Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 8 | Page 11

L IFE S TORIES BY K EITH B ETTINGER
W HY I B ECAME A C OP
When I was growing up back in the early 1950s, my mother and I lived
with her parents, my grandparents. My uncle was my hero because he
was a fireman in the volunteer fire department.
L
ike many a young child I too lis-
tened for the sirens and clanging
bells of fire trucks. I wanted to be
just like my uncle; racing out of the house
as the fire siren sounded,calling all the
firemen to the firehouse. Once there, they
boarded the fire trucks; pumpers, the
hook and ladder truck and even the light
truck equipped with giant flood lights.
From the fire house they raced to the sce-
ne of the fire with a cacophony of sirens,
bells, horns and flashing lights.
In order to be like my uncle, I always
wanted to go to the firehouse with him.
As soon as the fire siren sounded, I locked
the house door with the skeleton key that
secured it. My uncle would holler, “Open
the door! Give me the key!”
I wouldn’t take the key from its hiding
place until my mother had me dressed,
and ready to ride to the firehouse with
him. To this day I still wonder why he
didn’t reach into the china closet drawer,
the same drawer where I always hid the
key. Better yet; why didn’t he get a dupli-
cate skeleton key of his own? I mean se-
curing the door with a skeleton key
wasn’t high tech. We weren’t securing
Fort Knox. Back then, it was pretty much
one skeleton key fit all skeleton locks.
S UMMER 2018
We hurriedly drove to the firehouse
and he would run to get on a fire truck
and tell me “Stay out of the way!” While
he was gone I waited patiently in the fire-
house for his return. If the fire was a ma-
jor conflagration, my grandfather eventu-
ally drove to the firehouse and picked me
up. Best part of that was sometimes my
grandfather took me to the scene of the
fire to watch the battle between heroes
and flames.
My uncle and my grandfather owned a
furniture moving business and had a cou-
ple moving vans as well as a pickup truck.
The pickup truck was used for small jobs,
running errands or it simply took the
place of the car when the car wasn’t avail-
able. The pickup truck had a green body
and a red cab – it was halfway to being a
fire truck. Just behind the cab on either
side of the truck were running boards.
The running boards offered a great place
to stand just like a fireman on a hook and
ladder truck. Many a day I played fireman
hanging on the side of the pickup while it
was parked in the driveway.
My grandfather was a wonderful play-
mate and co-conspirator. He did nothing
to stifle my imagination or curiosity. He
knew how much I wanted to be a fireman.
P AGE 6
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE