We love field trips

We had a field trip this week! Bob likes field trips. We went to the 911 operations center today. The day started out early for him. Normally, he doesn’t get up till around 10:00. Today he needed to get up at 8:00. I went in, gave him his coffee, got his clothes out, and laid them on the bed. I told him he could get dressed while I got his breakfast.

I went to the kitchen to get his bacon, eggs, and toast going. I had just finished putting everything together and decided to run back to his room to get his shoes out for him. I turned the corner of his room and found him standing there dressed----kind of. He had put on his sweater first and then his shirt over the sweater. Now, give him some credit, he actually was in style—“Hip” as they would say. Unfortunately, this household is not very “hip”. He had to change. It only took seconds to get him from his “hip” state of being, to a traditional style of clothing. We were off for our field trip.

The 911 operations center is an amazing place. Things have changed a lot from the days when Bob was fire chief. He was lost most of the time. He sat and listened and didn’t speak much. He did speak up once telling one of the ladies that things were a lot different in his day. They all turned and started asking him asking what he did and where he worked and really made him feel special. You could tell they had a special place in their hearts for police and firemen.

We also got a tour of Orlando’s Traffic Management Center. They showed us how they watch intersections, report accidents, and control traffic lights. I came away with a new respect for our 911 operators and the whole system.

One of the Mothers asked a worker, who had worked there for twenty years, how she dealt with the stress of the job. The worker hummed and stumbled for words, and then finally said, “I personally am a very spiritual person and I rely heavy on that part of my life to deal with this job. Most of the people that work in this field, who stay with the job, all tend to also fall into that same category.”

Give Bob a call this weekend and ask him about the days he was fire chief and how things have changed over the years.