Ingnorance is Bliss

1970's

 

                Being involved with the fire department when I was a child meant many weekends spent there. It was something I enjoyed. I would have a good time with the other fire fighter’s children. No weekend each year was better than the weekend of the big pancake breakfast hosted by the fire department. My parents found any reason to throw a party and these events were no exception. My mother was especially good at turning the most mundane things in to a party. Heck, she would throw parties for made up holidays as well just as an excuse to gather the family and friends together and have a good time.  

                Each year the fire department would host a pancake breakfast on an old covered bridge that crossed a river that ran through town. It had been reduced to foot traffic due to a more modern bridge being built just north of the covered bridge. The set up would begin in the afternoon on Friday. The fire fighters and their friends would bring all of the stuff they needed to host the pancake breakfast from the fire department to the covered bridge. They had an old military styled cooking unit that hooked up and rolled like a trailer, they moved all of the food stuffs, a bunch of picnic tables, boxes of plastic ware, the tables they needed to use as a cashiers booth, and who knows what else. The food and the supplies were usually donated by local grocery stores, and the local businesses would help out in any way possible. This was a great fund raiser for the fire department which was an all volunteer force with the exception of the chief.

                The ladies auxiliary would help raise funds for whatever improvements were needed. If the guys needed new gear, a new truck, additions to the firehouse, it mattered not these ladies were crafty and good as raising funds for the department. They were the grease for the well lubricated machine that was the fire department. There was nothing the ladies could not accomplish if they put their minds to it. My mother was a member and they always had something up their sleeve for making much needed funds for a department with a shoe string budget.

                After the bridge got loaded up with the equipment and food stuff there would be a need to have people guard the gear which meant that people had to spend the night on the covered bridge with all of the gear. It was like a camp out but better. We had a roof over our head, and there was a huge amount of camaraderie and it was actually a better party than the actual pancake breakfast. During the last hours of daylight the kids would be allowed to ride their bikes, hike, play Frisbee and pretty much run amuck. The adults would socialize and yes as per my parent’s style there would copious amounts of alcohol as well. We would send someone to grab fast food for our dinner. This also was usually donated by the local fast food place. I will say that it was Foster Freeze, and we also got pizzas delivered by a place called Round Table Pizza, which was actually about two football fields away from the covered bridge.

                People from neighboring fire departments and local policemen would also come down and check on us. I largely suspect because along with the alcohol my parents always had a pot of coffee going, either at home, at the fire department or on a camp stove at the covered bridge they loved their coffee. I must admit that I have gotten this from my parents. Coffee is like my comforter. The Toxic Twins as I call them in one of my poems, caffeine and nicotine, they are what I wake up to and the last thing I have before adjourning to my bed at night. I am an addict, and I pray my daughter does not fall into the same trap.

                My mother would pack up a box of board games and cards to occupy our minds until late in the evening. My father even brought a crap table one year and played croupier for the people wanting to gamble. The proceeds from the gaming would also be donated to the fire department, though that was not publicly known as gambling was illegal in our area of the world. They adults would play poker. My uncle even rolled up in his motor home for one of these nights and we had the comfort of a restroom close by. Looking back on it I enjoyed the night before the pancake breakfast much more than the actually breakfast itself.  Late at night the local police would again drop by for more coffee some would join in the games when it was a quiet night.

                Once every one got tired the fire fighters would take shifts at posts at either end of the bridge standing guard. I am not sure how long the postings were. An hour at a time maybe, I know that the cooler nights the guys would take a thermos of coffee with them to either end. There would be ten to twenty people spending the night on the bridge so it was probably one of the best camping experiences I have had. It must have been one hell of a sight, fire fighters, their wives, children and friends all sleeping on picnic tables bundled up in sleeping bags like cocoons. I will admit not a lot of sleeping got done this night on anyone’s behalf.

                Early in the morning sometime before the sun came up we would start readying things for breakfast, firing up the grill, mixing the massive amounts of pancake batter and the likes. We would send someone to go get the perishables bacon, sausage, eggs and milk. They would bring them in the morning of the breakfast to ensure quality. The turnout for this type of event was usually very good. Everyone in the community would support the fire department, because they never knew when they would need the fire department’s support in the future. It was a veritable who’s who of our community, and the surrounding one’s as well. People would come from near and far to have breakfast, some years totaling eight hundred breakfasts served between seven in the morning and eleven.

                 How I miss those days, lost in my youthful ignorance, oblivious to the harsh realities of life. It seemed that everyone was going to live forever, and we all were going to remain in the same town and have the same friends throughout time. Alas though life goes on and we grow older and realize that life works in a very different manner. Ah, Ignorance really is bliss!

               

 

Reviews

[Yellow Butterfly]

What a wonderful story filled with so many loving memories from the mind of an innocent childhood. You captured the true essences of what it's like to live within a loving family, everyone getting together and having the best family times ever. This is what family is all about. To have that spilled into a tight nit community must have been amazing too, sharing lives, food, everything....etc

A child knows no ignorance only happy happy blissful times, the ignorance creeps in when the child starts to mature into adulthood and is trying to find their own way in life.

Wonderful story..