week left of my career when I decided to check that event off my bucket list.
It was a Sunday in mid December, late morning. I'd no sooner gotten to work and took off my clothes when the bell went off and we had to leave. I was naked standing at my locker, grabbed my turnouts boots and jumped into them, grabbed a jacket and hurried down the stairs to the rig and off we went. One run, led to another and then another. By the time we got back into quarters, it was 10:30 am and it was already starting to warm up. We went into the kitchen and had a cup of coffee, I briefed the crew and they trotted off to exercise. Why I chose this time, it's unsure but I told my engineer, "I'm taking the reserve out for a spin!"
I walked out to the reserve rig and opened the apparatus doors, slipped outta my turnout boots, kept my jacket on but unzipped and started her up. I drove out of the station, through the back gates of the station and drove off for what ended up being about a 20 min cruise through the city. I was nervous ... sure! I kept thinking ... "all I need is to come upon an emergency and have to try and slip on my boots before I get out of the rig. As it happened, no issues and I got in a nice naked drive of a fire engine in my career.
When I returned to the station, I got out of the rig with just my unzipped jacket on to roars of laughter and applause from my crew. To my surprise, they remembered I had mentioned wanting to do that and when my engineer walked into the exercise room and told them that I was road testing the reserve, they immediately said ... "he's crossing off that bucket list thing about driving a rig naked!" So when they heard me return, they had to see for themselves. It's another story they like to tell around the campfire at our annual trip out to the desert.
Great story Andy. I'm glad everyone saw the humor in it and all just was happy to see you get that marked of the list. lolIt would have been hard (no pun intended) to explain if you would have rolled up onto a car wreck or any other incident that you would have had to take action. lol
Similar incident happened when I was on a 40hr work week and behind a desk for a year. I'd gotten promoted and had to take a permanent spot and ended up in a staff position. Another bucket list item crossed off was driving my FD vehicle nude ... well, almost nude. I kept a jacket on but was driving to work one morning and had a pair of shorts and flip flops nearby. As fate would have it, I roll up on a TC on the freeway. I flipped on my emergency lights, had to slip on the short and flip flops and get out of the car and go into the trunk to get my turnouts out, put out some flares and begin taking care of business with some minor injuries.
That was the last time I drove that FD vehicle naked!
I was assigned to a patrol truck; high profile, 4x4, with 100 gals of water and 300' of hose. Used mostly for Wildland fires in places where an engine couldn't get. One of my duties was to check out an old missile silo up in the mountains and check out some radio and phone equipment. Once up the mountain far enough, I'd get naked and drive my patrol truck up to the site. I'd get out of the truck naked and then walk all over that place and perform my duties while still nude. A couple of times, I was waved down by vehicles going the opposite direction, asking for directions but they couldn't tell I was naked except for the jacket. Fun times and some great memories of my time on the FD.
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