.
… to study the basking habits of Big Red, aka Nobilis deflamabus, notorious for extended periods of lifeless torpitude punctuated by sudden noisy eruptions of frenetic activity stimulated by a voracious hunger for superheated organic gases cast of by a variety of flames, only to sink back just as suddenly into extended periods of lifeless torpitude.
© d070525-010 Water Truck
Coal City, West Virginia
Raleigh County
Friday 21 May 2007
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Hearing cries of distress
The White Knight gallops to save
Hooves churning, red eyes flashing.
© d081025-018 Friendsville Fire Truck
Shaw Mountain Road
Monroe County, Tennessee
Saturday 25 October 2008
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Volunteers, typically young and single, gather in their spare time to shine trucks, dry hoses, maintain gear and listen to the scanner restless for the next adrenalin rush. Frametown, West Virginia. Braxton County.
Forget-me-nots gather to soak their toes in soggy soil along a forgotten ditch while enjoying Bingo calls from the community center up the hill in Pickens, West Virginia. Randolph County.
These are not industrial eggs automated from fertilization thru immunization, incubation, hatching, rearing then laying when the stupefied hen drops an anonymous egg into a trough that rolls thru robotic processing untouched by human hands all the way to the grocery shelf. Eggs matter out here in Braxton County, West Virginia.
Amid a vast chaotic tangle of junkyard scrap, someone chose order over disorder applying precision and internal relationships to stem the relentless tides of entropic disintegration. Mercer County, West Virginia.
Doctor Flowers, June 2006
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.
.
"It's a Chevy C50!"
Anxious tires lurch
Gravels fly
My heart pounds
As I leap aboard with
Grit stung face
Racing onward, hot lights
Scorch the wind
"Glory," wails the siren
Into the fiery unknown
First responders, my ass
The only responders
Saving the distressed
Comforting the injured
"Peep!, …Click!"
Digital auto-everything
Captures the moment suddenly
Reducing my ride to ashes.
© d070524-048 Fire Truck
McDowell County, West Virginia
Thursday 24 May 2007
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Gradual abstractions
Challenge one's convictions.
So, bundle your beliefs
And buckle up.
© r1136-10 Coker Creek Fire Truck
Monroe County, Tennessee
Friday 3 November 2000
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All's quiet today in Grape Creek. First responders are shopping in Murphy or enjoying some college football or maybe fishin' in Lake Hiawassee. Goldenrods and asters speckle the roadside meadows making a bunch of hot hyperbole in the late afternoon sun.
Secretly I wish for the sirens. For the red door to roll away, for the mad scramble. Fathers and neighbors with an adrenalin rush. Dee hangs the 'store closed' sign on the door. Charley drops his wrenches. Albert shuts down the mower. Poppa jumps from his nap. "Brush fire at LaGrange." Even Bill Bowen the village drunk can hold the hose for a momentary boost to his shattered esteem. It's Keystone cops, but a proud and exciting time for me.
Today, all's quiet in Grape Creek. Goldenrods and asters speckle the roadside meadows making a bunch of hot hyperbole in the late afternoon sun.
© r1124-02 Grape Creek Firehouse
© r1123-33 Goldenrod Meadow
Grape Creek, North Carolina
Cherokee County
Saturday 23 September 2000
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Nowadays, even the most remote rural volunteer fire departments have gone hi-tech modern: robust communications, Haz-Mat training, regional readiness for mass casualty episodes. Their roadside signs even sport a modern pictogram depicting the lone fireman driver wearing a funny looking fireman's hat with a jaunty upturn to the neck protecting rear brim. It's a bit ironic that this trendy pictogram honors the classic old-school hook and ladder truck while the Cherry Mtn. real deal sits abandoned to decay in the bulrushes -- with scant hope the Pharaoh's daughter will happen this way.
© r1075-35 Cherry Mtn Fire Truck
Sandymush, North Carolina
Buncombe County
Monday 8 June 1998
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The good citizens of Culberson slept soundly at night knowing their magnificent Centurion stood faithful watch over them. Dignified, with pride of purpose. Ready to serve.
At least until a later visit to this old fire station. What once was, now gone forever, had been summarily erased by a four-lane highway. On yet another trip I spotted this fugitive in an auto junk yard overwhelmed by an entanglement of honeysuckle. Without a doubt, for those of us denizens stuck in romantic fantasies of the past, the message has to be 'get over it.'
…I guess.
Title: © Culberson Fire Truck. r0880-13
Series: Fire Trucks
Location: Culberson, North Carolina
Cherokee County
Date: Saturday 4 November 1995
I usually fall about three quarts low
Each time they degauss my corona.
Title: © Fire Truck Detail. r0088-09
Series: Fire Trucks
Location: Johns Creek Fire Department
Pike County, Kentucky
Date: Wednesday 29 May 1985
"Two a.m. The lone siren wails.
A long and two shorts, …long and two shorts.
Poppa stumbles from bed,
And lurches thru the back door.
Shirt tail flapping, …long and two shorts."
"Like moths to the flame they race,
With helmets and hooks.
"Pumpman!" Crank it up, make it flow!
Bloated hoses snarl, and drench and spew.
Embers fly. Nighthawks cry.
Darkness falls. Then the dew."
- An excerpt from my photo-essay on country fire trucks
published in Blue Ridge Country magazine, September/October 1996.
Title: © Fire Truck at Greazy Creek. r0438-33.
Series: Fire Trucks
Location: Archville, Tennessee
Polk County
Date: Sunday 9 June 1991
