My father Fred after a lengthy career of volunteering in two fire department is retiring on May 2015 at the age of 65. He started his volunteer fire department career at the North Bend fire department in 1971 where he also served as an Emergency Medical Technician. He was promoted up to the rank of Lieutenant. Then in 1989 he moved to Cle Elum where he continue to the tradition of serving his community by serving his local fire department as Kittitas County Fire District 7 at the Station 73 at the Nelson Siding Road station. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant and Public Information Officer. During my growing up days he sometimes would tell stories of some of his calls at the dinner table even though my mother sometimes would object to it. As children Jim and I learned very early on all the first aid techniques. We sometimes would pray around the scanner to until our father came home from a call. This was typical of any first hero family. He taught me how you talk to first hero family. When Jim and I were younger we would pretend to be fireman. My younger brother Jim almost was a firefighter but father in law John Black made sure that did not happen. He did not want his daughter marrying a firefighter. This training also helped me when I was dispatching taxi cabs in Anchorage I know how to talk to first heroes get the cab drivers the help they needed. I wish my father well in his retirement as a first hero. He will always remember for the countless lives he helped saves and always will wonder about the ones he could not.
