News has reached the Village about the passing of one of my seminary classmates Fr. Dan Kennedy. Fr. Dan was only 33 yrs old and from what I hear he died of a heart attack at the home of his brother on Sunday night. Fr. Dan was a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and will be missed. He was ordained last May to the priesthood and was serving a parish in Winthrop, Massachusetts.

I spent a few hours yesterday getting my truck back in service after the fire the other night. I also noticed that my comments on the fire brought in the most hits on this blog and the most comments on a single posting since I began this blog. I want to thank all of you for your comments and those who did not comment thanks for reading my words.

My good friend and department photographer Alan Bracket has a website of photos of various fires in the area. Alan is a retired fire fighter from Sturbridge, Massachusetts and he takes photo’s for our department and others. Here is a link to his photos of the fire the other night. If you look close you can even see pics of me. I am the one with the cross on his helmet standing around with nothing to do! Anyway thanks to Alan for taking the pics and sharing them.

This is what I saw when I arrived. This photo comes courtesy of the Telegram and Gazette newspaper in Worcester.

Now the point of telling this story is simply this. Fire fighters risk their lives everyday. Human beings had to go in that house and put that fire out. These brave men and women do things that normal, and I use that term in a good way, people would not do. As people are running out, they are running in not knowing if they will come back out or not. They have to trust their training and trust each other. Fire fighters in this area have taken a hit in the last few weeks with the stories coming out of Boston and some other places about drugs and alcohol on the job. It is very easy for us to look at fire fighters and think all they do is sit around the fire house and sleep. Well look at that picture again and think about it. That is a three family house. If you look close on the porch of the second floor you see people, those are the men and women we think just sit around and do nothing. They train for this stuff everyday. Just like the police officer who rides around in his/her car during a shift, these are highly trained, and under paid, professionals.

Now I like sports. I like to watch sports. But when I see what these people get paid it makes me sick to think of them versus they guys in that picture. In this area fire fighters start at around $35,000 a year. Okay not a bad salary, but in my department we only have six full time the rest like me are call fire fighters who make maybe $2,500 a year doing this. They do hold jobs or go to school but you get the idea. One of the departments that responded yesterday is a volunteer department. That’s right, they run into that building for FREE!

Don’t get me wrong I think people should be able to make as much money as they can but, when we pay a pitcher $40 million a year and fire fighter $35,000 a year something is wrong. We pay all of our public servants, police, fire, teachers, emts’s, snow plow drivers, etc. way to little and we need to look at how we structure our budgets. No one wants to pay more tax but come on people!

Next time you drive by your local fire house remember that photo and say a prayer for the men and women who happen to be on shift that day. Remember their families who pray every time the bell rings until they hear from their loved ones that they are okay. Next time your making cookies or something make an extra batch and take it by the fire house they love it and will even let you sit in one of the fire trucks, by the way that is cool! Thank the men and women of the fire service for all that they do and for risking their loves to save your 42″ flat screen LCD TV that they can’t afford themselves.

Okay, rant over.

Just a quick note as I ready myself for a Fire Chaplain meeting today. This is our quarterly meeting and training session and today’s topic will be very serious and somber. Line of Duty Death notification. This is training that I hope I will never have to use. So I am off in a half hour with another chaplain from the area for this meeting that will last most of the day.

Tomorrow the plan is to podcast with Fr. Greg and to try and get on some schedule again. We have been trying to keep to a set schedule but it becomes harder as each of us get busier with our respective parish duties and other such things.

Yesterday I was at the local radio station recording promos for the new radio ministry I mentioned in the previous post. Very weird recording in front of another person. Podcasting is one thing but doing radio spots is very different. But it is done. I still need to get the press release done and I will post that when it is released.