Fire Company No. 2

I began to edit the pictures, but the libations made me drowsy and I took a wee nap. When I woke up, the time on my Kindle read 1:00 PM. I had intended to go to the Thanksgiving Dinner at the Union Fire Station at 11:30 AM, catching a ride with Ferdinand and Melanie. The two knew the address, so I hope the two found a Thanksgiving Dinner. But I speculated, “Wouldn’t they have knocked on my door”?nnI walked around the house at tried to round up a few people to ride in my rideshare to the station, but all demurred. One neighbor, Steve, thanked me but said his girlfriend was coming over to see him with a platter from her family dinner. I had shared my day as best I could, so I ordered up my ride share. The call got cancelled twice, and the third driver arrived thirty minutes after my call for a ride.nnI thought I would see more cars, and the driver said he would wait until I waved him away. I looked in the window and saw a line of tables, set with floral centerpieces and placemats to be colored by children. I waved. He waved back and drove off. A woman in a red Buffalo Bills jersey greeted me, “Take a seat where you like and I’ll bring dinner out to you. We’re waiting on a batch of food, so would you like coffee and apple pie”? “Life is short. Eat dessert first”, I smiled and said. I sat with two couples, bikers who had just moved to New York from the south. I listened to their story of troubles getting driver’s licenses issued at the Motor Vehicle office.nnMost people arrived to pick up Thanksgiving Dinner to take home to their family. A team of men and women boxed up the meals, and made them easy to carry in Union Fire Department shopping bags, the reusable kind. Plenty of seats, plenty of pie and plenty of company, but most dinners went home with people who waited, sitting in an informal lobby of folding chairs.nnA call for help sounded through the fire garage and four men suited up and made for a waiting fire truck parked at the pizzeria next door. I had resolved not to take pictures during my visit to the Union Fire, and I just made a mental note of the men going on their way to the unknown on a cold and grey day. A sign at the door made the mission clear: “The Reason You Are Here is To Follow the Call”.nnI left and caught the bus by the old mill on Kayaderosseras Creek, now a wild creek of vigorous white water, up several feet above normal. A woman with a walker also boarded the bus, carrying a few turkey dinners in her green shopping bag with loop handles. I had noticed her walking down the steep hill from High Street when I was riding through town with Jorge, the man driving me to the fire station. I thought about her route, at least a mile down a steep hill to the creek and up a steep incline to the station. She made it, and returned on the bus with turkey and fixings for her table. She left the bus near the Dunkin Donuts, the donut shop on the south end of Ballston spa. As I watched her make her way with the dinners resting on the walker step, I hoped she didn’t have far to walk before she could rest and eat.