Firetruck racing to end boring parades

(657 words)

 One if the most satisfying aspects of spending so much time staring out the window is being the recipient of radom genius thoughts. It’s a sort of brain lightning. You see solutions to problems that have for years bedeviled your fellow man.

Problems like way too many firetrucks.

That’s just the way my brain works. I wish mine worked like Dr. Jonas Salk’s did. The window he looked out of showed him the cure for polio and millions of lives were saved.

Oh, well. That’s enough about him.

Now, many of you are wondering how having too many firetrucks could be a problem. I sense this acutely from any of you who might be reading this post while standing locked inside a burning building.

Well, it’s not, per se, the glut of them that’s the problem. It’s that so many of them show up to participate in our summer holiday parades leading to common complaints. The parade takes too long. Too many firetrucks. Seen it all before.

Now, I take a back seat to no one in support of our local volunteers. The work they do at all hours and under all conditions saves lives — not to mention tax revenues — for the benefit of all. Even me! And I’m the guy that finds it irresistible to refrain from telling this Happy Hour joke I repeat every Friday when the shrill fire whistle sounds to summon these brave volunteers drop whatever they’re doing to do something heroic.

So as they’re rushing to put themselves in harm’s way, I say loud enough for the whole bar to hear …

“Now, I’m not saying our volunteers join for purely social reasons. I’m sure it’s just a happy coincidence that every Friday at 5 p.m. the local whore house catches on fire!”

So they deserve our salutes on the Fourth of July when they assemble en masse in the back streets of Latrobe awaiting their turn to idle at about 4 mph down Latrobe’s main street.

I’ve been going to Latrobe’s Fourth of July parade for nearly 40 years so I reckon I’ve seen. oh, about 400,000 fire trucks creep past me. I’ve seen them in rain. Seen ‘em when it was chilly and I seen ’em when it was roasting. And every time I’ve seen ‘em I’ve probably thought the same thing.

“There goes another dang firetruck. Nearly indistinguishable every other firetruck. Is this thing ever going to end?”

I recognized my thinking was shallow. These men and women are heroes. Their trucks mechanical marvels. This should be celebrated.

And staring out the window, just thinking about solutions to the problems vexing humanity it came to me.

The problem isn’t that the parades are too long. The problem is that the trucks move too slow.

The firetrucks should be required to race through the entire parade route as if they were responding to a report that an area orphanage had caught fire. The sirens would wail, the lights would flash, the engines would roar. 

Imagine the exhilaration.

Of course, this is inherently dangerous. Narrow streets. Twenty-five ton firetrucks careening pedal to the metal, barely in control. There are bound to be accidents.

And what better place to have one than amidst a sea of alert first responders?

Community teams could be lining the parade route, standing by with the Jaws of Life  — and Jaws of Life I’m not referring to the tubby glutton who keeps the food trucks in business.

There could be competitive aspects to the endeavor: Fastest heat, fewest  casualties, least amount of space-saver folding chairs clipped.

Maybe “Survivor” host Jeff Probst could host.

But with racing firetrucks covering in 90 seconds what used to take nearly a dawdling hour, the parade would conclude in a jiffy.  

Problem solved.

I wonder if Jonas Salk ever thought about things like too many firetrucks at the Fourth of July parade.

If I’d have been him, I’d have thought about changing my name to one that isn’t pronounced “SOCK.”