*portions of this article appeared in earlier articles in Kirbyontheloose
“Was that you talking down in the cellar?” asked my wife. She was working at her computer on a presentation, and heard someone’s faint voice. She thought it came from the cellar, where I was putting insulation on the steam pipes.
“It was me,” I said, with a minimum of explanation. She let it go. I was talking to myself as I worked cutting and fitting insulation on the boiler pipes. I was still angry at myself for my stupidity for asking, on behalf of some of the Meadowbrook fire victims, to be heard by the public safety committee of the City Council. I did something that is just not done here in Northampton. The public safety committee is one of those committees that no one goes to except the public safety professionals and a small group of city councilors. It is sacred ground.
We got there and met a great phalanx of fire professionals who had gathered to defend the professional reputation of the Fire Chief and his department. I like white, but not too much of it, and everywhere stood men with starched white shirts and badges glowering at us. There was the chief of the Easthampton department and the chief of the Williamsburg department, and even a senior faculty member of the school of fire science at Anna Maria College who praised all aspects of the action, and thought it was a model for all fire agencies everywhere.
I don’t think we were able to make a good case for what we were trying to say, because we had walked right into an ambush, and because half the time we were talking apples and they were talking oranges. Read the full article here.
I don’t think we were able to make a good case for what we were trying to say, because we had walked right into an ambush, and because half the time we were talking apples and they were talking oranges. Read the full article here.
