A great heart felt story about a My Nephew’s Fire Department Retirement party. i am very proud of him and al firemen and firewomen. So I went on a nice trip to Las Vegas to attend the party for my nephew Jason’s retirement from the Las Vegas Fire department. His final position was as a captain. When he was promoted to Captain, he was the youngest Captain in the Vegas Fire Department. This was a nice event and half the room were fireman that he had worked with during his career.
I was thinking about how he got started in the profession. Like many people he wanted to be a fireman but most of us go a different way. Danger Commitment and other challenges that are a little more then most professions. I remembered that he had to move from California to get into the school (or Program) for training to be a Fireman. My father, his grandfather obviously passed away while Jason was living in Florida. They were close and my Nephew was definitely torn in his heart. Jason called me up and said that he could not get away from his school program because the test was coming up and Jason felt bad about missing the funeral. I reassured him that Grandpa would be Extremmely unhappy if he missed that test has Grandpa was very proud to have a real fireman in the family.
My dad had been a “Fireman” but that was on a Railroad engine. The “Co-Pilot” on a train was called fireman because of the steam engine era when the “Fireman” shoveled coal and controlled the fire used to make them steam. The name stuck into the Diesel era so my was a fireman until he became an Engineer and ran the train engine.
The one family incident that happened in Vegas that was connected to my nephew was the day mo mother fell on the sidewalk outside the casino door. She mis stepped on the curb with her bad leg and she fell to the ground. Right away she knew she okay but we had her sit down till the casino people came out. Boy they had a few people come out afraid of a lawsuit but were not lawsuit people and she was good and she slipped, but they were out there in numbers. Well anyways they called out the paramedics, to the Casino’s credit and they were genuinely nice.
When the paramedics showed up they of course took her blood pressure and checked her legs. While they were taking her pressure the lady paramedic looked at my mother and asked “Don’t I know you”.
“Yes you ate dinner at my house last week” my mom answered. “I’m Captain Senior’s grandmother and you came to my house with your crew last week.”
Boy she got the royal treatment after that. Not the paramedics aren’t good to everyone. Whenever the other fireman came first thing, they said was this is Captain Senior’s grandma, too funny. But they were great, and she was healthy and good.
Well, I kinda rambled away with the story. But it was good to get a couple nice stories told related to his being a fireman. The ceremony was pretty simple since this was not the official ceremony just a private one. The first thing of course was Jason introducing me and my brother His Proud father, around the room to meet everyone. I met his new wife for the first time on this trip. Well first his wife got up to say her piece and of course everyone else went in line to say things and memories they shared with Jason. That is always a great feature of newer style ceremonies having regular friends and family speak more than professionals speakers. And Then Cake, Wow. Shaped like a fire helmet on top of a fire house. The fire hose felt like an actual hose. The texture was absolutely awesome.
When it was my turn, I told how proud to have a fireman in the family, which they all could relate to and then told the story of my mother. I forgot one thing. I was going to go back up but by then they had started the video tribute. So I had to tell Jason and his wife what I had forgot to say. That was how proud the grandfather that never saw it was. His grandfather knew he was trying to become a fireman as I told the story earlier.
After we all said our piece they ran the video tribute with fireman, family and pictures of travelling and vacations. The standard video show, but it was extremely awesome. They also had set up a great display with pictures, newspaper stories and awards in an incredible display. Then it was just hang out and talk for the rest of the night. It was a great trip and a fantastic ceremony. I got to meet his wife say great things about him and meet a lot of nice and incredible people not least the firemen.
But it was an awesome trip and we had a great time. We did not even gamble while we were in Vegas. Oh I forgot my brother went down in the morning to the desk and he told me he went to the crap table for a little while. I had forgotten that but for the most party to busy. So 2 men born in Los Angeles went to Vegas had a great time and did not gamble. Think of that one.