Skip to main content

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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

ELPA 6872 -Educational Technology

Good Morning Everybody. It has been a long time since I have posted on this blog.  The reason I am is a great reason for my Fire and EMS Audience, as well as my academic colleagues. After a very eventful beginning of 2018, my application was selected to join the latest cohort of students obtaining their Doctor of Education.  As part of this program, we are completing a course that is dedicated to technology and implementation into the classroom.  The delivery of this program is through technology based platforms, in that it is an online program. Here are some questions that I have about technology, and online learning. 1)  To mimic some of the classroom interaction and discussion, online educators use the discussion board with each module to foster communication.  For those of you having completed online educational programs, what made the discussion board useful? 2)  Does the set-up of the online course material make a difference in the success o...

Humbling Weekend creates great joy!!!

The #COMBOMEDIC is back after a short hiatus...sorry about the delay, but I took a couple days off to recoup.  And yet, I remain tired...still!  I guess that is a sign, I just don't know of what yet.  There are times in which the significance of the events are overwhelming in and of themselves and yet when you combine them with something else it is even better.  For me this past weekend was just that...a weekend of such significance that it was overwhelming.  Mountain Man Memorial March On Saturday the 20th of April I has the privilege of walking for soldiers that have given their lives in the defense of a grateful nation.  I was asked to participate in the Mountain Man Memorial March and was part of a team that comprised military members, family members, and high school guys and girls.  On this day we took part in a 13.1 mile march around a terrain composed of flat areas and a large amount of mountainous hills.  This isn't supposed to...

Who owns your ambulance.

It has been an interesting morning, and you know this because I am actually submitting this blog first thing this morning (ok, maybe not first thing...but you know what I'm talking about).  I have been out of my office since last Friday, and I am just now catching up on my rss feeds.  Now, like many of you I have multiple RSS feeds dedicated to the fields of fire and EMS, as well as to the Healthcare field.  As you can image, these feed boxes were jam packed with articles that have circulated since last Friday and just ready for me to read over their words.  There were several good articles, some that were just funny, and one that left me thinking I needed to watch Silence of the Lambs again (strange HUH!).  In looking over these RSS feeds, I found a common topic that I thought was interesting.  Now, what was intersting was the topic was common, but the outcomes were anything but.  As you can tell by the little picture I included with this versio...