July 1999
A brand new EMT walks trepidatiously into the ambulance yard. He’s not completely lost; he’s been a volunteer fireman for a decade. This medical stuff is all new though. He introduces himself to his assigned crew and mispronounces his preceptor’s name. He has no idea what is in store for him.
The sun is shining, the tunes are rocking, and soon they are off to save the world in their battered Econoline.
The winters are cold. The snows are deep. Hurricanes, floods, fires, crashes. 24 hour shifts. Dialysis runs and discharges, interhospital transfers alternately lifesaving and frustrating. Death and destruction and triumph and glory. Saving lives and marking time.
June 2021
A seasoned paramedic walks into the apparatus bay. His new truck is in the shop. The replacement was state of the art when it was built 18 years ago. LEDs were future-tech back then. It has relays that click and strobes that twitter while using enough electricity to run a microwave oven. It’s a little too short in the back; we hit our heads if we get distracted. It doesn’t have enough compartment space. It has neither Bluetooth nor an iPod jack.
And I love it. It’s a survivor.
The tones drop for a trauma on the other side of town. The sun is shining, the tunes are rocking, and we are off to save the world in our battered Econoline.
Notes from Mosquito Hill 
[…] Yesterday my muse was here. Tonight I sit on the porch listening to the wind in the pines and. . . nothing. It’s been a busy day marking time. When I came home from work I took Cricket for a few errands. We took the truck to the carwash to clean off the pollen, picked up an iced tea, and went to Salisbury Beach for a slice of pizza. The entire trip was justified by a stop at the bank to make a deposit which could have waited until tomorrow. […]
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