All I wanted was a beer

This last week has flown by, so fast that on Thursday I asked a classmate, Beau, what he did over the weekend, then stopped, corrected myself and remembered that it was 4 days prior that the weekend actually happened. With the post-exam weeks it typically is a little easier. It's introductions to various topics and therefore the material is mostly an overview of what is to come. This makes for a much lighter studying load and it's a nice time to take some breaks after working so hard for the exam. The hope on Thursday was that I could get a beer, a group of students were thinking about going to the bar on Wednesday and decided not to, so they were committed to going on Thursday night. I was stoked. Well, at least interested, because it had been a lot of work and no play for awhile and the chance to hang out at the Cabooze (one of two options in this town) sounded like a nice way to spend an evening. The time that we were hoping to go kept getting pushed back because, after all, we're medical students and decided we should study some first. As it comes up to 9 p.m. I decide I'm going to call it quits and Adam and I pack up and were planning on reconvening in 15min to head to the bar. I head down to my room and dump my stuff off by the desk just in time to hear Big John, a fireman who's a driver on the pager. "Engine 85 in service and heading to location" I stop. I hear the chief call in saying he's in route. So I call the 911 operator for directions and it sounds like it might be a fire. After leaving a message for Adam saying I wasn't going to make it to the bar, I drive out to the scene. On my way there I hear other stations calling in and saying that they would be helping out. "Huh, so this is the real deal," I thought. Previously a lot of the "house fires" that I'd been to were in reality bonfires or grills that got smokey, not really a major deal- in fact garden hoses worked great for these. It's snowy and cold, somewhat unusual so they tell me for this time of year in Tennessee. As I travel down the rural highway to the scene I see that the snow in the air on the horizon is stained an eerie orange yellow and is glowing. I get on scene and the local sheriffs have closed the highway completely and I pull into the grass. The structure is a shop of some sort that at one point did something with making steel roofs, according to it's decrepit sign. I open my trunk and don my gear and head over to the trucks to find my chief for an assignment. On the way over a sheriff grabs me and tells me that there are acetylene and oxygen tanks in the building that were used for welding. "Great," I think. Finding the chief I point out the corners where the tanks were reported to be and with that they blow. The explosion rips the building and the fire roars higher. On scene were most of the local departments all helping to quell the fire before it reached the trailer homes sitting not more than 150 ft away. We draw out the hose and the supporting departments start to go out on water runs. This is an important task because Harrogate does not have more than 30 fire hydrants across the city and the vast majority of the hydrants are on the LMU campus, with a concentration around DCOM. This makes easy access to water for firefighting, difficult. With the hoses drawn out we start three attack lines, two firemen per line. I'm the center hose and we start into the blazing structure, shooting water to make our way forward. The cold water from the now icy-slick hoses hits the hot steel of the roof and immediately turns to steam. A thick steam that smells like a bonfire and chemicals. The wind thankfully is on our backs and is blowing most of the smoke and steam away from us as we work closer to the fire. After dumping truckfuls of water the blaze appears to be mostly under control with only small patches of fire left burning under the debris. We continue to douse the remaining burning patches until all that is left is steaming piles of what was once the building and white patches of snow now collecting on the cement that was used as a foundation. Three hours after I left, I return. Cold, wet, smelling like a bad bonfire and badly needing a drink. I pour myself a Jamison on ice and being cleaning up and starting to relax. These are courtesy of one of the firemen's fiancee: