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SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
I’ve had this odd feeling that I’m undergoing a big life change, and not just because I stopped watching “Ghost Whisperer”.
Generally we don’t see those moments until they’ve passed, unless they involve a really major event like birth, death, or new Star Trek collector plates. (For you older people, make it Elvis plates; for you younger people, make it a World of Warcraft update.)
Sometimes decisions steer our lives in entirely new directions, and we realize it years or decades later. For instance, when asked to write a humor column for the newspaper I actually said no, but turned around and walked back to accept the position. That was something like twenty years ago, and today “Slightly Off the Mark” has become a local icon that gets distributed worldwide through the internet -- or possibly a huge waste of newsprint, depending on your opinion and sometimes on what week it is.
The biggest thing to come along for me recently was, of course, signing a contract to get my novel published. That’s a big deal, after decades of writing fiction and trying unsuccessfully to sell it.
Yet it still doesn’t seem real to me. Right now I’m waiting to hear back about edits, and the book isn’t likely to come out for months ... while that odd feeling is surely related to the book deal, the truth is it’s not going to really hit me until I see that cover art, and hold a hard copy in my hand. Also, the story is something of a light romantic comedy. I’m not trying to downplay it -- it’s a huge deal to me, and I put my all into it -- but this isn’t something that’s going to win me a Pulitzer or land me on any best seller list.
What made me start contemplating change wasn’t the book at all, but the fact that July 14th is my 30th year as a member of the Albion Volunteer Fire Department. Thirty years. My first response to a house fire was on a fire engine that was built ten years before I was born; now all the trucks are newer than my membership.
I’ve been trying to cut back on my activities, under the theory that trying to sell Storm Chaser and get a follow-up novel published are going to make me a lot busier, so I recently announced my resignation as fire department training officer. That got me thinking about my firefighting career. When word of me being a writer got out I was made secretary first of the now defunct Noble County Firemen’s Association, then of the AFD itself. I didn’t like it much. All kinds of writing are not alike, and you can’t get a really good plot line out of the minutes of a meeting. Believe me, I tried.
As I was thinking on this I realized that I’ve been AFD Safety Officer for at least twenty years. I remember because I’d just taken a class about the position, and told the Chief that all departments would eventually be required to have one, and that we should start now.
“Well,” he said, “if you want the job ...”
I didn’t want the job. I was the public relations guy, and the photography guy, but I didn’t want to be the safety guy, because it stinks. You’re dealing with a group of people who by nature don’t worry about safety; one reason some of them became firefighters in the first place is because they like danger. It’s why a hundred or so firefighters get killed every year, and thousands more injured.
So yes, it is a great idea to have one officer whose sole responsibility is to keep people out of trouble, but I didn’t want the job. You have to watch, and when you’re watching you’re not doing, and I wanted to do. But I signed on, and since we’re usually short on manpower early in an incident I always tried to get into the fire first, so that I could take over safety later when more manpower arrived -- and when I was usually exhausted. That’s not the way things should go, but if things went as they should there’d never be any fires to begin with.
Anyway, I became certified as a fire instructor because I figured the safety officer would have to teach safety related subjects, so I should understand teaching. I had no intention of doing any instructing that didn’t involve the issue of safety.
Then I woke up one morning and I was the Training Officer. For fifteen years.
Teaching has unique rewards, but preparing for and teaching classes can be very time consuming. I elected to stay on as Safety Officer (for as long as the Chief lets me), for reasons I don’t fully understand. Maybe it’s the blue helmet. Some of the guys once called me “Papa Smurf”, which as nicknames go isn’t half bad, now that I’m older than most of them.
One reason I’m not ready to retire completely is that my fiancee has expressed an interest in joining the fire department, and it would tear me up to stay home while she took off on a call. Did I mention I have a fiancee? I think that qualifies as contributing to the aforementioned odd feelings of change. Actually, nothing odd about that feeling, at all.
We just brought up from Missouri a bunch of Emily’s belongings; she’s here to stay forever, or until she gets sick of me.
What else? My youngest daughter just moved out and switched colleges, the car I drove for ten years is gone to the scrapyard, my twin grandkids just turned two, I became a godparent, and I’m moving my home office into another room. (Think that last one doesn’t count? Try doing it sometime.)
I’m also approaching the end of my second term on the Albion Town Council. Leaving after eight years, as I’d intended, would be another big change; but it feels like I’d be deserting the town at a time when(I suspect) the immediate future is going to bring big challenges and hard choices.
I guess that odd feeling isn’t so odd after all. It makes me wonder if the storms that hit Albion a couple of weeks ago were the winds of change.
Did I mention I became a godfather? Here's my niece Hailey, in a photo taken by Terri Beckley:
I’ve had this odd feeling that I’m undergoing a big life change, and not just because I stopped watching “Ghost Whisperer”.
Generally we don’t see those moments until they’ve passed, unless they involve a really major event like birth, death, or new Star Trek collector plates. (For you older people, make it Elvis plates; for you younger people, make it a World of Warcraft update.)
Sometimes decisions steer our lives in entirely new directions, and we realize it years or decades later. For instance, when asked to write a humor column for the newspaper I actually said no, but turned around and walked back to accept the position. That was something like twenty years ago, and today “Slightly Off the Mark” has become a local icon that gets distributed worldwide through the internet -- or possibly a huge waste of newsprint, depending on your opinion and sometimes on what week it is.
The biggest thing to come along for me recently was, of course, signing a contract to get my novel published. That’s a big deal, after decades of writing fiction and trying unsuccessfully to sell it.
Yet it still doesn’t seem real to me. Right now I’m waiting to hear back about edits, and the book isn’t likely to come out for months ... while that odd feeling is surely related to the book deal, the truth is it’s not going to really hit me until I see that cover art, and hold a hard copy in my hand. Also, the story is something of a light romantic comedy. I’m not trying to downplay it -- it’s a huge deal to me, and I put my all into it -- but this isn’t something that’s going to win me a Pulitzer or land me on any best seller list.
What made me start contemplating change wasn’t the book at all, but the fact that July 14th is my 30th year as a member of the Albion Volunteer Fire Department. Thirty years. My first response to a house fire was on a fire engine that was built ten years before I was born; now all the trucks are newer than my membership.
I’ve been trying to cut back on my activities, under the theory that trying to sell Storm Chaser and get a follow-up novel published are going to make me a lot busier, so I recently announced my resignation as fire department training officer. That got me thinking about my firefighting career. When word of me being a writer got out I was made secretary first of the now defunct Noble County Firemen’s Association, then of the AFD itself. I didn’t like it much. All kinds of writing are not alike, and you can’t get a really good plot line out of the minutes of a meeting. Believe me, I tried.
As I was thinking on this I realized that I’ve been AFD Safety Officer for at least twenty years. I remember because I’d just taken a class about the position, and told the Chief that all departments would eventually be required to have one, and that we should start now.
“Well,” he said, “if you want the job ...”
I didn’t want the job. I was the public relations guy, and the photography guy, but I didn’t want to be the safety guy, because it stinks. You’re dealing with a group of people who by nature don’t worry about safety; one reason some of them became firefighters in the first place is because they like danger. It’s why a hundred or so firefighters get killed every year, and thousands more injured.
So yes, it is a great idea to have one officer whose sole responsibility is to keep people out of trouble, but I didn’t want the job. You have to watch, and when you’re watching you’re not doing, and I wanted to do. But I signed on, and since we’re usually short on manpower early in an incident I always tried to get into the fire first, so that I could take over safety later when more manpower arrived -- and when I was usually exhausted. That’s not the way things should go, but if things went as they should there’d never be any fires to begin with.
Anyway, I became certified as a fire instructor because I figured the safety officer would have to teach safety related subjects, so I should understand teaching. I had no intention of doing any instructing that didn’t involve the issue of safety.
Then I woke up one morning and I was the Training Officer. For fifteen years.
Teaching has unique rewards, but preparing for and teaching classes can be very time consuming. I elected to stay on as Safety Officer (for as long as the Chief lets me), for reasons I don’t fully understand. Maybe it’s the blue helmet. Some of the guys once called me “Papa Smurf”, which as nicknames go isn’t half bad, now that I’m older than most of them.
One reason I’m not ready to retire completely is that my fiancee has expressed an interest in joining the fire department, and it would tear me up to stay home while she took off on a call. Did I mention I have a fiancee? I think that qualifies as contributing to the aforementioned odd feelings of change. Actually, nothing odd about that feeling, at all.
We just brought up from Missouri a bunch of Emily’s belongings; she’s here to stay forever, or until she gets sick of me.
What else? My youngest daughter just moved out and switched colleges, the car I drove for ten years is gone to the scrapyard, my twin grandkids just turned two, I became a godparent, and I’m moving my home office into another room. (Think that last one doesn’t count? Try doing it sometime.)
I’m also approaching the end of my second term on the Albion Town Council. Leaving after eight years, as I’d intended, would be another big change; but it feels like I’d be deserting the town at a time when(I suspect) the immediate future is going to bring big challenges and hard choices.
I guess that odd feeling isn’t so odd after all. It makes me wonder if the storms that hit Albion a couple of weeks ago were the winds of change.
Did I mention I became a godfather? Here's my niece Hailey, in a photo taken by Terri Beckley:
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