If I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times. An old-time fireman telling me how the job was much tougher back then, so much more demanding back then…. back when he came on. The implication was crystal clear - we new guys weren’t cut from the same cloth and, so, would never measure up. One incident is prominent in my memory: I was brand new, had about fifteen minutes on the job when an old-time District Fire Chief told me I looked stupid because I was, get this, wearing gloves! Yup, gloves. Wearing them made me look stupid because, you see, his generation didn’t need no stinkin’ gloves. Hell no! He and his old-time pals fought fires with their bare hands!
A famous man once shared his observation of the generation that came along after his: “Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants.”
One could easily imagine this quote being made by someone of my generation while speaking about the generation of firefighters working in Boston’s firehouses today. The first time I read it, I assumed it was a random old curmudgeon complaining about young people. In a way, I was right. The quote was made by an old guy, a very old guy.
You see, the words were uttered in 470 BC by an old guy who lived in Athens: an old bearded guy named Socrates. The most interesting thing about his quote is that it was true to ol’ Socrates back then….and it’s true today, it was true yesterday and for a thousand other yesterdays. The passage of almost 2500 years hasn’t rendered a single syllable outdated.
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