This column originally appeared on Sunday, April 5, 2009.
“So who’s the cook?”
To tell you the story behind that quote, I’m going to have to tell you another one first. Stay with me here. That Villanova score isn’t going to change anytime soon, and you’ll still be able to turn to it in the sports section.
In 1977, I worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Uinta Mountains of northeastern Utah. We, a bunch of students from Earlham College and counterparts from schools in Utah, worked in the Wasatch National Forest about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City. Although some of us did heavy-duty forest service work, like cutting down trees, my job was mainly to empty trashcans from the campsites in the area.
But on July 16, a Saturday as I remember, we were told that we would be driving a few hours to the south to help fight a forest fire that had gone out of control in another forest – the Ashley National Forest. The fire was near the Flaming Gorge, quite a tourist attraction.
When we arrived at the scene, we were handed Pulaski fire tools to carry and fire-retardant shirts to wear, and given sleeping bags made out of paper and told we would be heading out to the fire scene soon, ferried there by helicopter. But we were also told that there had been a tragedy before our arrival: Three firefighters had been killed when the fire turned back on them and blew over the top of the tree stand were they were standing. They tried to outrun the blaze, but couldn’t.
I did not know their names then, but do now – thanks to the wonder of the Internet: Gene Campbell, Dwight Hodgkinson and Dave Noel. Even though none of s had known them before that day, they were all we thought about as we went about the business of containing that burning forest. I was just 20, and never thought until then that I could have such admiration and fear at the same time.
So on Saturday, March 28, 2009, I was at home reading when I decided a snack would be nice. Something simple and easy to make. A piece of toast. About half way though the process I noticed that there was an unusually large amount of smoke coming from the toaster – which would be nice in a barbeque pit but not in a third floor apartment. Somewhat experienced with smoking kitchen equipment, I opened the nearest window and the hallway door to get the smoke cleared. Which is about the same time the fire alarm went off.
I had noticed the alarm bell when I moved into the apartment a few months ago but hadn’t real paid it much mind. I imagined that it was there left over from some previous incarnation; what did I need with a bell, after all? I had smoke detectors. My first thought was to muffle the bell while the smoke cleared and everything went back to normal and I could finish my toast. Which is where the landlady found me, on the landing, gripping the metal clanger, when she ordered me out of the house.
We gathered on the street in front of the apartment, my landlady, fellow tenant and I, as I learned that the alarm was hardwired into an emergency service that would contact the fire company, which would be here soon. “But al I did was burn a piece of toast!” I explained, sheepishly. I don’t know whether my fellow evacuees’ laughter was directed at me, or at the situation. Nevertheless, that’s what they were doing when the pumper truck arrived.
A person I can only imagine must have been the chief --- since he stood about 14 feet tall, six feet wide and built, as they say, by the same firm that did Stonehenge – got off the truck and walked into the building like he owned it. I tried to stutter something about the toast, but it seemed he had more important things to do, like make sure the building wasn’t on fire.
It seemed as if hours passed as I stood on the sidewalk thinking how I was going to explain this one when the firefighter finally emerged from the house, having ascertained the level of my stupidity and shut off the alarm.
“So who’s the cook?” he asked, a wry smile crossing his face. I raised my hand. I explained the situation, he gave me some advice about what to do the next time the toast gets too crispy and then said, “Friend, you are not alone.” He walked back towards the truck, and we turned to go back inside.
There’s been a lot of news in the paper these days about firefighters, and some of it has not been great. But as the fire truck left the scene, all three of us turned to those who were inside and said, “Hey. Thanks. You guys do a great job.”
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Hi, Dwight Hodgkinson was my special friend. It's a long story but he and Becky Brown and I spent a wonderful crazy summer together, coming of age in a rather conservative town. Dwight was a real special person. I had left the area a couple of years before he died in the fire. Dwight was the most different person in Vernal (where he lived). He was the most caring, funloving, dynamic person you could ever meet, and he was the the best person to have a crazy year with. Both he and Becky died within a year of each other and both of them knew, years before they died, exactly how they would die. they just knew it. Anyway. I look Dwight up frequently. I know the details of the fire intimately just by reading the reports over and over again. this is the first time I have seen your piece. It was cool. Dwight was a great guy, really and my dear friend. He was flamboyant. He played Reb Tevia in the highschool Fiddler on the Roof and was incredible. He did not necessarily fit in with the cowboys and jocks. He loved music and color and he was incredibly creative, gentle and thoughtful. He was descent and good, and he would have been INCREDIBLY proud to know that his name was on a memorial up in the mountains he loved so much.
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