FIRE CHIEF KENNY HALL

FIRE CHIEF KENNY HALL

APRIL 9, 2012 HOUSTON TX

Somebody once said: "It's not the destination...it's the JOURNEY!"  I firmly believe that. 

This little story illustrates an interrupted journey in which the interruption was the most important thing!  I was either 4 or 5 y.o.

One of my favorite memories of my early childhood involved a simple New Orleans bus, and a driver who cared.

IT WAS JUST AN ORDINARY BUS TAKING AN ORDINARY GROUP OF PASSENGERS DOWN THE STREET                                                  ON AN EXTRAORDINARY DAY! 

I recall many times taking trips on the bus or streetcar with my grandmother, my grandfather or my aunt. We would often walk down the three short blocks from N. Gayoso St. to Broad Street - a wide avenue which boasted a neatly-manicured median, or "neutral ground" as they are called in New Orleans.

We would stand on the corner, by the Coney Island Bar and across d'Abadie St. from Hurley's Drug Store, and wait for the "Gentilly-Broad Bus." Usually, we'd take this bus as far as Canal Street, where we'd get off and walk onto the neutral ground and wait for the CANAL streetcar which took us into town. We'd tread the terrazzo marble sidewalks downtown, visit the department stores with their unique smells and strange dinging sounds. We'd do what we went to do, and then we'd retrace our steps and go home.

But this day was different. We did not get off at Canal Street, but instead continued past it, onto South Broad. As the bus slowly inched through traffic in this first block of S. Broad, I spied from the window of the bus a fire station. It was HUGE and had many, many fire trucks.

I was excited beyond belief, and my tiny voice cried out in sheer glee: "A FIRE HOUSE! LOOK AT ALL THE FIRE TRUCKS!"

We were sitting in one of the very first seats toward the front, and the bus driver reacted immediately to the tiny voice: He brought the bus to a stop - right there in front of the New Orleans Fire Department's second largest fire station! He then got out of his seat, walked up to me, picked me up, and carried me out of the bus, and INTO THE FIRE STATION!

While I was wild with joy in seeing these shiny fire trucks up close, the Fire Chief himself was standing there, and he smiled and put his hat on my head and lifted me up - up into the seat of the rear control car of a real, honest-to-goodness hook-and-ladder truck!

Then I was picked up again, and went back into the waiting bus. How long the whole thing lasted - who can say? In my mind it was a very long time. I recall the smiling faces of the passengers, as I proudly walked back onto that bus - after having worn the Fire Chief's HAT - and after having sat behind the wheel of a real fire engine!!!

Not one passenger complained or even grumbled at the short delay. Traffic simply went around the stopped bus without sounding a horn. Then we were off, and everybody on the bus went on with their life journeys. But they remain frozen in time for me - they are all there smiling at me as I had a big adventure - which would not be possible in this complicated, uptight world of today.

Where we were going is not important. Where we went - who can recall? What happened along the way, in that city bus, so long ago - that remains in my mind and in my heart.

Of course I never knew who the bus driver or the Fire Chief were, who took the time that day to show a little kid they didn't know the time of his life. Much later, I'd I drive my car past that fire station, and every time I did so I recalled that day. If I could have one wish come true in all this, it would be to be able to thank that driver of our bus that day. Somehow, though, I think that the smiles and giggles of sheer delight coming from that little boy were thanks enough!