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Another historical perspective

Just about every EMS/Fire blog has a version of history as written by the author of that specific blog.  Could you imagine, the difference in opinions that would expressed should the founding fathers of this country were able to write in a daily collection of words to describe the events of the Boston Tea Party, the Civil War, or the writing of the Decleration of Indepence?  Really, that would be something that I would love to see.  What would the facebook messages be, or the tweets coming out of Liberty Hall right up to John Hancock signed his name on the document. 

Really, that is what we do though, we write our own history books everyday.  When our grandchildren hold their grandchildren they will be able to produce history in detail of how everyday went.  There isn't a moment that goes by that isn't documented on somebody's wall, or twitterfeed; and while there are time that is a bad thing...ultimately it is good.  For some of you know that this past week my grandmother passed away.  Now, unlike most grandparents, my grandmother was more than that to me.  Now, I am not going to get all sentimental, but she was different.  In this case, I was also a business partner with my grandmother.  She was a trailblazier, a revolutionary.  An individual that went to places that were off-limits to females in her time.  She was a strong lady that served as a leader, a mentor, a friend, a community activist, and most of a all a compasionate grandmother. 

I look back at my career and I see that my years have moved past the decade mark and continue to climb.  While it looks great if you are comparing to the Nasdaq, when you look at the fact I contiune to age, well we are talking about age.  I started right after the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.  That is when I officially started in the fire service, but really I started well before that.  I am truthfully looking at my 25th year of service (don't I wish I could count that in my retirement planning).  When my family moved back from Southern California I was 8 years old.  At that point in time, my grandmother was well into her career as a CPR instructor and was teaching hundreds of classes every year.  At that point, easy to transport manikins weren't easy to obtain, and so she used me.  I started out in my career as a CPR dummy...no smart questions about how far I have progressed. 

Over the years I continued to help her in the instruction of quality CPR education.  I started to carry the equipment, I learned how to operate the equipment, I learned how to ready the documentation and soon enough how to do CPR (I was 9).  In my teens I started helping at the First Aid Stations around town, and met a large number of celebrities and watch my fair share of football games.  Then I started going to college, I was on track for a life in the business community.  I contiuned to do some of the events, but for the most part I left the field for a life of crime...customer service.  It wasn't until a few years later that I found my passion for emergency services again.  I become a member of a combination fire department as a volunteer, then a part-time paid member, then company level leadership.  I finally found a permanent home as a firefighter/paramedic with a large municipal fire department.  My grandmother loved to compare EMT numbers with me.  Her's a low 3 digit number while I was in the 5 digit realm, and not to even mention the different on the NREMT level.  She claimed she was the reason I was in this field, and while I would argue different, she always won the arguement. 

It is great to document our history...a history that our kids kids will see and can talk about as a reason they accomplished what they did in life.  As we can see in all the documentaries, our nations history is a beautiful thing to celebrate...and so is our personal history as well. 

The Combomedic

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