About a week ago, California Casualty, http://mycalcas.com/about/ an insurance company that specializes in insuring Police Officers, Nurses, Teachers and Firefighters informed me that Rescuing Providence had been chosen as a finalist in their Battle of the Blogs contest. Being a veteran of a few ill-fated blog contests, I was reticent to participate. Then, I found out that the winner gets to choose a charity that will benefit from the victory.
So I'm in. Vote for Rescuing Providence and CalCal will donate $200.00 to The Leary Firefighters Foundation. http://www.learyfirefighters.org/ if the blog gets more votes that the other two nominated blogs.
Actor Denis Leary lost a cousin in what I call The Worcester Fire. He seems like a cool guy, and he makes me laugh, and his charity does a lot of good things for firefighters, so a vote for Rescuing Providence is a vote for firefighters.
Vote Here:
http://mycalcas.com/firefighter-blogs/
The Worcester Fire
We filled three busses. The road from Providence to Worcester, Rt. 146 is an old, by today's standards anyway, highway that rolls through Rhode island and Massachusetts. I looked out the window and watched the country pass me by, used car lots, old homes, strip malls and closed down factory buildings. It was a quiet ride, by firefighter standards, all of us lost in our thoughts for the most part, using what was left of our brains to engage in idle conversation.
Six firefighters has died days before our journey, we, and thousands of firefighters from around the country were converging on downtown Worcester, to help lay them to rest. The city was quiet when we arrived, a few miles from the procession route. We could only get so close, then had to park the bus and walk in. We lost half of our people and ended up marching in two groups.
Once organized we marched through the city. Along the route people stood by the side of the road, ashen faced in the cold December wind, solemn as I had never seen solemn before. Construction workers. Housewives. High school girls. Elementary school children. Homeless people. Business owners. All paying their respects to those who lost their lives, and as I walked the route, and more and more people bowed their heads, or saluted as we passed I realized that they were saluting us as well.
It was the guys my age that got to me the most. Roofers, jack hammer operators, cooks, cops-men from all walks of life stopping to honor the fallen, and also those who carry on. Their gesture of support has stayed with me every moment that I'm in uniform, and even when I'm not. President Clinton and Vice-President Gore waited at the end of the procession, and spoke to the ten thousand firefighters and family members and friends who filled the Worcester Coliseum. Though much appreciated, their presence meant nothing to me after experiencing the true grief and respect shown to me by the citizens of Worcester.
Oh my. My heart goes out to all touched by this tragedy. Humble thanks to those who risk their lives each day in these, our society’s noblest professions.
Namaste.
I voted for you on Sat morning, Mike.
Hey, been reading and enjoying your blog for a while. I voted for you, but thought I’d let you know that if that arrow is supposed to link to the voting page, it doesn’t at the moment. I went through the other link. Thought you might like to know. Thanks for the stories!
Thanks Karlan, I’m technologically incompetent, the arrow is supposed to lead you to the sidebar that links to the voting page. I couldn’t figure out how to get the arrow to do the same. Either way, thanks for reading!
You know you’ve got my vote!!
Below should be the direct link to the contest:
http://mycalcas.com/firefighter-blogs/
I hereby call for the UN to come in and monitor this election: one of the other contestants has 199% of the votes cast.
Must be an imposter!
No, just the fire critic.
I got your back, Capt. Morse. I’d rather see a true blogger win versus a guy who posts random crap and calls it a blog.
(R. Fleitz, if you’re reading this, no hard feelings, but I challenge you to post something other than YouTube vids, product reviews, etc. After all you said it yourself: “Do me a favor, don’t look at any of the other blogs…cause if you do you will probably find that some blogs actually have PURPOSE, PERSONALITY, and people who read them….” emphasis mine, but ’nuff said.)
Hey guys! My name is Abbye and I am helping organize the Blog Competition. We know that the voting total numbers/percentages are a little screwed up. That’s because we originally had ALL blogs together before separating them into categories so we could give out 4 donations, not 1. We transfered over existing votes when we did this to preserve votes blogs already received, but it messed up the count totals/percentages. So bottom line: the number of votes next to each person (NOT the percent) is what we will go of off to determine winners. We checked, and those numbers are accurate. Sorry for the confusion!
Leary does great things for PAID firefighters, absolutely nothing for any volunteers. Read the rules at his “foundation”. He needs to remember that 75% of this country is served by unpaid firefighters.
Must there always be a controversy, a feeling of being left out, a sense of unfairness in everything. Can’t Denis Leary open a charity fr a group of people without another group feeling slighted? I mean, come on, anybody is free to start the Volunteer firefighters Fund, and paid firefighters won’t feel left out, trust me.
When I voted for you just now, you were ahead. Go you!