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I owe you all a firefighter story so here goes:
A good, union job is one of the surest ways to single-generation economic mobility.
My Dad got one of those jobs when he was hired onto the Little Rock Fire Department.
A good, union job is one of the surest ways to single-generation economic mobility.
My Dad got one of those jobs when he was hired onto the Little Rock Fire Department.
He is a Marine, he had not excelled at school, and he painted houses for poverty wages after his military service and before getting on the FD.
His dad had been a LRFD Captain before him and when I was a kid I watched him crack those books to advance and gain promotion to first Engineer (driver) and then, like his own father, Captain.
This advancement made it easier to care for me, my brothers, and my sister. It also let my mom take grad school classes and she advanced in her career as a teacher. But our family out-grew the two-bedroom mobile home we lived in until I was about 9.
When it came time to try to build or buy a home, there was no easy way to make that work with six mouths to feed and two public-sector jobs.
But firefighters are different.
But firefighters are different.
Nearly every firefighter I knew growing up had a side gig. My Dad worked at a starter and alternator repair shop in Little Rock. Every third day he was at the station and the other two weekdays, he was wearing a literal blue collar, fixing people’s cars.
When it came time to build our house (an immense privilege, I recognized later), firefighters came out of the woodwork! One of them did dirt work, another laid foundations, a different one did framing, another flooring and drywall, and so on.
My dad built that house himself, with the help of firefighters whose names I don’t know. Our family went from a 2BR trailer to my parents’ dream home because of the way that firefighters lift up one another.
Part of the reason I want to elect @matthew_rep is because he just gets that. It’s in his bones. He knows that spirit of fighting for people who run into the fire.
Anyway, let’s help him out. Let’s build a new House. Together. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/firefighterstallings
Anyway, let’s help him out. Let’s build a new House. Together. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/firefighterstallings
