Christmas is a time synonymous with good cheer and helping your neighbor. We here at CVFD, and our families, spend our whole year just trying to help our neighbors. We are a rag tag group who spend most of our time in agriculture, factories, schools, railroads, and yes, emergency services. In fact, over half of your volunteer fire department in Crothersville is made up of career firefighters, EMS workers, a jailer, and police officers. These people want to help their fellow man so much that they continue to do it in their spare time.
I build forklifts for a living. I can’t imagine what would happen if they asked us to drop our forks and run back to work after being there all day. This is exactly what our community gets from our responders though. They don’t think twice, complain, or even worse - ignore the tones. They spend all day and night dealing with emergencies all over the region. And when something happens to one of their neighbors, they jump right back into it. They are good people. Admittedly, most of our members who are police officers, just like that they get to wear the bunker gear and drive a firetruck. Who wouldn’t though?
We have newer members who can’t wait to respond to a big call, and members who can’t forget the numerous calls, smells and sights. And yet they still jump up when the tones go off. They are good people. They know that without the leadership of our senior members, these less experienced members would be in trouble. They know when its time to reach out and check on the newer members after they have had to do something that the movies didn’t cover. And no matter how many times you are returning home after a call how important it is to hug your wife or husband, girlfriend or boyfriend, and children. Because they will never know how close you came to not coming home after that call. Why? Because we wouldn’t ever tell them. We’d hate for them to worry about us, or even worse, beg us to stop.
We are a group that bickers and complains to each other. We are a group of cliques. We will always be that way. That’s what families are though. Look around at your next family get together if you don’t believe me. It will always be that way. The day that 21 people can sit around a giant grey table and not have some disagreements is the day things stop getting done. You need someone who doesn’t want to spend money on a new axe just because the other one was dull. You need someone with a vision of a bright future. You also need someone who can put sunglasses on them and explain why, maybe this isn’t a good idea for today.
Most importantly though, every one of our members, are there because of the goodness in their heart. They want to help people, they want to teach children, and yes, they want to drive the big red truck. The saddest day is when the desire to help gets muddled by the inability to do it anymore. When you run into a former member and they start to tell you stories about the years before you were on. You see it in their eyes. I’ve heard voices crack when these tough men and women start to discuss calls from twenty years ago. Yet they continued to respond until they physically couldn’t do it anymore. They still are good people, as well. You never know when your cup will over-fill and you can’t emotionally walk into another house. You don’t know when your back will give out and you can’t physically do this anymore. You do know though, when you speak to those that came before us, that the desire is hard to stop.
So, this holiday season when you see those blue lights in your rear view. Move over. It is not Santa coming through. It’s a good man or woman just trying to help someone who is having the worst day of their life.
If you’d like to join us, please stop by and see us. We are always looking for good people.
Happy Holidays
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