Back in 1976, I received this plastic helmet for my third birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That toy helmet is the closest I ever got to becoming a fireman. One of my best friends, however, continued down that path.<\/p>\n

In the early 90s while I was busy delivering pizza, flunking out of college, and wondering what I wanted to do with my life, my friend Andy already knew: he wanted to be a fireman. In addition to working two full time jobs (delivering packages for UPS every day and delivering pizzas every night), Andy was also volunteering at his local fire department. I know how many hours he put in back then because the two of us were roommates, sharing a one bedroom apartment at the time. <\/p>\n

That was back in 1992. Today in 2012, Andy is still with the Mustang, Oklahoma Fire Department. Only these days he’s not a volunteer; he’s a Lieutenant, and in 2011 Andy was named Mustang Legion’s Firefighter of the Year<\/a>. I feel proud and honored to count Andy as one of my closest friends. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last year in our local home town parade, my son Mason got to ride along with Andy in the cab of his firetruck. While riding shotgun, Mason wore a toy firemen’s helmet, similar to the one I had as a kid.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Cross-posted at Retroist.com<\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 1976, I received this plastic helmet for my third birthday. That toy helmet is the closest I ever got to becoming a fireman. One of my best friends, however, continued down that path. In the early 90s while I was busy delivering pizza, flunking out of college, and wondering what I wanted to do with my life, my friend Andy already knew: he wanted to be a fireman. In addition to working two full time jobs (delivering packages for UPS every day and delivering pizzas every night), Andy was also volunteering at his local fire department. I know… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}