Band of Brothers

I'm sitting here watching Band of Brothers. I've seen it a few times now and each time it makes me respect those WWII hero's even more. To witness what they went through, for another people, in another age, is both amazing and heart-breaking.200 years has so changed the world. People hate us, love us, want to be part of us so much they risk their lives to get here. My neighbor was one of those. During the trek he lost his brother in the Rio Grand. Now he's made himself a great business with a great family. Props to him.Then there are those people who don't believe in the good, kind, things we do, or attempt to do. They don't believe in history or want to try and change the history they don't believe in. Iran's president is this way. It makes you think, especially while watching Band of Brothers, how someone could deny 12 million people died for a cause, as dishonest and tragic that cause was. There are pictures, film footage, first person accounts, diaries, etc etc and still there are people who don't want to believe.Its tragic.My (our) morals are no better than anyone elses, other than the fact that I(we) have compassion and understanding, and TRY and do things right, for the right reasons, at the right times.To anyone in (or out of) uniform, THANK YOU.

The Military

I wish to extend my deepest and most heartfelt thanks to everyone who is serving or has served in the military in any capacity. It is with your sacrifice and fortitude that I am allowed to continue my everyday.I am a believer in the fact that our country has been built upon the freedoms that those who serve(d) helped to construct. Built upon the foundations of their accomplishments and sacrifices, I get to lead my life in freedom and happiness.Thank you. You will never be forgotten, always remembered in the fondest terms, and thoroughly cheerished.To all those serving, send me a note, come visit and I'll buy you a beer.

Moo Car

My first car. Far from a dream car.A hand-me-down from Mom.It was banana Yellow.2 doorsRound headlightsI was a Ford Maverick.My aunt, rest her soul, passed away from intestinal cancer. It was a 1976 version, with AM radio and black pleather interior. Two venting back seat windows, and a small trunk. The engine was under a huge hood.When my aunt died, the car was passed along to my father, who in turn gave it to mom as our first 2nd car in the family. She drove it here and there for a few years until at the end of 1980 I received my driver's license. Then I started 'borrowing' the car.Vanity plates had just started being offered in NY a few years prior to my getting the car and my mother had the NY plate 'MOO' created and the car so adourned. It then became known as the MOO car.Moo - my fathers nick-name for my mother. The story behind this was that earlier in the 70's he was on a business trip to Japan for the launching of an oil tanker. While there, he purchased my mother a silk evening coat/dress thingy, a Moo-Moo. He brought it back and she loved it. She wore it day and night. Years went by and she continued to wear it after rising in the morning and just before retiring for the evening. She wore it to tatters.Because mom wore it so much and loved it (and frankly, wouldn't part with it even in its dish-rag ending state) Dad began to kid her about it and called her Moo as a joke. Another year went by with him calling her Moo. She wouldn't throw it away. Another year, then another. Finally, one day he slipped. He called her Moo when she answered the phone. That was it. The name had finally sunk into his psyche and became his pet name for her. To this day that name continues to be used.When I received the car, I drove it to school. Yes, I received a good bit of ribbing and admonishment, but hey, unlike many other kids in my grade, I was driving a CAR. They were driving a ..well....., they weren't, and needed to take a school bus. I on the other hand would pile my friend Doug into the car and we'd make a Taco Bell run (bean burrito's with plenty of hot sauce) or to BK (chicken cutlet sandwich) for lunch. Since they were both located a few miles away, we'd make it back in plenty of time.The first thing the car needed was a radio, a REAL radio. I went to Crazy Eddie's in Westbury (on Old Country Road). Doug (my friend - I'm not into referring to myself in the third person) knew Crazy Eddie's salesman trick. The SKU stickers on the shelves were coded in a fashion so that any salesman could walk up to any in store component, look at the sticker and immediately know what the base price was. Anything over that base price was additional commission in their pocket. Since we knew the 'system' we walked in and in my first buiying experience without my parents around, I began to haggle. (I settled at $1 over their base price). Hey this was a fun experience when you knew the system.Then Doug and I went home and began to read the directions. (For a few years, this was the last time I read any directions. For a male, this tends to be a big thing. I don't know what it is about directions (in any form), but men aren't programmed to read or ask for them. Then later in life I realized I was better prepared for things if I read directions, so that's what I do know, though admittedly, in a perfunctory fashion.)Cars in those day had a lot of room in them. They were built like tanks for the most part with heavy bumpers and plenty of room around the engines. In fact I remember this car because when opening the hood, I could actually see airspace around the engine. So much so that I could see the pavement below in 4 areas without even moving my head. You could have passed a small child through those spaces.Inside the cabin was no different. Under and behind the dash was so much space I could stick my head under and into that gap. Then I started removing knobs and screws. Back then, radio's were held in place by their selector knobs, which had threaded posts on each side, with nuts hold the entire radio unit in place from the front. The radio had to be fed into the dash from behind. A few snips of some wires that I had no idea what they did at the time, and the radio came out.After three days of trying and a few more trips to radio shack for testers, wire, a fuse, set if crimpers and some connectors, the radio blarred to life. I immediately turned it up as loud as it would go and summarily blew out the 2 door speakers. Off to Crazy Eddies to buy some speakers (4).Three more days of removing door panels and running wire and I had some kick ass sound from the doors and 2 new 6x9's in the rear deck. I must hve had a huge 10w per channel pumping through this sound system. It was beautiful. It was a $69 top of the line Kenwood. (Obviously the top of the line statement is relative to a 16 year old kid with mostly bare pockets. My top of the line purchase was part of Kenwoods bottom of the line 'consumer-priced-to-sell-millions-of-units' offering range.Once finished we cruised. Windows down (45 degrees outside) Foreigner pumped up on the new tape deck.Couple weeks later it was, hmmm, I think I ....NEED...fog lights. Off to the auto-parts store. Install fog-lights. These things were installed so effectively and with such care that the light beams they cast showed signs of every bump on the road by spraying the tree tops and the front tires with pointed beams of light. After about 10 seconds they'd settle down and finally point straight aimed at the roadway where they were supposed to be. (To my credit, the next version I installed after these fell off the car at highway speed about 2 weeks later, were very secure and needed to be cut off with a grinding wheeel a couple years later.)This car took us everywhere. (Mom had a couple brushes with deafness after getting in to HER car and trying to go to the market. I never could understand why she wasn't a fan of Blue Oyster Cult).In later offerings I'll get back to fun times had in the car with friends, road trips to Great Adventure, cruising, etc.That's the MOO car.

Weeks Events

So, I just finished a very cathartic blog/journal whatever you want to call it. I'm enjoying the experience. I like Myspace so far and think it'll end up offering a wide varity of services and advantages over other similar sites. I may get to a point of taking this blog to a personal web page run and hosted on my own server, but who knows. We'll see where this all goes.Long week. Stress up the ying yang. In my business life, I had a great accomplishment today. I was able to keep 6 families in their homes and the local government at bay in their attempts to move them out. A very bad developer converted a small building in NJ. He had plans and specifications drawn up and delivered those to the building department and after renovating the building, had an inspection and received a Cert of Occupancy. He then, without telling the building department, performed construction on the building and substantially changed the buildings configuration prior to a set of new owners purchasing into it. These changes created conditions of blocking fire exits and escapes, installing faulty equipment and shoddy construction practices. The owners of this building hired an engineer about a year after they moved in because they discovered these problems. The engineer confirmed their findings. I wrote a letter to the buildings developer and asked for a meeting. He turned me down. The owners hired an attorney. He wrote a letter to the developer, again turned down. Finally the owners asked the attorney to write a letter to the State. The State responded by asking for a meeting (yeah). The meeting was held at the building today.The local building code official looked around, and then not wanting to admit he did something wrong, he b lamed the owners for the problems he noted (in front of 2 State building inspectors). He proceeded to say that he issued the certificate to the building as it was designed. The modifications he found today were obviously (?) made after the fact and as such it would be the owners responsibility to fix them immediately. In fact, these are serious findings and the building needs to be shut down right away.I was dumbfounded. A person would want to cover their ass by foresaking the homes of 6 families. I intervened and asked if I could get the fire department to sign off of the building would he still condemn it. YES. Son-of-a.... If I have my crews start work here right now to correct the most urgent of problems, will you still condemn, , well... okay, start getting stuff done and expect my letter next week. He walked out as if nothing had happened. Sheesh. what a day.

Crash - Finale

.........I went home and showered. I'd washed up at Mary's house pretty thoroughly. I still though felt as if I had 'it' on me and was trying to wash that feeling of dread and death off. I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.I called in to 'work' and told them what I'd been involved in and that I wouldn't be in today. I grabbed a bite to eat and went down to headquarters. There I picked up the phone and called dispatch. I knew the county would be running some debrief's of the incident as well as putting together field based PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) support teams. I wanted to make sure we got those services to my quarters. Dispatch said they'd had some small teams in the area visiting individuals, but nothing for us as a department yet. There was though a debrief group site available at North Shore University Hospital and they had current availability. I told dispatch to put a notice out to all of our members that they should call immediately if they wished to attend.I received responses from 16 of our members and a couple hours later we headed to the hospital. It turned out to be an 8 hour session. Included in our group were fireman, nurses and the general public, all with varying degress of involvement in the crash. After awhile of talking things through as one large gathering, they broke us down into smaller groups, segregated by the level of involvement in the crash. Some of the lay people had had issues with hearing the plane go down. Some saw the plane go down. Some walked over and tried to help but were confronted with the walking wounded and couldn't handle that sight. Others were firemen who were putting fires out and were stressing over seeing a plane on the ground with the thoughts of the unseen victims playing in their heads. Finally, others like me, had been involved over our heads. This is not to say anyone's feelings were any more or less powerful than anyone else's. Its just that we were made up of different groupings of people with differing needs. The medically trained people who'd been involved in care of the crash victims had (supposed) training for this type of thing. They therefore were able to process this incident in a totally different fashion than the non-trained, etc.We talked, and talked, and talked. That day ended, I tried to get on with my life. I was finding that I had the slightest of tremors in my left hand. I knew I was also facing other issues, less physical. I'd found my reasoning capabilities were slightly slower on the uptake. Snap processes, which had always been spot on, were delayed a bit and being replaced with the need for consciously guided thoughts and internal proddings. I hadn't felt this way since I was 14 years old and it was upsetting.I went to the memorial services held at St. Dominick's Church. I met the head father of the church and he blessed me and layed his hand on m y shoulder, effectively the hand of god if you will. After the service I was interviewed by every TV station covering the event. By the conclusion of the 3rd interview the savage nature of the news service had become apparent. They'd invariably end up asking the same probing questions in order to get that 'good' footage. They wanted emotion, they wanted you to ball your eyes out or they wanted to see that stark unrelenting stoicism on you face when compared to one of the other 'rescuers' as the final counter-point shot to sum up the media event. Anything that would keep the viewers tuned in so they could make more money in ad sales. It turned my stomach. I'd made it through 7 interviews before one of the crews from News 7 asked a very horrible off color question about blood and gore, I looked stright into the camera (they don't like that) raised my right hand and flipped them the bird. Over the next week I spent any available time I had going for counseling. I was typically joined by 6 of my brethren. Each time, the psychologists would help put pieces together on why I was feeling this way, why WE were feeling this way. It took a great deal of effort by the physchologists to get me personally to realize I was not alone in my feelings or reactions. Further, that my 'ailment' wasn't unique to anyone or any group of people. These were typical of many people who experienced traumatic issues daily.This fact was a hook for me. I was finally able to feel a part of something and that I wasn't going 'nuts' as they say. (who the hell is 'they' anyway, I've always wanted to meet the "they's"). This feeling of being part of a group was important. It allowed me to re-build empathy for people and understand that these feelings were every day feelings many many people experienced. In our case, they all hinged on a single, very traumatic incident. My issues began, as I would later learn from introspection, with that first phone call to Mike at my headquarters earlier in the evening. I had somehow processed that simple task of picking up the phone and getting people together to dive into this horrible incident as guilt and feelings of responsibility for everyone who was with me that night. More so that their feelings of pain, loss and emotion were on my shoulders. It took me many weeks to get passed those feelings. I was programmed to help. I couldn't help but try and provide services and support in a time of need. This time the tables were turned 180 degrees and I needed the help from the community.My second patient of that horrible night had been the bruised and battered little girl, with nothing wrong with her other than scrapes. It was my interaction with her that was found to be my 'trigger' event. Her simple statement of 'Daddy?' had smashed through any mental preparation barriers I'd erected in the short drive to the crash site. The event then became personal for me. I 'knew' someone, a victim no less, who had been hurt and their family was most likely hurt, or killed, in this crash.This single interaction with my 'patient' might not have been a trigger at all if it wasn't for the fact that I'd gone through two (2) previous incidents in the very near past. I'd had no time to dwell on those events, reflect and retrospectively decide what I'd done right and wrong and how to do better the next time. I didn't have the needed mental processing complete which would allow me to add those direly needed mental shields. The night of the crash I was still, vulnerable.Then there was how the bodies were being handled. With little emotion, with little reverence, without the guidance of a higher power (who ever that might be). In one fashion, stacked ontop of one another just like the images captured in a far away land the result of those death squads.Finally, there was the ultimate of short circuits. All of my training and throughout my career a 'call' always had a beginning, middle, and end to our contact with our patient. A call started with our pagers going off, or radio blaring, then responding to the ambulance, getting on, arriving at the patient, stablizing them, then taking them to the hospital where we would transfer them to doctors and nurses. I'd always been very empathetic to my patients. Always tried to express that I understood their pain and discomfort. Tried to go the extra mile or two to help make them more comfortable, to check in on them later on, to provide whatever guidance I could to them. In this case though, there wasn't a middle or an end. In some cases I did nothing more than carry them from one point to another and place them gingerly on a colored tarp. No one was around to receive them or take a report. In most cases I had no names, and a very limited understanding of their plight. I'd always transferred care to someone as qualified or more qualified than myself. This night was different. This night all of my conditioning and very structured training broke apart at the seams. This small, very tiny, incidental almost, factor litterally brought me down and consumed me. It changed my life forever. To this day I'll occassionaly wake up to the images of that night. Sometimes heroic, others definitive and brutal. I'll probably still carry them 'til the day I die.Years later now and I've learned to be proud of my actions that night. Proud of the hurdles I overcame and comfort in the knowledge that I helped to save lives. I also know it made me a more complete person, worldly in some ways.And, I'd do it again tomorrow.---------------------------------------------------------------------------It was a funny incident that occurred a few months after that fateful night in January. My fiance's family put together a trip to Disney World for all in the family to experience. A great gathering for a great family. I had the honor of being invited with the plans made well in advance. I was still very apprehensive about life in general and the happenings around me due to what I was fighting internally.The day of our depature arrived. We we went to the airport. Flying out of LaGuardia. The day was brisk and a front had blown through. We checked our baggage and cued for the flight. I started to sweat. Our seat assignments were called, we boarded the plane. I sat next to my lovely counterpart and immediately buckled up. I didn't settle in, didn't look around to catch the eyes of everyone sitting near me as I always had while offering a brief smile. Didn't try and crack the typical joke or make light of whatever the situation. I was white knuckling every second. The poor armrests were taking a beating. I stared ahead.Mary touched my wrist and asked if I was okay. Curtly, I replied...Sure and stared straight ahead. She gave me her heand to hold, knowing inside her what I was going through. We'd spoken about what might come of this day in advance. She was caring, responsive, compasionate, understanding. She'd helped me through my issues with as much love and attention as I'd let through. She broke the bond of our hands only once, when my grip became over-bearing. She then slipped her index finger to my pulse point to see what my heart was doing. 160. They announced we'd be pulling from the gate. 180. We taxied to the runway. 186. We sat behind a couple of planes, their engines idling. The pilot made an announcement. We'd be here for a while, weather delays down south...200. They put Regis and Kathy Lee on the in-plane video system. I was dying inside. (Not only was my mind racing through all sorts of bad flying scenarios, but I disliked Rege and KathyLee) Nearly 2 hours later we tookoff.....226. We landed in Orlando with me at 110. I've flown many times since then, now my heart rate never reaches 100.

Crash - cont'd

...........As I continued looking around the yard, I noticed another high-vis jacket moving about near the MacEnroe's front door. It was one of my female commrades, Karen. She looked worse for the wear, her makeup and eyeliner had been disrupted by tears and had run badly making her look like the female version of Alice Cooper. I caught her eye and she came over immediately and then fell into my arms. She'd been tasked about 30 minutes prior to work with property owners on the block (if this area actually could be said to have 'blocks') to secure fresh drinking water for the rescuers, with possibly a warm garage to cycle those rescuers that needed to rest or decompress. She was now sobbing uncontrollably, almost to the point of hyperventilating. She'd found mostly locked doors (owners weren't home and the police had initially refused to commandeer anyone's property because of the areas tawny nature.). She did though get a response from the MacEnroes and as such had tried tirelessly, and tearfully, to get them to approve the use. In her mind each minutes that went by was a further failing of life in general for the victims of this crash. The last thing they needed was further adversity entering their lives, or what was left of them. These owners had resisted to the bitter end until I came along. At 6'5" and 250lbs my stature somehow proved to allow additional avenues to be opened for us that night. These people were not happy by any means, but finally relented when confronted with reality, and explanation of the need and a small dose of "you have no choice." As I dwas with the other owner up the hill, I was very empathetic to their predicament, always trying to put myself quickly into their shoes. They had not chosen to have this happen, litterally in their backyards, but were thrust by stupidity into it. They had to forever deal with the fact that many many people died on or across from their property. Not a good thing to have happen for property values, or for that matter, if you believe in an after-life.There was a small split rail fence that had to go. We took it down. We tried as much as we could not step in flower beds or disturb bushes. As the rescuers were being booted (FBI) from the plane, they were asking for new assignments and then tasked with the gruesome duty of bringing the dead to our 'main' deceased staging area. You could see it on their faces as they approached, body in tow. We told them where to place the filled bags or bulky blood stain covered sheets. Earlier in the evening these hero's wore faces of determination, concern and bravery. Now those masks had been replaced by sallow, blank, even pained expressions. Outer jackets were opened to the cold air as they walked, four to a backboard, down to us. Having been in over-drive for the better part of 2 hours now, the firemens internal temperatures were abusive. Their coats unbuttoned, heat and steam were being released into the cold and moist night air. Karen had finally found the strength to compose herself and looked back up the hill at this never ending line of bodies coming to us. She turned to me and said " it almost looks as if the deads souls are fading away in whisps as they get closer to us." I could see her eyes moving between the broken plane and broken bodies, and again she fell apart and crumpled to the ground.I'd tried hard to find the most resilient looking men as they dropped bodies off to us. We had the gruesome task of trying to begin identifying the dead. We'd need to look for any identification, if it was on their person. We looked on necklaces to see if their were inscriptions, for obvious tatoo's, something, anything we could put on our reports to try and begin the needed paper trail. About the only saving grace at this point was that the triage tags being used had been consecutively numbered. Someone else had begun the process of placing these tags on the toe of each victim (if there was a toe). Its very disconcerting to see those triage tags, which start out all firm and intact, varying colors and numbers printed on them, arriving at our location with all but the bold black section (death) ripped off. These people had become, at least for our needs, numbers. Internally I started striving to put the 'person' back in place of that number. I didn't want any one of these victims in my charge to be John or Jane Doe, or worse yet, Unknown #45632.Within about 30 minutes of us starting the body repository, the ME showed up with his staff. Seeing us, he thanked us profusely and said he'd take it from there. It was surprising to me when he showed up. I had been hunched over slightly aligning one of the new deliveries to us. (In death, I didn't want anyone to look like an outcast. I guess I wanted them to be part of a family, even if only of my mental creation. As unusual as that sounds, to me, they needed to be part of something, even in death, rather than that anonomous five digit number.)I'd been able to assemble a team of 15 by that point. It was made up of firemen, paramedics, EMT's and general passers-by. (As a further aside, my future brother-in-law lived in Oyster Bay. His brother had been out that night when the crowd he was with heard the commotion of the plane crash and went on their own (neither firemen or medical person among them) and just jumped in to help in any way they could. Jeffery was an exceptional man for doing that.)Upon being relieved, we sought further tasking from the incident commander and were summarily released for the night. Our three ambulances had finally gotten through to the crash site and had made three trips each back and forth to area hospitals. The other chief I had arrived with had long ago gone home. Luckily, trucks were packing up and going over to the Oyster Bay firehouse for coffee. The Ladies Auxillary there had opened up and were running full catering in their firehouse. I heard that, being such a small town, they'd contacted the owner of one of the local upscale restaurants that wasn't open that day. The owner in turn called in all of his staff and opened the kitchen and began making food for the rescuers. Chafers were out, plates, forks and everything one could possibly imagine was there for our taking. For the most part though, the hot food remained in the chafers. Coffee and tea were the choice of the night to try and quell the chill in our bones (and minds). One of my ambulances had waited at the firehouse for the remaing crew members still in the field. Everyone now assembled and brought together it took us home.The ride back was mostly quiet. Unlike after most calls, this night we did very little talking or after action exchanges. We were consumed with the aweful images playing in our minds. Upon arrival back at our headquarters, we found that some family members had opened our kitchen and put out coffee and donuts along with the beginnings of some hot food. We debriefed a bit, contacted dispatch to have the local 4 fire department chiefs give us a call because we decided to go out of service until 8AM. We did this for a couple reasons. First, the amulances had no supplies left. We needed to restock. Next we didn't think we'd have anyone ready to go on another emergency that evening after having been through such an incident. The cheifs, me included, and the line officers (all of who made it to the crash) meeded a break. We filled out paperwork, assigned patient numbers for those transported to hospitals, spoke briefly about the next days needs to start formal debriefs as soon as possible and then started heading home.For me, I'd begun to experience something I'd not come in contact with before. It was a strange feeling. A numbness, indifference, had set in. I'd started to replay certain images in my mind over and over again. I noticed the slightest of nervousness in my voice. Something, I knew, was amiss inside me and I could feel it coming like a freight train. I did the only thing I instinctively knew how to do at the time, call my beautiful fiance and wake her, and her family, up.Mary - a rock and a hell of a shoulder to cry on. Now still my lovely wife of many years. Why she's put up with all of my antics in that time I'll never understand, but she, like a trooper, always does. (That story is for another day.)We were engaged to be married. Mary lived at home, I lived in Merrick next to the railroad. Mary was raised catholic with a rather strict set of rules to abide by established by her loving mother. Whenever I went over to the house we'd spend most of the time talking or watching TV in her room (the door had to be kept open at ALL times so the risk of hanky panky could remain low.) Usually my curfew for visiting at the house was 11PM. After that, the hallway light would flash on and off to let us know it was my time to leave innocent Mary for the night. The house rules were established. I could not call after 9PM for fear of waking her father up or disturbing her older sister with her boyfriend John.Me on the other hand, a young and vibrant type A male living on my own.This night though, I woke the house up. Earlier, I'd advised Mary that I was going to this crash. She wished me love and care and we hung up. When I called now much later, she'd been the first to pickup the phone and answered ahead of her mother. I said I was headed up because I didn't want to be alone. I arrived at the house a few minutes later and Mary greeted me with open arms and much tenderness. I tried to explain to her what I had seen that night, though making every attempt I could to maintain the 'male' composure and not let too much detail out for fear of sharing my now on-rushing deamons. She made me food and drink and we layed together in her full size bed for a couple of hours. She tried the best she could to be supportive, hold me and try any way she could to comfort me. I think I fell asleep for about an hour. I had too many bad images keeping waking me up and then keeping me awake. Not wanting to exacerbate things in the house more than I already had, I got up and and left about 6AM.The next 2 days were the beginning of the hardest period of of my life........

Crash - Cont'd

.......... I'd watched over the handling of probably 60 crash survivors. As I said, I'd intervened medically in the case of 17. I'd had my tasks set for me by the scene commander, and was performing my duties as best I could, under the circumstances.As I started backing away from the weenies, I turned and, for a brief moment, began processing what I'd been involved in for the last hour or so. A plane had run out of gas and fell from the sky. (The run out of gas portion I wouldn't find out and connect until days after the crash when the air to ground transmissions were reviewed, and context was added by the introduction of the in-cabin black-box recordings.) I was, for the moment, somewhat free to begin clearling my head take a physical perspective look at the over-all scene. This didn't help at all. It was strangely surreal. (I realized weeks later that it was at this moment that my brain began to short-circuit.)I passed the pile of bodies that had been placed in the area I had designated earlier. Just before the FBI intervened, and with a mounting body count and need for expedience, the firemen had taken to bringing the bodies to the pile. Initially they were able to place the bodies side by side. Then it was full, and with no other area available they started to make a pile. One on top of the other. This was disturbing to me. I had a mental image flash to the fore-front of my conscious thought. Recently, further images had been released on news reports from Nicaragua, where the death squads had operated. They'd gone around and killed many people at once and tried to hide the bodies in mass graves. One of those images resembled this, but of course, this pile was made out of necessity and with as much respect as could be offered. (At the top of the pile was a child's very mangled body.)As I got further away from where I'd been staged, flashlight asked if I was okay. I said "yeah, just a bad night." He responded with something that held me together through the remaining hour I was there..." No shit Sherlock." I had to crack a smile, my statement hadn't been the most brilliant observation around. We were dirty, covered in all sorts of bad, and had just nearly gotten arrested due to a nose to nose incident with the FBI.We passed the poor homeowners front door. It was open, shades drawn wide, lights on. The police were inside looking like they were interviewing him. Flashlight said "I wonder what in god's name this guy is going to say to his insurance carrier..."Ummm, my house was hit by a plane. I need to have a tow company or somthing come out and haul it away." I tried and failed to imagine the call center employee handling that one. Then we came to the rear of the house and found triage full. We'd been here an hour and triage was still full? This was bad, very bad in fact. What the hell was going on?People were being carried down the hill on backboards by teams of six. "What the Fu#@! Where are the ambulances." We had access to hundreds of ambulances in the county, we needed at least 200 by my impression if the injured were taken out individually. Where was the screw up? We headed over to the triage supervisor to find out what in heavens name was going on."We're trying to get people out, but have only successfully transported about 20. There are vehicles blocking the streets coming in and that stupid satellite truck is still in the way so any rigs that can make it through to this side street can't make it the last 1/4 mile." "Holly Shit," I said aloud. I then asked "You have somebody working that?" He said, "yeah, I found an NCPD Highway cop and he ran off with his hand on his gun." ((I later heard 2 versions of a 'story' on how that truck was moved. One had it that the cop threatened the crew at gun point to which they immediately moved it to a spot where it got lodged in the mud and needed to be towed away 2 days later. The other was where a FD heavy rescue truck had nosed into the TV truck and proceeded to force it off the road enough for ambulances to get through.) Personally, I like either version)) As I had left the fuselage site and re-entered the triage area I had noticed, about 40 yards away, that this house had a respectable 'yard' that had been cleared of all trees. Relatively clear of any obstructions it seemed to be kept nicely and had grass planted. By my rough estimates, the yard was about 75'x75', and had very large oak and pine trees ringing it. Other than that, there were no obstructions on it at all. It also leant itself to be a parking area for some of the initial emergency vehicles.I asked "can medevac's get in there? What about the weather?" I was told that the NCPD Air Bureau had tried to land a helicopter a few times but the clearing wasn't judged to be large enough and the fog had krept in and brought the ceiling down below approved FAA flying levels. Shit I thought, this was shaping up to be be even harder on the injured and dying than I'd first imagined. The injured would now need to be hand carried past the TV truck to van type ambulances (box ambulances couldn't get through at that time due to the parked cars blocking the access roads a mile away - when compared to each other, box ambulances were about 2' wider than van types.) Hand carrying the injured 1/4 mile was slow, and van ambulances also had a drawback of not having that additional interior floor space where ambulatory patients could be placed for the trip to the hospital.Then a very loud and hulking helicopter appeared overhead. A spot light came on blazing from the sky and literally blinded everyone on the ground. It sounded like a military helicopter had arrived and was taking in the scene from above. I'd thought the county executive was here and making himself a pain. No sooner had I finished that thought than watched as a HUGE Bell helicopter transitioned into a hover and began to settle into this tight clearing. Closer and closer it got. It hesitated a bit, then lowered all the way to the ground. I swear I saw leaves and tree branches being cut away by the helicopters spinning rotors. I couldn't believe my eyes. When it set down and cut its spot-light, the ambient light in the area illuminated the markings. "Way to go NYPD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" We all jumped for joy, then ran to its side door, released it and slid it open on its track. The pilot looked at me and said "I heard someone needed air transport. I was in the area getting Pizza and thought I'd come and take a look. Bring me four stretchers and any who can walk..." I turned and was about to wave for assistance, but found many had thought much faster than I. There was an immediate stream of people flowing towards the craft. We got them loaded and shut the doors and before we could be away from the zone, he'd spun up the engine and was lifting off. This one pilot did a remarkable thing. Not only did he and his crew take it upon themselves, unauthorized (so I was later told), to launch from their HQ at Floyd Bennet Field (near JFK Airport), AND fly in very bad weather to get to us, AND then land in this landing zone that no local chopper thought possible. They, more importantly, showed their bravado. Once the locals saw this, they weren't going to be shown up by an outside department. Higher-ups got on their raidios begged, pleaded and admonished their underlings to get the local choppers to come in. 2 NYPD choppers had landed in succession and were taking people away to local hospitals, without the involvement of the locals who knew the area better. Within minutes, not to be shown up more than they'd already been, here came the NCPD, SCPD, more NYPD craft, Life-flight from Ct also arrived. All bouyed (and trounced) by the fact that the biggest and most lumbering of all helicopters (and one awesome pilot) had shown them up and done the deed first, they knew they could (had to) now do it. I'd swear that as each chopper would take off their blades would just miss the skids of the next incoming chopper. I think the longest break between choppers getting in and out was 5 minutes. I also believe all but 1 'immediate' patient was taken out by chopper, and then all 'Amber' patients were taken out this way as well.Here I'll take a break and relate another story that went around, though because I didn't see it happening for myself, I can't vouche for its accuracy, other than to say I did see ambulances, police and fire vehicles with NYC markings on them at or near the scene....The side-by-side counties of Nassau and Suffolk have a 'mutual aide' policy in place. It says that if asked, the two counties will combine resources and help one another in time of emergency need. Similar agreements are in place between NYC and Nassau as well. Oyster Bay was pretty much on the border between Nassau and Suffolk, so a good many resources were sent from both areas. New York City (NYC) is still close, 15 miles, I'd say, by road. NYC listens in to all of Nassau's communications. By NYC I mean the individual ambulances and fire stations. (I'm sure communications/dispatch also eavesdrops every now and again as well.) A great deal of those workers live and volunteer in Nassau and Suffolk. Whenever any large incident happens in Nassau, you inevitably start seeing NYC EMS ambulances and NYFD, NYPD assets showing up unannounced.This night was no different. I was told that NYC had received a call from Nassau asking for some ambulance assets. NYC in turn dispatched 5 ambulances to the scene. Well, by the time these 5 ambulances had arrived in Oyster Bay (4 miles away from the 'Cove') they had grown in numbers to 20, not including 9 highway police cruisers giving escort and running traffic clearing, and 10 pieces of fire apparatus. (All but those first 5 ambulances were now 'freelancing.') Once they made the turn out of Oyster Bay proper, they made another 3 miles and encountered local ambulances waiting in line because no one could get past all of the cars parked on the non-existent shoulders. Without being asked, the NYFD and the highway police went to work. They didn't care about vehicles at all, they had a task to do and were going to do it. (In NYC, if a car is parked in front of a fire hydrant or in front of a burning building, the firemen will do whatever is necessary to remove that obstacle. If its breaking all the windows of the car to pass hoses through, or mangling the car to get it out of the way, they do it without a thought. This is exactly what they started doing.) First the highway cars with huge and sturdy push bumpers mounted to the cars nose went to work. Slamming into these obstacles and bulling them into the woods or worse yet, the bay. 37 cars and 3 TV trucks got very wet and banged up. The firemen, not to be out-done by their sheilded brethren, physically over-turned and toppled another 12 vehicles BY HAND.It was around the time that I saw an NYPD police cruiser pulling toward Triage that I realized box ambulances were now arriving up the hill near Triage to start taking patients. Could it have been a coincidence? Sure I guess..................

Crash - cont'd

.....after watching the fireman being led away, my waining mental focus was brought back to reality by another tug.."Doc, they need you again." It was my partner -flashlight. This guy to his credit stayed at my side or around me and played a fantastic role in the bigger picture. He liased perfectly with me and we were covering the bases together. I had yet to become a fireman, but worked in enough dual incidents and with extrication to know what to call out for and how to direct assets. That's when I finally got it.Some people call it the 'zone', some people call it 'being in the moment.' Others say its acheiving focus. To me it was always the same and gained only after taking a deep breath. I guess it was the calming effect of a simple deep breath and being able to mentally image what I needed to do next. Suddenly, I had the impetus and...bravery I guess...to overcome the dwelling harsh images of my first 15 minutes working at a crash scene. Thank god this happened when it did. In those few seconds I was able to erect those emotional barriers, tap into any remaining mental strength I had and trudge onward. What I'd face next sometimes wakes me in cold sweats at night, to this day.I headed back to the fuselage. As a side note, I also picked up on a mood of the area. People seemed to be getting into a rythm, settling in to the tasks at hand. I also noticed some worried looks on faces as firemen and medics were making the journey back to triage and returning. I didn't though have any time, for the moment, to ask what their looks were for. That was coming later."Doc, what do we do with the bodies?" I tired to explain that there was an area set up by triage that was taking the dead. A few of the firemen were able to carry some of the bodies back to triage, but when they returned they said "triage is full, there's no room. They're starting to place the injured next to the dead, they need the space." I sent 'flashlight' back to triage. This guy was a rock. He knew what to do, how to do it, and when faced with complicated taskings from me, he found fast ways to punch holes through any barrier he met. I told flashlight that when I first trudged up the short driveway of this house to the top of the fuselage, I noticed a double garage on the back end of the house. Triage was set up right outside these garage doors. I said 'Find the owner of the house, tell him we need to get into his garage, but for god's sake don't tell him why.' Flashlight looked at me and began to ask why we'd need his garage then then it hit him as he started to mouth 'Wh...?" "Oh, got it." Off he went. How could any homeowner in this situation, having just been awoken by a plane litterally falling from the sky into his front yard (because it ran out of fuel), be expected to comprehend any request with 300 strangers scurrying about. Let alone a request to open his garage so we'd have somewhere to put dead bodies.I returned to the matter at hand. There was a 6x8 patch of earth next to the break in the plane where I was. It was left pretty much in tact and unobstructed. It wasn't in anyone's way of operations and we needed to get at more of the survivors and not waste assets. If we could place the dead close to our operations area, the firemen would be able to keep close and be more effective. Here is where I chose to start housing the deceased in what would eventually become a pile of 13. Of the 17 I physically medically assessed, 14 were dead, 3 were alive - all children.Ladders were going up to the cockpit. They were removing the pilots from that section fo the plane to my right. A woman was hanging unsupported in the crotch of a tree, her arm thought to be wedged between 2 branches. She had been ejected from her seat when the plane split apart when it hit the side of the hill. She was now dangling about 15 feet off the ground. Up to that point, no one thought to look high into the trees for victims. (I later on heard that another person similarly ejected was also found perched high in a tree near the bottom of the wreck.) Another ladder went up and two firemen started to extricate her. She came away from the tree easily, thought to be unconscious, but her arm remained behind. She'd bled to death within minutes of the crash.Most of the dead were intact. Since I'd never worked a plane crash before, I'd expected to be looking for parts of people. That's what the books and training predominantly said. Some though had been decapitated or severed, litterally in half, by their seatbelts. I heard another call. "Doc, come here." I hustled over the few steps where three firemen were hovering over one of the dead in the mounting pile I had created earlier. The person they were looking at had been disembowled, with their innards spewed about. I was set to admonish them for gawking, when I realized what they were looking at. This victim had golf-ball sized... nodules.... I thought, inside their intestine. These were strange because they were white and didn't seem to be attached to anything as one would imagine a cancerous tumor to be. I had no idea and I didn't have the time to spend trying to figure out what I was looking at. " Come on guys, back to work, that's for the ME to figure out." I left that mental image with the person lying there. I had more critical things to think about.As I said earlier, the night was cold, dank, damp and misty. On this sea-side community, there was a heavy hanging fog about the area. Within about 30 minutes of my arrival, an airborne search light started massaging the crash scene. The sound of a jet turbine engine also played in my head. Obviously a helicopter was flying around trying to survey the scene. I didn't know if it was a news chopper or a police medivac. The engine sound became suddenly more pronounced, strained even, and I looked skyward. There about 150 feet over our heads was a police chopper. Hovering very low considering. Some trees were swaying a bit from the rotorwash, which was also starting to kick up paper wrappers and other strewn debris. It was also making person to person voice communication very hard. The sound would increase for a few minutes and then fade away as the chopper transitioned from hover to free form flight.I was then kicked out of my area of command, along with the remainder of the fireman I was working with. Two men had suddenly shown up wearing tan wind-breakers and sporting FBI credentials. Flashlight had shown back up at my side. He reported that he had tried and tried to convince the owner of the house to allow them to use his garage, but the owner wouldn't relent once somone slipped with what we were planning to use it for. Who could blame him. Flashlight said, "Doc, these FBI types, they're telling everyone to back away. How can they do that, there might be more people inside that need to be rescued." I thought quickly and said, "you're right, medical has authority over everyone, except when physical safety is involved." I stood my ground at the head of the plane. Internally, I was hoping I'd have a few more guys that'd stand with me, but alas, that badge carried weight. Flashlight though, was with me to the end.It's always amazed me, the bonds that can be formed in a split second. Mutual respect is a powerful thing to come up against. Here flashlight and I had met and worked together for the last hour and he wasn't budging from my side. He'd throw cautionary statements at me if I came close to being in a hazrad area. I took him at his word and moved away or stopped where I was until he made it safe. I forged ahead on a couple points only to be admonished by him for taking an unneeded chance. He'd move some of our assets to areas to try and free some of the victims and I'd waive him off because I could see it wasn't going to make a difference. The person was dying and were going to die before getting to the hospital, those that could live needed every chance they had. As I said, 15 minutes working together, we realized we complimented one another and that bond was formed. We respected each other. This mutual respect nearly landed us in jail.The FBI weenie (now, let me qualify. I think its a wonderful organization, but in this case, I didn't see the benefit of their reasoning and as such, this night, they were weenies) approached us. We were the last to be standing there and we weren't turning to move away. "Gentlemen, I'm going to need you to move away from this area." I was prepared (and so, to my dismay, was flashlight). I said, "I'm area medical command here, I have authority over everyone including law enforcement. There are still bodies in there, and possibly some that are living. This area is not closed until I can assess it in total." He responded with, "Sir, I've asked you to leave. I need you to move out of this area. Its a crime scene and we have taken responsibility." I retorted with " You and I both know I have ultimate authority here..." the other weenie entered the picture, and flashlight moved in closer... "you can't close down my operations until I say its okay and the victims have been removed. I'll concede that we won't remove evidence or bodies, but any injured I find are coming out and getting treated immediately." Unbeknowced to me flashlight had rolled his flashlight in his hand. It immediately went from being a source of light, to a source of light AND batton. (Maglites - the industry standard in metal flashlights. They have a knurled aluminum handle on them which houses the batteries. You can hold a Maglite by this knurled handle, in the palm of your hand with your pinky and thumb facing the ground, waist high. This is the light source use. Or you can hold it by the lighthead itself, underhanded, so your thumb and pinky face the sky, making it perpenduclar to and at shoulder height. In this fashion, you can use the flashlight as both a light source or with a simple roll of the wrist a weapon.) Flashlight knew this and had chosen, at this moment, the latter. The weenies started to posture, setting one foot slightly in front of the other, their bodies cocked a bit (they were righties and as such their left foot was forward). Flashlight started to posture. I'm in the middle and as I started to see what was about to happen, the second weenie, looking at flashlight, said "drop the light." The first weenie moved his hand into his jacket towards his hip and revealed a pair of cuffs, and in an "oh, by the way" kind of jesture, also causually showed his sidearm.I'm now beet red, chest heaving and ready for a fight. Flashlight had started to raise the flashlight abit further and, I assumed, was a second from striking out. I thought quickly and better of what was happening, and put a hand on flashlights arm and spit-cursed at the weenies "I want your fucking names!" We backed off. As I took a step back, the first weenie thought the situation over from his perspective and processed what had happened. He, I think, relaized I was right and could bring a shit storm down on this by calling over the local police. He offered to me as I started turning away "Listen, we're securing the crash scene and taking names. We'll bring you guys back in once we have a perimeter setup. We found drugs on the plane. One of the people over there was a mule."It all made sense now, though not the getting kicked out part. I was right. I knew I was right. I had the written law on my side. But, I also realized what I had seen before in that dead persons intestines wasn't a tumor, it was packets of cocaine that had been swallowed and were being smuggled in to the US....................

Crash Cont'd

............let me take a step back and put things in perspective on just who I am/was and what led me to be at this crash site at this moment in time. I've always received those 'looks' of "yeah right - this didn't happen to you.." or "how can all of this have happened to one person..." The quick story reads like this, my now famous friend Doug and I loved chasing fires. We would chase them on our bikes as young teenagers, then when the license came along, we'd chase them in our cars. We sported CB radio's, in-car mounted scanners, portable scanners, camera's, etc. We'd go around and find excitement in this stuff. I guess we were kind of wierd but no more so than other people we came in contact with. Then girls started, and we lost a bit of our enthusiasm in the chase. With women who would actually hold our hands and god forbid, kiss us, how could a hormone driven teenager think of anything else? We were coming back from my families boat one afternoon, the girls were in the car (Doug's MaryAnn H and my Megan B) and were driving past this VAC headquarters. Doug turns to me as we pass and says "wanna do it?" Now, we'd never, EVER, discussed joining a VAC. We'd briefly discussed joining the VFD, but we lived in 2 different fire districts and as such would need to be seperated until one of us moved out of our house and into the others or into an apartment. We were 17 years old, and I still wasn't shaving.I turned to Doug and said, "sure, why not." And that my friends was the entire decision making process that brought me to my calling in life, the most beloved talent, whatever you want to name it. There wasn't even time to think about it. For years now, we were joined at the hip and this was another thing that just immediately clicked and made sense. I rolled the steering wheel over, tossing everyone in the car into each other (and causing a slight traffic conflict), and we pulled into a dirt parking lot of an old converted gas station. The building was painted in a flaking white, the 'bay' windows needed cleaning, the front door was a shambles, the inside of the garage was painted this ugly dusty blue. (What in god's name were we doing HERE?) The people inside looked like they were stuck in the 60's psychedlic age (and some from the 40's). They were though, wearing blue shirts and gleeming badges. (My mind immediately shot back to 8th grade and being given my first AV members card.) That was 1981. Within 3 months of joining I had my CPR cerification by two competing entities (American Heart Association and the Red Cross - believe it or not, they had legal battles between them on how CPR should be taught and performed. That was a loooooonnnnngggg time ago.) I also had completed my AFA - Advanced First Aide course and was certified in that so I could start riding the ambulance. 6 months later I'm finishing my initial EMT class, working per diem with NYC EMS while going to college. 3 months later I have 2 more certs BTLS (Basic Trauma Life Support) and ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support). Next 2 months I had my Pediatric Trauma Life Support and Advanced Trauma Life Support classes under my belt. I was fast tracking for all my advanced degrees with Paramedic being the ultimate goal (at the time). I have a thirst for knowledge. I love learning and experiencing new and exciting things. Unfortunately, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer when I had just finished my EMT. The cancer had metastasized and spread everywhere and was directly affecting her bowels and stomach. She went through a few weeks of severe pain and discomfort and was finally admitted to the hospital because of her unstable condition. While she was in the hospital on a morphine drip, I was visiting daily. The nurses had come by to give her a bath and were hooking her up to a hoya lift. The expression of pain on her face was unmistakable. The morphine wasn't touching it anymore (the Ca had spread to her brain's pain receptor site and was pounding away at it - no amount of medication would have touched it.) While yelping in pain she slowly turned her head turned to me, looked me square in the eyes, almost through me, tears running down her red face, and began pleading with me to make her better. "You're trained in medicine, make the pain go away. Stop them from hurting me." I tried to reason with this now shell of a person balled up in front of me in the hospital bed. Due to her condition she was a person who was consumed with anguish and medication. "Grams, they're doing everything they can for you. If you relax a bit the bath might help." Her response drilled through me, taking every liter of air out of the room, and brought me to my knees crying in front of the nurses, "You don't love me then. If you loved me you'd take the pain away. If you loved me, you'd put me out of this misery."How could I respond to that? I certainly had enough knowledge and training to understand the physiology of the ailment and her bodies reactions to it. I understood the medications impact on her brains reasoning centers. At the time though I didn't have the one thing that might have allowed me to redirect that emotional blow, field experience. With a short-fall of experience my brain didn't know enough to shut down emotionally or deflect such onslaughts until it could put things into perspective. I couldn't yet 'hide' from this emotional pounding. (That would take a couple more years and a few thousand more emergency calls for me to realize.)That very night I resolved to learn about the body and mechanisms of disease and injury. To immerse myself in emergency medicine, books, manuals, technology, training, seminars, etc, etc, so I WOULD have the answers and ability later on, or at least be in a position to help when my training lacked. That was my response to curing MY personal pain, which all stemmed from this one night with my grandmother 2 days before she died.In the following years I trained hard. Worked double shifts. Found the most sinister of areas to work in because that's where the emergency calls kept coming without a break and were most serious. I got my name onto the lists of medical 'GO' teams who'd respond to natural disasters around the world. I taught, lectured, traveled, became part of an airborne medical transport crew, on and on. Years later, when I stopped counting and started averaging the calls and transports I'd been involved with, the numbers were staggering. Around 20,000 in just shy of 20 years. 20,000 patients. Everything from critical cardiac transports, helicopter transports (my love), earthquakes, forest fires, crashes, confined space rescue, bandaid placement, splinter taker-outer; I'd been shot, stabbed, threatened, punched out, assualted, hit by cars and been in auto (ambulance) accidents.By 1990, I'd experienced about 60 % of my lifes experiences mentioned above. Sure, I'd been to Mexico City in '85, Puerto Rico for hurricane Hugo and California - Loma Prieta (almost back to back in 1989.) I never thought or planned though that those hits would keep on coming. Coming like a freight train right around the corner in 1990. I guess, in retrospect, there hadn't been enough time in between these disasters for my mind to process and digest what I'd just been through only months (or weeks) before, only to again have my senses assualted with this plane crash. Here I was, being asked to triage (in every sense of the meaning of the term) a plane-load of passengers on a trip to......America. I must warn that the next accounts will be extremely graphic and saddening. The struggles between life and death, and the mostly futile attempts made by mere mortals to short-circuit movement between them, can be terrifying and gruesome.It was nightime. The air penetrating with heavy cold moisture. Here I was in a basic, very orange, wind-breaker (we took off our standard winter coats back at the car and doned our high-vis jackets so we'd be recognized for what we were from a distance. They had absolutely no insulating value.) We weren't wearing gloves - cold weather or latex protective. The smells were strange. Outside the immediate area of the plane was a mostly light scent of kero tossed in to the very heavy smell of fresh earth. Closer to the plane things changed. That's where you'd smell the odors of........people..... in all forms. These passengers had been on a plane for a long long flight from Columbia. (To that point, I'd never heard of Avianca Airlines.) Beside the cabin opening your nose picked up the stench of body odor, of being in a confined and hot tube for a long time with little air-conditioning. First it was stale air, then like a hit from a sledge-hammer, the smell of bowel, then stomach contents, bile, bladder, blood...It was wrenchingly pungent, pervasive, stomach curdling. You'd turn your head to try and find a pocket of fresh air soaked with kero.....and fail. You'd only find another collection of extremely disturbing smells mixed with burnt plastic, ozone, and abused seat cushion foam. A light breeze would blow outside and come rushing up the fuselage to air out those dank, wet, smells which were then replaced with generator exhaust and the smell of vomit from rescuers and the injured lower down.Wires hung everywhere. Overhead storage bins had dislodged and tumbled down onto the people seated below. Most seats were left moderately intact, though certainly damaged and moved about, accordian style. It was dark. Flashlights were about but too few to accomodate the many people needing them inside the cabin. A beam of light would play out across the cabin interior to reveal seat and valance colors, blood stained walls and bodies. Some of the bodies were kilted to the side as you'd imagine in a thriller movie. Others looked, well, alive, and some indeed were. The ones you thought were alive and weren't were the harder ones to deal with. (Harder still were the children.) You'd call out with the need for help to dislodge the passenger you first thought was alive. The firemen would stream down to help and then you'd find that the smirk on the entrapped persons face wasn't a look of life, but a snapshot of terror frozen there as their life had ended. Thankfully, more times than not, the eyes were closed. When the eyes were open, you felt as if you were truly looking down the path to the other side.I was grabbed from behind and told they were removing a child. Having no viable patient in front of me I scrambled up the few feet to the edge of the opening and then jumped out. I'd felt as if I was the only connection these poor people would have to hold them on the living side... preventing them from taking that dreaded pathway down toward death. (I'm using down because the death of my patients to me is a dark time and a dark passge between here and there. Though I always wondered why I didn't see it the other way around for a white upward leading path.) I rushed the few meters to where a backboard was being suspended by four firefighters. There on the glazed wooden plank was a child of seven maybe. The head bobbed slightly to the side and I got a glimpse of a tear running down his cheek. "Hustle" I yelled over the din of the generators that had been set up in the area. I stumbled to catch up. These firemen went into immediate overdrive and were double timing to the triage area. All of those historic notions of firefighters and an injured child came flooding through my head in an instant. Heroic, brave, unstoppable, unbowing, fierce. A hurt child and a firefighter meant balls to the wall hustle, which is exactly what this child was getting. I wasn't supposed to leave my sector, but this kid had a bad arterial gash that was foaming about the neck. I had pockets stuffed full of 4x4 bandages and kling wrap. I had caught a brief glimpse of a few firemen's efforts inside the fuselage to extricate a man in his late 30's, but that was going slow. Too much debris needed to be removed yet, but they were making quick headway. I figured I had 2 minutes to try and save a child's life and return. I ripped open the 4x4's and stufffed them against the wound. It was leaking profusely, so I added more bandages. Shit. It wasn't helping. I needed hemostats (clamps) and allot of light to see where this bleeding artery was. I looked up and was startled as we had arrived at triage. Not only were we at triage, but a guy in a lab coat greeted my eyes. As he turned I caught a glimpse of his name tag which said something I couldn't pronounce, but I did see the most valuable of letters at the end of those 22 letters (mostly vowels).... MD and underneath....gynecologist. Hey, an MD was an MD in my book. If it said PhD, I think I'd have fainted right then and there.I yelled toward him and he bounded over. I showed him what we were dealing with. I told him I had to get back. He said if I thought he was going to do this alone, in front of a garage, in the dirt and cold, I was nuts, and firmly held on to me. A fireman with a flashlight hovered near us. With a quick hand motion I caught the fireman's attention and he trained its beam down on us, red blood everywhere. The doc got in and clamped it on his first try. I was elated (for 15 seconds the world stood still and harmony was restored. I came close to screaming in elated joy). Then reality hit me like a speeding Mack truck. "DOC!!!" (It was the first fireman who'd coined that nights name for me.)I spun off my knee and headed back with my 'partner' the flashlight toting fireman. My 'namer' had gotten a hand signal from one of his comrades that was working extrication in my area of medical command. I looked through the hazy mist to see another fireman running with a child in his arms. (Oh god, I can't do this again, back to back? I wanna leave right now and go home. This is too much). The child was covered in mud, wearing shorts, shirt tattered and ripped to shreds, cuts all over her bare skin, what was once I'm sure long and flowing hair was now a clumped and matted mess. She was maybe 10. This child was shoved into my arms. I received her, clung on tightly, spun and started heading to triage again. I was giving her a very fast once over. In my very limited and severely broken spanish (every other word of my horrible spanish ending in 'o') I asked "does it hurt?" No. Then, oh yeah, "where does it hurt?" No. was the reply. "Pain?" No. I prodded her extremities, nothing seemed out of place. All limbs were attached. I got an ouch when my hand passed across a large scrape on her forearm. Her eyes were good, no bleeding from her ears or nose...hmmm. Then she did it. She entered my heart. "Daddy?" Ugh, I didn't know her dad from a hole in the wall. I didn't know her name.. hey, name, that information would help... "What's your name?" Nothing. oh well, it was worth a shot. That was the only time that night I got to recieve or deliver a marginally healthy person to triage. I'd held on to that mental image to get me through the next 8 months.I gave the girl to a nurse who'd appeared at triage and gave my quick account of the last 2 minutes and headed back in. The next person I saw was not so lucky.The firemen had worked tirelessly to free the trapped man from earlier. They did a bangup job too. They were able to move what looked like a ton of debris trapping this man and then slide him up and out of the plane on a backboard. Here came the four firemen.. "we got this guy out doc, what'da ya think?" The man was wearing a blue zipped sweat jacket, was ashen in the face and barrel chested. His arms and legs were flailing off the sides of the backboard in unnatural ways. They were articulating in ways they should not be. I stopped the firemen, reached down and placed the mans arms and legs on his chest and said, "he's dead guys, put him on the expired tarp." One of the older firemen not knowing what to expect had empathized with this guys plight and personalized him. Inside the cabin he'd started talking to a man he thought was dying, but who in fact was already long dead. He didn't want to accept the death I had just announced. He tried to shake the man awake. He tried to yell, then louder still. He tried to pinch the mans cheek. I then saw this very heroic fireman full of conviction and gusto look at me and say "he's....dead?" I shook my head and watched him loose his composure and begin to cry. Another fireman took his corner of the backboard and they continued on toward the expired tarp. When I turned around, the fireman who was larger than life when I met him, was now sobbing uncontrolably and being led away by a police officer...........

Avianca Crash

......so I'm back..The next WINS update came through and they said the same thing except this time they were a bit more specific and said a plane might have crashed into the Sound off the north shore of Nassau County. They stayed with the story and were updating new facts as they came in and making up quick facts to try and fill airtime with live reporting.I picked up my cell phone and called Mike at the VAC base. He was a good guy, a bit green for his days, but a decent Captain for me to interact with. I asked him what type of crews we had at the station at that time. He reported that we had the normal crew stationed there (which meant a driver, truck offiicer, an EMT, and an AMT (EMT - Emergency Medical Technician - AMT - Advanced Emergency Medical Technician. The difference between the two was the ability to give IV's, medications, and internal airways to patients.)I told him about the reports I was hearing on the radio and asked him to tune in to NEWS12, the local cable TV station. By doing so, he'd get more reports and quicker updates when they had information. At this point it didn't look like anything we'd be involved in, but I got a notion and hung in there with it. (Supplying emergency medicine and practiciing it, were our goals at all times.)(A bit of history about this VAC. On all of Long Island, we were the shit. We pushed and prodded our people to accel and train to the highest standards. We trained, and then trained some more. If you were on duty call, you were training. We enjoyed training. It beat watching endless TV and kept us fresh and focused. Never did a bus (ambulance) roll out of that headquarters without every single person on board being at least an EMT. (I wish today, 16 years later, this could be said about our ever increasingly trained and operated volunteer (for the most part) emergency services. Unfortunately, I think volunteer emergency medicine in this country peaked in the late 80's, and any interest therein has wained since.) We typically had 2 full crews of 4 people available at all times in order to roll simultaneous calls, should they come in. Our response times were the gold standard, typically out within 70-90 seconds of the call coming in. Most departments don't have a chief rolling that fast let alone a fully stocked and equiped ALS - Advanced Life Support - ambulance with a crew of 4.)The next WINS radio report came in about 30 seconds later and reported that, in fact, a plane had crashed in tawny Oyster Bay, NY. They reported that it went down into the Sound and the Coast Guard was being dispatched. That's all I needed to hear to start the ball rolling for us.I got back on the phone to Mike. I told him to start making phone calls, quietly, - no radios (which would garner interest to the scanner listening community (read "other departments") - to get crews together and have them high tail it, quietly again, to headquarters. I didn't want this going 'official' yet because if there was indeed a crash going on the dispatch center would have their hands full and the last thing they needed was hollow promises or another department junkie bugging them for 'inside details' for vicarious enjoyment, or un-needed radio communications to listen to.At this point, being in my chiefs car, I turned on my emergency lights and started heading to our base. I was probably 8 minutes out at that time and pushing my car to the edge. I knew we had the people around and they'd be assembling quickly, but I didn't want anything but firm information being sent to the dispatch center, so when warm bodies were there, we'd take a head count and let dispatch know the firm numbers.God bless his soul, Mike's fingers were speed dialing. In 3 minutes he had put together a team of 24 and had three ambulances out of the heated bays and warming up on the line (driveway apron). He told me he'd detailed all available members to start putting any supplies and materials they could get their hands on into each ambulance. At that point, impressed, I told him to do 2 things 1- get things 'official' by calling the other 2 chiefs and get them up to speed on what was going on; and 2 - get on the horn with dispatch and tell them what in-hand assets we had to give them.3 minutes out.Mike calls me on the radio. (this meant we were official and were issued a call number for our records just in case. He also said our friend in dispatch put him on hold and was walking over to the supervisory dispatch console to ask directly if our assets were needed.) He also said that in the interim he had found 1 other chief who had arrived ahead of me because he was passing by and saw all the commotion at our base. The other chief had relieved Mike's in-house command. I thought to myself that I needed to put a request in for a citatation for Mike. He'd done a great job.My car is screaming. It wants to pull apart at the seams. Tires screetching, engine smoking, it was a balls to the wall response for me.1 minute out...Ahead I see two ambulances coming at me..... Hmm, I wonder who they are?... huh?.... they're mine. what the f....? I didn't hear any radio transmission to dispatch these ambulances. Then my radio blares off. Dispatch was giving us the call and sending us with an unheard of 3 out of 3 ambulances to this plane crash. This was something for us. We were located as close to the opposite side of the county as you could get from the crash site, yet we were in the first 10 departments dispatched to the scene. (typically 1 ambulance will stay in our district back to handle local emergencies. It finally got through to them, dispatch, (a county run main brain emergency call center who serviced all departments in the county) that our district was covered, re-covered, and covered again. (Politics - Our district covered 125K people in 5 fire districts. Each of those fire districts had three of their own department ambulances in each fire house. Then on top of that the police had their own ambulance service with 2 ambulances covering the north side of 'our' district and 2 covering the south side. With our three ambulances, our physcial district had a whopping 22 ambulances covering about 40 square miles. Overkill of the over-killed. Well, that's for a later discussion.)I arrived at our base to find a single ambulance left with a crew of 8 inside along with my other assistant chief waiting in his vehicle. I hopped into the ambulance, then hopped out because I seemed to be the only one who knew where in gods name Oyster Bay Cove (this is a Google Earth Satellite image of the area. You need to install their free service to view the link properly) is. (The location had been updated by dispatch and became much more specific.)We were off.25 minutes later we're careening through the town of Oyster Bay, make a right onto the local access road heading east. Then we come in contact with a line of traffic blocking the sides of the road. Some of these cars had blue lights that were left flashing (firemen), some other cars, porche's and jaguar types were obviously thrill seeker voyeurs. All these vehicles were blocking our box type ambulances from getting through to the scene of the crash. The other asst chief and myself stopped there, loaded as much equipment and personnel as we could into our chevy caprice and drove in another mile before we had to stop for someplace to park without our vehicle becoming part of the access problem as well. The plane had crashed on a tertiary road, (another Google Earth link) we were currently on a secondary access road leading to the still smaller tertiary road. The secondary road was a very tight, one lane each direction, road. On one side was the long island sound with no shoulder except for cat tails and murky wetlands, the other side was an earthen berm which sat about 4 feet off the in-bound travel lane and mounded 3 feet high. We nosed hard in to the berm (and wondered whether we'd get the car off it when everything was done.) We unloaded personnel and medical supplies and started walking. We needed to walk another 1/2 mile to the crash site.We rounded the corner from the secondary road to the tertiary and there, about 100 feet in, was a huge NEWS12 satellite uplink truck (the size of a 1/2 semi) in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, UNATTENDED!!!! 2 heavy rescue fire trucks were stuck behind this things trying to get passed. They couldn't enter the crash site because of this flippin news truck. That's the day I lost all respect for NEWS12 (and they won an award for their coverage, go figure.) It was a short uphill hike to the crash scene. I'll never forget this. Firemen all over the place walking around setting up lights, running here and there. The lights were up and glaring off this white and red aircraft fuselage. The tail had broken away, with a section of about 30 windows worth of the main cabin sitting at a 35 degree angle going up hill perpendicular to the road. It litterally took my breath away. It also caused my mind to reboot. I guess I couldn't, for a split second, process the fact that there was a plane in the dirt across a road and in pieces sitting in front of me. Planes were supposed to be neatly sitting on tarmacks.We had to stop. On our left was John MacEnroe's parents house. They had a somewhat hidden lawn with a split rail fence around it. This isn't a typical country street. This was rustic. The driveways were paved, but they were certainly overgrown with thickets, oaks, scrub brush, some drainage gulleys down the sides and heavy woods surrounding everything else. Continuing to the left (North) but a bit ahead, my eyes adjusted to the combination of night time and the eery emergency work lights. I saw...trees. But they weren't full trees. They were stubs of their former selves. Like telephone poles in the making that were just stuck into the ground and had no foliage or tops. A swath of destruction had been cut into the woods starting from the north into where I was standing. You could see some very tippy branches had been removed from trees far away, then the devestation had continued but more intensely and angling lower the closer they were to me.The area didn't smell. I had always thought the smell of kerosene would be most prevalent, and there'd be fire all about if there was ever a plane crash. In this case, there were small fires, but no smell. These fires were being put out with hand extinguishers and some hand lines.I saw that Mr MacEnroe (senior) and his wife were standing outside their house and were upset that people were walking about their property. They were, in my eyes, in shock (along with everyone else) and were tring to process getting back to normalcy in this very out of the norm night. I was then tugged by a fire chief. He identified himself as commanding officer of the firefighting side of things and that medical needed help up the driveway/hill to my right.We turned and headed up a driveway leading south. As we made our way up, I found we were heading toward the aircraft and up to where the cockpit should have been (but now wasn't). We entered this homes rear yard/parking area and found the medical coordinator. He was...almost helpless and pulling his hair out..... I noticed that a few large tarps had been setup on the ground to begin the makings of a triage classification area.(Triage allows rescuers the ability to categorize the injured into various stages of medical need. Typically they are: Black (the Dead) no transport needed; The lowest priority - Green (slow if any transport to the hospital); The next higher priority - Amber (moderate transport needs 20 - 40 minutes); and Red (immediate transport/attention needed). (Depending on the incident, these categories are increased or decreased as needed, sometimes with sub-categories). Two of my team peeled off at this point and went towards triage. I was grabbed by the arm (due to my 'advanced' patch on my sleeve) and told that I was now in charge of the main fuselage (top) (I'm in the orange jacket, right side) and expect to receive patients immediately. (Where we had come from, down the driveway and lower on the hill, was next to the fuselage bottom) The seats inside the plane were facing up the hill...)I was immediately lead away by the arm and named 'doc' by my 'guide'. In the next 2 hours I heard 'doc' called more times than I ever want to hear again. "Doc, they need you inside the plane down 12 rows"; "Doc, there's a lady stuck in the crotch of this tree 12 feet off the ground"; "Doc, they just made it into the cockpit and need you"; "Doc, we found 10, no 13 kids, they need to be triaged"; "Doc, this guys alive what do we do with him"; "Doc, what's wrong with this guy, his arm is doing funny things"; Doc, we've got too many bodies and not enough backboards, what do we do with them, they're in the way"; "Doc", "Doc", "Doc"...(mind you, all of these statements hit me in the first 3 minutes of my tasking and arrival in 'my' command sector. I had a partner with me, (also in orange and to my left) but he was looking mighty confused and then his eyes sorta glazed over and he peeled away and went to meet the others near triage, I lost sight and knowledge of the others in my group for the next 1 hour..........

Meeting Doug - cont'd

.......It turned out to be... well, hugely fun. For the next few weeks Doug and I felt each other out to see where we were with things. I helped him as much as I could. I learned the BOCES routine of requesting video's (yeah BetaMax and reel to reel), 16mm flicks, on and on. Our 'club' had movie days where we'd order some risque but acceptable flick and end up watching it projected onto one of the walls in our 'office' (closet). It was always very strange to spend lunch and study hall in our clubhouse only to emerge hours later into a hallway filled with students rushing between periods. We never again experienced or incurred a lateness against us. It was always assumed to be due to our involvement in AV. Make no mistake about it, We were geeks. Some of us piano playing, dancing, football playing, team sport, swimmers, and Letterman. Others were the stereotypical version of what you'd imagine an AV geek to be. It was a fun few years doing that. With experience came an increasing level of responsibility and privilege. We opened the first school store. We video taped the girls gymnastics teams (what they got from what we taped I have no idea since most of it was a teenage version of the money shot.)Just when we were getting past the sideways glances and beginning to accept each other we were thrust into having to rely on each other outside of school. We actually had to interact with each other one on one. Our friend Alan was going to be bar mitzvah'd. He sent out invites and low and behold I got one too. Wow, virtually never before had I seen or been driven by a synagoge, and now I was invited to go inside one. I had to wear a yalmulka to boot. Doug was invited as well, and we immediately clung to each other for support in that teenage geeky kinda way (god I hope Doug's sons don't end up reading this for a few years.) This was a foreign experience for two gentiles. We huddled and planned. During our first huddle session Doug invited me to his house for dinner. I accepted and met his family. We ate in his kitchen with Mom Dad and youngest Sis. Doug showed me his room and his stereo equipment and then his CB gear. Hey, he was actually more of a geek at that time than I was. He even had a scanner. In the coming weeks, we'd spend hours planted in front of that scanner waiting for the 'tones' to go off. These tones would be our cue to dash to the appropriate phone book map and see where the fire or rescue was. If it was within striking distance for us to bike before the alarm was over, we'd head out and pedal as fast as we could to get there. This was cool because it gave us a common goal and started to establish our bond.We went to the Bar Mitzvah, wore our beenies, said the appropriateness, and had fun dancing in the hall at the synagoge (since dancing at these things was mandatory). (Back then at least, Bar and Bat Mitzvah's seemed to be more of a gathering than an right of excessivness they seemed to have become today. As a speed ahead to the future topic, my wife used to work at a conference center where these types of celebrations were had all the time. When you rent the broadway cast from A Chorus Line, or retain the Barnum & Bailey Circus for your son or daughter's religious commencement for a few hundred thousand dollars and invite your closest 300 friends, I think things might have taken a turn in a very strange direction.)Anyway, so that's how we started our friendship together. Many stories both titilating and mundane can be offered and I'm sure will be into the future, but right now, its just a quick summary.That year was one of the best in my life. As I classify different encounters, it was a life moment. As it turns out, that chance meeting at a cafeteria table changed my lifes direction forever. While fervently coupled to my new found friend Doug's hip, we together started making those most important of choices for career, enjoyment, a great deal of humility, and the beginning of our choices for women-folk. God I love this guy (not in that way you freak).

Meeting Doug

Sunday, May 07, 2006continuation of meeting Doug for the first time Current mood: contemplative .....basically the only time I would see Doug initially was during breakfast and lunch periods when he came by visiting Alan and Andrew. We didn't have any classes together that first year of meeting and since his last name started with Mi (mine Me) he ended up split off in a different home-room. We'd 'hey' each other after that first week whenever we passed each other in the halls. I noticed that he was pretty active with the teachers and was always leaving lunch to go run an errand or set up a TV in some class. I wondered aloud about that one day and he said he was on the AV squad. (The AV squad is geekdom). Slowly but surely we got closer and he ended up describing his interactions with the teachers, running the mimeograph machines for them, running occasional errands, and then the 'hook'...he had a special pass. I wanted in, was thereafter initiated, and then inducted into this 'cult' by the program proctor. The pass, though it was a small 2-1/4x3" piece of green card-stock paper, to me was as good as a police sheild. It authorized its holder to pull over any hallway speeders, issue summonses, cuff the killers, my car was authorized to have red lights and sirens (it was a kick to day-dream about all those special authorities it gave, though not actually providing.) This 'badge' was emblazoned with "Brookside Junior High School Audio Visual Squad - Member" It further had a small area of text on the reverse side which went something like "This duly authorized member should be granted any and all necessary privileges when requested. He/she has been tasked with providing audio-visual equipment and emergency repair to teachers and staff throughout the school. Your understanding is greatly appreciated. Any questions please call Mr. Goldman".What it did for us? Alot. While we became geeks incarnate, we worked hard for what we got. We converted spare school closets into club houses. We recycled desks. "Acquired" chairs, refrigerators, spare tv's. We had master keys to virtually every room in the building. We arrived at school an hour before classes started. We left on-time (haha). (we were able to leave on time because we would work with the teachers to find out when and what period they would finish needing the equipment. We would leave our then in-session classes 10 - 15 minutes early and pickup the equipment loaned out for that day and begin storing for the evening. On days we knew we didn't want to stay late, we would 'deny' requestes for equipment. (The requests were sent back with 'requests full' or 'units our for repair.' The teachers we liked or who were 'pretty', received the best of the best and the most attention. (Doug had a special affinity for Ms. - I forget her name). We were asked to mimeo tests in advance of them, on the condition that our honor would be held by not looking at the text of what were were copying. (Ha - we scamed the teachers and made sure we knew who in our club had that class that day and lost some of those copies. We did know enough though to make sure we got just enough questions wrong not to arouse suspicion. We were geeks, and that made us smart and cunning as well.) All of the members were well liked by all the teachers and staff. We provided valuable services. We got away with murder.

Astronomy

So, yesterday was a great day. We hooked up with the aunt and unc, (Bob and Lorraine) then grabbed the neice and neph (Amanda and Connor) and had a small road trip to NEAF (NorthEast Astronomy Forum). Each year by the good graces of the rockland astonomy clubs, a small convention of sorts is held at Rockland Community College. Each year the event seems to grow and more vendors participate.Astronomy is part of my geek side. I picked it up a few years ago and have a few scopes to my name. I also have my pride and joy to date a TEC 140APO. I can not wait to get it finally set and start observing with it, at our new much larger and darker house.So, we trucked on up. It was Bob, Lorraine and Amanda's first time to the fair and I was hoping there'd be some good sun to get great solar viewing in. We weren't disappointed, though cloud cover was sporadic and hampered viewing at points. It was no less a fun time for all.I must take a minute to give props to a friend (though not close) of mine. A few years back I was looking to get an on-axis solar filter for viewing sun spots. I didn't have the $1000 to $6000 (depending on type of viewing desired) for an H-alpha range filter. So I opted for a simple glass solar filter to put on my Intes Mn-61(6" Mak-Newt design). It was a bargain to me at $200, obtained through Thousand Oaks Optical. I tooled around the net, astromart, and any other related sites I could find and then stumbled upon Greg Piepol's sungazer.net. He's a classic example of someone so into his hobby that he exudes it. He's in an almost constant state of enthusiasm for others to share in what he's learned and experienced, and about the hobby in general. He goes out of his way to make all sorts, types and sizes of friends, help's anyone from beginner to expert, forms learning sessions, creates or facilitates astronomy clubs, solar clubs, constantly contributes to the field of solar astronomy, lends his images to the likes of NASA, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope etc...it's a wonder and awe-inspiring to meet him.So anyway, years back I sent Greg an email and asked his opinion on my purchase. It started out as a typical newbie question, it went something like...what kind of car should I drive..to his ultimate credit he literally spent about four hours producing and answering my email back and forth. He helped provide me an greater and more indepth understanding of what I would most likely want rather than his opinion being placed ON me, until I made a decision for myself. Further, he helped me understand setups, recommending items to purchase over the long term which would suit my skill level and grow with me. Everything from eyepieces, barlows, prisms, bino's, to mounts ERF's... etc.. I thanked him profusely while going through it, but seeing him again at NEAF this year (he no-less drives up from Rockville, Maryland each year), with all that he contributes, his offerings, his approachable nature, rekindled my respect and admiration for the man. I could go on and on. If you're ever interested in looking at some awesome solar imagery, of all types (especially his Coronado and A/P 155EDT setups,) stop by his site, then drop him a line. What a wonderful guy. He's one of those people that's become a life moment for me.So, we spent a few hours walking around. I met some other new and really nice people. Amanda got to participate in hand figuring a new mirror, a great deal of exciting solar viewing, looking at all the scopes that were setup and then meeting another one of the most interesting people of the event. Software Bisque is coming out with a new program later this year (they alpha'd the program back in '05). Its called Grand Tour. They had, IMHO, an under-sized informational booth, but what an awesome looking product. We met the designer of the program. He told us his story of life. A video game programmer by heart and training, he used to work for one of the larger video gaming company's. He decided that he wanted to teach and make something of his talents other than sitting in front of a screen all day, though he still loves gaming. He left the gaming line of work (he looks to be late 30's early 40's) and I apologize that I can't remember his name. He spent a half an hour with myself and Amanda telling us all about his efforts at the design of this new program. What a program it is. It allows you to fly through our solar system in any one of 10 different 'modes' or scenario's. You chose the date, the speed of travel, the direction, view, etc. You then get to fly throuh a theoretically accurate solar system from many vantage points. His enthusiasm for his craft and what the program can do was infectious. Its on my must buy list for 2006. If its as good as the free screensaver disk he gave out, it'll be an amazing first step in bringing an interactive solar system to the desktop.I also stopped by and met with the guys (and girls) of William Optics. I'm a bit biased to this firm since they sold me one of their, and my, first scopes, a Megrez 80. Its a pretty decent scope for what I paid for it. A few years back I took it to Montana with me and did some spectacular daytme viewing of terestrial objects in Glacier National Park and then some Mars viewing at night. Got a great look at ISS from those pitch black and clear skies. Next chance I get I'm going to upgrade a bit to one of thier APO's. They also have this great new head and tripod assembly they're selling. Its silky smooth in operation with a design take off like the alt-az head offered by Markus Ludes.Didn't get a chance to meander over to Adirondack at all. I was not interested in slobbering over the SBIG equipment they carry. The guys from ScopeGuard were, as always, famously friendly. We got into a nice discussion about using my wood TEC140 case as a table display rather than risk banging it up. It truly is one work of art.We finally settled into listening to the outdoor astronomy lecture. For a hundred bucks you can build a great little newt with smooth alt-az mounts of varying types of construction. Couple that with a cardboard box top with a piece of white paper applied to it and hung opposite to and beside the eyepiece, and you get a great solar observing scope. Then some radio receivers that pick up background radio transmissions from the sun, buildings and people. It was all together a wonderfull experience. The kids bought some geeky stuff like periodic table tee-shirts, and a laser pointer pen and grabbed plenty of free stuff. They were all happy.If you ever get a chance, its a wonderful show.

Life

May. 4th, 2006 at 6:17 PM
Thursday, May 04, 2006Life Current mood: awake Category: Life In a personal experiment of self-loathing and determination, I embark, for the time-being, on an effort to verbalize significant portions of my life. These efforts are geared toward memorializing the more interesting, mundane, heart wrenching, typical or excessively exciting situations I have experienced.We'll see where this takes me.......I'll start with the straight path of life, though I'm sure I'll seque back and forth into earlier life as time goes on. For now though, this rendition began at 13. The day I met Doug.This was during lunch in Brooskide Junior HIgh School. Located in a relatively moderate income town (Merrick) made up mostly of blue-collar trades-people and some white-collar executives climbing the slippery corporate ladder. The school itself was sandwiched between a grade school (Old Mill Road School), a state run highway services depot, and two highways, the Meadowbrook Parkway and the Southern State Parkway.A couple of friends of mine were eating lunch; Andy Cousmano (bless his soul), Stanley and Alan were sitting at a table having portions of the obligitory school served hot-meal of the day. Alan was nearing his moving day toward becoming a 'son of the commandment' (bar-mitzvah). In walks this new guy (not that I myself didn't handily fit that category either) with his bag lunch of home goodness and sits at our table. Alan was kind enough to make introductions and that was it. Hey, new kid to talk with (not that I was into talking ...at all..... due to my severely intraverted nature.) The meal went fine, and mostly without incident. (Being 6'1" tall, extremely timid, and due to adoloescence a voice which scattered across the globe during every attempt to communicate, left me in the unenviable position of being 'targeted' by the self-proclaimed 'cool' crowd, thought to everyone else they were the dirtbags.) Other than finishing up our meals and entertaining ourselves by looking to the ceiling for any new butter globbed plastic knives sticking on the ceiling (a morning ritual undertaken by those who ate breakfast at school rather than at home. School purchased buttered bagels were always loaded with the stuff. Sometimes the butter reached 1/2" think. The remedy was to grab a plastic knife and removed 7/16" of butter and leave it on your plate to be thrown out. If you got bored, or so the story went because we didn't partake in this ritual for fear of being caught by the proctor, you took your butter loaded knife and threw it at the ceiling in hopes that it would stick to the ceiling tiles.)Doug came from a large family. Son of a union Shop Steward turned heavy equipment operator instructor, he had three brothers two sisters and a mom that tried to keep the house together through the hazards of the late 60's early 70's.