Friday, August 17, 2007

the start......

Even though the past few Fireman's Musters have been on the quiet side, I still get that "excited feeling" when the third weekend in August rolls around. Afterall, its been a big thing for me...my entire life.... I attended my first muster in 1960... at the ripe old age of 5 months!!! My Dad was (is) a firefighter, and has held several offices as such... including Chief... so, I grew up with the fire department.

I never really planned on marring a fireman, in fact, Mom said not to, because they were always leaving you for fire calls, but with all those handsome young men in my Dad's fire company, how could you not date a few, and yes, fall in love and marry one!!!! So, being Ed's wife... my "life with the department" continued .. as it should.

Ed is the "keeper" of an old "handtub" fondly called "Protection 2".. this is a piece owned by an association named the "Red Shirts",( there's a whole story on them, that I will need to tell at another time. ) And for me, the muster all begins when Ed brings "Protection 2" home for the parade. In a couple of hours, a group of red shirts will appear, bring Protection 2 out of her house, and polish all her brass and get her looking good for the parade. It one of those silly things that has a special time about it, and I look forward to seeing them come every year.

Now, you have to know that where there is a muster and a parade, you have to have a "queen".. in the past years "Miss Flame" has been a high school senior, and picked in a number of different ways. In 2004... Miss Flame was our own Kassy!!!! (so was her best friend Diana.. they shared the fame) The girls had their picture in the paper, received a savings bond for their efforts, rode in the parade in an antique car and tossed Goldenrod kisses to the crowd... then handed out the trophies after the running events .. and oversaw the banquet and dance afterwards. To this day, Kas likes to pop out the line " Miss Flame, 2004, thank you for coming!!!" And Nate can proudly say, that he married a beauty queen!!!!!

So, I guess that none of you will be surprised to learn that this year's Miss Flame is Sadie. Tomorrow will be the parade, the muster events, banquet and dance.... the third Saturday in August..... always the same!!!!!!