Random Comments (RH)

[Bo D]

Yeah ... I also heard that Obamacare is going to require an implanted RFID chip.

[The Troll]

Yeah ... I also heard that Obamacare is going to require an implanted RFID chip.

  Only for Republican DOGS!   

[Locutus]

Blew by FHP today doing 80 in a 65 and he didn't even bat an eyelash. 

[Palehorse]

Blew by FHP today doing 80 in a 65 and he didn't even bat an eyelash. 

Buy a lottery ticket!   

[Locutus]

[Locutus]

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz...........

[Bo D]

[Palehorse]

   

[Henry Hawk]

Has anyone heard from our friend Don Carter lately?  I have been wondering about him.   

[me]

 
IT'S IN THE BOOK  !!!

In my mature years, I'm finally beginning to understand the Bible!
For those who haven't heard, the State of Washington just passed two
laws:
• Same-sex Marriage
• Legalized Marijuana

The fact that same-sex marriage and marijuana were legalized on the
same day makes perfect biblical sense because Leviticus 20:13 says:

"If a man lies with another man they should be stoned."

I just hadn't interpreted it correctly before.

[Henry Hawk]

 

[The Troll]

IT'S IN THE BOOK  !!!

In my mature years, I'm finally beginning to understand the Bible!
For those who haven't heard, the State of Washington just passed two
laws:
• Same-sex Marriage
• Legalized Marijuana

The fact that same-sex marriage and marijuana were legalized on the
same day makes perfect biblical sense because Leviticus 20:13 says:

"If a man lies with another man they should be stoned."

I just hadn't interpreted it correctly before.

           That was a good one Jelly Bean. 

[me]

           That was a good one Jelly Bean. 

[Henry Hawk]

I just read this....a coworker passed it on to me.  It is a message that will leave you with a lump in your throat and an appreciation for those who serve the public, saving lives.


Daddy's Girl



by Mark vonAppen, Captain
Palo Alto Fire Department

Three cars... Battery acid, gasoline, radiator fluid, crunching glass beneath my feet... A dead girl, a screaming boy, a headless man, a dog... 240 days a year – cup of coffee in hand on my way to work – I pass the spot...

So, I'm at this backyard BBQ when this guy walks up...

Listing, he points his wine glass at me, "Fireman, right?"

"Uh- huh."
It always goes the same way...
Idyllic bullshit conversation ensues...

"Checkers and coffee all day, right?" He chuckles and slaps me way too hard on the shoulder in a way that is way too chummy for a guy who's not my friend.

Who the fuck is this guy?
I smile back, "Right..."

"You guys make a lot of money," He persists.

I take a drink of my beer as my eyes dart around looking for my wife.
Get me out of here.

"I hear you guys are never at work."

"Well, that's not actually true..."

I can feel it- here it comes.
"So..."

The obligatory ugly question-
"What's the worst thing you've ever seen?"

"You don't want to hear it."

"C'mon man, tell me..." A misting of spit hits my face. He pokes me in the chest.

Others surround to witness the novelty- I can hear them now...
"He's a fireman, how neat..."

I'm like a side- show carnie...
Tell us a story...

"No- you don't want that in your head."

"I can take it- c'mon give me a good one."

If he had only raised his chin as he said it.

I snarl inside. The fuck you can...
Ok motherfucker- you want to take that ride? Take a deep hit of that chardonnay you cradle in your callous free, SPF 70 protected hands- you're going to need it.

You asked for it- ***** with your limp-dick, sweaty handshake- living your insipid, zero risk life- here it comes....

Climb inside my fucked up skull-

"Ok...

What do you think about when you drive to work?
I think about scars in the pavement- deep and angry.

Three cars...
Battery acid, gasoline, radiator fluid, crunching glass beneath my feet...
A dead girl, a screaming boy, a headless man, a dog...
240 days a year- cup of coffee in hand on my way to work- I pass the spot...

Trips with my family- there she is...

Its always there- if I try not to think about it- I'm thinking about it.
Right?
If I choose a different road- so I won't see the scars in the pavement- it means I took a different road so I wouldn't think about it- still thinking about it by trying not to think about it- a fucking endless feedback loop.

So here it is.

Fuck you for making polite conversation-
For making me think about it again.

I see a woman asleep drifting across the median into oncoming traffic-
A large truck with a lumber rack- you know the kind I mean?"

Fingering the neck of his glass he nods and shifts his weight.

"A boy and a girl in a tiny car- radio up, windows down- off together on an adventure...
A warm cloudless day...
Beautiful.

A horrific impact-
Front ends buried in the freeway- pavement gouged.

A woman sits beside the road- as if dropped from the sky- knees tucked to chest- head down- her face vacant.
She doesn't have a mark on her.
Where'd she come from?

The boy is crushed. The girl is dead.

She was pretty as I recall... underneath blood matted shoulder length auburn hair- ribbons of ruby blood lay against her ashen skin- life drained- her heart crushed by the collision.

I watch her chest for the heaving of breath.
Nothing.

I brush a wisp of hair aside and touch her neck- still warm, slick with blood- feeling for the liquid slamming of her heart.
Nothing.

She wore a sleeveless blouse- on her shoulders she has tiny freckles...

Slivers of glass glisten like pixie dust over her body...
She spills from her seat onto her boyfriend- the driver.

He screams a scream from a place I've heard too many times- that place of anguish I never want to go again.

'HOWS MY GIRLFRIEND? SHE WON'T ANSWER ME...'

Her head lies on his shoulder- neck violently snapped on impact.
His torso pinned- he can't turn to see her or free an arm to touch her...

I lie. I say we're doing everything we can.
We can't do anything for her- she's dead.

I sort the dead and living as though reading a checklist.
No breathing, no pulse-
Next...
It's nothing personal- it's the job.

At times like these when you're dead- you're dead. If you're close you're probably dead too.
Close counts in horse- shoes, hand grenades, and triage.

That's not it..."

He says, "Oh, shit- it gets worse?"

I seethe.
"Yup-
Truck spins off into another lane...

A normal guy in a car...
Going about his antiseptic life when two vehicles explode in front of him-

The big work truck- the one with the lumber rack- careens backwards into his lane...
The bumper of the truck with a 50 lb. vice attached- shatters the wind shield- severing his head...

When somebody's head is gone that's an easy one to figure out- done.
Next...
Vice and head in the back seat."

"No..." the prick says.

"Want some more?" I ask like a combat raged door gunner – straight out of the throes of battle – words are my ordinance.

He looks for a way out, "Oh my God..."

I lean in to him, temples throbbing.
"Wait, there's more... You wanted a good one- right?

The car is really fucked up-
Now we have to get the boy out...
It takes about a half an hour or so.

He's SO twisted up inside the car- every time we try to push, pull, or cut part of the car he screams from that place-

Long, drawn out, torturous screams until he loses his breath-

The veins in his neck bulge.

'STOP! OH MY GOD, STOP!
HOW'S MY GIRLFRIEND?'

I try to soothe him- 'Hang in there buddy- this is going to hurt- we're doing the best we can.'

Pathetic right? That's the best shit I can come up with under the circumstances.
I had a lot going on.

I can't see his face anymore- only hers.
Hazel eyes open to stare at nothing-
A heart shaped pendant around her neck.



'Daddy's girl'

Each time we rock the car, her head- held on her freckled shoulders only by the skin of her neck, no life to hold the muscles firm, bones turned to gravel- convulses side to side and front to back in a manner that I can't describe.

Or maybe I just did- I don't know...

Stop shaking the fucking car!

We hold her head still so we feel better...

'SHE WON'T ANSWER ME...'

We pop the door off with the Jaws-
Dashboard finally pushed off the boy- we lift him out.

Bones broken- his arms and legs hanging and bending like he has extra joints in the center of all his long bones.
Kind of like the limp tentacles of an octopus- does that make sense?"

The prick looks through me.

I gulp down some beer-

I boil...

Poke me in the chest again motherfucker...

"My job isn't so fucking cute anymore is it dipshit?

And it's still not over-
Sharp white fragments of bone stick through his skin from these newly formed joints in the middle of his arms and legs.

The jagged ends grind together as we carry him...
He screams...
His limbs shattered in too many places to count.

A gurney carries him away.

Just when I think it's over... this God damned dog appears.
Where the hell did he come from?

He limps along on three good legs. One of his fore legs angled in a way that doesn't make sense.

Enough already-
FUCK...

He whimpers. Dazed- he hobbles past me.
His snout is bent at weird angle too- webs of blood and drool hanging from it.

'Aw, Jesus Christ! Let me shoot him...' A police officer says to no one in particular.

We cover the daddy's girl with a yellow waterproof blanket.

I look down and think, 'Holy shit- look at how deep the pavement is scarred.'

Anything else you want to know before you move on to the next conversation?"

Asshole...

"Every time I drive past- there she is."

"Daddy's Girl"

The terrible (and real) accident occurred a number of years ago (2003) on northbound Highway 280 near El Monte Road. I was inspired – a strange choice of words – to write the piece when my wife asked me over coffee on a Sunday morning (2011) what it looks like when a train hits someone.

She had been reading an article in the paper in which a couple visiting our area were hit by a commuter train and the wife was killed. I have been on too many pedestrian versus train incidents in my career- my answer, "Not pretty. You don't want to know."

Most of the time I'm polite and I decline to tell stories. The ghosts that rattle around in my head need to stay there, free to haunt me and no one else. They're mine and not yours. My reality is not the same as theirs. Not even close. I am glad it's not.

My mind says to me, "Remember when that guy doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire? Remember what it smelled like in the medic van as you drove him as fast as you could to the trauma center?"

That was Mockingbird Lane in Sunnyvale, 1997. I was a 24 year- old kid EMT on a paramedic unit.

Charles Bukowski wrote a beautiful and somber poem titled "The Layover". I think it sums up a lot of what I have seen- and what I experienced in my career- though years ago by measure- it is only one sentence back in my mind.

The Layover-

That moment- to this. . .
may be years in the way they measure,
but it's only one sentence back in my mind
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails...
I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops

-Charles Bukowski

I look at places around town in terms of where my first fire occurred, or someone was stabbed there, we delivered a baby on that corner, and scars in the pavement...

Someday the freeway will be resurfaced and then maybe she'll go away- or maybe she won't.

Every time I drive to work along the 280 Freeway my eyes always track to the exact spot where the pavement is gouged- and I go back. Like a child passing a graveyard, I hold my breath until it's more than I can take.

Battery acid, radiator fluid, twisted metal, crunching glass beneath my feet, the sweet coppery smell of blood...

And there she is.

About the Author: Mark vonAppen, a member of the Palo Alto (CA) Fire Department since 1998,, is assigned to the suppression division where he holds the rank of captain. He is a committee member for California State Fire Training and has contributed to the development of Firefighter Survival and Rapid Intervention curriculums. He is an instructor for the Santa Clara County Joint Fire Academy, the South Bay Regional Fire Academy, a recruit Instructor for Palo Alto Fire, and a member of the "Nobody Gets Left Behind" training group. Visit Mark's website, FULLY INVOLVED
   

[Palehorse]

I just read this....a coworker passed it on to me.  It is a message that will leave you with a lump in your throat and an appreciation for those who serve the public, saving lives.


Daddy's Girl



by Mark vonAppen, Captain
Palo Alto Fire Department

Three cars... Battery acid, gasoline, radiator fluid, crunching glass beneath my feet... A dead girl, a screaming boy, a headless man, a dog... 240 days a year – cup of coffee in hand on my way to work – I pass the spot...

So, I'm at this backyard BBQ when this guy walks up...

Listing, he points his wine glass at me, "Fireman, right?"

"Uh- huh."
It always goes the same way...
Idyllic bullshit conversation ensues...

"Checkers and coffee all day, right?" He chuckles and slaps me way too hard on the shoulder in a way that is way too chummy for a guy who's not my friend.

Who the fuck is this guy?
I smile back, "Right..."

"You guys make a lot of money," He persists.

I take a drink of my beer as my eyes dart around looking for my wife.
Get me out of here.

"I hear you guys are never at work."

"Well, that's not actually true..."

I can feel it- here it comes.
"So..."

The obligatory ugly question-
"What's the worst thing you've ever seen?"

"You don't want to hear it."

"C'mon man, tell me..." A misting of spit hits my face. He pokes me in the chest.

Others surround to witness the novelty- I can hear them now...
"He's a fireman, how neat..."

I'm like a side- show carnie...
Tell us a story...

"No- you don't want that in your head."

"I can take it- c'mon give me a good one."

If he had only raised his chin as he said it.

I snarl inside. The fuck you can...
Ok motherfucker- you want to take that ride? Take a deep hit of that chardonnay you cradle in your callous free, SPF 70 protected hands- you're going to need it.

You asked for it- ***** with your limp-dick, sweaty handshake- living your insipid, zero risk life- here it comes....

Climb inside my fucked up skull-

"Ok...

What do you think about when you drive to work?
I think about scars in the pavement- deep and angry.

Three cars...
Battery acid, gasoline, radiator fluid, crunching glass beneath my feet...
A dead girl, a screaming boy, a headless man, a dog...
240 days a year- cup of coffee in hand on my way to work- I pass the spot...

Trips with my family- there she is...

Its always there- if I try not to think about it- I'm thinking about it.
Right?
If I choose a different road- so I won't see the scars in the pavement- it means I took a different road so I wouldn't think about it- still thinking about it by trying not to think about it- a fucking endless feedback loop.

So here it is.

Fuck you for making polite conversation-
For making me think about it again.

I see a woman asleep drifting across the median into oncoming traffic-
A large truck with a lumber rack- you know the kind I mean?"

Fingering the neck of his glass he nods and shifts his weight.

"A boy and a girl in a tiny car- radio up, windows down- off together on an adventure...
A warm cloudless day...
Beautiful.

A horrific impact-
Front ends buried in the freeway- pavement gouged.

A woman sits beside the road- as if dropped from the sky- knees tucked to chest- head down- her face vacant.
She doesn't have a mark on her.
Where'd she come from?

The boy is crushed. The girl is dead.

She was pretty as I recall... underneath blood matted shoulder length auburn hair- ribbons of ruby blood lay against her ashen skin- life drained- her heart crushed by the collision.

I watch her chest for the heaving of breath.
Nothing.

I brush a wisp of hair aside and touch her neck- still warm, slick with blood- feeling for the liquid slamming of her heart.
Nothing.

She wore a sleeveless blouse- on her shoulders she has tiny freckles...

Slivers of glass glisten like pixie dust over her body...
She spills from her seat onto her boyfriend- the driver.

He screams a scream from a place I've heard too many times- that place of anguish I never want to go again.

'HOWS MY GIRLFRIEND? SHE WON'T ANSWER ME...'

Her head lies on his shoulder- neck violently snapped on impact.
His torso pinned- he can't turn to see her or free an arm to touch her...

I lie. I say we're doing everything we can.
We can't do anything for her- she's dead.

I sort the dead and living as though reading a checklist.
No breathing, no pulse-
Next...
It's nothing personal- it's the job.

At times like these when you're dead- you're dead. If you're close you're probably dead too.
Close counts in horse- shoes, hand grenades, and triage.

That's not it..."

He says, "Oh, shit- it gets worse?"

I seethe.
"Yup-
Truck spins off into another lane...

A normal guy in a car...
Going about his antiseptic life when two vehicles explode in front of him-

The big work truck- the one with the lumber rack- careens backwards into his lane...
The bumper of the truck with a 50 lb. vice attached- shatters the wind shield- severing his head...

When somebody's head is gone that's an easy one to figure out- done.
Next...
Vice and head in the back seat."

"No..." the prick says.

"Want some more?" I ask like a combat raged door gunner – straight out of the throes of battle – words are my ordinance.

He looks for a way out, "Oh my God..."

I lean in to him, temples throbbing.
"Wait, there's more... You wanted a good one- right?

The car is really fucked up-
Now we have to get the boy out...
It takes about a half an hour or so.

He's SO twisted up inside the car- every time we try to push, pull, or cut part of the car he screams from that place-

Long, drawn out, torturous screams until he loses his breath-

The veins in his neck bulge.

'STOP! OH MY GOD, STOP!
HOW'S MY GIRLFRIEND?'

I try to soothe him- 'Hang in there buddy- this is going to hurt- we're doing the best we can.'

Pathetic right? That's the best shit I can come up with under the circumstances.
I had a lot going on.

I can't see his face anymore- only hers.
Hazel eyes open to stare at nothing-
A heart shaped pendant around her neck.



'Daddy's girl'

Each time we rock the car, her head- held on her freckled shoulders only by the skin of her neck, no life to hold the muscles firm, bones turned to gravel- convulses side to side and front to back in a manner that I can't describe.

Or maybe I just did- I don't know...

Stop shaking the fucking car!

We hold her head still so we feel better...

'SHE WON'T ANSWER ME...'

We pop the door off with the Jaws-
Dashboard finally pushed off the boy- we lift him out.

Bones broken- his arms and legs hanging and bending like he has extra joints in the center of all his long bones.
Kind of like the limp tentacles of an octopus- does that make sense?"

The prick looks through me.

I gulp down some beer-

I boil...

Poke me in the chest again motherfucker...

"My job isn't so fucking cute anymore is it dipshit?

And it's still not over-
Sharp white fragments of bone stick through his skin from these newly formed joints in the middle of his arms and legs.

The jagged ends grind together as we carry him...
He screams...
His limbs shattered in too many places to count.

A gurney carries him away.

Just when I think it's over... this God damned dog appears.
Where the hell did he come from?

He limps along on three good legs. One of his fore legs angled in a way that doesn't make sense.

Enough already-
FUCK...

He whimpers. Dazed- he hobbles past me.
His snout is bent at weird angle too- webs of blood and drool hanging from it.

'Aw, Jesus Christ! Let me shoot him...' A police officer says to no one in particular.

We cover the daddy's girl with a yellow waterproof blanket.

I look down and think, 'Holy shit- look at how deep the pavement is scarred.'

Anything else you want to know before you move on to the next conversation?"

Asshole...

"Every time I drive past- there she is."

"Daddy's Girl"

The terrible (and real) accident occurred a number of years ago (2003) on northbound Highway 280 near El Monte Road. I was inspired – a strange choice of words – to write the piece when my wife asked me over coffee on a Sunday morning (2011) what it looks like when a train hits someone.

She had been reading an article in the paper in which a couple visiting our area were hit by a commuter train and the wife was killed. I have been on too many pedestrian versus train incidents in my career- my answer, "Not pretty. You don't want to know."

Most of the time I'm polite and I decline to tell stories. The ghosts that rattle around in my head need to stay there, free to haunt me and no one else. They're mine and not yours. My reality is not the same as theirs. Not even close. I am glad it's not.

My mind says to me, "Remember when that guy doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire? Remember what it smelled like in the medic van as you drove him as fast as you could to the trauma center?"

That was Mockingbird Lane in Sunnyvale, 1997. I was a 24 year- old kid EMT on a paramedic unit.

Charles Bukowski wrote a beautiful and somber poem titled "The Layover". I think it sums up a lot of what I have seen- and what I experienced in my career- though years ago by measure- it is only one sentence back in my mind.

The Layover-

That moment- to this. . .
may be years in the way they measure,
but it's only one sentence back in my mind
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails...
I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops

-Charles Bukowski

I look at places around town in terms of where my first fire occurred, or someone was stabbed there, we delivered a baby on that corner, and scars in the pavement...

Someday the freeway will be resurfaced and then maybe she'll go away- or maybe she won't.

Every time I drive to work along the 280 Freeway my eyes always track to the exact spot where the pavement is gouged- and I go back. Like a child passing a graveyard, I hold my breath until it's more than I can take.

Battery acid, radiator fluid, twisted metal, crunching glass beneath my feet, the sweet coppery smell of blood...

And there she is.

About the Author: Mark vonAppen, a member of the Palo Alto (CA) Fire Department since 1998,, is assigned to the suppression division where he holds the rank of captain. He is a committee member for California State Fire Training and has contributed to the development of Firefighter Survival and Rapid Intervention curriculums. He is an instructor for the Santa Clara County Joint Fire Academy, the South Bay Regional Fire Academy, a recruit Instructor for Palo Alto Fire, and a member of the "Nobody Gets Left Behind" training group. Visit Mark's website, FULLY INVOLVED

I can relate to the message this piece is attempting to impart upon the reader, and have been able to relate to it since I was about 6 years old.

I still remember the day vividly. Dad had loaded me, my mom, and my siblings into the station wagon for a Saturday round of errands, the bank, some lunch at their favorite hot dog stand, and then grocery shopping. It was a nice early summer morning, and a lot of folks were already out and about, doing the same things we were.

We had just left the bank and dad pulled up to the intersection at a red light. We were the first car in the line at the light. I watched the people as they walked by, and saw what I now know was a young mother, but at the time thought was an older person, walking to cross the street. She had a very young boy with her. He was carrying a stuffed toy and being a typical toddler; rambunctious and rebellious. (I did not know those things about him at the time, but came to the realization much later in life).

Mom and son stopped at the crosswalk curb before crossing, to wait for the walk signal, which was indicating the light was going to change. And while I was watching that mother hold her child's hand, the boy jerked away from her grip and stepped off the curb. And at that exact moment a driver was rushing to make the right hand turn before the light changed.

That was the first time in my life that time slowed to super slow motion speed for me. You know, those moments in which something terrifying or horrible happens to you or around you? Most of us have described them to others when we relate our stories of what happened; "It was like everything was in slow motion . . ." We've all experienced it.

The boy stepped off the curb and as the car turned the corner it struck him, knocking him down, and the rear wheel on the passenger side rolled directly over his head. Right in front of me. In super slow motion.

Mom screamed, dad was just dumbfounded and had this horrific look on his face.  Dad pulled right over to await the police. Mom did her best to shield us from the scene.

I remember so many things about that moment in my life that happened over 50 years ago. Seeing what happened, hearing the guttural screams of horror and anguish that were emitting from the grief stricken mother, who collapsed into a heap at the boys side. I remember the child's head exploding in a mist of blood and brain matter . I remember the screams of the siren of the ambulance that arrived to take the boy and his mother away.

They were the old hearse style ambulances back then, with windows all the way around.

I remember the blood soaked, gleaming white sheet that covered his remains, and how you could tell where his head was under that sheet because of the blood on that sheet; and how you could see it right through the windows.

After dad finished with the police, we went straight home; where mom made us lunch and called a relative to come stay with us while they went grocery shopping.

As for me and my siblings; none of us ever repeated our misbehavior when walking with our parents and crossing the roads. Ever. What we saw that morning required that we listen to each and every instruction given to us by our parents while crossing the road, and it worked better than the switching we had received for our infractions prior to the event.

I've had plenty more of those moments in my life thus far, and I remember every last one of them. But as in the piece above, I'm not too keen on sharing any of those moments for the exact same reasons. 

That little boy was 3 years old. And I still remember him and that day, as if it were yesterday.