Random Thoughts

These are few of the random thoughts I have written down over the years. I have not changed them since I wrote them over twenty years ago. 

The Street is always just below the surface. Scratch me and I bleed a story. 

There is a rhythm to the street. After a while you can tell with it is going to be a busy day. (Written on the back of a old set of standing orders sitting in the jump seat of Engine 10 on a busy day I had felt coming).

I’ve had babies die in my arms and some who lived who I wished had died, after the mess we left them in. I’ve had it come out bad so much of the time that I am always surprised and happy when it all works. When everything somehow falls into place. Not much like the TV shows.

It is difficult to understand how something that effects you so profoundly can be thought of as so trivial. That a meeting of the County Commissioners holds more important than what you had seen and what you had gone through and is front page news. While someone's tragic death is buried on page ten. 

We make people nervous. When they see our little equipment laden safari moving through their office or a restaurant, they always smile and make some sort of nervous joke about us. As if they the only way to deal with something going wrong is to minimize it. “Nothing serious”, they say as we leave so they can be reassured. And when something does go very wrong they ignore what is going on altogether. I worked a code in a restaurant once. We were in the middle of the floor. People around us continued to eat, as if ignoring what is going on will make it go away.