MKWW ("The First Day Of")

I’m late about it. So? I have contentious clients with whom explanations are lost. Very frustrating and debilitating.

Anyway...

Mama Kat's #4 topic of the week: The first day of...

Ah, yes. Let’s talk about my first day of fire academy, shall we?

It was the late winter/spring of 1996. I was paying for it out of pocket, since I was only a seasonal employee. I was only one of two people from my agency to be in this class; that meant that I and my cohort from another ranger district were sort of stepchildren. No matter – I did fine. I was a class officer, too, and clawed my way into the upper 10% (would have been upper 5% if it weren’t for the pesky knot tests).

But it started inauspiciously.

I was very excited. I had gotten the green light from my division chief and permission from my captain to bring a station Breathing Apparatus (“BA”). The day dawned bright and early, as Formation was at 7 sharp, and I had to leave the station barracks I was living at an hour prior since the school was 50 miles away. Got up, ate, dressed in dress uniform, and packed my lunch and duffle bag in my tiny little Geo Metro (how I loved that car!).

Went back into the barracks, grabbed the BA in its case. Even with the advances in technology in making it light(er)weight, that sucker was still very heavy. When someone tells you that the fire department agility tests are hard, they are, and for good reason – you’re carrying this sucker on your back on top of all the nomex outfit (which is heavy and cumbersome) plus equipment and pulling hose. I lug this thing out of the barracks, lock the door, turn around and lurch to the parking lot. Turn at the fence to approach the back of my Metro, which is backed into its usual spot. Turn to the right to unlock the hatchback.

!!grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrindCRUNCHPOP!!

Ah, yes, good times, good times. That would be my back, by the way.

Yes, I threw out my back on the first day of fire academy. It was the very first time I ever did (I have again through the years, not very often, although twice in the last six months), and it picked a really bad time to be that way.

I spent the first three days of the academy in agony. Trying to run, do hose roll drills, hose dragging, and various other things is really interesting.

After the second day, I lurched into my sister’s house and begged her to pop my back into place. She’s a black belt in Aikido, and she learned how to do spinal manipulation. She got it back in, but the muscles and tendons and everything connected still sang in an otherworldly, agonizing, screeching key for the next week.

I survived, I finished the academy, I did fine. But the first week REALLY SUCKED.