Blog
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Pancake Breakfast to Benefit 3 Firehall Families Monday, April 19, 2010
On Saturday April 24, Station One on Main Street will hold a pancake breakfast to benefit three families of firefighters recently wracked by tragedy. The event costs $5 per plate and will last from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. with all proceeds directly benefiting the three families. Jonathan, a firefighter from Station One, brings us this update.
Stereotypes exist for a reason: one-time occurrences become sometime happenings that soon become habits and ultimately lore. The firefighting profession is no exception to the rule. We are held to a higher moral and physical standard because of what we are charged to do on a daily basis and stereotypes have been formed out of these characteristics.
We are, stereotypically, each other’s brothers and sisters at the station—a second family. We are bound by necessity, drawn together out of shared experience, and unified by stress and hardship. As in any family, disagreement rises and is eventually resolved. When members are individually challenged, the loyalty of the group is drawn out.
Over the course of the past couple of months, the brotherhood has been tested and our loyalty to each other has become more visible than ever. Three families within our sworn department have been directly affected by terrible medical emergencies. One firefighter and two children of firefighters have been afflicted by dire medical diagnoses. Because of this, we pool our resources, we rise against together, and we do our best as brothers and sisters to show our resolve alongside our shared sympathies.
Still, within these strengths lies an undercurrent that seeks to topple our greatest efforts. A consequence of this job is a detachment from the reality of injury, hardship, and death. We are always looked to as pillars of strength and capability, never allowed to falter or cave under the pressure of what we see and do. But when those mechanisms are put to the ultimate test, when they are threatened in a way that we can no longer control, we must face our own vulnerabilities.
We can only hope that in these moments, we will be comforted, supported, held across the threshold of our own shortcomings, and resolve to fight like hell alongside our brothers, our sisters, and our children. These are matters specific to our profession, things that no one outside the job would ever fully understand—but in the end, we are no different than anyone else. We are fathers, we are injured, we are human.
We would welcome anyone to the breakfast next Saturday, but also welcome anyone to come by and get a look at the station, take pictures with your kids on the trucks, or simply hang out with us.
And of course, thank you for listening.
