Sandor the Great

Does anyone remember Sandor White? You know; the kid with the buzzcut that had a great sense of humour. The first time I met him was when I was transferred to #6. We had a lot of ‘new’ kids on the block back then. If my memory serves me right there was Kris Matton (who doesn’t write any more), Paul Bobbie, who was known for his famous phrase, “Jacko understands”, and of course, Sandor. We had some pretty well established older guys too; Bob Carroll, Mike Anderson, Dave Stroud, Doug Emery. I believe Gary Spratt was there also. But my memory fails me as to the other members of the crew.

Sandor was only on the job for about 2 or 3 years when he moved on to his home town of Barrie where he secured a position on that city’s fire department. I can only imagine the goings on there.

One of my fondest memories involved Sandor riding the back of the rescue which I was driving and I believe ‘Belle River’ Bob was the officer on the truck. We were dispatched to, which turned out to be a false alarm, in Forest Glade. As we were parked by the curb Sandor jumped off the back of the rig and came along side of the truck and stood by my window. I looked down and there he was in all his splendor. He looked pretty official in his bunker gear, gloves and even had his mask on ready to assault the fire single handed if necessary. He looked up at me and said, “Hey, Jacko, I smell smoke; we might have something here! Oh really”, I said. “How can you smell anything, you have your mask on!” The last time I saw Sandor during that time was walking towards the back of the truck.

I saw him back at the station where he was wearing a sheepish grin and he stated, “I’ll never make that mistake again!”

What a neat kid…. I still miss him to this day.