In The Beginning... I Remember

Well, my beginning anyway. This is the old hose drying rack at the Vigilant Hose Company in Shippensburg. This big dinosaur was made from angle iron and wood, we used to roll it out of the annex and load it with the wet hose we would wash up after a call. In the winter we would stand the hose on edge under the engines or take it to the Steam Plant at Shippensburg State College to dry. The rack has been gone for years now, we just lay the hose out where we can nowadays. The engine was Engine 152, a 1976 International/Bruco owned by the Borough. This was the first unit painted Slime-Lime. We eventually went to all lime-yellow and in 1999 started going back to our traditional cream over red. I'm not sure when this was taken, probably 1980 or 1981. I was the last Lieutenant on this engine, we sold it in April 1983 and I left for basic training in June. I can remember riding in the engine, riding in the open bench jump seat and riding on the tailboard (gasp!). I remember that in the back compartment was an old air-pack box with everything you needed to hit a hydrant. I remember one guy would grab the 4" and wrap the hydrant while someone else would grab the box, pull it out, swing it around and slide it over to the fire plug so the layout man could hook it up. I also remember it was slow, it seemed to top out at 55 mph, some engines you can remember taking your breath away, this one just got you there.