Portland Has Small Town Values

(I hope you've all had a chance to see the hilarious (hi-larry-us) clip from the Daily Show about how much Republicans know about small town values. And if you haven't seen it yet, please watch this first:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSha0CqPfc

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, you should know that Portland, ME, actually does have good small town values. We (a group of Salt students) walked up to the fire house on Congress St. in the West End around 10am yesterday and asked if we could hang around, talk to the guys and document. We spoke to the Deputy Chief who had to run it by the guys, who agreed that we could. They were the nicest guys. We spent the day shooting, recording & taking notes on what happens in a fire house when there is no fire. The answer, we found out, varies, though mostly it's anything to ward off boredom. And what happens when they do get a call? We all jump on the truck, of course. (With their permission and instructions, of course.) They get a lot of false alarms apparently, and the first call we went on was just that, but it was at the hospital around the corner, Maine Med. What I found out later from reading the news was that the governor of Maine and Barbara Bush (As in George W's mom, not his daughter) were there that day dedicating a new wing of the pediatric ward. We missed them, unfortunately. I would have loved to have gotten a shot of Barbara.

I went on a second run to a housing project - an elderly woman had fallen the night before and was feeling shortness of breath. These guys arrived before the ambulance took her away. They're all trained in medical emergencies now, since there aren't as many fires as there used to be. All those years of fire prevention have paid off.

The group shot above was taken toward the end of our day with them. We've got to put all the audio, writing and photos together into a cohesive story to present to our peers and instructors for next Friday. I'm also making copies of the group shot for each of the guys, which I'll bring them next weekend along with a batch of cookies, or something like that. Because, despite the fact that I've lived in New York for the last 10 years, I've got small town values, too, gosh darn it.

Photo: Claire Houston/Salt (c) 2008, Bramhall Fire House 2008, Portland Maine

(A note about the photo: the man in the middle who is not in uniform is named Jimmy. And although he's not technically on the squad, he has been visiting that firehouse every Saturday afternoon for the last 35 years. He's 57 years old, and played us a song on his harmonica.)