Latest / Full Spectrum Cycling / Chewey’s Salon Chair #13 – Fireman, Hockey God, Poor Cyclist, Chuck Solseth with Spinner and Brad

Transcript

Chewey’s Salon Chair #13 – Fireman, Hockey God, Poor Cyclist, Chuck Solseth with Spinner and Brad · Full Spectrum Cycling

• 0:00
  [rock music] All right, here we go.
• 0:30
  Chewy's Salon Chair, uh, podcast number... Are we allowed to say 13? No. Oh, fuck. We're probably in trouble already. Hasn't been that many. [laughs] Unlucky 13, huh? So how's it going, guys?
• 0:40
  [laughs] Uh, with me tonight, uh, in the, uh, salon chair, Chuck Salseth, one of our hockey/firefighter/occasional bike rider friends. Uh, with his new microphone is Brad Bergy.
• 0:53
  Uh, and in a few seconds, Spinner's gonna be calling in, but we're not gonna wait for him. We're gonna get started right away. Oh, yes, here we go. [laughs] And we're off. Um, um, Chuck is...
• 1:07
  We decided to have Chuck come and sit in with us today. He's a retired firefighter of 30-ish years, 25 here in town. Forever. Yeah. I did not know until you...
• 1:17
  you were at your retirement party that I met you, like, lit- literally the first week you were here. The first week, uh, I showed up.
• 1:23
  In fact, uh, Rick Lovett's the one that hired me, and I think the first question I had to him is, "Is there a men's league hockey team?"
• 1:30
  [laughs] And I was playing down with the Waterloo guys that you guys always play with.
• 1:34
  And, uh, and he pointed me in your direction, and I'd say you're one of the first guys I made contact with, you, Keith Dickman, uh, Ron Vaughn, and, uh, [laughs] Jeff Lucy- Uh-huh...
• 1:45
  all of those guys way back in the day- Mm... when we were these, probably our early... Well, I was in my, what, mid-30s. And, and it's, it's, it's depressing to say that's my younger days.
• 1:56
  [laughs] I don't, I don't think we need to stroke Chewy's ego any longer here. [laughs] Uh, no, this is fine. [laughs] Just continue on. It's okay.
• 2:04
  Um, and the reason we had him out here is because he retired, and he's a retired firefighter. And he's an okay hockey player, but he's got- [laughs]... fucking hilarious hockey stories and fire station stories.
• 2:15
  And before we actually started this, we were debating, or we, I was asking, "So what actually can you tell us about?"
• 2:21
  Because, um, the three of us play hockey together on Sunday nights, and we go sit up at the p- pub, and Chuck starts telling stories about, I don't know, fire trucks going down the road sideways and, and, uh, all the- Dead people in, uh, apartment houses with kids playing on them and- Great stories.
• 2:37
  Yeah. [laughs] Um, hang on just a sec. I got a call. This is cool. Hello? Can you hear me? What's going on here? Um, I can hear you in the background, but I'm hearing you. Let me call you and see if it works that way.
• 2:53
  Hold on a sec, bud. Technical difficulty. I think I did this last time, too. I hope you're good at editing 'cause- I'm-... you just fucked this all up... this is not, this is what Greg gets paid the big bucks for.
• 3:02
  [laughs] That's up. That should be great. Is that Spinner? Yeah. Yeah, that's two Seeing Ron with the technology is- [laughs]... absolutely frightening. 'Cause this, we- I know. I know.
• 3:13
  And seeing, you know, it's like seeing him play without a wood hockey stick. Yeah. [laughs] You know? Let's not push it here. It's impossible. Come on. [laughs] It's not that bad.
• 3:21
  Yeah, if you had goalie skills going over on that mixing board, we'd all be fucked. [laughs] Yeah, we, we wouldn't have got this far into a podcast. None of these podcasts would ever have reached anything.
• 3:30
  We'd miss a few things. Yeah. [laughs] Everything would go right between my legs. Sorry, Ron. Sorry. [laughs] Okay. Well, I still wouldn't hit it, so.
• 3:41
  I'm trying to call Spinner, so let's just continue on, and when he picks up, we'll go with it. Um, so anyway, back to what we were talking about. Um, I don't know where you want to start. [laughs] I like... Go ahead.
• 3:51
  You got something, Brad? With Chuck? Yeah. Oh, God. I don't, I don't... I'm just trying to figure out how to get him going.
• 3:57
  Like, like, when we're at the club and he starts telling stories, it's usually something that's happened, like the crazy little lady that came in and got the hots for him one time- Oh, Jesus...
• 4:06
  and how he got his nickname of- Yep... Big Daddy and- [laughs]... that kind of stuff, you know? [laughs] Well, I just, I think that, you know, I, when I started playing with, with your group, you know, that was the,
• 4:21
  the group of guys, and, and the one guy that always stood out was, was Big Daddy, you know?
• 4:26
  [laughs] And part of it is, you know, the, the big guy on the ice who's actually quite nimble, I'll give him that- Well, it's-... and, uh, a shot that could
• 4:34
  blow your leg off if you- Oh, I, I'm the guy in the nets- Yeah... that had to put up with that. It's, it's, uh, it's, it was, um, uh, at times frightening. Oh, yeah.
• 4:42
  At least, yeah, the only thing is, is you always had control of it. Yeah. Let's put it... I'll give you that anyway. Thank you. Yeah. Yep.
• 4:47
  And I know, uh, when back in 1999, I got hired in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I, I showed up there.
• 4:53
  And, and, uh, I remember pulling in the parking lot on my first day, and they, they're all Bohemians down there, little short guys, you know- [laughs]... you know, tough as hell.
• 5:00
  And, and, uh, so I, me and the guy from St. Cloud that got hired together, uh, Brian Jacquino, who's, uh, battalion chief down there to, to this day, um, we step out of the car, and here's what...
• 5:11
  The guy takes a draw on his cigarette. There's like a group of four of them out there. He goes, "Look at that big fucker."
• 5:17
  [laughs] That's the first thing I heard when I walked in, walked in, and- I think I said the same thing- [laughs]... when I stepped on the ice, and I'm like, "Who's the big fucking drink of water over here?"
• 5:26
  But, uh, the Big Daddy came much later, and I think, uh, we were, uh, well, we were up at the 63 Club having beers like we always do, and Jeff, Jeff Drew, my, and he's, who's been driving me for years, you know?
• 5:38
  So Jeff and I- Great guy, by the way. But like- Terrible hockey player... like, like I say, we've been together- [laughs]...
• 5:43
  longer than two of my marriages, so- And, and, and sadly, and sadly, we weren't able to get him to come on this. Yeah, he's a piece of work. That guy's, whoo. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's- He's a great guy. Yeah.
• 5:53
  He's nothing but pure entertainment going down the road, uh, and probably one of the best firefighters I've ever worked with. Yeah, I couldn't imagine working with a guy like him. Yeah. No, he's the real deal. Yeah.
• 6:01
  And, uh, um, I was, I was really lucky to have him as a f- have somebody working for me and as a friend. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that was more important.
• 6:10
  And, uh- You know, I, and I really saw it, uh, you know, we went into that, uh, structure fire where that lady and that, uh, kid were killed, and- Yeah... Jeff's the one that found both of them. Man. You know?
• 6:21
  And he's, it was just fire everywhere, and, and, uh, you couldn't see nothing. And as a matter of fact, he's yelling at me, "Hey, I got her. I got her."
• 6:27
  And I came over to help Jeff, you know, pull her to the window, and, uh, I grabbed on. The first thing I grabbed onto, and it was Jeff's arm. I started yanking on it. [laughs] Jeff says, "Let go of me. Grab her.
• 6:37
  Grab her." [laughs] Hang on a sec. Hang on a sec. [laughs] Hello? Are you there? Jesse? This isn't working this time. You should've tested this beforehand. We've done it before.
• 6:53
  I don't know why- Leave it to you to fuck it up. [laughs] Yeah, I'll take the blame for it. [laughs] I'll take the blame for it. That's always my fault. You'd fuck up a cup of coffee. Continue on.
• 7:02
  I'll see what I can do here. Yeah, getting, getting back to, to Jeff, you know, uh, that night at the... We walked up after hockey.
• 7:09
  We were walking in together, visiting, as we come up, and you know, we walk in the front door of the 63 Club, and he puts his hand up and stops me right there. And he goes, "You see that woman sitting at the bar?"
• 7:18
  He goes, "I've been in her apartment twice." [laughs] "Once she's having a seizure, and once it was on fire." Jesus. [laughs] And I, I left one little part out. I, I should re-quote him.
• 7:28
  He put his hand up to my chest and said, "See that woman sitting at the bar? She's a hooker." [laughs] "And, and I've been in her apartment twice." Wait a minute.
• 7:36
  [laughs] And how he- What was, what was your natural response? Like- I'm like, "Oh, really?" [laughs]... was it work-related?
• 7:42
  [laughs] So anyways, the g- the guys at the table right next to the door obviously hear Jeff say this, and I'm laughing and, and- [laughs]... and we're drinking our beers.
• 7:50
  Next thing you know, the guys got her tag and got her sitting at the table, and they're all, they're all chatting her up, and- Wow... and she's enjoying the attention, and- Yeah...
• 7:59
  and, uh, I'm a down, two tables down just staying away just 'cause Jeff told... It was, all I saw was trouble. Yeah. Sure. You know? Yep. So next thing I know, I hear- You heard hooker. Yeah.
• 8:08
  [laughs] Next thing I know, I hear, uh, I hear... I think it was, uh, it was Al or Tad or one of the two goes, "So look at all these nice guys here." He goes, "If you wanted any one of them, which one would you want?"
• 8:18
  And she stands up and points right at me. "I want big daddy right over there." [laughs] Did you oblige? [laughs] No, no, no. Sorry, man. No. [laughs] But he's never lost that moniker.
• 8:31
  Jesse- [laughs] Jesse, are you there now? I'm here. Yes. There you go. Oh, there he is. There he is. You know- Am I right? Yeah. So Jesse, uh, Chuck, you know, have you ever met Bergie? You ever met Brad?
• 8:42
  Um, I don't know. It's not important. I'm not important. It's not a big deal. And he's, he does have a, he does have a clunker, so we're, we, we'll slowly bring him into the group. All right.
• 8:50
  So anyway, Chuck is- Is this the guy that goes over the handlebars all the time? Yes. Yes, that's me. Yes, that's him. That's you. Okay. I don't, I don't ride often, but when I do...
• 8:57
  [laughs] So Chuck, just so you know, Jesse and I, you know, I think I'm pretty sure I've told you the story about how we- What, what's with the first name basis all of a sudden?
• 9:06
  Oh, shit, because, bec- Yeah, what the hell?... because, because certain people don't know you as Spinner, sorry. [laughs] What, and why- Okay... I gotta know, why is he called Spinner? Okay, Ronald. It... Who?
• 9:16
  [laughs] Ouch. [laughs] God. Well, we gotta get Bradley- 10 minutes-... and Charles here too if we're all-... 10, we're 10 minutes in and are already vicious.
• 9:23
  [laughs] This is not gonna be a good night, I can tell you that right now. Um, so Spinner's a volunteer fire department in Decorah. Yep. Um, so- Yeah... I figured the two of you can start telling stories.
• 9:34
  He's already told a couple, but, um, while I was- Oh, did... dicking around with the phone.
• 9:38
  When I was driving back and forth from, uh, s- from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis, you know, as my family was up there, I drove through Decorah, and I'm like, "I like this place. This is where I wanna work."
• 9:46
  And I called up their city hall and goes, "Yeah, you got any fire, you got full-time fire department here?" And they're like, "No, no, we got all volunteer. We don't have any career guys."
• 9:53
  And I'm like, "Damn it," 'cause that, that's... I, I love that town. It's beautiful. Well, there's... Well, we do have a few. I mean, we have three.
• 10:00
  We have engineers we call them, but there's three on call that are, like, at the station all the time, you know, doing all the, the truck maintenance, and they take the calls and do the dispatch and stuff like that.
• 10:08
  So we do have three full-time- Now, Spinner, now, Spinner, I'm probably dating myself because I probably made that call in, like, 1992 or 3, if I'm not mistaken. So- Geez...
• 10:17
  I don't know how far back your, uh, full-timers go, but, uh- Uh, yeah, I wasn't even born yet. I don't know. [laughs] Oh, th- thank you for that. [laughs] No, but, uh, yeah, I wasn't in Decorah yet, so I didn't- Well-...
• 10:28
  get here... I, I started college here in, uh, '99. Oh. That's how I came to town. But, but I grew up near Albert Lea, Glenville. And so- Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, I just, uh, the, uh...
• 10:38
  Yeah, it was a beautiful town down there, and, uh, I thought if, if, if, uh...
• 10:42
  I liked Iowa, and Cedar Rapids was nice, but, uh, yeah, I, I thought about making the change and tried to drop my name, but it, it didn't go anywhere, so... [laughs] No. Okay. [laughs] Yeah.
• 10:52
  I lived in Cedar Rapids for a while, too, but, uh, yeah, no fire. The city of five smells. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, the- Oh, Cedar Rapids... yeah, the, the d- I worked down at the central station down there.
• 11:02
  You could smell the Crunch Berries, uh, mixing over at, uh, Quaker Oats or, or- [laughs]... they were forming, uh, you had the plastic smell from them forming, I think it was bathtubs or something at the plastic plant.
• 11:12
  And- Oh, boy. Yep... and then they had- Yeah... the, the bean processing and, and corn processing all over. So that, the, the town just... Yeah, there were smells all over the place.
• 11:21
  And a guy from Minneapolis, boy, I was out of my element. But, uh- Yeah. Yeah. Well, I lived on the, the north side, and I worked at Aegon on the south side. Oh.
• 11:28
  So I used to, I ride the bike trail through town, and I got every one of those five smells every day, including- [laughs]... the, the, the Mount Trashmore. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Is that the, the dump up in the middle of town?
• 11:37
  Yep, yep. The south side. I think they tried to take... They were talking about making that into a ski slope at one point. It, it was so big.
• 11:43
  [laughs] Leave it, leave, leave it to Cedar Rapids, you know, the city of five seasons, so... [laughs] Should we, uh, Brett- There might be bike trails on there now. It's really late, Brett.
• 11:51
  [laughs] Sorry, guys, I'm talking. No, no, this is- This is great. This is great...
• 11:55
  this is, this is exactly why I wanted to make sure Spinner was available because I knew it was gonna turn into, to- Turn into the- That's fireman talk. Yeah.
• 12:01
  You know, it's funny 'cause Cedar Rapids, like, brings back memories for me. I mean, I'm not a firefighter or anything cool like that, but my grandparents lived outside of Mount Vernon. Okay.
• 12:11
  So in order, in order to get there, we drove through CR. Oh, yeah. And it was always... You know, you guys say the five smells things.
• 12:17
  It brings back, uh- Brings back some pretty good memories driving through- Well, I was a-... old CR. I was a new guy.
• 12:24
  I mean, a new f- I was, that was my first firefighting job down there, and I didn't know the town from everything. You know how confusing that town is? Yeah. It's not laid out in grids or anything like that.
• 12:31
  Well, it's a shithole. It all, it all goes off the river. [laughs] Why- Off the river, and- Oh, I was gonna say, there's a river that runs through it...
• 12:37
  yeah, so e- yeah, so everything's based off there, so man, I had a hell of a time.
• 12:40
  And right down there, you, once you got, uh, you got past your probation, they'd have you drive right away, and holy sh- trying to be a guy from- Oh, wow... yeah, it was, it was brutal.
• 12:50
  Thank God I had understanding guys that would watch out for me and help me, help me get where I needed to go and, and- And that was, uh, before GPS and everything too, right? Put it this way, Spinner.
• 12:59
  Um, the captain had the only radio on the truck. All of us guys had no radios whatsoever, so you better- Oh, man... stick close to the captain. Oh, shit.
• 13:06
  You know, nowadays everybody's got their own radio and, and all, all that good stuff, so- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't mean to change gears here. Uh, the stories are great.
• 13:16
  I was kind of thinking firefighting stuff, and I, I had read, uh, one of your most recent articles. Spinner, I don't know if you know Chuck's gotten a lot of media attention with his retirement recently.
• 13:27
  Um, but one of the cool things that I read was, or was kind of picking up on in the last article, I think it was in the Post- Yeah... um, was about, you know,
• 13:40
  the job and, and some of the hazards of the job, and I think a lot of the firefighters, you know, pick up on it.
• 13:46
  And, um, I just always, it, right away I thought of a question, and I always think of you and, and Jeff Drew just being veteran firefighters. Like, what, what areas or what things would you
• 14:01
  do differently nowadays if you were having your knowledge nowadays? Oh, it's, it's changed, it's changed so much.
• 14:09
  I mean, I don't know if you know that, uh, I'll just, my background here, I had to retire because I got, uh, uh, diagnosed with cancer. Yeah. And cancer's really prevalent in the fire service. Right.
• 14:18
  And you know, when you're young, you know, 35, late 20s, you know, when, like I was back down in, in s- you don't really think about it, and all of a sudden at the end of your career when you're looking at retiring and doing something, and boom, something like this happened.
• 14:30
  But it's more common in the fire service than it is in, in some other professions. But things have changed as far as- A lot of carcinogens. Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:38
  Yeah, the, the d- the way we're making things nowadays, i- you know, the old days everything was made out of wood and, and wood products, and now it's a lot of plastics. Plastics, sure. And that's all...
• 14:46
  And Spinner, you know about that. You know, and there, the fires are just- Oh, yeah... more toxic and more hot now, and they're- Right... faster burning and, and that type of thing.
• 14:54
  But, uh- Right, yeah, the fuel's different for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it used to be the old, they, they, guys used to take pride in being smoke eaters and stuff like that, and then be like, you don't do that anymore.
• 15:04
  [laughs] Well, I just pulled out my Riverland training helmet, and that thing's black and melted and I wore that with a thing of pride for a long time, and I'm lucky I don't got brain cancer for- Sure...
• 15:13
  you know, th- those are the hard things you clean up, but that's, that's where we've gone from. We've gone from not cleaning our gear to now we have two sets of gear.
• 15:20
  And I don't know what you do down there in, in Decorah, but we have two sets of gear.
• 15:23
  You go to a structure fire, that gear comes off you, it goes right in to be cleaned in the, in the laundry, and you pull out your second set and go. So they're trying to cut down the exposure to this stuff by- Sure...
• 15:33
  by, uh, by, by that. Other than, what's more important is, or not more important, but the, the biggest change for me was is how we attack fires. And I remember showing- Mm-hmm...
• 15:43
  up, they, they would tell us to get inside, crawl underneath the, not upset the smoke balance, crawl underneath the fire, underneath the smoke, get in it until you get right to the seat of the fire, and then put a little water on it and it, it would do it.
• 15:54
  But keep in mind that fire is growing, and half the time it's going across the top of the ceiling, it's ra- ra- radiating down.
• 16:00
  You'd crawl in, get a little ways, and realize you're burning, and you'd have to flow a little water.
• 16:04
  And, uh, so we've gone from fighting fires like that where they're pushing you in without doing any type of water application, and, you know, that's what, that's how they were training us, to now we'll- Mm-hmm...
• 16:15
  kick a door open, you see if you're picking up heat, you give it a drink, cool the thing off, then press in, you know? And then if you start feeling a little heat, cool it off with the line and move in.
• 16:23
  I'm not sure if that's how you guys are doing it down in Decorah, but, uh, we've... You know, there's really no reason to be in the room where the fire is. It's a room away, you know? And- Right...
• 16:32
  let, let the stream reach out to it and, and do the work. You don't have to, you don't have to be in on top of it. I mean, I remember being in in fires and, you know, well, we'd crawl in.
• 16:41
  You went to, well, there's no reason to apply water, but they, they weren't that big. You'd just snuff them out with your hands rather than put water on it. [laughs] But, uh, but, uh, yeah.
• 16:48
  But now- I haven't been in many of those, no. No. [laughs] But I mean, we're using ventilation now. We'll, we'll get a, a flow path through the house.
• 16:55
  I know Rochester's a big, uh, horizontal ventilation, uh, uh, department. Mm-hmm. And I don't know what, uh, De- a lot of departments around here are vertical.
• 17:04
  They wanna cut a hole in the roof, and the problem I have with it, you know, roof construction now is so lightweight that y- we don't have the time to be up there anymore. So we've- Mm-hmm...
• 17:12
  gone into taking windows on the, you know, finding the fire, taking the fire room and pressurizing away from it so that you get an airflow going out, taking the heat and the smoke out, and then, then we, then we, you know, progress in after we've got a ventilation plan established.
• 17:26
  So- Okay... you know, those are some of the big changes that we've done. Well, I know, like, so I was off for, uh, like 10 years and I'm back on now, but, uh, last night we did a fire drill.
• 17:36
  We got a great training center down here where we actually, uh, took the, uh, the cargo box, the semi- Yep... trailer cargo boxes. Yep. We stacked those three high, and then there's two on the side to act as a garage.
• 17:47
  And- Yep... um, the, we're big on, now we are, on isolation. So if we find a fire in a room, shut the door. Sure.
• 17:54
  And so we do, um, you know, to, to lock it in 'cause we've done, you know, we've had a full on fire with a, you know, a door going in between two cargo containers.
• 18:04
  You shut the door and that fire, you, you can save minutes in the other room. Wow. You know? And, uh, we do that a thing. If, if there's somebody in the place, they're actually, the guys are going in before the hose.
• 18:14
  So there's guys going in to rescue without a hose- Sure... while the hose is getting hooked up, and then, you know, come back out and then fight the fire, make sure that we're looking for victims first.
• 18:22
  Well, 11 years on the truck company, that's what Jeff and I did. We, and, and my firefighter, we had no hose line. We w- we would, we would advance in and, and go in and try to find people.
• 18:31
  That, that's, that's what our job was on the, on the aerial truck. And the engines would do the fire attack- We, we had-... but we were doing, we were doing rescue, but we didn't have a hand line or anything like that.
• 18:38
  It was- Do you have a can? Uh- No, we, we never bring a can. We just bring some tools with us basically, and, uh- Oh, really?
• 18:46
  And I know, I know now they're getting to the point where we're carrying the water cans and that type of thing. But, uh, it wasn't a big thing when, when I was, uh, when I was developing my skills, I guess.
• 18:56
  The water can wasn't a, a, as a u- um, something that we, we really generally pulled out unless it was an overhaul. But now, I know now in the truck we converted over to, uh, pressurized water cans.
• 19:07
  Basically it's a water can with the air pressure force it out, so you can go in. You can fight a lot of fire with that. Sure. And that's only... What, what is that?
• 19:14
  What is it, Spinner, what, three gallons or something like that, or? Something like that, yeah. Yeah. It's not... Like, it's a bigger than a fire extinguisher- Yeah... but it's not as big as a five-gallon bucket.
• 19:23
  So you can still move it around. Right. And if you need to drop it, you can. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's...
• 19:28
  Yeah, overhaul, I bet a lot of people don't know what overhaul is, but that's after the fire is typically out, or we think it's out, you go in and you tear the walls and then the insulation to make sure there's no fire burning or no hot spots still in there, right?
• 19:41
  That's the same- Right. Exactly. But incidentally, then that's where we generally drop our guard. We'll be in there, that smoldering stuff, that's the worst. Sure.
• 19:48
  But you're hot and tired, so you pull your face piece off, you just start breathing that stuff in. And, uh- Yeah... and that's where we can't, we can't be doing that anymore, so. Yeah.
• 19:57
  Well, like you said, that's, that's, uh, the worst thing today is that, yeah, that plastic, ev- all your furniture, like your flooring, you know, the laminate floor that you have- Yeah... everything in the house.
• 20:06
  Paint is even, you know, anything that burns when it gets that hot. Yeah. Blinds, those windows with vinyl. And then, uh, most of the...
• 20:13
  We've had a few, you know, uh, victims down here that didn't make it out, and the figure is that most of it is the gases that they breathe- Oh, yeah... in. Yeah, definitely. Instead of...
• 20:21
  You know, nobody ever dies of being burnt. It was, it was the toxic fumes of the smoke. Yeah. Yeah. So you ever been burnt in a fire? I haven't. Nope. I, I...
• 20:31
  My very first fire here in Rochester, okay, and our training was so good. It was so fantastic.
• 20:36
  'Cause basically you, you showed up at, uh, at, uh, City Hall, they'd say, "Go out to station four and, and, uh, you're gonna train with them." And we'd show up at station four, they'd say, "Who the hell are you?"
• 20:46
  And we're, we're the new rookies. He goes, and they- Oh... all they wanna do is have coffee and visit and have breakfast. It's like showing up, it's like showing up to Sunday night hockey. It is, yeah.
• 20:53
  [laughs] Yeah, yeah. So, so they go, "Well, go on back and read your book." And then about 11:00 they decide to come out, and granted, lunch started at 11:30, so you didn't get much time. All right? Uh-huh.
• 21:03
  But the, the, and the bottom line was back in the day, and it's changed immensely, we have a rookie academy now that is, is fantastic, so. But back in the day it was not the best.
• 21:12
  So I, in the eight weeks that I was in my, our training academy, I had my SCBA on once. And when I was in Cedar Rapids, I operated an MSA SCBA, and here we use Scotts, which is just a different kind, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 21:25
  Um, but I only used it once. The, that day I came out, they all were going to get their EMT training. I already had my EMT, and so I had to stay back with the engine and the captain and the driver.
• 21:34
  And they said, uh, "Yeah, you're on the engine today, and, uh, you won't normally be."
• 21:39
  They'll, they put the new guys over on the truck, you know, as support, but, uh, you, we're gonna use you on the engine today while they're in class.
• 21:45
  Well, lo and behold, we get a f- structure fire at 10:00, and we go wheeling down there, and I'm sitting in the back riding backwards in, in the old auto car Pope mobile they called it- [laughs]...
• 21:54
  'cause it looked like a big box with windows on it.
• 21:56
  And, um, I'm sitting there trying to figure out how to get my Scott SCBA on and operational and, and I, I get the face piece on and, and I'm just so worried I go, uh, I yell up to the captain, I go, "Are we gonna be first in?"
• 22:07
  He goes, "No, engine two should be in." And, and I'm like, "Oh, good." You know, that get, buys me a little time, 'cause we're, I don't have to worry about pulling a line and, and, and, you know, initiating an attack.
• 22:16
  Well- Mm-hmm... and then the next statement I hear out of him, "Where the hell is engine two going? They turned the wrong way and took off." [laughs] So the...
• 22:22
  We're first in, so we pull up in this garage, the gra- the aluminum garage door is, like, melting off the thing. So I pull the line, they charge it, and the captain's making his report.
• 22:30
  I take my boot and I, I fold the garage door in. I'm gonna stick the nozzle in, in, you know, through the crack in the door, just give it a drink and slow it down. And the cap says, "Come with me." And he, he goes...
• 22:39
  I g- and, uh, and he goes, "Follow me." So we go around the side of the garage, and there's a window there, and the fire's jetting out, like eight feet. I mean, that's how much fire...
• 22:48
  I mean, there was no sheet rock in there. So it was just all totally involved. And not into the house, 'cause it was a attached garage at the time. Oh, wow. You know.
• 22:56
  So we duck under the fire, drag the hose line around, and we get to the back entry door, and he goes, "Here's where we're gonna make our attack." And I said, "Okay."
• 23:03
  And, uh, and I, I get down at the door, I give it a drink, and I press in, and all of a sudden my face just starts burning.
• 23:10
  Well, my face piece was on, but my flash hood, I, I didn't have it all the way up onto the face piece, so my, my cheeks were showing in there. Oh. [laughs] And, uh, so I stop, and I'm like, "Shit, I'm burning."
• 23:21
  And I, I start to back up, and, and the captain at the time was Mike Toogood, starts pushing on me.
• 23:25
  And, and this guy, I, you know, I'm a s- I'm 6'4", and, and Mike Toogood was, I swear, 5'3" at the best, on his good day, you know? [laughs] And so he starts pushing me in, like, like, "Get in there."
• 23:38
  And I turn around and, and granted, I was a little salt- Your baby chin in his belly, yeah. [laughs] Yeah. I was a little saltier from being in Cedar Rapids. I turn to him and I go, "Quit fucking pushing me."
• 23:47
  And he goes, "Well, get in there." [laughs] And I go, "I'm burning, for God's sakes." And, uh, he goes, "Oh, oh, okay." So we back out, and I, I, I fix my face piece and I go, "You ready?" And he goes, "Yeah."
• 23:56
  And we go back in and we knock the fire down. We get the fire knocked down and, and it, now it's going into overhaul.
• 24:02
  We step back out in the backyard, I take my face piece off and I go, "What the hell are you pushing me for?" And he goes, "Well, you're the new guy. I didn't want you to fail on your first fire.
• 24:09
  I wanted you to make the fire attack." I go, "But I was burning." And I had a big blister running right down the side of my cheek. [laughs] And he goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah."
• 24:16
  I go, "Well, as a matter of fact," he goes, "look at my ear." And his ear was all blistered up. He burned too. [laughs] And, and, uh, from that day forward, you know, I was the brand new...
• 24:26
  From that day forward, I was his firefighter. Nice. Oh, okay. And they always joked that, you know, Mike never took any heat 'cause he'd tuck in underneath my air pack and- Well, no shit. [laughs]...
• 24:34
  follow be- follow behind me. Well, Jesus. Cast a shadow there. [laughs] Huh? 6'4" big daddy. Well, yeah, big daddy. Not a big deal. Big daddy, and then... Well, Jeff is the same way. Drew is like- 5'2"- Yeah...
• 24:45
  116 Oh, he's ta- he's taller than that, but, uh- Not next to you he's not [laughs] But- Everybody's 5'3" next to Chuck. True. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that- Yeah... that Big Daddy thing w- was funny.
• 24:58
  You know, a- did you hear that story, Spinner, yet? No. That was funny. Well, we, we were walking the 60, and my driver, I mean, he drove me for years. In fact, I grew up in St. Louis Park, and he grew up in Minneapolis.
• 25:08
  I bet you we were... And we're the same age. I bet you we might have played hockey against each other up in the Cities as kids in the, in the p- in the public league back in- Oh, probably. Yeah... or the, you know. Yeah.
• 25:17
  But, uh- Back in, like, 19-fucking-40. Leather helmets. We're talking 1973, 4. [laughs] That's so nice to throw that out there 'cause everybody pulls that fucking shit on me. Now you got it. Yeah. It's awesome.
• 25:28
  So but, but then we s- we go walking in the front door, and he sticks his hand up, and he goes, he goes, "You see that woman sitting at the bar? She's a hooker, and I've been in her apartment twice."
• 25:37
  And I'm like, "What?" We're like, "Whoa." And, and he goes, "Once, once she was having a seizure, and once it was on fire." Like- We're like, "Yeah, seizure. Okay, true." Yeah. So, but- [laughs]...
• 25:47
  but the guys heard it at the table, and, and, uh, so we go around, and we're having beers. I'm at the other end 'cause I want nothing to do with it.
• 25:53
  And nev- it never fails, a bunch of the hockey guys get her over at the table chatting her up at the other end. And, and, uh- [laughs]...
• 25:59
  I'm having my beer, talking hockey, I'm sure, and all business with the guys, you know, no jokes or nothing. But, uh, next thing I know, I hear, uh, I hear one of the guys, I think it was Warzala, goes- Oh, yeah...
• 26:09
  "So look at all these guys here. Which one do you want?" She jumps right up and points right at me. "I want Big Daddy right over there." [laughs] And it's like, holy shit. Nickname initiated. Yep. Yeah.
• 26:18
  And then the next week, I didn't think anything of it, but I, I pick up the puck in the corner of Graham One. I come all the way across, scoot across the bench, and there it goes w- Warzala goes, "Go, Big Daddy."
• 26:27
  [laughs] [laughs] And that almost stopped me in my tracks, so. It's th- and, and now Spinner wants to come to Rochester to be a fireman. [laughs] Yes, he does. Yes, he does.
• 26:37
  Actually, we got a guy, we got a wrestler up there that's trying to get on. I can't remember if he's in Rochester or, uh, Minneapolis. Uh- No, the, well, they're living in- Or, oh yeah, you, you met him... Yeah...
• 26:45
  he was at, bartending that night. Yeah. He was, he was bartending at your place, but now he's, he lives in Rochester 'cause his girlfriend or somebody l- is, is at Mayo. Yeah.
• 26:56
  And, and I think, I think he got on at the fire department up in Minneapolis. I'm not sure which one. Oh, okay. I don't, I think, I kind of want to think he's in Minneapolis, so- All right...
• 27:03
  it would be with some of the guys we played hockey with, right? Well, I think- Could be. Oh, yeah, up in- Yeah...
• 27:08
  inj- I think he injured his knee or something, so I think he was maybe that got put on hold for a little bit. But, um- Well, we've got visitors. Yeah. He's n- Oh, boy. Here we go. Look at this.
• 27:18
  We, we've never had this before. We actually have an audience. Yeah. That's crazy. And she's got, and she's got a bushel basket- Jesus... of vodka. Oh my God. [laughs] That is a gallon- Is that not-...
• 27:28
  that is a gallon of Costco vodka. That's good stuff, though, isn't it? It's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I even, I even brought that for you.
• 27:36
  [laughs] Well, uh, Spinner, we, we were even talking about you last night at hockey 'cause, you know, when I was down in Cedar Rapids, it was all wrestling. And, uh- Oh, yeah... I, I remember, uh, being in there.
• 27:46
  They'd ask me what sport I played. They always thought I played basketball. I said, "No, I played hockey," and they didn't have any hockey down there. But, uh, the one- Oh, yeah...
• 27:52
  the one little bohemian guy looks at me and goes, "You must have sucked." [laughs] And I'm like, "Why would you say that?" 'Cause he goes, "'Cause you got all your teeth." Yeah. [laughs] Hang on.
• 28:02
  Boy, isn't he a strong- Yeah... character? I, I couldn't argue- He fucked up. Yeah, yeah... couldn't argue with that. Yeah. But that was the biggest... All right, who's tougher, the hockey players or the wrestlers? Yeah.
• 28:10
  Well, Spinner, if you ever needed, like, a, you know, a little love from a male guy, you know, Ron's definitely gonna be your guy 'cause he's up here talking Spinner all the time. [laughs] Yeah, that's true. And me.
• 28:22
  I haven't even met you, and I'm- Sorry, I'm trying. It was, yeah, 'cause I used to work at Mayo, and Ron told you how I got kicked out of the house, right? In the Muslim- Yeah. Everybody's heard that story 100 times.
• 28:30
  Yeah, we heard that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ro- Ron- I thought about trying it a few times. I don't know if I'm coordi- coordinated enough to skate, but- [laughs] Well, we can figure it out. But th- they'd always get into me.
• 28:39
  You know, they'd give me shit about, you know, being a hockey player, and why would I do that? Why don't you do a real man's sport like wrestling? Oh, boy. Well- So that's a Iowa thing, right? You know, y- yeah.
• 28:47
  Oh, yeah... it's wrestling and football. Oh, yeah, they're all beasts down there, too. Oh, yeah, man. You know, I don't know where Minnesota gets all their wrestlers, but, uh, you know- They probably move.
• 28:53
  They're the sucky- Yeah... ones from Iowa. Yeah, probably. But, uh- They moved up...
• 28:57
  they, I, I'd get just tons of shit from them guys, and I finally figured out my best recourse was is g- "You know, I'm pretty sure in hockey I never had to smell a man's crotch before."
• 29:05
  [laughs] And that, that would, that would end the conversation right then, r- right then and there. [laughs] Oh, that's funny. Well, it depends on who you're talking to. That could make it worse, but yeah. Yeah.
• 29:15
  Spinner, were you a wrestler? Yeah. Yeah. You don't, you don't know him? All right. You, oh, you don't know- Bill. What's that? He's, he's, like, well-known national champion. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:28
  Back in the day. I have a, I have a- 20 years. [laughs] I mean, that's awes- I haven't met Spinner yet, but, uh, Ron does enough stroking off of, uh, Spinner that I feel like I'm- Oh my gosh...
• 29:37
  I'm partially attracted to you. [laughs] I'm sure it's all justified. [laughs] No, but I remember, uh, well, we, we had a few national tournaments when they came to Iowa. The last one,
• 29:48
  uh, was in Waterloo, and actually it was in the hockey rink in Waterloo. Oh, yeah. That hockey rink. Yeah, I can't remember what they're called.
• 29:56
  But, uh, yeah, but they put the mats on the ice 'cause it was, it was, hockey season was still going on. And so they put plywood down, and then they put the mats down. Oh, no way. Those mats, they were so fucking cold.
• 30:06
  In- Oh my God... in Owatonna. In Owatonna, right? No, I'm talking about Waterloo, Iowa. Waterloo. O- Owatonna does the same thing. Yeah, that's an Owatonna thing.
• 30:13
  They- Well, the Owatonna Open, yeah, that's one of the, one of the tournaments... yeah, they set the, they set the hockey rink down, and they, they wrestle on top of it. Yeah. There's like 16 mats or something.
• 30:20
  It, like, it's huge. But yeah, I think they, they leave the ice. They leave the ice underneath, and they have, like, something that they put over the top, and then they put the mats on there.
• 30:27
  But- Yeah, I remember- Yeah...
• 30:29
  I, I got out of the Navy in, uh, '89, and I, I was, when I was going to school at Normal, they had a club team So we went, I, I joined the club team, and I was gonna see some real hockey, and boy did I ever.
• 30:40
  [laughs] Um, so [laughs] I remember, I think we was... It was Gustavus or St. Cloud. We went and played, like, their JV guy, and every guy was as big as me. And, you know, on ice- [laughs]...
• 30:48
  I'm probably, with skates on, I'm pushing almost seven feet. Yep. You know? Or- Seven foot four... or 6, 6'8", 9 or whatever. 10-foot long stick. But, uh, I, I...
• 30:57
  So I'm third line forward, believe it or not, and, uh, uh, and, uh, all of a sudden the guys come off the bench, they're getting their asses kicked, 'cause every one of those guys is as big as me and can, can skate faster than me, and, uh, can stick handle better than...
• 31:09
  And they're as big as me. And, and, uh, so my guy comes off the ice and screams, "Wing," and I hop off, and the puck comes to my, into my skate.
• 31:17
  So I, I catch it in my skate, I'm gonna kick it forward, and I just get freight trained by some dude coming by, I mean, full speed. I mean, my shit was everywhere. And my, and the- Yard sale... and it, yeah.
• 31:27
  And as a matter of fact- [laughs]... he broke my shoulder and I didn't know it at the time. Ooh. But I, I fought that for, for years. I hit the ice so hard.
• 31:33
  But I stood up and I went, "Wing," and I went right back on the bench. [laughs] Um, since you're telling hockey stories, you wanna tell about your junior tryouts? Ooh, yeah, this is a good one. Oh, Jesus.
• 31:44
  [laughs] All right. Well, yeah, right out, right out of high school, you know, Dad's like, "What are you gonna do?" And I wasn't sure what I wanted to go to school for, and, you know, I wasn't like...
• 31:52
  You know, I played in a good t- you know, the old Lake South up there. I saw a lot of good hockey players, and I was probably mediocre at the best. And I think, uh, uh, Sean Podin put it the best.
• 32:02
  He used to coach up there. That's where, that's where even the mediocre get to play varsity, you know- [laughs]... in the, in, in that town. And, you know, and the, I, I guess it's... You know, that's a hard, hard truth.
• 32:11
  But in the day, I mean, we were playing against Edina and Jefferson and all of that. So, you know, I kinda thought I was something, so I was gonna, I was gonna try out and, and the, and go play hockey someplace.
• 32:21
  Well, you know, no college is calling, so I know the Tempco Junior Stars were playing over in Golden Valley, so I went over there in the spring and met up with the guy.
• 32:29
  And the guy had a, I mean, it was just like right out of the movies. He had a afro. It was a white guy with a afro, like I've never seen. Like the guy that does the painting. What's that guy's name? Bob Ross. Bob Ross.
• 32:38
  Bob R- it was, it was the Bob Ross of hockey. Spinners and clutch. [laughs] I mean, he had a fro. Uh, it was just impressive. [laughs] And he played without a helmet or, you know, no mask.
• 32:46
  And here I show up, I got my cage on, right out of high school. And he go, "Yeah, yeah, you play r- you know, play here all summer and then we'll have tryouts in the, tryouts in the fall."
• 32:55
  [laughs] And, uh, and lo and behold, you know, over, I'm playing, having fun playing hockey with those guys. I mean, it's, you know, they're n- it's just a bunch of adult guys playing hockey.
• 33:04
  And then all of a sudden- What?... these guys start showing up, you know, that look a little tougher, you know, that they look probably been in the league.
• 33:11
  So they show up in, like, August to skate a couple times before they go to tryouts in September. So- The guys that show up with, like, chains on their knuckles, punching trees and shit. [laughs] Yeah.
• 33:20
  But with this one guy, this one guy shows up- Warming up Slapshot all over again. Yeah, right. [laughs] It, it, it was basically like that. But there was one guy shows up, and this guy is bigger than me.
• 33:29
  I mean, I have never seen anybody so big. That's a huge bitch. You know, [laughs] yeah, if you went, if you... [laughs] Yeah. But, uh, and I was like, "Well, okay."
• 33:37
  And he's quiet or whatever, and so we, we, I, I think I skate once with him before tryouts.
• 33:42
  So we go to tryouts over at the Bloomington Ice Gardens, and he blows the whistle, the guy with the big afro, and, uh, we all get to the middle. And he goes, "All right, inter squad scrimmage.
• 33:51
  Anybody backs down from a fight, you're out of here." And I'm like, you know, right out of high school, you know, a fight- Ooh, power... and I'm like, "Fight? What? Did I hear that right?"
• 33:57
  [laughs] And I look around to everybody else, and they're all, they're all off and, you know, getting ready to play and fight or whatever they're gonna do. I, uh, you know, I'm 18, you know?
• 34:06
  And, uh, sure enough, this guy they called Kong. Um- [laughs]... and he was- Yep, you're getting it... he was 6'8" [laughs]... 6'9".
• 34:14
  But anyways, um, he was playing forward, I was playing defense, so I mixed it up with him in the front of the net. And I remember my face mask was hitting him right in the, right in the chest. Right, right in the chest.
• 34:25
  Holy shit. That's how big this guy was. So I'm shoving him and I'm shoving him. You know, the passes were coming.
• 34:30
  I'm trying to tie him up, and he's just basically kinda, like, shoving me off, you know, just, you know, just keeping me at bay. Then all of a sudden I see this pass coming. He's gonna try to do a one timer.
• 34:38
  So I go and try to scoop his stick, and I miss, and I hit him right across the face. [laughs] Oh. Whoops. And I, to this day I can still see him. He l- he, he just pauses and he looks down at me, all right?
• 34:50
  [laughs] And f- and punches down, right into my forehead. I mean- [laughs]... not punch across, but punch down. And I just buckle down to the, down to the ice, and I... You, you know me, Ron. He said...
• 35:01
  Well, I hit the guy across the face, saying, "Well, I guess I, I guess I deserve that." Well, that's not how you play junior pro hockey. They wanted me to, they wanted me to go toe-to-toe with Kong and see what I had.
• 35:10
  [laughs] And, you know, I, I'm a fighter. Or I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover, you know? I'm not... Aw. That's, uh-uh, you know. [laughs] But [laughs] it's my experience- Look how m- look at how many marriages he's had.
• 35:18
  Obviously he is. Yeah. Oh, he's good at that. Yeah, you know. [laughs] I got something going on, so. [laughs] I, I can't turn it off. That's what I tell Mary. She loves to hear that one. You must pay Mary well.
• 35:29
  [laughs] Oh. But man, yeah, that was the end of my hockey, my, my, you know, college hockey, you know, any thought of doing anything in, uh, in the post high school days.
• 35:41
  But man, that guy, he punched down on me, and I've never, I, I never... I'm usually, it's unusual to look somebody in the eye, but this guy, I sort of got, I had to look up to him.
• 35:49
  It was the biggest dude I've ever seen in my life. What, what league was this? It was the junior, the juniors up there in the cities. The, they, the Junior Stars they call themselves, or Jun- Okay.
• 35:59
  So that, that was, was that just the regular old, uh- Minnesota Junior? It should have been- I think it, well, I think it was, and I think the league folded, I wanna say, a couple years later. I mean, it j- it went...
• 36:09
  It turned out being something else after- Yeah... after that. Oh, that was at Senior- Well, that's how a lot of those- That was at Senior A League.
• 36:14
  Well, that's how a lot of those junior programs- Like there was full check and everything, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's how a lot of those junior programs started with is- Right...
• 36:20
  they'd just take a bunch of goons- [laughs]... and, uh, sell tickets. Oh, oh, yeah. You know, that, that was, they'd pack the house because guys like Kong- Yeah... are punching 6'4" big daddies in the forehead.
• 36:31
  I don't even, I don't even know why we played hockey. They should've just picked off- [laughs]... picked off our opponent and just spread us out around the boards and say, "The last man standing is, gets to...
• 36:39
  Or the, out of the two of you, whoever's left standing gets to stay." [laughs] I, I have heard rumors of, like, literally they bring in a line of guys just to fight, and they don't m- they're never gonna make the team.
• 36:48
  They're just there to fight the new guys coming in. [laughs] And then they, they move on to the next round to go kick the shit out of somebody else. It's like boxing. What are they called?
• 36:55
  Like tune-up fights or whatever. Like- Yep... you're never gonna go anywhere. Yeah. But we need you to get your face punched in or beat this guy up so we don't sign him. Yeah. How about that?
• 37:05
  We'll sell 50 more tickets that way. So how did that transition into firefighting? Well, I, uh, I left there, and I saw that my hockey prospects were probably pretty limited. [laughs] And, uh, I went and joined the Navy.
• 37:16
  Ah. And, uh, I went through boot camp, got assigned to the USS Carl Vinson, and, uh, met him out in the Indian Ocean, got to go to Australia, and, and a couple, you know, uh, Hawaii and, and, uh, Philippines.
• 37:28
  And we came back to California, and they said, "Well, you gotta, you're gonna be in the repair locker, so you gotta go to firefighting school." They sent us over to Treasure Island, and now it's all abandoned. Sure.
• 37:37
  I mean, or not abandoned. It's all, it's not even Navy anymore 'cause, uh, you know, they've, they've downsized quite a bit.
• 37:43
  But, uh, I remember my first d- my first firefighting experience was that we had the old OBAs on, which had lungs on the side that, rubber lungs that, that inflated, and they would... It was a rebreather.
• 37:55
  So you had, uh, this canister you put up in the middle, and you pulled a cord, and there was a little flame that went up there.
• 37:59
  And that flame interacted with a chemical that made oxygen and gave you something to breathe. It was hot, but you, you, you could breathe in there. Wow. But it would last, like, an over an hour, you know?
• 38:08
  That sounds like a terrible fucking idea. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And not to mention, if they got wet, they'd explode. Oh. [laughs] So they're like, "Don't, don't get wet." Oh, I got a hand line in mind.
• 38:15
  And s- and, and I'm in the Navy. Yeah, and I'm on a, I'm on a, I'm on a ship. And I'm in the Navy. Possibly water around here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So- What could go wrong?
• 38:22
  So they take us down, and they're gonna do an engine room fire. So we're all lined up there, and, and, you know, are all teenagers. And I got my World War II battle helmet on. [laughs] We don't even have turnout gear.
• 38:31
  We, you just button up your top collar of your button-up shirt, and, and you're gonna go in there and fight fire.
• 38:36
  And, uh, and, uh, well, they load that thing up with I don't know how many gallons of, uh, diesel fuel and gasoline, you know, for a, for a boiler room fire.
• 38:45
  And, uh, and it's got grating over the top of it, and we gotta go in and push the fire into the corner and snuff it out.
• 38:50
  But they have ventilation so that all the smoke gets sucked out, so you basically, you can teach and fight fire in there. Well, they shut all the ventilation off for the first one.
• 38:59
  And you know what it's like with, in a confined space, but I mean, you can imagine they got the keros- or the diesel fuel down there.
• 39:04
  But they pour in, like, uh, a quarter of that liquid mixture is gasoline, so you can imagine the fumes that are in there. Oh, man. Oh, man.
• 39:13
  Well, they lit that thing off, and it went boom, and the fire jetted out right over our heads. We all dropped our shit and took off running.
• 39:19
  [laughs] And then those guys, you know, the, the salty veterans out there were screaming at us, "Get back on the hand lines." And, and they put us back in, you know, in our teams, and in we went.
• 39:31
  But we had, every one of us dropped our shit and ran. [laughs] Yeah. Hey, Spinner, so what, uh... I mean, you got, like, some cool, like, uh, Navy story like that? What got you into firefighting? Uh, no Navy stories.
• 39:48
  I guess I was just, uh... How did I... I don't even know how I did get on, actually. No, I think I was just... [laughs] Oh, yeah.
• 39:54
  No, I was just, uh, at, at the bar and at this party and, uh, dancing with this [laughs] really fun chick- [laughs]... and it turned out to be the chief's wife. [laughs] Nice. Wow.
• 40:05
  And he's like, "Well, okay, uh- Tell me about that... you wanna join the department?" I'm like, "Uh, sure." [laughs] I mean, did you have a choice at that point? I don't know. Probably not. [laughs] Like, "Listen, son."
• 40:15
  We call him, we call him, uh, Chief Big Nuts. That's the firefighter down here. Oh, yeah. He's, uh, his full-time job, he's actually a flight medic for, uh, Gundersen. Wow. So. Oh, that's sweet.
• 40:24
  Yeah, so that's his full-time role. But, uh, but no, I just, uh, had nothing to do. Well, I had other things to do, but it just seemed cool. I remember the first time driving a, a fully loaded ladder truck.
• 40:37
  I mean, do you guys have full-time drivers up there, or is that new, new in Brett? We, you... Yes, we have promo- we had promoted drivers. I, I keep talking about my driver, Jeff. And- Yeah...
• 40:45
  you know, that's how I talk. That, that's my driver. Yeah. And he drove me, unless he was on vacation or sick, he drove me for like, I wanna say close to 10, 11 years- That's crazy... if I'm not mistaken.
• 40:54
  That's, that's almost half my career- Yep... you know? Okay. Yeah, we got, um, yeah, so not everybody... Everybody does everything down here. Yeah. That's the thing.
• 41:03
  N- now the engineers a lot of times will do the trucks and stuff like that. But, uh, yeah, no. Well, we had, you know, our firefighter ball down here where...
• 41:12
  [laughs] I guess this is the funniest story, but we're just, we're at the bar, and we all have, like, our full uniform with our, you know, badge on our hat and, and the nice coat, you know? Oh, just like Chicago.
• 41:20
  You guys are cool. We, we weren't allowed to do any of that. Yeah, well, we got it for parades and stuff like that, yeah. What is this, a TV show?
• 41:25
  Well, there's a parade in Decorah every other weekend, whether it's stock cars- Yeah... or tractors or whatever. It's, um- The firefighters are always in a parade. [laughs] Yeah.
• 41:32
  Well, we do a, a thing, and, like, we help out the, you know, sheriff's department, the police department. Sure, sure.
• 41:36
  When, uh, you know, the presidential candidates came down here and spoke, we had, they had, like, picked like three different routes. Oh, God.
• 41:43
  And there's not enough for, you know, potential routes, I wanna say, so there's not enough for everybody, for the police and sheriff to cover it, so the fire department helps out there too.
• 41:52
  So we get along great with everybody down here.
• 41:54
  And, uh- Like, when you say pr- I gotta pause you 'cause I got a story 'cause I was down there when President Clinton came down to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to s- visit the Czech Museum, and he was going right by Pennant and Ford, the chemical com- Yeah...
• 42:05
  company in Cedar Rapids. I don't know if you remember that one. But that, that plant had been leveled, like, four times in its existence.... you know, in its processing And it blew up? It, it, it just blew up.
• 42:15
  They- [laughs] Things went bad, and it just, it, it- Yeah... it just blew. It was old. It was an old plant.
• 42:19
  I always dreaded going to fire calls there 'cause you'd walk in with the plant manager, there'd be steam and stuff going. You go, you go, "Is that normal?" They go, "Yeah, yeah, that's normal." "Oh, thank God."
• 42:27
  You know, "Is that normal?" [laughs] "Yeah, yeah." Yeah, keep going. Yeah. We don't know about that one. Yeah, yeah. There's... But, but anyway, so me and, uh, this captain get assigned to go down there.
• 42:35
  We're on the HAZMAT team, and we gotta watch the ethylene oxide tank. Well, the ethylene oxide tank was as big as a rail car, and, uh, it's very toxic and very explosive. So we're supposed to go look for...
• 42:47
  sweep it, look for bombs, and make sure nobody messes with the, this thing- Yeah... 'cause the president's gonna- Yeah... drive right on by. Yeah. And, uh, I go, uh, I...
• 42:55
  [laughs] so if we go down there, we're walking around on this thing waiting for the president to drive by, and we walk up top, and there's this toolbox sitting there.
• 43:01
  And us two idiots up there, we don't know anything about bombs, and we're like looking at each other- [laughs]... "Should, should we call them and ch- have them come out?" And we're like, "Well..."
• 43:09
  And then he remembered... I think he grabbed a stick or something and flipped the lid off.
• 43:12
  [laughs] It was some stupid tool in there, but you know, we were thinking it was, it was, uh, it was gonna be some big bomb on, on this thing.
• 43:19
  But the funniest thing was we had this van, it was the command van, and it had this magnetic board on it.
• 43:23
  And I got in trouble afterwards because, uh, I didn't do it when Bill went by, but when I got in the van to drive back, I w- I p- I arranged all the, um, the, the car tags and the truck things that said "Hi Bill" on there.
• 43:37
  And they thought that I held up that hi Bill sign when I went by, and oh God, the chiefs just went ape shit over that. [laughs] [laughs] We had one of those things too when, uh, when they came here. We had to put the...
• 43:47
  we parked their whatever super special Suburban in the fire station. It had antennas all over. Oh, yeah. Yep. And we had, we had FBI and stuff all over town, and- Yep...
• 43:57
  you know, some of the engineers were like, "Hey, that's a cool truck. What's in there?" You're like, "Don't talk about it." [laughs] Yep. Yep. It's like, don't know. But yeah, when they came through, like we had to...
• 44:05
  That was, uh, Toppling Goliath had just started. Uh-huh. You guys know Toppling Goliath Brewery? We're drinking Toppling Goliath beer right now. We sure are.
• 44:12
  And I was there last weekend, and I got a Toppling Goliath ball cap. Yeah, he's got a s- pretty sweet lid- Yep, mm-hmm... that he scored. Yep.
• 44:18
  Now he, now he's got somebody- People just wanna- Now he's got somebody to go visit when I'm not down there. He's gonna come see you instead. Yeah, that's one of my favorite breweries. Yeah. I love that place.
• 44:24
  This was before the brewery was even there, so this was what's the Taphouse or Dixie's now. Okay.
• 44:29
  And that's where I got assigned to be there because it's one of the first routes where they come into town that, um, I had to block the driveway and make sure between like 4:00 and 6:00 PM nobody came or went out of this one driveway.
• 44:39
  So I had to stand there in my uniform, and everybody's like, "Hey, man, we need a beer." I'm like, "Nobody's ever offered me so many free beers when I stand in uniform." [laughs] "And I can't fucking drink them." Nope.
• 44:49
  Nope. Nope. Yeah, but the other... No, the other thing we, uh, when we have our firefighter's ball, we have a big fundraiser down here.
• 44:55
  And, uh, you know, everybody likes to party, and then we party and wear our uniforms and party. And we always call from mutual aid. So we got Cresco and Waukon that are 20 miles- Yep... you know, on either side of us.
• 45:05
  Yep. So you know, we're like, "We're gonna be hammered tonight, so if their shit goes down, you guys come over here." You know? I re- And we're all at the bar.
• 45:11
  I remember- And, uh- I remember one time I, I was battalion chief here in Ce- [laughs] in, in town, and we had a big fire break out. And it was one of our guys was going to Iraq. Ooh.
• 45:20
  So everybody was over at his house partying. So we paged... I needed help. I mean, it was like a big 26-plex, and it was all on fire. Oh, man. So we had everything. We're calling.
• 45:30
  And so I'm trying to call people, and nobody's picking up the phone. And I'm... Or nobody's calling in. And finally, this one of our guys calls in and goes, "Hey, I'm, I- I'm over here at Mike's.
• 45:40
  Uh, I've had, I've had one beer. I could probably be okay to come in." I go, "Put a breath mint in and get your ass in here." [laughs] So I told the- [laughs] Volunteers, like everybody's a volunteer. If, if...
• 45:52
  I mean, and we live in Iowa, so- Yep... I mean, it's like if, if you could never show up to a call after a beer, nobody would ever be on a fire. I mean- I know...
• 46:01
  it's [laughs] not gonna be the official stance, but I mean- Yeah... yeah, this college kids were there.
• 46:04
  He's like, "Santa," 'cause we're all partying, and he's like, "Hey, if there's a fire tonight and you guys are all hammered, what hap- what happens if there's a fire?"
• 46:12
  And [laughs] this kid looks at me and goes- We're ready... no, he goes, "We'll put that fucker out." [laughs] Anywa- when I, when I was down there in Iowa, I was, uh, I was, was... Y- you familiar with Springville, Iowa?
• 46:23
  Springville. Over- No, I don't know Springville. Je- Where the hell is that? It's just east of Marion, and it's over by- Never heard of it. Okay. Well, who was saying they were by Mount Vernon?
• 46:30
  Somebody said- My grandparents. Yeah. Okay. Well, you probably drove right by Springville. Probably. So I'm, I'm on, I'm on- It's Sutliff. Go ahead, Spinner. No, I was... It was Marion, just Sutliff. Sutliff Bridge.
• 46:42
  Is that bar still there? I don't know if you guys know that one. Marion. Uh, no, I don't. I don't. No, it, it's, it's south of Mount Vernon, but... No, go ahead.
• 46:49
  But, uh, so anyways, the, the guy that, uh, at our rookie academy in Cedar Ra- Cedar Rapids, he was al- he was on Marion Fire, so we combined our rookie academies.
• 46:58
  So when we got done with rookie academy, he was the chief over at Springville. I moved over there and wa- and I'm moving my boxes in, and all of a sudden he calls and says, "Hey, you're on the fire department.
• 47:07
  The meeting's tomorrow." And I'm like, "Okay, Doug." You know, and that's how I got recruited to be on Springville.
• 47:12
  So I was working there at the [laughs] at the elevator as my part-time job, probably making four bucks an hour. You know, just something to do, 'cause that's what you do on your days off. Sure.
• 47:20
  And I start to see smoke rolling down the, smo- rolling down the street. And I go, "Well, that kind of looks like a fire."
• 47:26
  And I get out of my tr- [laughs] I'm driving truck for them, so I- Should we do something about this? I get out of the truck. I walk up the street, and then I go... There's a lady running out.
• 47:33
  She goes, "Hey, is there something on fire?" She goes, "Yeah, the garage is on fire. Call the fire department." So I go back into the thing- I am the fire department... and I go- [laughs] I go, uh, I go, "Call 911.
• 47:43
  Let's get s- let's get some people here." Well, and it's typical of a small town fire department. Not so much Decorah, but some of these departments, everybody leaves town to go work their jobs, and there's nobody there.
• 47:53
  So- Right... so they pull out the tones, and I go over, and I get my turnout gear.
• 47:57
  I put it on, and I'm waiting for somebody to come drive the truck because it's an o- it's an old Ford from the '80s with a manual transmission. And it's the, it's not micro s- or what do you call it?
• 48:06
  Uh, sync so that you have to like double clutch. You gotta clutch out and you gotta clutch back in. Oh. [laughs] And I've n- and I've never driven the thing.
• 48:13
  And so we're sitting there, nobody's coming and nobody's coming, and the lady's screaming at me. And I said, "All right."
• 48:17
  And finally this one kid comes running out, and he's a high school kid, and it turns out he's an explorer. And I go, "Get your shit on and, and get on the truck." So I, I hop up and I fire the thing up.
• 48:26
  He jumps up in the seat next to me, and I get the thing in first gear, and I go out the door, hang the corner, and I can't get it out of first gear now.
• 48:35
  And I finally get it up, but I can't get it to go in second, so I put it back in first and that truck is like, "Rah," going up the street- [laughs] Just rolling... going, going walking speed like, like three blocks.
• 48:45
  All right? [laughs] I, I d- I turn the corner and I, I tell the kid, I go, "Pull the five-inch." Well, it's a small town department, they only have five-inch hose. It's all two and a half.
• 48:54
  So he looks at me funny and, and I pull up- Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah. Yeah. That's a... Okay I pull up, I pull up and park, and thank God somebody came down that knew how to run. I said, "You pump this."
• 49:03
  I don't know what the hell. There's a front-mounted pump, too, up on the front bumper, believe it or not. Mm. And, uh- Mm-hmm... so we grab the hand line, me and this kid.
• 49:10
  We go in and fight the fire and, and put it out, and we cut a hole in the roof 'cause that's w- you know, you always cut a roof in a house back in 1992 or whatever it was when, when we were there. And, and, uh- Yep...
• 49:22
  we get all done. The chief comes up. He shows up from, drives in from town, and he's like, "Hey, uh, nice job putting the, uh, fire out.
• 49:30
  Um, but technically you're, you're a rookie here, and you're not supposed to be going in, in firefighting at all 'cause you just started. And on top of that, that kid right in... He's our explorer.
• 49:40
  He's not even a firefighter. He's some kid from the high school that ran down." [laughs] And I macked them all up, and we went and fought the fire and put it out.
• 49:47
  And to this day, I, I went back down there and visited, and he's on the, he's on the fire department to this day, that, that kid. Nice. Yeah. And by the way, you burned the fucking tranny out of our truck, you asshole.
• 49:57
  Yeah. [laughs] That's what, that's what I was- That's what I was waiting to hear is, is like, "And you owe us five grand to fix the tranny and stuff." It made it, it made it there.
• 50:02
  But man, it was warmed up by the time it got there, I'll tell you that right now. [laughs] Oh, sure, yeah. I- Well, yeah, but it's like, what else you gonna... You, you can't sit there and wait.
• 50:09
  You don't know who's coming. I guess down here, especially in a volunteer, and depending on what time of day it is, like you said, if it's the middle of the day and everybody's working out of town- Yeah...
• 50:16
  you don't know who's coming. Right. You, it... Yeah, I've done the same thing where it's like- Oh, oh wait. I s- I see we got Kelly getting on the s- on the line here. Uh-oh. No? Oh. Oh, well.
• 50:26
  Oh, I'm not supposed to talk about that. All right. Yeah. Hang on. Here. Sorry, Spinner. Oh, no, that's good. Why is that sorry me?
• 50:32
  I was gonna drive up there, but then, you know, we never got a time of when it was- I was- Yeah, R-... gonna start. I was kinda hoping you would. Ron throws it together, what was it, last night? I'm like, "Oh, fuck."
• 50:40
  I got sick, I got sick, I got sick of herding fucking cats is what happened. I was like, "I guess I'm available." You know what? You know what he told me? Hey, this was your cat herd idea. I'm getting- Huh?
• 50:47
  [laughs] He told me last night, "I'll send you an email with what we're gonna talk about today." A fucking email? I didn't get no email. [laughs] I forgot I don't have email anymore. Yeah, this thing started at 7:15.
• 50:56
  I got a text at 7:03. Nope. No, I typed, I typed it at four o'clock. I just didn't send it to- Yeah, you fucker. Hey, retirement's hard, so fuck all you guys. [laughs] Hear, hear. Hear, hear. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:07
  [laughs] Hey, Spinner, um, we have a guest that would like to ask you a wrestling question. Oh, boy. Here we go. Here we go. Hopefully the crotch is not involved. Oh, boy. That's all it is.
• 51:17
  [laughs] If the crotch isn't involved, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. Great. So what was that move that almost threw me through the roof at the Haymarket? Oh, geez. You know that one. Oh, geez. New Jersey meat hook.
• 51:30
  The New Jersey meat hook. All right. Oh my G- [laughs] I'm aroused. You know something? I, I take it back. Wrestling is pretty cool- [laughs]... 'cause we don't have any nicknames.
• 51:37
  We don't have any nicknames in hockey like that. No. It's cool. I'd love to go, "Bergy, New Jersey meat hook. Down." [laughs] Ron knows that word. Sure. I, uh, sure. I'm not... I am not, I am not doing Chuck.
• 51:49
  That's not... Besides that, I would have to, I would have to like stand on a chair to lift him up even a little bit 'cause his crotch is higher than my shoulder. Big Daddy.
• 51:56
  [laughs] No, that, that's usually easier so you don't have to bend down to get through the crotch. You can just stand and- Exactly... It's, it's all in the hips. Hey, Big, Big Daddy.
• 52:04
  Kelly, Kelly says she's pretty sure she went through the ceiling. Which the ceiling isn't all that high in the Haymarket. Oh, in the Haymarket. Yeah. Haymarket, that's a low ceiling. I broke a ceiling fan in there. Yeah.
• 52:11
  Yeah. Funny. Big, Big Daddy, I will, uh, I will New Jersey meat hook you anytime you want, buddy. [laughs] [laughs] I'm ca- I'm calling, I'm calling that out next time we're on the ice together. Oh.
• 52:24
  I don't even know what it means. Uh- Are you, are you, you working- No, no, it's, it's- Are you working Sunday night? Uh, it's happening Sunday night... it's, it's, it's- I will be there... it's best as a surprise.
• 52:31
  [laughs] You can't, you can't tell him it's coming. So- It's always better as a surprise. So- All right. Okay... you might wanna come... This might be your first hockey game.
• 52:37
  You might wanna come to hockey this Sunday night 'cause Kelly's working, gonna be bartending afterwards. I can't. I, I won't make it. Oh, you won't make it. Oh, yeah. All right.
• 52:42
  I got, I got chemo this, this, uh, this weekend, and Sundays is usually my bad day. Oh. Yeah. [laughs] If you could reschedule that, that'd be great.
• 52:51
  No, I, I told them I'd be, uh, uh, you just tell me where to be, and if you're gonna save my life, I'll be there. Yeah, absolutely. So that's, that's, that's all I, that's how I look at it, so. Yeah.
• 53:00
  I, I, I hate to, to change the gears, but that's a perfect segue- Yeah... to a couple questions that I prepared. I know Ron was over here doing last minute homework. But, uh- You took...
• 53:09
  He told you what the topics were gonna be? I got that. I got that. [laughs] He was over here like, "Fuck you guys. I got work to do." No, but I- Yeah, I got... I came prepared... we had, we had cuts today.
• 53:17
  I had things to take care of. Yeah. Yeah. He's dealing with moms and stuff. Broken hearts and all that. Yeah. Oh, oh. Oh. Never, it's never... It's like the worst, it's like the worst part of the hockey season. Yeah. Oh.
• 53:27
  I gotta, I gotta believe it. I would, I'd hate it. Yeah. I would hate it. Absolutely. It's no fun.
• 53:31
  You know, kinda cutting into this and, you know, and maybe, you know, Spinner can kinda speak to some of it, too, there's probably a different layer being volunteer, uh, versus, you know, like a full-time gig like Chuck.
• 53:40
  But, you know, it seemed like some of the articles I've writ- you know, read, you know, kinda something near and dear to you maybe now is, you know, whether it be early detection or- Yeah...
• 53:51
  if you're a younger- What the fuck happened to you? If you're a younger firefighter... Um, hey, this is a firefighter podcast. [laughs] Yeah. We're supposed to tell about funny stories, not all this serious shit.
• 54:01
  Well, you know, you switch gears. All of a sudden, all of a sudden Dan Rather over here is fucking asking questions. [laughs] I'm trying to make it big. Hopefully somebody listens to this shit other than Spinner.
• 54:11
  That would fucking help us out No, I don't listen. If, if, if I'm on there, I don't listen, but I'll listen to your questions. But yeah. [laughs] I'm actually not listening. I'm just waiting for my chance to talk.
• 54:21
  Well, ba- ba- Okay. Let's hear this. Let's hear this question. Oh, I... Yeah. Sorry. Basically anything with... Anything that's, uh, health related, we have a tendency to push it off. Sure.
• 54:29
  You know, "Oh, it's a little heartburn. It's a little... Uh, my back bothers me a little bit." And, and what I...
• 54:35
  You know, you've read on any of the cancers, it is, is a lot of times by the time you start having symptoms, it's too late. Sure.
• 54:40
  And, uh- Well, and most of the guys that are gonna be firefighters too, like, they're not usually the most cautious and, like, do everything in the most careful way.
• 54:47
  It's like, it's, it's not that type of guy, especially in a volunteer department down here too. It's- Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. People like that are just like- Oh, I'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's our... It's a...
• 54:55
  It's like the wrestlers, the hockey players, like the farm boys- Yep... that type of thing. It's, it's not the analysts and the, uh, [laughs] you know, the guys that think everything through. [laughs] Yeah.
• 55:03
  So I know there's a lot of precautions and stuff. You'd kind of alluded to some of them, but, like, is there something, um, you know...
• 55:10
  Question for both you guys is, is there something you say or you do or, you know, maybe have a conversation with, with maybe a younger firefighter, you know, fresh out of academy, you know, somebody who's just signing up?
• 55:23
  Well, you know, a l- and a lot of the young guys out there, you know, they're very proud.
• 55:27
  When's the last time you've been to the hosp- maybe you have, but a lot of guys, "Oh, I haven't been to the hos- I haven't been to, uh, see my... I haven't been into the emergency room, nothing in 10 years."
• 55:35
  They'll do that. You know? I, I don't need... I don't... I hard- why would I need insurance? I'm not gonna have... I don't need... I, I don't- I'm fucking healthy... nothing's ha- I'm healthy. Yeah.
• 55:42
  Nothing's gonna happen. But the, the reality is, is, is the earlier you act on things, the better chance you have of them tackling them when they're a small issue.
• 55:55
  And having a relationship with a doctor that can, you know, do a PSA test, you know, l- look for colon cancer, you know, things that are real common.
• 56:04
  You know, in, in my case, I was having heartburn back in, you know, back in my 30s, and they just gave me some Prilosec and sent me on my way. But I had a hiatal hernia and I had acid reflux.
• 56:14
  That causes scarring of the esophagus, which turned into esophageal cancer, you know, and I wish we would've looked a little closer. Maybe I should've had something done earlier than... You know?
• 56:24
  So really early detection is the key. There's a lot of testing coming. I know Mayo's got a blood test that's supposed to be out here in, um, in a...
• 56:32
  probably within a year that tests for, like, 12 different cancers that they can detect- Wow... right out of your blood, and, and those are the things- Mm-hmm... I would recommend.
• 56:39
  And the, the problem is, is y- you want those things, but you go to your insurance company and they don't wanna pay for them. Yeah, that's a whole nother ball of wax.
• 56:45
  Yeah, 'cause, uh, you know, "Are you having any symptoms?" "No, I just wanna check." "Well, we're not gonna pay for it if it's not, not causing you symptoms." Yeah.
• 56:52
  So it depends how your doctor, you know, packages that up to the in- insurance company. But we ran into that. Uh, some of our firefight- firefighters were concerned about cancer.
• 57:03
  They wanted these tests, and we quickly found out that a lot of these things aren't, aren't covered under our insurance policy.
• 57:08
  And, and to the City of Rochester's, I would say, uh, um, you know, they're very health oriented and being progressive. They actually changed the rules on their insurance so that we could get some of these tests.
• 57:21
  Not all of them, but we got at least some of them in, in... added to it, so. But, uh, yeah, early detection, that's what I tell. [laughs] Have a relationship with your, with your doctor.
• 57:30
  Go, you know, use your, your, uh, benefit of getting a checkup every, you know, every year. And, uh, and if... It may seem like nothing. I mean, you can't go have a CT scan every year. Sure.
• 57:42
  They're not gonna pay for that. No. But, uh, there, there are- Dig for a finger in the butt. They fucking should. Yeah. I... Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. That came through nicely, young boy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know?
• 57:51
  I heard that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just Mike's soft, but he, he's just got the voice that carries. Boy, I don't know- Yeah... if we turn his mic on, I think that opens a whole new can of- Yeah. Uh- [laughs]...
• 58:00
  it'll be, it'll be another day I think. I think we've, we've- Well, I'm in my 50s. It happens. Go ahead. You're on now. Yeah. Well, I'm in my 50s. It happens. Sure. I mean, sometimes- You gotta-...
• 58:10
  you gotta go get the finger in the butt. That's kind of the thing, right? At least every year, every other year. Poop in a little thing, and they send it in and tell you if you got any stuff.
• 58:16
  Oh, I've, I've taken it a step farther than that. I've had a- [laughs] Yeah, I know you have. [laughs] Wait a minute. Did you light it on fire and set it on Chuck's doorstep? Oh, I never thought... [laughs] Yeah.
• 58:26
  [laughs] Was it... I thought, "Special delivery." Oh, nice. Nice. I sat there and had shy bladder.
• 58:30
  I never had a shy bladder until you put one of the little things below your butt and you're sitting on the toilet and it's like- [laughs]... "I really gotta poop in this thing, but I really can't."
• 58:40
  [laughs] It's just- It's so degrading. It is... I know. It's like a hat. I know, but it- You shit into, like, a hat... it's like sitting on a little, a little kids toilet that sits on the ground.
• 58:47
  [laughs] That's all I could think of. And I don't know. Like, oh, my God. I've never seen m- I've never seen my asshole before, so I don't know where my aim is actually when I do that. Well, that too. I don't like...
• 58:56
  [laughs] They're like, "Put it here, and, you know, just kind of wiggle around." Yeah. I think I'm in the right spot. I mean- What happens if, what happens if you could shit through a screen door?
• 59:05
  I mean- They don't want that... yeah, you just, you put it in, like, a tube. You can't do that. I gotta say my s- They want a solid thing... listen to this. My, my, uh, stepdaughter- It's got a little...
• 59:11
  It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a test tube with a little scoop on the end of it, and you- Yeah... dig it out a little. [laughs] And you gotta, you gotta, you gotta do homework. You gotta do homework.
• 59:17
  You guys all laugh, but- You gotta... You... That little, that little piece of poop, you gotta do some homework- Actually-... and then do some stuff... I- Oh, God...
• 59:23
  only know that because I had to do it for Hank the other day because he's a senior dog, and I had to like... I literally had to chase him around with a fucking tray- Yeah. Been there...
• 59:30
  to catch his pee, and then, yeah, so you do- Yep. How's it work with a doxy? Oh, God. [laughs] Fucking two and a half inch leg.
• 59:38
  Like- [laughs] Listen, that's my, my, uh, my stepdaughter just got a new job working up at Rebiotics, and they're making a pill form of, uh, uh, medication for C. Diff. It's very cutting edge, okay?
• 59:50
  Uh, a- and if you know of C. Diff, if you get that, they gotta actually kill everything your body- What the fuck is C. Diff?... body- Um- Well, you've been doing all the reading. How do you not know? Yeah.
• 59:58
  I've just been reading up on our- Well, it's something with the... It, it's like a-... guest of fucking honor, you prick...
• 1:00:02
  it's like an infection of the bowel or whatever, but they gotta kill everything off in you- Okay... and to get your bowel up and working they have to do... they used to have to do a poop transplant What?
• 1:00:10
  Oh, I heard about that You'd have, they'd, they'd have to get a donor, okay. Well, they're com- You got to shit for me? No, they shove the shit up into you. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Fuck.
• 1:00:17
  Well, they got a, they got a pill form that you can swallow now so they don't have to do that anymore, and it's cleaner. But my, my stepdaughter has got the job there. She's intake.
• 1:00:27
  So you know, like p- there's blood donors, there's semen donors, there's actually poop donors. All right. Oh my God. And they get paid for this. I'm in. Get me in there. I could donate so much. I'd be so good at that.
• 1:00:35
  I know. And she goes, "We, uh, we got one guy- [laughs]... he, he donates three times a day." [laughs] And it's got to be a certain amount. This guy- And then- Then welcome to Poop Talk.
• 1:00:48
  [laughs] I don't know what's going on here. I have nothing to contribute. I'm sorry. I know. I- This guy needs to... We need to get this guy in the pod. Well, who? The fucking poop donor. [laughs] Oh, yeah. Okay.
• 1:00:56
  [laughs] I, yeah. Tell your daughter she's got to hook us up with a poop guy. I, I don't think that's gonna happen. She is- Come on... you know. But, uh, but anyways, she, she- I can bring you a sample...
• 1:01:04
  but it comes in to a sample. She's got to QC it, but it's all under a hood and the whole bit. But, uh- Just plays with poop... yeah, yeah. So there- Yeah... there's plenty of jokes that go with it, go with that job.
• 1:01:14
  I bet. I can imagine. I bet there is. But my mom- I can imagine... but my mom had to see the- Can I bring this back to the original question and take it off the shit topic? [laughs] Oh, sure. Yeah, let's do that.
• 1:01:21
  This is my ADD. I just get distracted. Well, your question was like to young firefighters, what do you do? And like, I think it, it went health-wise, but it also went to, like, anything that we do down here.
• 1:01:31
  The best thing to do is share your actual experience. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:01:34
  Like, there's, you, you can watch videos and read books, and tell them, until you tell them a story about this one time you were driving a truck too fast, or the one time, um...
• 1:01:42
  You know, I've been in houses where I wasn't looking for the right things, and like, you might not see a body 'cause you don't know what it looks like when it's burnt and things like that.
• 1:01:49
  You got to just be more careful. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. You got to talk about your experiences, and I think that's what sticks with- Yeah... young firefighters the most, so. Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  Well, that's- Well, that's what I learned at, that's what I learned, like search and rescue. It's all, it's, uh, most of the time it's blind luck. Well, and I think- You know...
• 1:02:02
  I mean, I think that goes a long way, right? 'Cause it's, you know, there's more, there's more to it than obviously the, the, the job and, you know- Yeah... the occupational hazard.
• 1:02:13
  But I think, you know, there's, there's a lot to, you know, sharing those stories with, with... I mean, even just the, you know, the regular folk.
• 1:02:20
  I mean, it's, there's a lot of people out there that I don't think, you know, like myself, that don't necessarily grasp the occupational hazard that you guys go through every day. And it's- Mm...
• 1:02:31
  and it's not, even if you're... From what I understand, you know, from reading some of the, you know, Chuck's fantastic articles, if you haven't read them yet.
• 1:02:39
  [laughs] But, uh, you know, just, you know, even the, you know, simple as washing the helmet or the turnout gear, you know- Yeah... there's, there's a lot, lot to be said there. But yeah, that's, that's crazy.
• 1:02:49
  But yeah, sharing those experiences, man, it's been, it's been fun to listen, so. Yeah.
• 1:02:53
  I, I mean, I gra- our cleaning our turnout gear back in Cedar Rapids was taking it out and you'd spray off each other with a garden hose while you wore it. What?
• 1:03:01
  And then you'd hang it up and hopefully it'd dry by the time you had the next call. So many sick things just went through my head right there when you said that. Oh, boy. Oh. [laughs] Oh, yeah.
• 1:03:07
  [laughs] All right, Big Daddy. Oh, geez. You're up. Oh my God, I- Spinner just said, "I'll be there in 20 minutes."
• 1:03:13
  [laughs] And back, back in the day, back in the day, you know, and I know the v- the volunteers don't do this, but we had dorm rooms down there where we all, everybody...
• 1:03:20
  We had like three companies out of the station, so you had like 15 people- Oh... down there. Yeah. And you'd sleep out of one dorm room. And shit, they'd be sitting there. You'd, you'd wait.
• 1:03:28
  You'd go to bed and there'd be all sorts of practical jokes going on. And, and, uh, that's where I learned that the, the ma- the double cross was the, uh, was the big, the...
• 1:03:37
  That's the, that's the, that's the pinnacle of practical jokes. We had a captain who was actually the chief of the department. He wanted to play, be in on a practical joke.
• 1:03:46
  So they say, "All right, we'll get the, we'll do the water trick on the rookie." And what you do is you go up in the overhead and you put a cup of water up in their, above their bed, so when they go to bed.
• 1:03:54
  You'd be over in your bed and you'd pull the string and the cup of water would dump on the rookie, and everybody would giggle or whatever. So Mark- Okay...
• 1:04:00
  went in there and they set it up on the rookie, and then they all went, went out and they're waiting for bedtime. Well, they went back in and changed it over so it was right over Mark's bed, okay? Oh, boy.
• 1:04:09
  So [laughs] he got up there. They're, they're all in there. The rookie comes in, they're all giggling, and all of a sudden Mark pulls the string and it dumps on himself. [laughs] [laughs] "Got you good, you fuckers."
• 1:04:19
  "You fuckers," that's all you could hear. [laughs] Yeah, so our station is connected to, uh, City Hall. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So yeah, anything that happens down there, it's, there's people.
• 1:04:30
  You gotta be on, you gotta be on good behavior. Yeah. Well- Well, yeah, mayor or their city, you know, mayor's office, all that stuff's down there, so. God, I saw someone sh- I saw someone stom- downstairs.
• 1:04:40
  One day we were sitting at the station and, uh, we had all these rental houses across, and this dump truck comes driving up with all this stuff. Looks like they're going to the dump.
• 1:04:47
  Well, they were moving into the rental house, and the guy backs up to the front yard, dumps all his belongings out, dips it up- [laughs]... and slides right out. [laughs] Nice. Yeah. Jesus.
• 1:04:56
  And the sad state, after I left, that same guy, um, the, his house caught fire, and by the time the alarm came in when they woke up, it was right across the street from the dorm. The whole dorm was orange. Wow.
• 1:05:06
  And it, it killed him, and, uh, and the guy looked- Oh, shit... and the funny thing, he looked just like Hulk Hogan. So that's what we called him. "Hey, look it. Hulk Hogan's out there."
• 1:05:12
  He had the long hair and the- Hey, brother... the whole thing. Yeah. [laughs] But, uh, yeah, he ended up getting killed in a structure fire right next to the, right next to the station. How many years did you firefight?
• 1:05:21
  Almost 30. Well, actually it's 31. I was with Minnetonka for nine months in 1990, and then- Any re- any regrets? No. No. I, I'd do it again.
• 1:05:30
  You know, being a hockey player, uh, team sports, and I think Spinner can kind of know, it's kind of, it's kind of, uh, I like working with a group of people to make something happen. Sure.
• 1:05:39
  And that, that's what hockey's all about. You know, there's five of us out there trying to score a goal, and you're all working and, and supporting each other, and that's what, that's all firefighting is. Five?
• 1:05:48
  Wait, what? Yeah, I don't count. [laughs] I'm obviously not in yet. Oh, Jesus. Fuckers. I'm sorry. I, oh, hey, keep in mind, when I had my heart surgery they told me, "You might not want to skate out anymore.
• 1:05:56
  You might want to take up goalie." [laughs] Yeah. Oh, God. [laughs] Yeah, really that shit- [laughs] Hey, you want to get drilled in the face in warmups? Yeah. That's all right.
• 1:06:04
  And it's like, uh, when Ainsley Smith did a, uh, a, uh, they were doing a study on heart-... blood pressure and stuff. And, and, uh, when they, they, they compared goaltenders to a jet pilot landing on a, uh- Carrier...
• 1:06:19
  on a carrier. Yeah. That's tough. And it's like, "Yeah, let's, let's, let's, let's put Chuck under that stress now," right? [laughs] Yeah, yeah. No shit.
• 1:06:25
  Well, I don't know if you know this, Sp- Spinner, or you guys, um, in my last probably 10 years, it has been tough.
• 1:06:31
  I had, I had over probably a year and a half off, you know, spread out over those 10 years that I had open heart surgery to correct a heart disease, and I came back to work after that. And then my knee was...
• 1:06:43
  My left knee was shot, so I had knee replacement. Some departments, you, you have a knee replacement, you're done. Mayo's like, "Well, how's... Your new knee's gonna be 10 times better than your old knee.
• 1:06:52
  What are you doing right now?" I said, "Well, I'm firefighting." "Well, you go back and firefight." That, that was Mayo. Nice. So I, I, I kind of joked they keep replacing parts in me just to keep me- Oh, yeah...
• 1:06:59
  keep me working. Keep you going, yeah. And, uh, the cancer was, uh, a little bit much. In fact, they were talking about pulling my esophagus. They said, "Yeah, six months you can go back to work."
• 1:07:07
  So I was gonna try to pull it off again. Holy shit. You know? So, but, uh- Can't keep you down. No. Well, yeah, you know. But, uh, I don't know.
• 1:07:16
  I, you know, I think back, I think back in my career, all the damn, the damn stories, you know. Uh, the, the guy that, uh, we...
• 1:07:24
  [laughs] I don't know if you have anything like this down there in Decorah, but we get a call for an unconscious guy acr- right across the street from station four.
• 1:07:31
  So we get in the truck and we flip the lights on, we drive across the street basically to the apartment house. [laughs] I get out of the truck and, and I go down to the apartment. It's the, the lower apartment.
• 1:07:41
  And here's this guy sprawled out on the floor, looks like he's sleeping, you know, sleeping with his head on, head on the floor. And, and these two kids are riding him like a, like a horse.
• 1:07:50
  [laughs] They're jumping up and down on him. And I'm like... They're like, "Yeah, we can't get Uncle Billy to wake up." And I said, "Well, hey, kids, get off. Let me check Uncle Billy."
• 1:07:58
  And [laughs] I go down, I check pulse. [laughs] This guy, there's no pulse. Oh, shit. So I, shit, I roll him over and, uh, rip open his shirt and, uh, 'cause we're getting ready to start CPR.
• 1:08:08
  Well, he's already pooled out, you know? Oh, fuck. And, and you know what pooling is, is, is when you die the, the blood actually settles in you. Yep.
• 1:08:15
  And at the lower spot you'll get, uh, kind of like a blue tint in the, in the body. So, and that means you're, you're long gone. You're done. They're cold.
• 1:08:21
  Well, the kids are, the kids are bouncing up and down playing on Uncle Billy. [laughs] Oh, fuck. And he'd been dead, I don't know, probably half the night. [laughs] Jesus. And [laughs] and so we, we...
• 1:08:30
  The ambulance comes in, calls- Little kids CPR. [laughs] Yeah. Calls it. And, uh, and we pack up our, our shit and we go walking out. And I didn't expect it, but the mo- the, the sister of the guy is out there.
• 1:08:42
  And she's... And I kicked her out. And I said, "Take the kids and go out and, go out, get outside." And she comes up to me, "Hey, how's Uncle Billy?" And I'm like, "Shit." Oh, man. [laughs] And I'm like- No way...
• 1:08:52
  I'm like, "Sorry, but, uh, Uncle B- Uncle Billy's dead." He's fucking pooled out. He's DED dead, you know? [laughs] And, uh- DED. [laughs] I mean, I did- And it wouldn't surprise me if that's exactly what he said too...
• 1:09:03
  I didn't throw that in, I didn't throw that one in. But I said- [laughs]... "Uncle Billy's dead." You did for me. And, and she's like, "What?" And I go, "You need to pull it together right now.
• 1:09:10
  You got two kids you need to take care of." But my kids were playing with him. It was so long. I go, "You..."
• 1:09:14
  I go, I go, "Just pull it together and, uh, get the kids someplace, to their parents or something, but you need to, you need to take care of your kids right now." Yeah. And she goes, "Well, okay."
• 1:09:23
  And, and I don't want to talk- Do you guys do medical too? What's that? Are you guys trained as... Are you guys the medics as well? Yeah. I mean, do they have paramedics? Well, we're, we're, we're EMTs.
• 1:09:30
  We're not paramedics. So we're, we're supporting. EMT. Basically we're the, we're the muscle for, uh, for the paramedics.
• 1:09:36
  So we're, we'll do the compressions and, and run the airway while they push drugs and, and put, hook up the monitors and evaluate. Yep. So- Lift assist... yeah.
• 1:09:44
  So, so in Rochester, when you s- when you trip and skin your knee, you get two firetrucks and an ambulance to take care of you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if anybody wants to- That's what it looks-...
• 1:09:52
  if anybody wants to ride Uncle Billy a little more before we bury him- [laughs] I could, I could, I could believe it. Jump a little harder, kids.
• 1:09:59
  [laughs] So that's one thing that's different down here is, like, if, if I get, if you get a page, and say it's, like, across the street from my house or, you know, it's, uh, really close to me or it's on the way to the fire station, I'm not gonna pass the place.
• 1:10:10
  Yeah, you just go right there, right? Right. I'll, I'll go... I'll, I'll call.
• 1:10:13
  I'll say, you know, I'll throw my shit in the truck and then, you know, I'll tell them like, you know, "Come to the south end of the building. It's here," or whatever. So we can do that. Right.
• 1:10:20
  So it's ni- we're kind of spread out a little bit more. We don't have... We don't all have to start from a central location, so- Yeah. Well, and that probably helps response times a little bit.
• 1:10:27
  You can get somebody there. So do you do medicals down there, Spinner? Uh, we're first responder. We don't do medical. No, we don't. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what I've been doing.
• 1:10:36
  When I got to Cedar Rapids, I wanted to be a firefighter, and they... And, and they, they come in and say, "Congratulations, you're gonna be a firefighter.
• 1:10:41
  You got to get through this firefighting curriculum, then we'll do that in the morning. In the afternoon you're doing EMT. We didn't tell you this, but you're gonna be EMTs." I'm like, "EMT, what the hell is that?"
• 1:10:50
  I was just fresh out of the Navy. They budget right down. Well, I guess we're gonna- They don't want to send two truck- Oh... well- Yeah. They, you know, in Cedar Rapids they did that.
• 1:10:56
  They're like, "Why are we gonna send ambulance and a firetruck? We'll just send one and have all, everybody on one so you're on the call at the same time." They're trying to cut the budgets.
• 1:11:03
  Well- Isn't that what- Isn't, isn't that why the, the, um, the, uh, guy with the long hair, the, um, the guy that came up here to be a firefighter, isn't that why he wasn't yet? Because- Oh... he's not an EMT yet. Right.
• 1:11:15
  So he, he, he has to go up to the Cities. That was the only place he could get a job- Right... without being an EMT. Right. You got... Here it's a re- it's a requirement for you to have.
• 1:11:23
  But, uh, so yeah, I had to, I had to be, uh, uh, become an EMT in my la- in my, uh, rookie academy down, down in Cedar Rapids. So I mean, we were going... We'd respond to heart attacks.
• 1:11:34
  I mean, Old Country Buffet in Cedar Rapids, I call it the old dying center because every time we'd go there, I mean, there was some old guy keeling over at the buffet.
• 1:11:41
  [laughs] And we'd be doing CPR while everybody's having their dessert, you know. Yeah, I'm hungry now. They'd be shoveling it in. [laughs] Why would you say that?
• 1:11:46
  I was at Old Country Buffet one time when, yeah, we had to call the firetruck. [laughs] Yep. You know what, exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, I watched- You know exactly what he's talking about...
• 1:11:56
  I watched, like, a 70-year-old guy, retired firefighter, give a dude a Hei- give the dude the Heimlich at Old Country Barf at one time. Oh, boy.
• 1:12:04
  The dude's sitting there, like, sampling shit right off the bar, and he's choking on it, and this guy comes up, hammers him the fucking Heimlich, saves the guy. Yep. And everybody's like, "Oh, you're a hero."
• 1:12:14
  And he's like, "Oh, I fucking used to do this shit, you know. I'm a retired firefighter." Yeah, d- and, and you know, all the medicals, I mean, I've been on, I've been on guys that have been hit on the freeway, you know?
• 1:12:23
  And, and but the o- ones that stand out are the, the stupid little ones. Like, like a little girl that was choking on a quarter, and, and we come wheeling up, and th- she's sitting outside.
• 1:12:32
  And, and you know what you're looking for when you, when you get off the truck, you're hoping to God the kid's crying. 'Cause if they're crying- They're breathing... they're, they're breathing, everything's fine.
• 1:12:40
  So I get off the truck, and I look up there, and she's bawling right next to her mom on the front stoop.
• 1:12:44
  And the mom's like, "Yeah, she had a quarter in her mouth, and it, and she swallowed it, and it got caught in the airway for a brief second. Then all of a sudden, boom, it went, it, she swallowed it." Yeah.
• 1:12:53
  And I go, "Oh, yeah, that, that's good." And I go, "Don't worry about it." I go, "She'll, she'll pass it. She'll poop, she'll poop it right out." Speaking of stool samples. Yeah. [laughs] Comes back to...
• 1:13:01
  Why does everything... I like this group, it always comes back to poop. Well, you guys are gonna laugh at my story. The best part was is I tell, "She'll poop it out. Don't worry about it."
• 1:13:08
  And I look at the little girl, and I go, "And that's why you don't put money in your mouth." [laughs] [laughs] And the... Oh, you should have heard her, u- howl after that one. Oh, yeah.
• 1:13:16
  [laughs] She didn't like that at all. But, uh, and then another guy I went to, you know, m- m- that just stand out in my head. It w- uh, he burned his hand cleaning his oven. He got oven cleaner on it.
• 1:13:27
  So we come wheeling up there, and he's standing out, and he's screaming, "My hand! My hand! It, I got that shit on it. It's burning. Help me." [laughs] And I go, "Come with me, sir." I take him into the bathroom.
• 1:13:39
  I push the plug down in the sink. I fill it up with water, and I look at him, "Are you ready?" And he's like, "What?" And I stick his hand in the water. [laughs] And I go, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
• 1:13:47
  And the guy looks at me and goes- [laughs]... "I'm an idiot!" [laughs] [laughs] Oh, that's great. [laughs] Oh, fuck. I- You guys have, uh, you guys have grass fires up there at all? Oh, do we ever. You get called- Yeah.
• 1:14:01
  This year we did. Gra- what? Grass fires. Grass. Oh, grass fires. Oh, yeah. What were you thinking? I, he said brass fires- Well, you know, that's like-... I was like, "Oh." Brass fires, yeah, yeah...
• 1:14:09
  a big thing down here in Wichita because we're mostly, we have, we have our city trucks, and we have rural trucks. Sure. And we do both.
• 1:14:14
  We do city and county, so, um, I mean, d- depending on the season, sometimes the grass fires are some of the biggest planning. And, you know, like the whole park in the b- park in the burnt stuff. Don't park in the fuel.
• 1:14:24
  Yep. [laughs] You know, don't park in the park in the, don't, don't park... There's a lot of guys that get that wrong. Yep. And there's a lot of trucks that have been burnt for that reason- Jesus... going into it.
• 1:14:32
  I know. And there, there's a big, to me, Spinner, don't get me wrong, but that's the biggest non-incident that we have, that we respond to, we throw a lot of equipment to. We had a big fire out behind Walmart South.
• 1:14:41
  I don't know if you guys remember that. Yep. The old swamp caught fire. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, God, they were panicking. The swamp caught fire. Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] They were panicking.
• 1:14:47
  They were sending, sending people out into it. And, uh, and of course they, I think they burned up an ORV out there from Stewartville or something.
• 1:14:53
  And, and, uh, of course not being in the right spot, being in the unburned, trying to prot- trying to stop the fire as it was progressing towards you, which is impo- you know what I'm s- you were talking about it.
• 1:15:02
  Oh, yeah. It's impossible to do. So anyways, the, the, it's coming to the neighborhood by over by Alcott's, and it's like a wall of fire, probably eight feet high coming across the cattails.
• 1:15:11
  And, uh, and everybody's screaming, "Pull lines down." And, and everybody's got these nice green grass mowed right down to the edge of the swamp. You know, it's just, everything's, everything looks nice.
• 1:15:21
  There's a couple little sheds there, and, you know, watch the sheds, but they had lines all laid out. We're gonna protect these houses.
• 1:15:26
  And that fire came in, and they tried throwing some water on it, and it didn't, it just laughed at it. And as soon as it came up to where everybody had their lawns mowed, guess what happened? [laughs] Out.
• 1:15:34
  The fire went out. [laughs] [laughs] And then it, really, we didn't have to do anything at all. And- Mm. Mm...
• 1:15:41
  and these fires, if you, if, you know, a lot of these grass fires, you look at them, they're bordered by something, by roads. You know? Yeah. Use those natural borders to, to do it. Maybe not down in Iowa.
• 1:15:51
  Iowa may be a little bit bigger. Oh, yeah. That whole fucking state will burn down. There's, well, we've had, we've had it jump the road. It depends on how the, you know, fast the wind's blowing. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:15:58
  Oh, sure. Yeah, you gotta try to fight that. You start looking at everything, you get... But if you start looking at everything as like what's, what's fuel and what's already spent fuel. Yeah.
• 1:16:04
  And that's like grass is fuel. Dry grass is fuel. Corn is fuel, depending on, you know, how wet it is or whatever, so. Yeah. The wind's always a big factor, but...
• 1:16:12
  I was a, I was a new firefighter on Engine 2 down at Cedar Rapids, and I, I, the calls were slow. It was like the slowest station in town. All right? Oh, yeah. It, it was brutal when I got out there.
• 1:16:22
  But, uh, so all of a sudden we get a call out by the airport that there's a cornfield on fire, and I'm like, "Sweet, I get to fight some fire finally." And [laughs] we pull down the highway.
• 1:16:32
  We get up to where the fire's at, and we get off, and I'm looking for the captain to tell me to pull the line. And all of a sudden, up over the hill, here comes this big John Deere tractor with a disc. Oh.
• 1:16:41
  And he gets right out- That's gonna cut it... in front of the fire, and he drops that disc and just makes a big, turns everything over, makes it dirt, and the fire goes out. Shuts it right off.
• 1:16:48
  The captain goes, "Yep, all right, we can go back to station now." [laughs] I'm like, "Damn it." [laughs] Goddamn farmers. Yeah. He's been here before. He's done it before. He's field caught fire before.
• 1:16:59
  He knew how to do that. Yep. Well, that's, and you probably run into this down there. You get your shed fires down there or your barn fires. Mm-hmm.
• 1:17:05
  And if you ever saved one, every farmer's pissed at you because- [laughs]... because they're burning their... You finally get rid of that damn old barn that was built- Yep...
• 1:17:11
  in the 1800s that you can't put anyth- you can't put a tractor in 'cause it's, the roofs are so s- short. Yep. Or they're not made for it. Yeah. Or they're like- And they're thinking a new-... dilapidated...
• 1:17:20
  they're thinking new pole building. Yep. Yeah. And then you come wheeling in and save their barn. They're like, "You fuckers." Assholes.
• 1:17:26
  [laughs] He's on the ph- he's on the phone with Flo from Progressive like- [laughs]... "Let's go." [laughs] Yeah. I mean, I, my chief said- Everybody for it... "Burn it."
• 1:17:36
  [laughs] And he, uh, so I was making fun of J- uh, Drew, your driver. We'll call him your driver- Yep... just for that.
• 1:17:41
  Um, like two or th- well, last time I was at hockey, month and a half ago, whatever it was, I was making fun of Drew 'cause he's at, is it Engine Thr- or, uh, Station 3 now? Yep.
• 1:17:50
  He's at s- he, he, when I, uh, I wanted to get out of Station 1. Yeah. And I said I was gonna go out to Station 3, and I was hoping he wanted to come with me, and he did. And I, I think, I w- Yep...
• 1:17:59
  I was, I was really happy he did. Well, I was, I was, I was poking fun at him. Yeah. And I probably shouldn't, but, uh, the lift assist. Oh, God. [laughs] You know, it's like he called, he, what'd he say?
• 1:18:08
  He's like, "Yeah, we're fucking station lift assist." [laughs] 'Cause you got that big retirement community whatever right across the street. You know Jeff, Jeff, Jeff Bussard, he's, he's the real deal. He's the fireman.
• 1:18:16
  [laughs] But man, we get into any type of lift assist and where if they've filled their pants up or, or- Yep... and they haven't gone to the bath- I remember we went to one.
• 1:18:23
  This poor guy was basically eating out of the mail. So he, and his bathroom wasn't working. And, and these people, they're, they're around town here Yeah, sure So he was in, in his recliner.
• 1:18:32
  He'd just go to the bathroom right in his recliner, sit in it and- Jesus... and eat from Pepperidge Farms when the, when the mailman delivered. And- [laughs]... and you can imagine the smell of this place. God.
• 1:18:40
  So Jeff and I, we go walking up to check on this. [laughs] The door opens up and Jeff goes, "Oh, sorry Chuck, I'm out of here." [laughs] [laughs] Yeah, he, he was explicitly explaining to me- Yeah, he's like- I can't-...
• 1:18:53
  "I can't, I can't do that"... he's like, "All I do is drive the truck to that fucking place." And, and we could not get Jeff to come here, but Jeff tells the greatest stories ever. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, his...
• 1:19:00
  When, when you two get to talking, that's what I was gonna say.
• 1:19:02
  I'm just gonna hit the button and walk away because when those, when Chuck and Drew get talking, it's fricking the, the best stories ever and the best day ever. Oh, yeah. I always get him drinking too. Animated.
• 1:19:11
  I like- Oh, yeah. [laughs] We were talking at hockey on the bench. I, I wore white that one week- [laughs]... and he's sitting next to me and I'm just, I'm just getting him going, you know?
• 1:19:19
  And I'm like, "Yeah, how many, how many asses you wipe today?" And he goes, "Fuck that, I didn't even get out of the truck today." [laughs] Oh, that... When COVID hit- Yeah... that was, that was his dream. Oh, fuck yeah.
• 1:19:27
  'Cause they, the drivers- It was his thing... we gotta limit exposure. Oh. And plus he wanted, we had to keep somebody at the truck to make sure nobody stole all our stuff. [laughs] So Drew had to stay with the truck.
• 1:19:36
  [laughs] Jesus. He's like, "Fuck yeah." Yeah. "Good luck, good luck, Chuck." [laughs] That's when he was like- Well-... "Nope, I sit right in the truck." Shit, we didn't tell- No.
• 1:19:43
  They're not alcohol- We didn't tell your COVID story coming out here, did we? COVID story? When you came out here because of the, to get the Roller Dog machine. Oh, yeah. [laughs] Oh, God. [laughs] How long is this show?
• 1:19:52
  How long is this show supposed to be? [laughs] I don't know, we're at 1:20 right now. We need to get back to- We're going 10 more minutes and we're fucking done, all right? Yeah.
• 1:19:58
  And then, and J- Greg's gonna look at this and go, "What the shit?" [laughs] Spinner, Spinner, you just tell us to fuck off whenever. Yeah. No, you can... Hey, Spinner- I'll come, I'll, I'll come up for part two.
• 1:20:07
  Oh, we should. [laughs] Oh, there we go. We just scratched the surface. Do it at the 63 Club. They got a- Spinner's coming... they got a table in the back. Yeah. Yeah, we should.
• 1:20:14
  Well- We need, we need Jeff to do his basketball impression. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. [laughs] So we got, we have Jeff to do... Yeah, 'cause he, 'cause he, I couldn't...
• 1:20:20
  He couldn't, wouldn't come here and do it, although when we asked him to do it, he said yes he would. Oh, by the way, the only one I have to take the place of that right now is this one. Last call for 66 cent beers.
• 1:20:31
  [laughs] Oh, no. Yeah, Spinner, if you're gonna come up, we gotta find one of those now. Oh, my God. [laughs] Hey, Kelly, uh, did you tell Kelly she's gotta match that? 63 Club said they have 63 cent beers. Oh, yeah.
• 1:20:40
  She can't hear you. Spinner just said- Oh, yeah... she can't hear us... Spinner just said that, Spinner just said that you have to match that with 63 cent beers at the 63 Club. I'm in. She's in. She's in. We're in.
• 1:20:48
  If it actually shows up, I'm in. Oh, did you hear that? Oh. If you show up, she's in. There's the callout. How much are those beers if you show up? I can be in there in an hour.
• 1:20:55
  You'll be there in, [laughs] you'll be here in an hour. [laughs] One hour. She's not working. I bet, I bet Mo- Uh-... Moger'd do a price match. We, yeah, we're- [laughs] Fuck Moger. Price match guarantee, Moger. Really?
• 1:21:07
  [laughs] Fuck Moger. I'm in. Uh, we're... So uh, uh, yes, you have to come up now when Kelly's working, 'cause she said yes, she will match those prices. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's- I can hear Moger firing her right now.
• 1:21:17
  [laughs] [laughs] So- Our ti- What did you do? We made $3.26 last night? What the hell? [laughs] This is the best- [laughs] What'd I say, honey? We did, we did post that, then we posted our...
• 1:21:33
  The, the best thing we all did when we, after it was done, we all said, "Yes, we want our own tabs," because we just want that. [laughs] Yep. We all took pictures.
• 1:21:41
  Well, the worst part about it, Alcott and I, we show up at the rink. We didn't get the word that the rink was shut down, so Mike goes, "Well, let's go down to Glenner's." So, and, and they got five, $6 beers down there.
• 1:21:51
  So we go down there and have $6 beers while you guys are having 66 cent beers. [laughs] Nobody texts us or nothing. Where the hell is everybody? Yep. They're out having 66 cent beers at Hy-Vee. [laughs] Jesus.
• 1:22:02
  I think I spent, I think I spent, like, $7. I... No, did you? Mine was, like, mine was, like, $3.67. Yeah. That's crazy. I, I, I should have called for a ride home.
• 1:22:11
  Oh, the wor- [laughs] No, the wor- the dumbest thing we did is we c- you gave me a ride here. Was it raining? It was raining like a motherfucker. Yeah. So we came out here- Yeah... and then polished off another 12 pack.
• 1:22:20
  And we did a podcast. Yeah, we did a podcast. [laughs] I, that I can't believe we actually posted. It was that, it was, it was horrible. That's the one I listened to. Mary and I listened to. Oh, boy.
• 1:22:29
  [laughs] I don't even remember that one. That's what, that's what the clunker's for, that you shouldn't say it.
• 1:22:32
  Okay, so, and by the way, just so, just so you and the two people that never listen to this piece of shit- [laughs]... um, we, [laughs] we're doing the clunker one.
• 1:22:40
  Uh, Greg is coming over from Milwaukee for Santa Rampage December 4th. Okay. So yeah, so December 4th. You better be here. Yeah, you better be here. I have an elf costume. I'll take another- That'll work Okay.
• 1:22:54
  I, I bought, I, I have new Grinch hands. Oh, shit. Do you guys wanna hear my Santa story? Yes. Last year I str- I dressed up as Santa for my grandkids.
• 1:23:02
  So I got the whole suit on and the whole bit, pillow under my stomach and, you know, I- Why?... look in, look in the... [laughs] I'm looking through. [laughs] We should save this story for the next day.
• 1:23:10
  You fucking dick. I am not a f- I am not a fat man, so I had to put a pillow under there. I'm with you on that one. So I get into the house, and of course the eight-year-old's looking at me. "You look like Grandpa."
• 1:23:20
  [laughs] "No, I'm not Grandpa. What are you talking about?" So we, I hand out my little gifts and candy canes, and they go, they go, "Santa, we made cookies for you."
• 1:23:30
  So they hand me a cookie, and I got that damn fake beard with all the- [laughs] You know, that's nylon. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah." They're looking at me like, "Well, eat the cookie."
• 1:23:39
  And I'm like- You gonna eat the cookie, asshole? Yeah, so I take a bite of the cookie and I'm like, "I think I'm clear," and I start chewing on it and I start swallowing. Nope.
• 1:23:45
  And I'm like, "Wait a minute, I'm not clear." [laughs] And I swallow, and I got, I bet you I got, like, six strands of that damn beard going right down my throat.
• 1:23:53
  [laughs] So Santa's, Santa's there, right there in front of the kids. "[retching] Santa's gotta go." And I run outside. [laughs] These cookies are great, by the way. I run around the corner and I actually throw up.
• 1:24:04
  Oh, shit. [laughs] 'Cause I pull it out, and you could feel that s- that strand. Hell yeah. That strand was probably 18 inches long, and it was all the way... You could feel it coming all the way back out of my throat.
• 1:24:12
  [laughs] It's like Kevin's beard. Oh, my God. I need- Well, it was longer than that. It was, oh... I needed a, I needed a Halloween costume one time. I didn't have anything laying around, but I did have a Santa suit.
• 1:24:23
  And I had a set of antlers [laughs] laying around, so I, I put- Took the antlers and cut them off and made them look like a Santa had run into a reindeer [laughs] and just like threw my head in blood and shit.
• 1:24:32
  [laughs] Oh my God. [laughs] Yeah. And then I don't remember why we had to go to the grocery store. It was late at night. It was Halloween, I hope. 66, 66 up here. No, it was Halloween. But it was, it was... Yeah.
• 1:24:41
  And we got to the grocery store, and there's a bunch of little kids, and there's Santa with a reindeer eye, you know, and it's like, oh, this was a bad move.
• 1:24:48
  Like, like I'm literally running around the store trying to hide from little kids. God, I remember- Oh, boy... I did that with Satan Claus once. Satan... [laughs] I was Satan Claus. Satan Claus. Oh, yeah.
• 1:24:59
  Like white face- [laughs]... black eyes, blood. And I had like a, a sack full of dead Barbies- Oh my God. [laughs]... and heads and shit. No, it was like babies, like baby heads- Oh, fuck... and parts and sh-...
• 1:25:12
  Oh, yeah, I didn't think about it till... I got booed out of a bar. Oh, boy. Nice. [laughs] I think that's- Kelly, Kelly, he's all yours, baby. Yeah. [laughs] I'm absolutely mortified right now. Oh. Oh, no.
• 1:25:24
  I was filling up the car with gas and I see this kid g- you know, just in the car. Yeah. [laughs] He's like... I hear just see him, "Mom." It's- "Mom, what? What?"
• 1:25:32
  [laughs] It's always a great idea when you're sitting at home- Yes... by yourself. Oh, right. You know, it's like, "I can get the Santa Claus and make it look like a giant accident. This is awesome."
• 1:25:39
  You guys ever see Jer- That's kinda like, uh, I was drunk in the bar, but they threw me in public. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Have you guys ever seen Jeremiah Johnson? The, the old movie with, uh- Yeah... Robert Redford?
• 1:25:49
  Like, five million times. In five million ti- Yeah. Okay. So he, he... Remember he goes up the- No... Tony- I'm gonna say no... when Tony, Tony wouldn't sleep one night, okay?
• 1:25:56
  So we're down there, he's sitting on my lap- [laughs]... and he's just lear- learned to talk or whatever, and he's learned about Santa.
• 1:26:01
  And all of a sudden, Jeremiah Johnson comes across the deer, pulls up his musket, and drops that deer, you know? Yeah. [laughs] And Liz is up there half asleep, my, my first wife.
• 1:26:11
  And all of a sudden- Oh, I have a story- Wife number one... I have a story about his first wife. And all of a sudden- Wife number one. Yeah...
• 1:26:14
  all of a sudden Tony turns to me and goes, "Why is Santa shooting the reindeer?" [laughs] Then I hear, "Shut that off." [laughs] Tony was scarred for life. So did you ever, did you ever...
• 1:26:27
  Were you playing hockey with us, or was it a Sunday when you couldn't get off the couch when Chuck was like- There were a lot of those... married to number one- [laughs]...
• 1:26:33
  and she goes, "If you stay home, you can have anything you want." Oh my God. Oh, yep, I remember that. [laughs] Jesus. Go ahead, Chuck, keep going. I remember this one. All right. [laughs] This was a good one.
• 1:26:42
  [laughs] So h- hockey starts at, what, 8:00 or 8:30? 8, 8:30. Okay. Yeah. 8:30, 8:30. So, uh- Yeah, 'cause it means so much to make the story different. Which is fucking stupid, by the way.
• 1:26:51
  The first wife is like, I'm getting ready to go out and she's like, "Hey, why don't you skip hockey tonight and we'll have, we'll have some sex." A little something something. A little something something.
• 1:26:59
  I'm like, "Well, shit, yeah. Okay." So we go up there- [laughs] We go up and we make it happen, you know. You know, Chuck works his magic and all that.
• 1:27:07
  All of a sudden I look at the clock, it's 8:15, I go, "Oh, shit, I can still make hockey." [laughs] [laughs] Out I went. That only happened one time. [laughs] Sorry, Mary. Sorry. I'll never do that to you, sweetie.
• 1:27:22
  Oh, boy. [laughs] So- All right. W- we're at an hour and a half. It's time to get out of here. Yeah. You know- We will do part two... you know what I say when I'm leaving the 63, right? When I gotta go,
• 1:27:32
  I need to go, Mary's ovulating. [laughs] Oh, boy. Here we go. Here we go. Yeah, yeah. [laughs] And I should've turned this off- Sorry, Mary... just a couple minutes ago. [laughs] All right, we're out of here.
• 1:27:41
  You guys quit talking. [laughs] Well done, guys. Thank you. [outro music]