Volunteer

I was going to release a different image this week. Then a friend sent me a text message. He’d evacuated from his home in New Orleans where Hurricane Ida landed as I was writing my weekly essay. His message reminded me of another August 29th sixteen years ago. That day seems so long ago and just yesterday all bundled together. Parts of it I remember vividly, and other parts seem to be fading past a point of recovery. I guess what sits with me most permanently are not specific moments, but questions born from those moments - What does it mean to save? And what does it mean to need saving?

I was reminded of my time as a fireman. I served as a volunteer firefighter in my small hometown for sixteen years, just as my father had done before me and just as his father had done before him. When Katrina landed in 2005 I was in my fifth year as a first responder. I was a terrible firefighter, but a decent truck engineer. I remember how firefighters from all around the country made their way south after Katrina. When the storm passed and the chaos slowed, these skilled volunteers were instrumental in the weeks of disaster recovery that ensued.

It was exhausting work, and there was no way the first responders in New Orleans could handle it alone. A huge group of firefighters from New York made their way to New Orleans. They were repaying the men and women from the Crescent City who traveled north to help after the Twin Towers were attacked four years earlier. Several of the men with whom I served traveled to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to assist in cleaning debris. Roads were unrecognizable. Trees were down, cars and boats blown miles from their homes, and, of course, houses had been turned to kindling. It was hard work, and not a single man from our department received pay for his efforts. I didn’t go because I was afraid to take off of work. and my home was filled with over thirty family and friends that evacuated to the Delta.

I think back to that time I spent as a fireman and how uncomfortable it felt at times. I always felt a bit out of place, both socially and politically. On more than one occasion discussions about politics became awkward, but they were never aggressive. I thought about quitting so many times. I’m sure there are a few men that would have enjoyed that. But there also were many that would not have.

As I reflect on those times now, and consider all that has happened since , I am reminded at how difficult it became for me to stay angry at a men with different political beliefs. so often I witnessed a fireman risk his own life to help tend to another’s. It happened over and over and over again, as did our arguments over the presidencies of George Bush and Barrack Obama.

It is extremely difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions about another person when the nuances of their living are intimately observed. Or maybe it’s easy. It sure seems like that’s the case these days - the speed with which we draw conclusions, I mean. I wonder how many of us would run into a burning building while everyone else is running away from it. I wonder if more buildings are burning than any of us realize, and who, if anyone, will be our first responders.

Or second. Or third. Or fourth . . .