"ZIP - Clunk!, ZIP - Clunk!, ZIP - Clunk!"

What is it that we love about the job? What are the little things? For me it has to be the sound of firehose flaking off the rear of the rig as your laying a line into a good job. Even inside the cab of the truck you can still hear the "zip-clunk" as section after section of hose feeds off into the street. Or maybe it is the time at shift change when we all are gathered around the kitchen table. There is plenty of coffee and lots of laughter. Or maybe it is the smell of the apparatus bay. The odor of smokey bunker gear mixed with diesel fuel and wet firehose. Maybe it is all of these, and more. It could be as the years between now and my rookie years have began to change places between now and my future retirement my perspective have changed. The fire service has changed also. There are fewer and fewer "lifers" anymore. Firefighters today are more of a "two-days off, twenty years and gone" person. And that may not be a bad thing. I would say keep it simple, love the job, let this be what you do, not who you are.