Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Law Enforcement / First Responder stories and experiences with a focus on comedic blunders, events, and the lighter side of stressful jobs. Stories are firsthand accounts told by the hosts Flash and T-Dot with accompanying guest interviews.
Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Dancing With the Devil on Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Harold Yate's storytelling shines as he recounts legendary firehouse pranks that built brotherhood – from rookies being duct-taped to beds and hoisted up hose towers to the infamous Lucky Charms marshmallow theft that still causes hurt feelings years later. You'll laugh out loud at his misadventures, including an ill-fated dance on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at midnight (a federal offense) and a catastrophic experiment with a runaway truck ramp that left a passenger with wet pants and a permanently damaged friendship.
Music All right guys.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode. Today we are going back into the world of fire. We've had enough police shenanigans for a little while, so I figured I'd give you a break. We've got myself, and t-dot is with us. Doug's in the background over here, karen's here, karen's here. Man, we've got forest back with us. If you've not seen his episode or listened to his episode it's a good episode go back and check it out honestly.
Speaker 3:Honestly, I don't remember what number it was, or what the title was, or what the title is so just go pick one.
Speaker 2:Just listen to it.
Speaker 1:Whatever?
Speaker 2:But Forrest also has one of his friends with him, and he'll be the main attraction for this evening's episode. It'll be Harold Yates. Harold, how are you?
Speaker 4:Good, thank you, nice to meet all you guys. Can't see you, harold Yates.
Speaker 2:We've got faces for radio.
Speaker 4:Tell us a little bit about where you came from, what your background is, Fire department-wise. I was born into a fire department family. My dad, all my brothers at one time. They were back in the days when volunteers were big in small towns and my dad always aimed me to go to the paid side and you know where we lived was all rural. So I went to the city to get a job and spent 28 years in the city of Louisville and 32 years in the county as paid fireman. So most firemen work 24 48.
Speaker 4:I did a 36 on and a 36 off, basically to pay into my pension double oh yeah stingy reasons, but still it worked out for me the best that's a pretty good schedule though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not bad it was.
Speaker 4:It was. It worked for me. It was getting long sometimes, but definitely panned out for me in the end there's not a lot of sleep up there.
Speaker 3:Is there, I mean that 36.
Speaker 4:You was probably hopping uh, in the city big time. Yeah, the city was uh. I was fortunate as young and getting out of drill school I went straight to the west end, which is our busy end of town, so I stayed in one house. I chose not to take promotions after my second year. I took them once and I stayed in the same house for 28 years in the west end of louisville, which is a little bit rare there's only a few people I know that have done it, so I always consider myself lucky. They never messed with me and left me alone. So I got to see and do a lot of work. I was very fortunate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, normally.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you how busy his house was. I took an overtime day down there and during the night I went to bed. Those guys were all sitting up and they were playing cards and in that night I made three.
Speaker 2:Oh, a ball bat and a house fire.
Speaker 5:We didn't come back, we didn't get in bed. 30 minutes later we were up. I don't think that was that uncommon for them, but I remember when I left that point I said I will never be back here again. It didn't seem to phase any of them. That was just the weirdest thing about that.
Speaker 4:The pistol weapon was too firm and it didn't seem to phase any of them. That was just the weirdest thing about that. The pistol weapon was too fireman, it wouldn't even run. It was done right there in the firehouse. We still count that because we needed an ambulance.
Speaker 1:What is?
Speaker 3:wrong with you guys. We never ever did that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:You know the ends of town are all different, but when you're young, I wanted to be able to be busy, so I got very busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're lucky in the fact that a lot of times in our type of profession, if you don't take know you take, don't take promotions when they're offered to you, it kind of kind of creates a you know a little bit of butt hurt on the admin side yeah, it can.
Speaker 4:Uh, you know our department was big and the opportunities were wide open. I took a test my first couple years and I did fairly well and I got scared to death and I never took another one. I knew it wasn't, it just wasn't for me. You know, in the county I'd come out with much slower. When I worked my second day I was in the county very slow night into town so I got to see real busy and then I go to super nice in the town where everybody bought your lunch and treated you great. So I got both sides of the world, you know. So I felt fortunate.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's the difference, I guess. So you had both those jobs at the same time.
Speaker 4:I did. I did. They both paid into. At the time our state, the state of Kentucky, allowed you to work and you could work as many as you wanted it, put as many hours in to build your pension right and that was my whole purpose. I thought I tell everybody I worked a little bit harder, not smarter. Instead of getting promoted, I worked a couple jobs and I added in my pension that way. I just told the difference I had but, like I said, in the end, my pension that way, instead of moving up to the ladder and making money that way, I just sold the different paths but, like I said, in the end my pension was. I'm very fortunate, very lucky for it.
Speaker 3:Did Louisville have their own, or were they putting into the state as well?
Speaker 4:State hazardous duty which was rated In the United States. We were rated number one for 15 years running in pensions wow, that's impressive yeah, yeah, so we being forced to have a pension that's basically priceless and and that started shortly after we both got in.
Speaker 5:They had a different, different pension a few years before we got in do you guys, you guys care to adopt me. That's probably in the same picture.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm in the tier one as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, it was your high three years, didn't matter how you built your high three. So I worked two jobs and then I went 48 in the end. My last three years I worked around the clock.
Speaker 2:And I guess with that.
Speaker 4:That turned out even better for me. I got divorced. That was nice. A lot of things fell in line for me. You know, all in good favor. That tends to happen.
Speaker 4:I got divorced too, when you retired, though, did you stay out or did you come back? When I retired, I came back to a 24-hour job, and I realized very shortly after it was not for me, and I left that job because I'd worked for that department forever. They took me back. I stayed about a year left, and then I went to a small department in my county where one of our old buddies was the fire chief for a much smaller, really slow, prominent end of a county. A lot of wealth, so we don't do anything. But I mainly stayed in there because I want a company on the side, and all my records stayed in the state pension board uh, my training records right so it really benefited me from my side company I built okay, I understand that yeah, so it was.
Speaker 4:Uh, I'll tell you, I've worked a lot of hours, but I feel very fortunate in the end I guess that helps you with that.
Speaker 2:Them trying to pension spike you too if you're working two jobs rather than taking a promotion. Well, they didn't.
Speaker 4:Nowadays, the younger guys, they will hit you with spiking, and spiking under the state isn't really because you have two jobs. Spiking is when believe it, it or not, at the state level. Um, if you say you're in a small town and your brother's uh, the chief, and you're the deputy chief in your last three years, he decides to give you a hundred thousand dollar rate. Yeah, out of the blue, that's what they declare spiking. Two jobs were never declared spiking because you were actually working the hours.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:But during COVID they did go after a lot of people spiking because they had so much overtime, because so many people were taking off. So a lot of guys got spiking just because they took overtime.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I see that because I got flagged for spiking but I I got a pretty good raise at the end, not because I was smart or anything, it was because I got promoted to interim chief, so that so I got put on a like a flag for for that until they were you know able to verify that. So it was kind of it's kind of a weight. And then I got a little were you know able to verify that, so it was kind of it's kind of a wait, and then I got a little bump, you know, a couple months later, which was okay, I would like to get a huge bump, but you know it's what it was yeah, they used to not even look at that and that's still not fair.
Speaker 4:You know, if you're working one job and you get promotions, they shouldn't. The state became unfair when they realized these guys are winning. I think they started looking at things. That just wasn't fair. Spiking it's an easy definition and, like I said, spiking is when somebody does it for your last three years and you can prove it. It shouldn't be a promotion and or work. It doesn't matter if you work. It's not matter if you work two or three jobs.
Speaker 4:I worked seven days a week in the end, so my pension was as big as I could get it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that makes sense. It does as long as you've got the like in our case, in police case. If you can go back and look, say, not only was he out working, working his overtime working, federal overtime working, he's got the cases and the citations to prove that too. So it was hard for him to say, well, he was just out there on the clock and wasn't doing nothing, so it was one of them deals.
Speaker 4:Well, federal overtime Sure. Yeah, the state realized how good Tier 1 was.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I'm stuck in Tier 3.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, it's amazing. We're even saying that there's tier one, two, three, three, eight. That's one thing I think. Our organized labor in the state, whether you're union or not, I think they need to get back to making that pretty coercive for all guys. Now there should be no three years.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 4:Try to get the upper hand with us.
Speaker 3:Well, you all know the 20 years is a perfect out for hazardous. It's a young man's game. It really is. If you want to continue and have that, where you can be like, okay, I can go do something else, have a different life, do something totally different, be young enough and say I pulled my time, it's time to go. Sure, I think they did a disservice for everybody when they put it to 25 plus years.
Speaker 4:I'm with you. I believe eventually they will have to revert backwards because the lack of interest has already started showing up. Where people have no interest in it they're like well, my dad gave me there. He said you'll always have a good pension and good insurance. You won't get rich, but you'll have a pension and insurance.
Speaker 2:Nowadays they may make more money, but in the end when you need it sitting at home, they're not getting what we got exactly, yeah, I think the last time I looked at it it's for insurance for two or three guys is 15 per year of service.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's terrible yeah, you know, I don't, I don't, you know, I did 20 and got mine and I've, you know, my, my family's insurance paid for it. That means more to me than really the money coming in.
Speaker 4:a lot of times I love that money coming in, especially as we get older.
Speaker 3:I'm going and getting shots in my toes now over three months for arthritis. I'm like God the doctor's like it's going to hurt.
Speaker 4:I was like, more than last time. You guys said you were police, Y'all do the shots in the. I'm like, yeah, the doctor's like it's going to hurt. I was like, more than last time you guys said you were police. Or did y'all do the shots in the toes just for fun?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was also a Marine, so I love the color red crayon.
Speaker 4:There you go. It's his favorite flavor. I didn't know if you needed it or you wanted it.
Speaker 3:Both. The doctor said. He said one time he was like you know, um, he's, he's pulling on my toe, you know, pulling the joint out, getting ready to stick me. I was like, oh gosh. He said this is gonna hurt you. Probably. You probably not had any pain like this. That's well. Yeah, I I've had three shots in my ear, behind my eardrum, when I was losing some. I said, yeah, so this is nothing, I can take this. And I was wrong behind my eardrum, when I was loosening something. I said, yeah, so this is nothing, I can take this. And I was wrong.
Speaker 1:If I heard that Boom.
Speaker 2:I was like oh so when did you get hooked up with Forrest? When did you all meet?
Speaker 4:That's a long story. We were on this mountain, Canton, on that night.
Speaker 3:We didn't record that early for you.
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, it's real simple. You guys will understand this. When we applied for the fire department, we used to go to what we called the civil service board and you'd walk in and they'd tell you you've got to take a test. You know what do you want to apply for. You know they would have police there, fire there and EMS. They would have every city job there and you basically took the test. The only difference was if you passed the civil service test, you became a fireman. If was, if you passed the civil service test you became a fireman If you failed it.
Speaker 1:You were a police officer.
Speaker 4:I knew it. I knew it was coming, Basically me and Forrest passed that test. That's basically how it looked. I thought, oh man, I want to be in a room with this guy because we're both going to end up on the fire department.
Speaker 2:Fair enough, fair enough Fair enough.
Speaker 3:I went to.
Speaker 5:Everybody.
Speaker 3:Go ahead.
Speaker 5:Everybody knew Harold as probably the funniest guy in the Louisville fire department and we were on different shifts most of our career. We never worked in the same house together. I knew him but I wouldn't say we were on different shifts most of our career. We never worked in the same house together. I knew him but I wouldn't say we were like friend, friends that did anything. But I may have talked about this before. When me and my wife were separated, I took in a fireman that I knew he had separated from his wife and he lived in my basement and after like a year there was another fireman that came in and he left and then Harold said hey, man, I'll come in and rent that basement for you. Harold does not need. He didn't need a basement with his pension and his off-day business. He'd go out and buy a house. He could buy a house anytime he wanted.
Speaker 3:My manhouse.
Speaker 5:A couple of my fireman friends. They worried about me because going through a divorce was tough. Colton at that time was a senior. He was leaving for college. So Harold moved in and I think he lived here for seven years until Nicky ran him off. Yeah, because that helped work.
Speaker 4:Making that bulls down to a woman and ruining another thing for good guys. That's what that bulls do.
Speaker 5:But I think we had one argument and I'm not sure it was an argument I may have told you about that. I come home or he pulls up in the driveway one day it was during covet and I just finished mowing the grass he walks out there he tells me hey, did you see where them guys got a big fight? A neighbor mowed another neighbor yard and they got a fight because the guy said don't mow my yard and I said I, I don't understand. He goes, I mow the grass, not you.
Speaker 5:And he went in the house and I thought, wow, we just got into it because I mowed my yard.
Speaker 1:Your own yard.
Speaker 5:It's usually fighting over who does the dishes. Yeah, that was never a fight. I had a dishwasher there, but there were no dishwashers in the firehouse, so if there was any plates in there, whoever saw them, they'd jump in and wash it by hand. If I saw his clothes in the dryer, I'd take them out and fold them. He did the same thing.
Speaker 3:Man, I need some firefighters coming to my house. Yeah, they're better than maid service.
Speaker 5:Oh my gosh, I tell you what we had it made.
Speaker 4:We really did.
Speaker 5:But I don't, like I said it was perfect. It was not like the odd couple where they were fighting all the time. We were the yeah, we were.
Speaker 3:Just don't mow the yard.
Speaker 5:Harold was the perfect roommate. He'd listen to my love stories where I'd been jilted by some woman and tell me, yeah, get over it.
Speaker 2:Suck it up, rub a little dirt on it.
Speaker 3:Quit whining.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and then you know, colton, when he'd come home for the summers from college and he'd be here and he still talks about it he loved it because he had both of us. It was like him being in a firehouse and you know, then when he finally did get on Louisville Fire Department, he felt like he'd already been in that atmosphere. You know, nobody could phase it because he'd heard it all from both of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:He was trained already for the beatdown.
Speaker 3:He developed thick skin real quick, huh man. So tell us some stories about some fire shenanigans.
Speaker 5:Sure, it's always hard when they put you on the spot.
Speaker 4:Well, I've seen. I mean, like I said, I was fortunate I've seen anything you could name. I was in an end of town where I used to tell everybody they'd ask me you know you're in the West End and I would tell everybody when I leave that area it was a world away from where I live.
Speaker 4:It was only 15 miles, but it was an entire different world. It just was. We made fires all the time and the towns are not as fortunate as others. More run-down homes, more different mindsets. So I was in that end of town where I can't I look back and think there's nothing. I've been so fortunate that I've seen pretty much everything you can imagine, uh, and I consider that being lucky from wanting to do the job.
Speaker 5:Tell them about some characters snooki.
Speaker 4:Uh, snooki was a guy, a local guy, who ate every sunday at the firehouse, seen walk in the streets. He wasn't home when some old lady took care of him, but he wore fire clothing, he had a fire coat, he wore all winter Fire boots and if you made a fire he was out there rolling. He was there. Yeah, he was a local guy. You know, never did anything but chase a fire trucker. He'd come and eat every Sunday with us. We had a kid named Greg. Same thing he ate every day lunch Still does. He's still down there, a little bit handicapped. His sister communicates with firemen, but he eats lunch every day in that firehouse, to this day that's awesome.
Speaker 4:He's probably 45 now. He was a kid then. So yeah, I got fortunate enough to see, you know, from fire runs, you know, some things that stand out like. We had an 18-inch snow one night and none of the vehicles would get around. And I got fortunate enough, I was driving a district chief, a major, and we make this house fire. You know, we'd pull out a firehouse and we're in an open-cap bumper because our cars they want. There was too much snow so they put us in a big pumper to get around better with chains on the tires.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:And I remember pulling out of the house on this house fire. It was only about a box away. We're going real slow. We're in this open cab pump there and we turned the corner right in front of the firehouse and the maid said I hear the major go. Well, you don't see that every day. Here comes this lady running down the center of the street and she's naked I'm 100% naked and she runs by the truck in the opposite direction and she's yelling I'm going to my mama's house. That house around the corner is on fire. He's like you don't see that every day. I said no, we may never see that again.
Speaker 2:I have so many questions.
Speaker 4:Well, she had been in that apartment building and she was peeing like some people do. She had a stove on these old buildings and this place caught fire. She had been in a tub.
Speaker 4:We found out she was in a tub and when it caught fire she basically just hauled ass. She didn't want to bowl, no, she was, and it was when I stayed cold. We were amazed that. You know, here we are two tough guys going to a fire. We're bundled up like there's no tomorrow. She's running down the street naked going to her mom's house.
Speaker 3:I wonder what her mom said. That's my question.
Speaker 2:It may not have been the first time.
Speaker 4:He didn't have time to get her clothes and in her defense, that three-story house was on fire. The whole thing, you know. Just a bunch of good. I had a great time. Tragic stories of course you don't like that, but a lot of crazy stuff. I was driving a district chief once and we make a house fire on a Sunday afternoon and you know you're like no, before you go with the fire department theory theory, you need to know where you're going at all times and we did not have cell phones with maps yeah right, I'd be lost, so we had.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we had a huge map on the wall and I remember jumping out the car and it's several calls big house fire. And he looks at me and he says I said hey, this little area we're headed to is that, it's kind of an iffy area. It's got a triangle. He goes I know where we're going. I said okay, great. So I jump in and he tells me to go down broadway and I go down broadway, he tells me to turn and I'm starting to notice that we're driving around. It's not like for three or four days.
Speaker 4:And he's not. He doesn't really know where he's going. And I said he looked at me and says you know where we are. And I said, no, you told me you knew where we were going. So he said he goes, gosh, dang it. He rose his window down to stop sign and asked the lady at the car. He goes, the street signs were missing. He goes ma'am, what street are we on? And we're looking for this house fire and uh, you know things like that, crazy stuff. Yeah, he asked this lady at the stop sign. He says hey, what street are we on? And we got the lights and sirens on at the dinner table. He tells everybody goes. That was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened in my life and he blamed, blamed me. I'm like you're the one that said you knew where you were going Howder's the captain.
Speaker 5:I think I told a few stories about him. He was my captain before he made Major, and that happened with Harold. Nicky thinks I need to get him on here sometime. Yeah, he was a great guy. We always called him Donnie Bravo.
Speaker 2:We may have to make a trip up there and just have a big round table.
Speaker 5:I don't know if I want to be outnumbered by firefighters. Even better, Howder's down close to Miami. I think we need to go on a road trip.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I'm on for it as long as I don't have to Miami.
Speaker 2:I think we need to go on a road trip. Absolutely, I'm on for it, as long as I don't have to fly.
Speaker 6:I'll fly, I'll see you there Didn't wait three days before.
Speaker 4:We flew this summer but I was stuck in an airport going nine hours on the way there and I was stuck six hours on the way back. Airports are super iffy right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen too many of them falling out of the sky.
Speaker 4:I said the same thing the other day. It's like one a week and that's a little scary.
Speaker 2:It's not so much the flying that scares me, it's the sudden stop and hitting the ground.
Speaker 4:That old hitting the ground thing doesn't sound like no fun. I agree, Not at all.
Speaker 3:I trust it. It's safer than driving. You got more trust than that.
Speaker 2:So, Harold, I hear you might have been involved in a few pranks in your career.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, there's plenty of those, but you know those were passed on through the years. You know I was fortunate. The old guys you know was fortunate the old guys, you know they would. Uh, they, there were traditions. You know, your first year, basically they owned you. I don't care who you were, you were their new guy and that was it, you know I.
Speaker 4:I was told when I come on, you know you, you're the service truck guy, even when you're not here. I was worried about our service truck in the bay when I was at home, you know, I thought it was my responsibility to keep it clean, even when i're not here. I was worried about our service truck in the bay when I was at home, you know, I thought it was my responsibility to keep it clean, even when I wasn't on duty. So, yeah, we had several. There were several things passed on, and it's easy to nobody or anyone at any time when you're there 24 hours, you know, yeah, it's just the pranks are. They're endless, they can be endless and we were, fortunate enough, we were in the west end where nobody really messed with us. Nobody wanted not everybody wanted to be down there, so we got by with a lot more stuff maybe than a lot of other people but we had good people protecting us together.
Speaker 4:There's, there was a mass quantity of pranks. You know you got your Christmas pranks, they would. Or the rope pranks, where they'd tell you, you know you had to tie ropes at the end of the year. You had to show them you could do your knots and well, they'd tie you up. You'd put your rope on, they'd put you in the hose tire and they'd hoist you up to see if you're not there. Right, right, yeah. And when you're new you take it as part of the test. If you're hanging in the holster for two hours, you know they would comment why are you hanging there, spinning you around as big as a dog? All in good fun. But I mean, the things they thought of were endless and they were never-ending.
Speaker 5:Well, they were Thanksgiving, they'd send you out to get the turkeys.
Speaker 4:Christmas turkey, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they'd send you all the croakers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we had boxes stocked in our hose tire, because it was. You know, it's four stories high and you'd have boxes in the bottom of there and the new boy would go in there to pick up them, boxes where everybody's on the stairwells with firebombs and water and everything else. You know, it was just easy. When you're there 24 hours, of course, you also gotta remember when you're down and you're with uh 18. We had a dorm. We had 33 beds in our dorm and you know, only 11 people a ship three slept way across the room but it was nothing to hear that all night with a new boy, Something was going on all night long.
Speaker 5:Don't talk about cash and checks. Somebody wanted to cash their check all the time their paycheck Did you get changed.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, you know, back when you had a banking, if you had a fireman who was single, he'd say, hey, while you're going to the bank, cash my check, I'll sign it. Well, they told me it was popular. If you cash anybody's check, tell the bank you want the whole. If he made $800 for two weeks, you'd get it in change.
Speaker 4:Oh gosh, you'd bring back road quarters and pennies and you'd get it in change, oh gosh, you'd bring back quarters and pennies, and then they'd never ask you again. It was always Friday, and you gave it to them at the end of the day. Well, they got all that change for the whole weekend, that's awful I love it. It was an amazing.
Speaker 5:Did you say you came back and the back of your car was about to break down? It had so much change in the back of it.
Speaker 4:I had a Continental that had an air ride system, yeah, and it hunkered down with all the money and the change in the back of it. It hunkered down and I think to this day I still think it broke that airbag on that continent. You know they would pass that stuff on. It was all in good. When work came there was no goofing off. You know what I mean. But up until then there was a lot of time during the day when you were around. It was endless. There was tons of stuff they could do that's awesome.
Speaker 2:We played pranks but they tended to hit the news and we'd get in trouble for them.
Speaker 4:We had several hit the news we had one dude we're like anybody you don't know everybody you work with. We had a guy robbing stores in the service truck parking in an alley. He turned his shirt inside out in his coat. He parked in the alley. They didn't catch him for like a year. He robbed like five or six places. Wow, yeah. And then they said one lady, one older lady said I think I've seen that guy get in a fire department car. Sure enough, you know, this is back before there was a camera. Yeah, sure enough, this guy's been robbing. He robbed a truck store, he robbed a couple. He robbed four or five places in the service truck. Well, we had a guy that was a serial killer too. We did have a guy that killed a couple women.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he did. He was a a couple women, I think he electrocuted them.
Speaker 4:He did electrocute them. Yeah, you never know who all you're working with.
Speaker 5:He went down to the trunk and he was going to throw her in the river. And when he opened that trunk she jumped out fighting him. Yeah, yeah. So I got caught. And then my first night I went in there and found a bed and they said, hey, you know whose bed that is? And I'm like, no, and it was that guy's. And I still didn't know who it was. They're like he's a serial killer. Good night, new boy. You know what?
Speaker 2:That poor woman. She still probably liked that firefighter better than she did the police that showed up to help her.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, Like I said, that dude, the police even admitted. I remember an old article in the newspaper that one of the detectives said what's weird is this guy? It's like after about a year they said this guy's robbing stores like every third day. Well, we were only on every third day. It was like nobody could catch on. It was a fireman, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a bunch of unsolved crimes. I need to go back and interview some firefighters.
Speaker 1:We got some cold cases. I need to go to the fire department.
Speaker 5:Well, they're notorious for wanting to fire, so they go out and start it.
Speaker 4:You'll find this interesting. They had an article in the newspaper once. There were people outraged because they discovered this dude they had put in jail for murdering these couple women. They had found out that he was receiving this. He'd been in jail like nine years but he received this pension check up at the reformatory. It's common.
Speaker 1:It was great.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And then the news reported hey, you can't ever take their pension, they can go to jail and steal their pension. And the news was down there like hey, what do you feel like this article? And the cat was like don't talk, Don't talk on camera, Don't tell anybody. Because the whole community was outraged that you could keep your pension when you went to jail.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6:Well, he earned it.
Speaker 4:That's what they said. They said well, he earned it, it's his, and they're like he was killing people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but how many did he save? Did it even out?
Speaker 4:They never talk about that. That's awful. That's funny. Last time I looked that dude was still in jail. He's been in jail forever. Good lord he's still in there. He's probably worth a million dollars right now. That's awful.
Speaker 2:Stamps and cigarettes. He's got a life supply of Top Ramen.
Speaker 3:Man Speaking of sleeping in fire departments. The floods that hit out in eastern Kentucky we went over there and stayed in Wattsburg's fire department and a bunch of cops and some firefighters went with us. I ended up out of there with the snoring in the couch. It's like I found a couch somewhere downstairs and I was so surprised that they would come up. They'd be drinking beer all day. They'd be like, hey, we got a fire, we're going to get that fire truck. They'd been drinking all day. I was like, okay, that's different places.
Speaker 2:I won't say which agency it was.
Speaker 1:I worked in.
Speaker 4:Weisberg on my off-duty. I worked up there. I got a safety company and I did fracking for Halliburton up in the mountains. They would buy these people mountains and they'd drill wells off. I did that for six or seven months up in Weisberg. There's another part of the world that's completely different.
Speaker 2:It is a whole different place.
Speaker 6:Culture shock.
Speaker 4:I had a ball while I was up there, but only because I made my way and defined what would be fun. But I mean, it was a whole different world away from where we are.
Speaker 3:We worked the day shift over there and there was another agency doing the police stuff at night and we hadn't seen them guys all day and apparently they were out western Kentucky and ended up over there and they found the moonshine.
Speaker 2:They got into the moonshine. They were.
Speaker 3:We didn't see them. I think they took that day off. We ended up working nights too.
Speaker 2:It was a good time. But you talk about being appreciated over there. I mean, if you ever felt unappreciated and in the big cities. You go over there and it's man.
Speaker 4:They were different, they was oh, I worked on that fracking crew. I was a safety for a halliburton who did the fracking for seven days and then stay there for months while the drill's going or the well's going and I got to meet all them guys that lived up in them communities. Man, they were great. They were just great dudes they really were. They'd invite me to their house on the weekend. They'd have, you know, sunday dinner with them, go to church. They were all great guys up there.
Speaker 3:I liked every one of them. Yeah, once you get to know them and they can trust you, they'll tell you like don't go out and this time after that holler.
Speaker 4:But they'll tell you my dumb, my dumb butt was walking around. I'm such an idiot. When I first got there you had to walk outside at night. I was on. They built me a house on the top of this mountain where I had to stay and everybody else would leave. I'm walking around on my phone and one of them guys come up to me and said said hey, uh, you know, we're on. He goes. You know where we're at, don't you? And I said well, yeah, we're up here on top of this, this big mountain or hill. He goes. Well, you know why? I've got four or five guns in the back window of my truck, don't you? I'm walking around on his phone. And he said I've just seen some kind of mountain lion looking at you or something. He goes, you, I'm walking around and I follow these animals. He said these animals will stalk you out here at night.
Speaker 2:No joke when we were out there with the floods. Those coyotes were getting close.
Speaker 3:They would come right into town on you.
Speaker 2:They were hungry.
Speaker 3:It was wild.
Speaker 4:It was a good time up there. I liked being up there. Yeah, I learned a lot. It was interesting. It was an good time up there.
Speaker 3:I liked being up there. Yeah, I learned a lot.
Speaker 2:It was interesting, it was an experience, for sure.
Speaker 1:So, Harold tell us about this.
Speaker 2:Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 5:Harold, I guess your main thing is I mean, he plays the guitar, but you're also a drummer, right? Yep? And Harold knows everything there is to know about music. But tell him a story about the bridge in dc and what happened I danced so I was in it.
Speaker 4:Actually I go to dc, to the fire academy, to do my county job, maybe once a month. I signed up for classes that I never took my girlfriend. I met all these people and I'd party with them and have fun all weekend on the, basically on the department's dime. They give you this money to go and I'd always heard there was a legend on the Shenandoah River. You go on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. You had to dance by the. You had to dance by the moonlight at midnight.
Speaker 4:I made that big mistake of doing that. He stopped on the bridge.
Speaker 5:I stopped on the bridge. I stopped on the bridge.
Speaker 4:I had a friend with me and we decided we're going to dance with the devil at moonlight at midnight on Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Little did I know it was a federal crime. I'm going to tell you I can still feel that woman judge spitting in my face. I mean she and I were pissed. That didn't fare for me so well, but I can say I did do it. I went back and served. I begged them for mercy and they gave me community service. But I'm a Louisville fireman.
Speaker 5:It didn't work.
Speaker 2:At least you didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 4:No, you're right, I never even thought once. I thought it was tradition to stop and do a dance on that bridge Boy. I was wrong. According to the police up there, I was one of the only ones they'd ever caught doing it. I think a lot of people lied about that.
Speaker 5:You had another story. You know how they had the runaway thing for the tractor trailers when they lose their brakes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had a car full of people and I planned on A rental car, a rental car. And I planned on a rental car, a rental car. And I planned on screwing. When there was four people in my car and we're singing songs and I had planned this whole time I was going to drive off and I'd never been on one of them roads they were called runaway truck lanes coming out of the mountains, right, and I thought, okay, I'm going to hit this sucker and I just assumed you went, we'll, and I just assumed you went. They just slowed you down. I did so. I got four people in this car and we're singing. I remember the song we're singing Tiny Dads Are Out. Last Night, hold me close.
Speaker 4:There's two girls in the back and me and a buddy are in the front seat and I hit this. We're flying and singing. They're not paying attention. So I drive off this road and go through one of the. It's got a gate on it, a breakaway gate, and when I tell you I hit it, it was no different than running into a concrete wall. It tore the nose cone off his rental car. It tore his nose cone off his rental car. It tore his car up and the guy beside me screamed. He grabbed the dashboard so hard he ripped the cover and the airbag out of the dashboard and the girl in the back had an accident.
Speaker 4:So now he's like what happened? I'm like, oh, some animal run out in front of me. They're like what I said, it was a moose. It was something big. Now that she had done used the bathroom in her pants. It was beyond crazy. She's like mad as heck. And the dude beside me, he starts laughing. But that girl, of course. That cost me about $4,800 in fines. I didn't know you had to rebuild that road.
Speaker 5:Apparently that sand stopped you immediately that sand.
Speaker 4:If you never hit one, they don't slow you down, they stop you. You know it was crazy, but I paid for it. I had the insurance on a car but I still paid about $2,000. She was a really good friend but she had basically had an accident and you know, everybody's like man. This car stinks. I'm like shut up. You know, to this day that's been probably eight years ago To this day she hasn't spoke to me since. Wow, yeah, I learned my lesson the hard way there too. He'll send me a text, that guy. He's an executive for a big company and he'll send me a text out of the blue saying I'm sitting in a meeting, man, and I'm laughing about you hitting that road, because I know you did it on purpose and I'll still swear to him I didn't do it on purpose.
Speaker 6:They know the truth now though, if they listen to this podcast.
Speaker 4:You're right, yeah, he swears. I'm like no man, it was an animal. He goes there was no animal, yeah.
Speaker 3:I've never even seen trucks hit those things. I've not either.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what I swear to you. I thought I was going to have this little slow, sinking ride. I'm telling you it was the most violent thing I've ever done in my life. It ripped the nose cone, the headlight and pulled them off that car and the gate. They made me pay $1,800 for it. The cops they wrote me all these tickets and they believed me. They're like yeah, it happened. They still still. I paid money for six months to like send me a bill. They had some hill jack as a record service. He charged me like 500 to pull my car out. I think you know. Uh, it was a. I tell anybody don't ever do it. If you're thinking about it, I would never do it again you can't let them intrusive thoughts win.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he had the Billy Bob's record. He was like $500. He only pulled me like eight feet.
Speaker 2:It took a lot of effort to get you out of that bunker.
Speaker 4:He threw the bumper and the headlights. I was drivable. The police let me follow him down in front and back of me and all he did was pull me out and they threw the bumper and everything in the back seat, with the two girls I got. It was terrible. It was horrible.
Speaker 4:It was a horrible experience yeah it was uh, and I did like her as a friend, but, boy, she never spoke to me again. I called her from a strange number. I called her from a strange number. She answered and I said, hey click, she never got over that.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I blame her right actually I don't either. It was pretty solid she didn't sign up for that oh my goodness, what else have you done?
Speaker 3:You didn't sign up for that. Oh my goodness, what else have you done? We don't want to get you put in jail.
Speaker 4:I think some of the things I thought were funny, not everybody else did. I'm going to be honest. They're funny to me it wasn't funny to you at that point in time either, I don't guess. I'll be honest with you, I thought it was going to be hilarious but, boy, I can tell you right now it was not that nice at all.
Speaker 1:That state trooper. He rode ticket for a half hour.
Speaker 2:Well, they do that anyways.
Speaker 3:Was you back in Virginia or?
Speaker 4:where the Chesapeake I was. That's exactly where I was.
Speaker 3:I know I bet you was coming through Bristol and back down towards North Carolina that way on like 77, I bet You're exactly right.
Speaker 4:That's the right one. I know the ones.
Speaker 3:Because I was tempted.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you the truth.
Speaker 4:I planned it, sucker, I planned it. I'm going to tell you the truth. I planned it, sucker, I planned it. I'm not lying. I planned it so heavily I thought I swear to you I would have bet my life's savings. It was going to be smoother than it was.
Speaker 2:It's a premeditated 46.
Speaker 4:Enterprise put me on a no-win list for like two years.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that existed. I didn't think you could get blacklisted. What he said he's a rental terrorist.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they had me on a do-not-rent-a-car-to-this-guy list.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:I know that. I know the war you were because I just drove through there this year.
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm telling you, hey, if you even need one, I'd recommend not using them, you're better off direct, just ride it out.
Speaker 3:Just take your chances, just take your chances.
Speaker 4:Yeah, next time I'll just hit a semi in the back.
Speaker 2:And that was the end of his Uber career. Wow.
Speaker 5:So I'll tell you another story about Harold so he talked about. Now. He works for another department. It's every sixth day, and that department it's in every sixth day and that department it's, uh, in a one county north of us but a lot of louisville firemen that have retired they end up there and it's kind of a time where they can get together and have coffee. And I worked up there until I was full time at this department.
Speaker 5:But, uh, so what would happen is and I don't't think Harold ever knew I did this I would start noticing the coffee cups were missing and then he took my Superman cup, my favorite one, and I'm like, oh God, it's got in my car. And I go up there to that department and I walk in and I saw some guys there sitting there having coffee and they're like hey, bors, what's going on? Come get my coffee cups. And we're here to open the cabinets. And there they were. And I got my coffee cups and there was my Superman cup. I walked back out with them all in my hands. You see, any guys?
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 5:Now, doug knows, but Harold Mary he was the pastor for me and Mickey, so he had to get ordained and Mickey's Harold's so busy that he can start dragging his feet. It was getting closer and closer. Mickey's like I don't know. I think he's working with somebody in Haiti. He's getting his pastor license with something in Haiti or something he's like what. I don't know what it is. Is it like a witch doctor thing?
Speaker 3:It's got some voodoo, I ended up having this.
Speaker 4:I had actually a really good guy mentor me. Now he was in prison. His name was Charlie. He was out in LA, but I'll tell you the truth. I think he was misunderstood. He did a great job, very Christian-like on the part. It cost me a fair amount of money because it was $2.50 to talk for a minute. In the end, he ended up being a great mentor.
Speaker 1:It's beginning to make a lot of sense.
Speaker 5:He has some bible symbols on his forehead he died not long ago, but once again.
Speaker 4:I think he's a great mentor when it comes to learning how to marry people is it Charles Manson? Hey you know him too.
Speaker 1:You must be a minister too. You must be a minister too.
Speaker 4:He was a very knowledgeable guy.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Mickey was very confident. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 5:I tell you it was fun when Harold was still living here once we got married. There wasn't a day went by that Mickey didn't just roll her eyes at something he was doing. How long did he live there while you all were that Mickey did just roll her eyes and hope that he was doing her thing.
Speaker 2:How long did he live there while you all were living together, married After marriage?
Speaker 4:yeah, six months, six months, yeah yeah, she knocked up her game to get rid of me. It was kind of sad. I didn't want to go.
Speaker 5:Now, I'm not joking around. It was really, really hard because, harold, you know I'm an only child, but it was like I had a brother and, like I said, we never didn't get along.
Speaker 3:I don't think you never grew up.
Speaker 4:We were starting to argue when she kind of picked her and that was a little disappointing. We never argue.
Speaker 5:But Meryl's joking and pranking all the time, mickey's just kind of like ah, I'm not getting in the middle of this, I said I'm not doing this.
Speaker 4:I love you both and I'm not doing this he had the world's toughest looking dog when she came along.
Speaker 5:Now he wears bowls and he looks like a sissy bought him a plaid collar and took the spiked leather collar off his neck. He's a bit of a sissy.
Speaker 3:He's weak. He wouldn't.
Speaker 4:They tried to register him about six months ago and they said he's no longer a Doberman. They wouldn't even let him register.
Speaker 3:He's a poodle. He's a Doberman poodle.
Speaker 4:He's in a poodle, yeah Gosh.
Speaker 3:How did you all survive?
Speaker 5:Oh, I think so, harold's grandson. I guess Benson was probably five when he? Oh, yeah, I guess Benson was probably five when he oh, yeah, yeah. So what was it he told his grandma about this being a house of men?
Speaker 4:It was a men only. We had no women in this house. He said we got a boy dog, we do whatever we want.
Speaker 1:And she made a comment we don't take our shoes off in the house?
Speaker 4:Yeah, because it's just a man's house. We don't want any women in this house. It's the man's house.
Speaker 2:We don't want any women in it.
Speaker 6:It's the.
Speaker 2:He-Man.
Speaker 4:Woman Haters Club. It was.
Speaker 1:It was he would tell his Nana and his Mama.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when I go there it's men. Only He'd even go. Forrest has got a whole lot of guns I'm like oh, buddy, hold on a minute. Don't be telling Mama about all the guns Forrest. We would teach him safety and everything, but he was. He just loves everything about it. It was hilarious.
Speaker 5:But then when Vicki came along, would he call her a savage. He said make her a savage yeah, and we're like what does that mean? He said everything's going to change. Now he's like maybe eight, nine. He's a savage. Everything's like maybe eight, nine. Yeah, he's a savage, Everything's gonna change.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Invasive species so funny. So, Harold, do you have any more children?
Speaker 4:You've got the grandchildren. How many two girls? I've got two. I had two girls and I got one grandchild and I've got my second grandchild on the way. My daughter and her husband are. She works at uok and they've been trying to get pregnant. They've had a hard time for like five years. How come I'm just not hearing about this? She's pregnant, she is, and so they're keeping their fingers crossed that this will go okay. But they've had a hard time. But I've got two girls. My girls are both graduates of UK. One of them runs is in 9-1-1 in Louisville at Metro State and the other one works for the University of Kentucky, but she worked for Fox news out of indiana.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow both those are good jobs that's awesome dispatch is a job that I would never, ever want to do. I see it and hear it and complain about it all the time but I never want to do it hey guys, I just want to take a moment and thank our sponsor.
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Speaker 4:I did it One 24-hour shift in my life. Is it worth? I'm not lying. I'd be homeless if I had to do it for a job. I went home thinking about did I miss calls, Did I transfer this? It was mind-boggling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, being able to gather information like that and disseminate information and log it all at the same time I could imagine how many calls I get at louisville oh it's.
Speaker 4:Uh, it's my daughter, and luckily my daughter is. She's moved up to some super rabbit. She's to get up with it, which is what you want. You want somebody who loves it, but uh, it's, it's unbelievable. Like I said, it's just mind-boggling. It stayed on my mind I did it one day and I'm not kidding. It was on my mind for days Like I forgot something or did I send the police and the fire. It was stressful, as all kids. It was way more stressful than my fire department job.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we got not to be mean but she would have her days on the radio. I never met her, but she sounded like a grumpy old lady. She'd get really nasty on the radio sometimes and they sent us on a car wreck but they didn't say whether to go eastbound or westbound and they were sending companies from both directions the other way. So I got on the radio and I said radio, do you want us to make that eastbound or westbound? And she said make it the way you always make it. And I was like, uh, okay, I'll make it both ways.
Speaker 3:I'll go straight, I'll go north, we'll jump to median if we have to.
Speaker 4:When in doubt, run it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I don't blame them for being grumpy. They deal with overgrown men, children all day long.
Speaker 5:Buddy, when you have a storm blow through I don't know how they do it Like trees down, power lines down.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you, the most confusing call is a wrong-way driver getting on the interstate down here, and it happened, you know, quite often and they would say northbound and the southbound side. I'd freak out, I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 4:You vapor locked.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was like I don't know which way to go now.
Speaker 2:It is hard, it is confusing, trying to figure out where you're going to get on, to head it off, they'll turn around, they'll figure it out Until they don't.
Speaker 3:You hope. Then that makes Fox News too, or National News when they don't go good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last one was bad.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that's confusing because I'm in a town now and I have zero idea where anything is. So I'm just trying, I just know where I go.
Speaker 2:And you're asking me for directions to places, and that's terrible.
Speaker 3:I was like where is that Dillon? No, I don't know.
Speaker 2:The other day it was me and another girl going to a call, and she's not as familiar with the area either, so I'm behind her. We're going to a domestic. Neither one of us knows where we're going, but we're running lots of sirens to it all over town following GPS you gotta, at least you gotta. At least look like you know where you're going we didn't know where we was going, but he was going there really fast.
Speaker 5:So Harold's the one who did the Lucky Charm. You all knew that right.
Speaker 2:That's yeah okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah, harold's the one that Picked through all the marshmallows and then put them back in the box. Well, that's right.
Speaker 2:So for everybody listening that wants to go back and listen to Forrest's episode, the name of that episode is Lucky Breaks, lucky Charms and Fire Alarms.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's the one.
Speaker 2:So Harold even made the title of that one.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of dedication to do that.
Speaker 4:That guy, when he still talks to me, brings that up. He's still hurt, he's hurt yeah, he's like one of them. Lucky charm marshmallows out there.
Speaker 5:I'm like buy another box yeah, that was uh, so that was. That was the department that I'm in now. And when me and harold were there on the same shift, there was one guy I always called him Baby Huey I just say he's soft and he would sit out in his truck because he didn't want to come in there and have me and Harold getting on him, so he'd sit out there until the start of his shift. When we were going off work and we heard the door open and we looked and he was trying to sneak in and go to the bathroom. He had to go to the bathroom, so then he tried to sneak back out. Like hey, where you going? He goes. I'm going out to my trunk. Like no, no, no, get on in here, get on in here, he goes.
Speaker 2:No, I'm good, get in here you can't, you can't have thin skin in these type of jobs my first day.
Speaker 4:I vividly remember my first day. I walked into a kitchen which was normal, in the morning with another shift, there, 12 guys and the first guy looks at me and says, can we help you? And of course I've got this press, brand new uniform and all this stuff in my hand, looking like some weirdo. You know, that's all fresh press. And he goes. I said why I'm supposed to be here. He goes well, what's your name? I tell him my name. He goes what are your friends call you? I said he goes we don't care what your friends call you, we're not your friends. That was my first day. They let me stay in that bay floor for like nine.
Speaker 4:That was every day for the next year.
Speaker 3:That is hilarious.
Speaker 4:Yeah, them guys were good at it.
Speaker 2:They sent you up for failure right off the bat.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I was out in the bay. When he came out out there he had pulled his boat in. It was like a sunday, our first day. He had his boat in the bay and he said don't stay there, stare at my boat, new boy, go outside. Then I walked outside and stayed there.
Speaker 2:You know, they had many ways of getting him what would you say is the best prank that they've pulled in your?
Speaker 4:career. We can't tell that. The funniest ones here we're all grown men. The funniest ones are, you know, at night you see, uh, you see somebody duct tape to his bed. They get somebody duct tape from his bed. They'd get somebody duct taped to their bed, tie them up, put them in a hose tire. I've seen a guy on a roof in his bed.
Speaker 1:That's awesome Screaming. I'd be afraid to go to sleep around you all.
Speaker 4:Well, with your first year you don't sleep at all because you know that they would tell you, hey, get some good sleep, and, boy, I'll see you in a little while. And you'd be like, oh crap, I can't go to sleep.
Speaker 1:Stay up all night, you knew they meant it, they meant it.
Speaker 5:I say the worst one I saw. Do you guys know what a spud gun is?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, somebody. We had a guy that was a plumber by trade. He makes a butt gun and they were using WD-40 as the igniter.
Speaker 5:And they were having fun shooting the big metal dumpster with the potatoes. Well, you'll always have one person who goes too far, and I guess it's been too long ago really to prosecute anybody. They had a staff flight helicopter passing overhead and that's all I'm going to say. It didn't hit it. We were like what are you doing? And we threw that gun in the dumpster and that was the end of that.
Speaker 3:You've always got that one.
Speaker 5:You know what? I'm probably going to get Contacted now by the FAA.
Speaker 1:They've got enough Life stuff to worry about.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we had a bunch of police officers that hung out at our firehouse because we're in the West End. They'd come in, they'd eat dinner, sometimes They'd use the bathroom. They hung out in the back parking lot with us all the time. We had a little fire pit. We'd make a fire pit and sit around these lawn chairs. A couple of police officers would come by. We knew them real well. One night night we're out there and everybody's goofing off and police and everybody. The phone rings. It's like one in the morning and it's radio. And they're like, hey, uh, go answer the home phone. It's not recorded. The fire phone was recorded. We go in and answer the home phone and the lady goes, hey, metro state that put up all kinds of cameras. We can see your whole parking lot now. And we're like, okay, so we stopped all of that. And we're like there's stuff going on in y'all's back parking lot that's not in real favor. And we're like, okay, we'll go stop it. So, yeah, they installed a bunch of those 360 cameras down there everywhere.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they had a perfect view of our parking lot. What they?
Speaker 5:what they throw rocks and not from the bus windows. Oh yeah yeah, they had a parking lot, but they throw rocks. I always wonder why these guys want to be at this house.
Speaker 2:It's a bunch of delinquents.
Speaker 4:It took delinquents to be in a thing they like to hide and get to see everything, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's something that I miss. We had a pretty good relationship with the firefighters here for a little while, which we would hide when we went over there. They just they'd open the bay doors and we just pull cruisers in.
Speaker 4:so nobody knew he was even there they would make fun of them like we wasn't hanging out we had several police officers at home at baby center with us. We had a good, good relationship in the west end with all of them. That was a that was a safe haven for them. We used the bathroom, eat food. They could trust. Yeah that's nice.
Speaker 2:It's nice to have a good place that you trust to poop Always, oh yeah absolutely Absolutely. That's back when the brotherhood was good. We had a pretty good brotherhood back then, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a little, I think I do believe from what I hear from everybody in the department it's changed not for what I call the better. I think some of that's changed for the times I think it was a lot better back when I was younger. In them days Everybody got along real well.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, it's a big difference now. Everybody got along real well. Oh yeah, it's a big difference now. I remember we at the department we were at, we had a couple well, I know one supervisor. He was a fire chief at the county fire department and so it was a volunteer, so but anyway, you know he'd be on duty and the fire come out, you know he'd just leave whatever he's doing with us. I got to go fight fire boys. He'd just leave.
Speaker 3:It wouldn't matter if it was a wreck, a domestic, he was gone. He's gone.
Speaker 6:And one time it didn't matter.
Speaker 4:Those were better days period. You're right.
Speaker 6:And we got to, they had a nice firehouse I mean it was just a I mean spent a lot of money on that thing and upstairs had a complete kitchen. They had the biggest TV in the county. I mean that thing was like 100 inches.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, back then. Yeah, it was huge.
Speaker 6:And we'd all go up there. We worked third shift and we'd go up there on the corner. We work third shift and we go up around third shift and we'd cook. We'd cook sausage and eggs baked gravy. We just have a big time. Well, evidently somewhere down the line somebody saw us down there or complained about it, but one of the other supervisors was a lieutenant. He decided to come out one night and spy on us and well, needless to say, things didn't go well after that.
Speaker 2:We never went back to the fire department to play cornhole and watch TV. That didn't stop us from playing rook and dispatch thing.
Speaker 6:Apparently. Yeah, it was a different time, it was a lot better. It was a better time back then. I agree with you.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely Well, back in those days, people, they took care of their business.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Speaker 4:If a guy did something goofy, it was taken care of and it didn't happen again.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:I think it was a better way of doing things oh yeah, yeah, you policed.
Speaker 2:your own is kind of the kind of the deal we didn't we'd make runs with the police the middle of the night.
Speaker 4:You know, I remember back when I first got on of course the bridge going to indiana is in our district. I remember the police officer we'd make the same uh, they'd make the same drunks or guy being disorderly in the liquor store and he'd beat someone up. We'd go over there with the police and they'd load him up in the car and they'd say, yeah, we're just going to drive him over to Indiana and drop him off. These guys, believe it or not, they were just town drunk. They'd make their way back a few days later, but I still think nobody went to jail. They handled their stuff better.
Speaker 5:I always wondered how there were no homeless people in Louisville during the Kentucky. We thought they took them over and dropped them off in Indiana for that two or three days Guaranteed.
Speaker 3:They got to clean it up, make it look pretty for all the rich people coming in.
Speaker 2:I think us and Corbin traded people for a long time. We'd take them to Corbin, they'd bring them back.
Speaker 3:Little did we know that Rock Castle was bringing them all down.
Speaker 6:I've made many a trip from Rock Castle County down to the 49. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's fun.
Speaker 2:It got to the point where we might as well just met at the line and traded them to the cars.
Speaker 3:I think we just took them on down to Tennessee after a while.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I think we just took them on down to Tennessee after a while. Yeah, I think somebody did take one down to Jellicoe and drop them off. I'm pretty sure they did.
Speaker 3:It's happening. He may be sitting in his room.
Speaker 6:He may be, I'm taking you out of here. You're not even allowed in Kentucky.
Speaker 2:That's back when you could evict people from the city.
Speaker 3:It's just 38 miles down.
Speaker 2:It's amazing what you can make people think and believe.
Speaker 3:There's been many a night where Doug was in Rock Castle and I'd be down in Corbin somewhere who's in the city of London? Nobody. They're good. We're not the head that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah it was. It was a lot better and a lot more fun of a job when everybody, all your agencies, got along and worked together. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they've. I think politics had a lot to do with changes stuff, maybe not for the better always oh yeah, it does, and where where I'm at now.
Speaker 2:So there's to eliminate a lot of that politics and stuff. They pay like. Your department heads all get paid the same. Your fire chief and your police chief are all considered in the same pay scale. Your firefighters get paid the same as police officers. So there's not that jockeying for power. Everybody gets.
Speaker 4:That was our biggest fight, our whole career, every contract. All we would ask for is can we get what the police get? We hear the same thing. Well, we pay you guys to sleep. You know you're there all night. You'd be like. Well, all of us don't sleep every night.
Speaker 2:I had a supervisor tell us because we was talking about how much we get paid and you know, there's days that we don't do a whole lot and he's like, well, we don't get paid for what we do, we get paid for what we might have to do. So that's what and that's their. You know, that's their mindset on why they pay us what they pay us.
Speaker 5:I tell everybody we're an insurance policy and you don't want to use us Exactly. We're just like the military. You hope that they don't ever get sent off the ward. You don't want us coming because your house is burning down, Somebody's broke in your house or your kids've had your kids that are in a wreck. We're an insurance policy.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's a good point. So what else? What are you doing now? You still what all you got going on in your life after the fire stuff.
Speaker 4:I'm running a safety. So I got a little bit educated, more so, and I started a. I started a safety business while I was still in the fire department and, uh, I've been fortunate enough. I work with some really large companies. I got a few distilleries, I've got some automobile plants, uh, so I've got, uh, you know, I let it. It basically kind of runs itself. I stepped away with a, I've got a business partner and we've been fortunate over the last. You know, we've got about 31 full-time employees.
Speaker 4:Good, that's awesome and about 42 part-time and we're in Tennessee, we're in Kentucky, we've just done really well. So it turned out to be a really good retirement gig too. A little boring because I don't do much anymore. But you know, everybody says well, that's where you want to get, well, it's bittersweet when you get there, you still like to stay a little bit busy. Right, I'll give harold some kudos.
Speaker 5:So all these firemen they retire and they need a little money or they want something to do.
Speaker 3:Harold hires oh, that's awesome and he doesn't, he'll.
Speaker 5:He'll hire somebody and something will happen and he'll say I'm going to hire so-and-so back. I'm like, dude, why are you hiring him back? He goes, everybody deserves a chance. You know, I'm giving him another chance and he'll hire he hires a lot of firemen.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've got some, I've been fortunate on that side, I've got a pretty viable business. I think, I'll sit out of it completely and sell my part in the next few years. I don't know what I'll do.
Speaker 5:Travel to concerts.
Speaker 6:Go dancing on bridges.
Speaker 3:There's plenty of bridges to dance on.
Speaker 2:Some it's probably not a federal offense to do so.
Speaker 5:He said he was going to crawl in Nashville, but he wouldn't do it. He said it's too boring. What do you think, Doug?
Speaker 6:Oh no, He'd fit in well down there.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you something he does. He visits grave sites. Me and him went to the Memphis in May Music Festival one year and it was fun, but it was a muddy mess. We didn't realize you need to wear rubber boots for this thing. We were going to go find the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil Gotcha and play blue guitar. Ross Rhodes. Where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil Got you, he played blue guitar.
Speaker 4:I started finding famous people's graves about 10 years ago, so when I traveled a lot. So I've seen 119 famous people. I've seen every mobster Al Capone, john Dillinger, bonnie Clyde. I've seen every music star you can imagine. I just got into doing it and it became kind of fun. So I've seen a ton of famous people James Dean, jimmy Hendrix I just see everybody's magic. It got fun. Then I kind of backed off of it and I ran out of people to go find.
Speaker 6:Well, you can always look for Jimmy Hoffa.
Speaker 2:Find him. If you find that one, you'll be famous yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3:Wow, I don't know if that's morbid or cool. I kind of want to go see baseball.
Speaker 4:I meet girls at places and I'd say they say, well, what do you do for fun? I'd say, well, I like visiting graves. They'd be like, oh God, that's weird. I'd say you've got to try it. There's a bunch of graves that have rumors on them, like Hank Williams Sr. It's called Midnight in Montgomery. You're supposed to go visit his grave to have forever music. Look at midnight. I've done that. I've done all kinds of just stuff that's rumored Jimi Hendrix, you know, taron Carpenter, everybody Kurt Cobain, just people you can't imagine.
Speaker 1:So I try to do it all but some people.
Speaker 4:After they do it, they'll say and that's fun, because you've got to hunt them down, you've got to really kind of try to find them, you've got to walk around these graveyards.
Speaker 5:You actually found Robert Johnson's, didn't you?
Speaker 3:Oh really.
Speaker 4:He's buried in the back of a Baptist church in the middle of God, off from nowhere. Huh.
Speaker 2:Well, did you find the crossroads?
Speaker 4:Some of them are really hard to find.
Speaker 3:Did you find the crossroads? Some of them are really hard to find. Did you find?
Speaker 5:the crossroads we did. But there's about three or four of them, mark, there's two but there's only one real one Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Speaker 4:That's the true crossroads. Morgan Freeman built that, yeah, so that's known as the real crossroads.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we had a barbecue sandwich and uh got to keep around a little diner, but it was fun. Then we hung out at uh bb king's blues bar there a long time of field street had this beer that we've never been able to find again. I think it's like ghost river beer or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Is it a federal offense to dance in the moonlight at?
Speaker 1:midnight at the crossroads.
Speaker 4:If it was, they would have found me. Ha, ha ha, I had no luck in moving the wall. I'll tell you that. Ha ha, ha Next time you're dancing.
Speaker 3:I had no luck in losing the law, I'll tell you that Next time you're dancing on that, just take off running or make them chase you up one of those off ramps there?
Speaker 4:were four or five police officers there that night and only one of them thought it was funny. I mean only one. The rest of them were like you're in trouble. I'm like, oh shit, you're in trouble, buddy. I thought everybody did it.
Speaker 5:I'm a local fireman. It's okay. It's okay.
Speaker 4:I had to travel back and forth to do community service. How long I did seven different sessions of community service. I actually gave a talk at a high school, which I thought was a bad idea. But I gave some community service doing baseball fields for the YMCA. Okay, the judge ended up being smarter than me and was very fair. So, boy, I thought for sure I was in deep, deep shit there for a while. Oh yeah, she used my fireman against me. She goes like you, of all people should be smarter, she goes. How would I have guessed you were dumber than all of them?
Speaker 2:In your defense. Who would have ever thought that the federal government would care about that?
Speaker 4:But I did pay dearly for it. Yeah, she told me. One of her last words were well, I want you to know, I'm gonna call back home, talk to your chief, and I'm like, oh, that's stuff too that's.
Speaker 2:That'll be the worst part of it, because they'll ride you over that for the next six months yeah, that stuff was expected from harold.
Speaker 5:So they probably laughed and said don't worry, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 6:I've been on that end of the stick too, but that's another story for another time.
Speaker 5:I got to give Harold some props. He was a really good fireman. That's how he stayed down there that long. The few fires I did make with him I remember they were up on the roof, big fires, Errol was always. He was known as a fireman's fireman.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was lucky.
Speaker 1:If you're good at your job they can overlook the shenanigans.
Speaker 4:I had a bunch of good people. I was surrounded by good people, and I think that makes the difference when you're young.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:That good people and I think that makes the difference when you're young.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's funny. So I guess colton?
Speaker 5:is colton working at the department you were at now? Yep, yeah, he's in louisville and he just, he just got uh harold.
Speaker 4:Harold really did some uh hard pitches for him to get on lou. He's always got a good name, though Of course he's got a great name Dave. I mean his captain had asked for him to be moved with him, you know. So he's got a great bright future ahead of him there, a real good future.
Speaker 5:And they sent him down there where I talked about, where we did the dive rescues and the rope rescues. That's where he's going and he's going on the truck. So he's kind of excited. I told him. I said, well, when you want, we'll get matching truck one tattoos. I said that's the only tattoo I would get. He said he told his captain his captain was cracking up.
Speaker 2:That's just because y'all wanted to get them on your butt, cheeks I got.
Speaker 4:I just got the one tattoo. Society's fault that's perfect.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:The next one we're doing we're coming up. Let's get a bunch of them together and we'll come up to you guys. How about that?
Speaker 4:That's okay with me.
Speaker 3:It'll be fun. I like doing them live, looking at you all yeah.
Speaker 5:That makes it a little easier, I think, like you said, you can stay and interact.
Speaker 3:This has been great, though it really has.
Speaker 4:The worst thing about that is horses and slippers in a row. It's weird. I didn't want to say nothing about it. I feel like we're getting ready to wrap up, but it's been a little awkward. It's a smoking jacket. He's Hugh Hefner over there. I'm not so sure there's anything on under. It's a little odd. I'm not saying I'm against it, I'm just saying it's weird.
Speaker 5:Smoking jacket.
Speaker 2:It probably wouldn't be the first time Forrest has walked in naked then no, that's for sure.
Speaker 5:Yeah, colton said. Boy, a lot of people have naked stories about you, dad.
Speaker 4:That's good. Somebody got a picture of me one time Doing something that nobody ever should have seen and, man, it ended up on Christmas cards. So I learned that the hard way. I still got it. I'm like I learned that the hard way You're listing a Christmas card to my house I still got it. I'm like I learned that the hard way it's in a Christmas card in my house. They said that card should arrive a day you're at work. Your family will open it.
Speaker 1:It's horrible.
Speaker 3:It's funny. Well, we'll save some stories for when we come up, so we'll end it right here, but this has been great.
Speaker 5:I've really enjoyed it, yeah hey, doug mate, will you please get out there and bush hog that field where that deer beater's at. Yeah, I've kind of let me buy a tractor. Hey, doug man, will you please get out there and bush hog that field where that deer feeder's at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if, colonel let me buy a tractor.
Speaker 1:You may be waiting a while on that one, you have the Congressional Budget Office. How slow they move.
Speaker 5:All right, I'll go down there with my weed eater.
Speaker 6:I'll help you out. Oh, that's great. Hey how's the feeder up in Henry County? I'll help you out.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 6:Hey, how's the fader up in Henry County? Okay, I'm going to leave you guys.
Speaker 4:Good talking to you all.
Speaker 1:See you, harold. See you Harold.
Speaker 5:Thanks for coming on. Well, I had the last picture about 15 or 20 of them hanging off the feeder and spinning out. They probably got 70 pounds of corn out of there in about two days, well, so I went up there and put a cage around it today.
Speaker 6:Oh, you did.
Speaker 5:Okay, I did.
Speaker 2:So the raccoons are just feasting over there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I think I forgot and left a wrench on the ground. So if they find that wrench, they'll probably just assemble that cage. That's a good possibility. Them little suckers are smart.
Speaker 2:That's what I feed anyways. I just throw my corn piles out for the raccoons. At least that's what we keep telling the game wardens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're not allowed to do that.
Speaker 6:Nope, you tell it on yourself't feed the raccoons?
Speaker 2:I don't hunt the raccoons, ok alright, brother, this was fun.
Speaker 5:We'll see you soon alright, love you, karen, love you, doug love you too we'll be up, we'll invade alright, I'll probably be down here pretty soon, but put some more corn in that feeder will you just come anytime, the raccoons welcome you all right see you
Speaker 2:all right, guys. Hope you enjoyed that. We'll catch you on the next one peace out.
Speaker 1:I took the pretty side.