Filling the Boots

You have heard to be careful of what you ask for.  Funny that I asked for a unplugged weekend.  And low and behold the Internet where we are house sitting went bonkers.  Then we also had a out of town trip to see my Mom-in-law who is in the hospital for heart problems.  As happens many different parts of the family all showed up around the same time.  So there we sat and talked and laughed with each other.  Sharing family time around her hospital bed.  I think it did her a world of good to have family gathered around.  I know that she had a much better last night than before.

Family is a wonderful thing to have for support.  Weather it be to help one get through the day, a home to return to or just the pat on the back for each other in a rough patch.  It seems that often families follow in each other footsteps.  Weather it be mother to daughter learning how cook the family recipes or father to son tweaking the carburetor on the truck.  We learn from our family.  And that is were the strongest bonds come from.  So it is not at all a surprise when we continue on in the same business as our family.  That is how it was for Gary R. Ryman who followed in the footsteps of being a fire fighter.  I just finished reading 'Firemen: Stories from Three Generations of a Firefighting Family'.  I have to say it was as intense as I expected.  Stories of unbelievable blazes, rescues just in the nick of time and just how a father leads a son and the pride of seeing who he becomes.

I already had a great respect for the firefighters in our volunteer fire departments around here.  Every lil community pulls together any time there is a fire or emergency call.  Weather if be from the EMS, to the brush trucks or the 911 operators coordinating.  These people train hard to learn how to be the arms of safety while doing this all of their free will and community service.  This summer I have seen how efficient they work when the volunteers put out a fire in my father's backyard, making sure to protect the house first and foremost.  And just last weekend the EMS responded to our help call when we were trying to help a woman who had fallen from her bed and could not get up.  She could not assist us since she could not use her legs and was too large for us to lift on our own.  They knew just how to help and preserve her dignity too.  And 911 sent out officers to help fill the reports when my brothers storage was broken into just last week.  These emergency workers are all around us everyday.  Helping in the foreground during an emergency and in the background when all seems calm.  My hats off to them.

My thanks once again to Tribute Books for sharing with me.  You can follow this blog tour too if you wish.  Also there is the facebook pages and twitter that you may join.  Along with a place to read an excerpt of this book.