Fire

My back yard is next to a fire station. (Occasionally you can see them hurrying out.) I noticed they have a special bin there for medical waste.  The building has a tall tower, and I've often speculated about the great view of the city from the top.

When I was young, I lived in a small town in New Brunswick with a volunteer fire department.  They had a machine a bit like a foghorn that would make a huge sound when an alarm got triggered.  The sound came in two tones and the number of blasts in either tone indicated the alarm's place in code.

Firefighters are a special breed.  In Japan firemen get a lot of fancy tattoos. (The only other Japanese group with this conspicuous practice is the Yakuza gangsters.) In the Michael Moore documentary Sicko he brought a New York fireman whose health had been damaged on 9/11 to Cuba to get the medical care he couldn't afford at home.  The Havana firefighters held a special ceremony for him.  No doubt firefighters around the world feel a strong sense of camaraderie. (Unlike soldiers, they don't have to fight each other.)

I remember Vincent Price on The Carol Burnett Show in a sketch where he showed her how to make a conventional dinner table scene scary.  She said "What happened to the maid?" and he lit a candle with a really big flame and said "I fired her!" My mother didn't like horror movies, but she did like Vincent Price! (He knew how to be scary in a funny way.)