A Story About "Rotten Ralph"

Some stories are funny... this one is hilarious and touches the heart at the same time. For those that have never experienced "the good old days" this is a typical day at the hall. Thanks go to Tom White for this story about a guy we all loved and respected. This was "Rotten Ralph" at his best. Enjoy.

Hi Jack

Thanks for the heads up on '' Ralph's '' passing. Imagine Barney , Ale and Ralph back together again.

I've often wondered who hung the name rotten ralph on Derush.......

Personally, I remember meeting Bob in the summer of 69..... It was a Thursday and being the redass I got shipped to headquarters on pit street.

It was window day and we were doing the windows upstairs. Bob stopped me and said what are you doing, Stupid, you don't wash the whole window , you pull the shade half way down and just do what shows. After I had done a few like that, Bob and Ron Lemay went and told Lt. Jack Hillis the redass was only doing half the job.

Later that day I thought I was going to get even;Lemay and Derush and Smitty were playing pool and this was my game..... I was good and too stupid not to show off. I went to my car and brought in my own cue. After letting me in to the game, I proceeded to show off. Bob asked to see my stick and proceeded to brake it over his knee and throw it out the third floor window. Ralph knew when to be rotten ,when a lesson in humility was needed and believe it or not had a big heart. Bob and Ron took a shine to this little alley rat of a kid named Phillip and they would hose him down in the hose tower and clean him up regularly and feed him and give him money.

God those were good times. Once Bob was on my side in a water fight. I was waiting at the foot of the stairs out front to throw a pail of water on Fenton who was driving the chief. Bob yelled let it go and I threw the whole damn bucket on Ray Berthiaume who was the meanest man I ever met. How could I have trusted Rotten Ralph.....? We all have our memories and those old pit street ones are special........

Retiree Tom White

An Apparatus Door Injures Chief 2's Vehicle

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” That’s what I proclaimed that night at Station 2 and I’ve held onto that belief ever since. Here’s what happened:

It was a dark and scary night when Chief 2 left the building to do his nightly rounds on the east end and points beyond. Bob Cooper and his driver had been known to traverse the city’s both East and West sides just in case Chief 1 had missed something. Bob was like that; he accomplished stuff.

Looking for a quiet place in the station in order to read my book I found that the watch booth was empty and so took a seat and began my read. A couple of hours passed by without much interruption. The only person that visited me was Ron Trofin who asked me what the meaning of “being Trofed” meant. Other than that it was rather quiet unless you consider the fact that the only other disturbance occurred when Dave Stroud came in to reminisce about some repetitive stories that took place during the 1950’s that he remembered as though they actually happened yesterday.

When Chief 2 returned from his “cross country” ride it was quite dark inside as the apparatus lights had not been turned on and the apparatus door had been closed. Or so I thought at the time. Apparently I was mistaken. Being always diligent about helping out the Chief I promptly pushed the button on the console to open the apparatus door so the Chief could enter the building. Not aware that the door was still open it started to descend the same time Chief 2’s driver started to reverse the command car inside the apparatus floor. My timing was exquisite.

The apparatus door made contact with the command car’s light bar perfectly and if I remember correctly landed square on the hood of the car. I would be remiss to not mention that Chief 2 and his driver nearly suffered dual heart attacks at that moment. It would have been OK though as I had just recently been trained in CPR. As the Boy Scout motto declares; I was prepared.

15^th ANNUAL RETIREMENT

PIG ROAST

“RAY SEGUIN MEMORIAL”

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9/2008

GLADWIN, MICHIGAN

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