The Legend of Old Red begins with Chapter 1 HERE.
Chapter 11
The fire officers asked if she had gotten his name. She replied that she had not, but she spotted a picture of Hank hanging on the wall, pointed to it and said “That’s him! And I think that the fire department should really reconsider making a gentleman of his advanced years go out and fight fires.”
Puzzled, the Chief then asked her when this fire had happened. She looked at him, raised her eybrows and replied, “Why, just last week. On Hallowe’en Day.”
The End
* * * * *
Firegeezer notes: The Legend of Old Red© was written by Steve Marshall who is an officer with the Meadville, Pennsylvania, Fire & Rescue Dept. He has added an Epilogue that wraps up the story of Old Red:
Epilogue
The real ‘56 Seagrave featured in The Legend of Old Red was quite a character. When I became a line officer in my department, our one and only pumper was Old Red. She was as cantankerous as an old woman. The truck was so old that most of the equipment on her still had the 1950s-era Civil Defense logos on them. The syncromesh in the transmission had worn out long ago. If you missed a gear, you had to slow down and start over again in first gear. No power steering for this beast either..that massive 30 inch steering wheel had to be manhandled at the same time you were shifting, hoping you didn’t miss a gear. Starting her was a gamble, too; if you didn’t pump the gas pedal just once before hitting the choke and pushing the starter button, she wouldn’t start.
At one point Old Red’s batteries died. I really couldn’t understand it; they were ONLY 12 years old! Our city didn’t have the funds to replace the batteries right away and we only had the one pumper.. so..get this… at times, we actually pushed Old Red down the ramp to pop start her. I can imagine that to a bystander, seeing 10 or 12 firefighters pushing an ancient firetruck to start, it must have looked like a three stooges act, but we did what we had to do. And yes, I said 12 Firefighters. It was not uncommon to see 10 people hanging off the backstep and siderails in those days.
I drove Old Red on her final call.
While screaming down a city street early one Sunday morning, a huge explosion rang out from under her hood and flames streamed up over the windshield and over my head. I pulled over and raised the hood to find a tragic sight. The engine used a special high voltage inverter to power the 24 sparkplugs in the massive V12. (an engine that had originally been designed for use in prop driven fighter planes.) The inverter was blown completely apart. Old Red limped back to the station but she never recovered. Seagrave told us that there was not a replacement available anywhere. They simply no longer existed.
So we were finally able to get our city to buy us a replacement…a green one.
The Green Machine is still at work in that same fire station, and the station appears today very much the same way it did in the picture posted with Chapter 1. The new Green Machine was great, but it lacked heart. There has never been a personality associated with it nor an affectionate nickname. It’s just a truck.
This story started out as a short story I wrote as a treatment for the now canceled tv show, “Amazing Stories”. One of the show’s directors was a local, having grown up within sight of the fire station where Old Red resided. It was a natural fit for the show. The character “Hank” was based on my life with Old Red.
At the time, Scatman Crothers was slated to play Hank. I wished that “Amazing Stories” had lasted just one more season. Not just for financial reasons, but to see the love story unfold on the screen. A man and his machine.
Was the real Old Red possessed? I’m sure of it. I was about the only one that really cared for her and one of the few who could double clutch her all the way up and down without missing a gear and she died in my arms (in a manner of speaking.)
I felt the loss as much as one would feel losing a close friend…and I’m sure that late one night, while leaving the station where Old Red awaited her fate sitting next to the new Green Machine, I heard her cry out in despair.
. . . . . . . . . . Steve Marshall
Notice: The next Mystery Minute story will begin on Monday, November 2.
