Fire House

There is fun to be had at 3am when perfectly sober, you sneak (with a fireman and some drunk giggling friends) into a fire-station / fire house and dress up in a helmet and jacket (surprisingly heavy) while everyone else blissfully snores away. That is what we did a few nights ago.

It was fun walking into the place, seeing what it actually looks like in real life (and joking that we would try out the pole...none of us did -primarily because we didn't want to wake anyone and figured one of us would possibly scream or fall). We did however, climb onto the trucks, have coffee in the kitchen and watch firemen / women sleep.

It was really interesting to see the rota from September 11th was still on the wall. A new one beside it, the names scrawled in chalk and there forever. It was sad, and yet it means that they will never be forgotten. Those names and nicknames have been immortalised. Not in the traditional way, those men will never fade to become merely names in a history book. They will continue to be legends. They will live on in the memories of the firemen from that station for generations to come. They will never be forgotten and that is what amazed me. I would never have thought that something as simple as a chalked up rota would make me so philosophical about it.

Yet, if I had to die, wouldn't it be great to die saving other people? Furthermore, they won't be forgotten for awhile, wouldn't it be amazing if we could all say that?

It was about 4am when we slipped out (as silently as 6 people can be) and into a taxi to continue our nyc adventures.

I learnt something that night. It was fun. It was something that I could have only done in NYC.