The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

They’re in a terrible kerfuffle down at the Flame-Ons! now that Lottie Johnson quit the post of Women’s Fire Auxilliary President.  Resigned in a huff, a snit, a flame-throwing kiss-my-caboose departure right in the middle of the June meeting  to decide what to fundraise for in the coming annum.  When she hit the door at the VFD meeting hall, the vacuum swept 4 or 5 others out with her in full irate sympathy.  The ladies left on their metal folding chairs with paper dessert plates half finished in their laps said not a word for at least two minutes, exchanging raised eyebrows and hesitant smiles.

“Looks like you’re the new President, Connie,” someone finally said, breaking the silence.  Connie said no, No, NO, someone else, anyone else.

The trouble is, there’s the Old Guard auxiliaries, the women who remember that era when the station was pretty much Party Central for the South End fireboyz, beer cases stacked higher than fire equipment up the wall, Tuesday night ‘practices’ pretty much a kegger.  Their mothers had served in the Auxilliary and this was their club.  But new arrivals to the area had joined, exhibiting civic pride and plenty of zeal, hoping to make a difference.  And make it quick.  Way of the World, I suppose, but old blood and new blood don’t mix.  Type A’s vs. tired blood.  You see it in the South End Historical Society, the Little White Chapel in the Ravine, down at the Bizness Association.  Who ARE those nouveau riche pretenders and what do they want from us?  It was a sociable group before, a lot of fun and friendship — it’s a political nightmare now.  What was tea and cookies now has an evangelical air.  We need to organize, we need to fundraise, we need to lobby the commissioners, we need to get active!  The old plant sale just wouldn’t do.  Would NOT DO!

Now they had a fire district with paid fire fighters at every station.  Well, not the South End station.  They were building or upgrading new stations all over the island.  Well, not the South End station.  It was getting hard to find volunteers when up northcountry the firefighters were being paid handsomely.  Times were changing, Lottie would say, time, ladies, for us to change too.  Oh yeah, there’s a fire smoldering down at the Station, she liked to say, and it was up to us to put it out.

Well, Lottie is gone now, at least for a time.  And that burnt rubber smell in the Flame-Ons! meetings won’t go away soon.  That fire is still smoldering and the trouble is, they got rid of all those cases of beer years ago.  Who knows if it would’ve helped put out this fire.

 

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2012 at 3:43 pm and is filed under rantings and ravings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.