By: Stan Jordan
I and a lot of other old firemen were invited to Chief Ray Friend’s retirement party and we had a blast.
That Saturday, it was 90 degrees but we were all in the shade and there was good breeze blowing all the time. It was down right enjoyable. We were celebrating Ray being on the Antwerp Fire Department for 53 years. Ray is also a veteran, having served a hitch in ‘Nam and has also owned his own business for over 40 years now.
His Honor Ray DeLong, the mayor, was there and councilman Keith West was also. They had a special chair ready for me, like some kind of guest! We sat around and talked and some of the younger fellows played a few rounds for corn hole and seemed to have a good time.
Then we had supper of brats, hot dogs and all kinds of salads and the other fare you have at a cookout.
Then the new fire chief, Bobby Addis, said a few words and then presented Ray with a beautiful plaque with some numbers of Ray’s years on the department and the number of years he was chief and a few other momentos of fire fighting. Then Bobby presented Ray with his old helmet with a few decorations on it. Bobby said, “This is from the entire fire squad.”
After a round of applause, Ray said a few words and really thanked all the boys in the company and the mayor and the council and he mentioned how good they all were to work with and the Antwerp public for all their backing all these years.
Then Ray and I discussed how there has been Friend boys on the department since 1948, Woody, Acey, Jim, Ray and Tom; what a dandy discussion. Then we just sat around and talked about some of the fires we have handled in the past. This next story is all true and it brought the house down.
Back in 1970 or 80, there lived a nice old lady, Ms. Swisher, down on Shaffer Rd. Over the years, she had kept piling up her dead branches and she had quite a pile. The neighbor’s dogs chased a wild rabbits under the pile of limbs and they barked all night. She wanted us to burn that pile and the little old shed with it.
Well, they took all the equipment along as there was a meeting that night and the chief said we could do this P.R. job and have coffee and donuts also. Well, all was great…the pile was down, the little shed, too, and some of the boys were chucking in the little pieces of limbs. It broke into a water battle! Three or four men with hoses tried to see how wet they could get each other. One fellow stuck an 1½ hose up the other guy’s rain coat and blew his helmet off. Oh, their water battle was hilarious and we talked about it for a long time at Ray’s party. That was wrote down in the record book as a regular training night with a P.R. affair and we were to check the pump on the truck for p.s.i.
Well, we laughed and talked a while and it was after 9:00 p.m. and I was the first to go home.
This is Monday, July 1st, and as I sit here and write about Ray’s retirement party and think it over, boy that was a dandy party.
See ya!
