Opinion

From My Window: ‘Good ole boys’ do great job; election issue is fire board vote

Sean McMahon, Editor
Sean McMahon, Editor
Let’s talk about the good ole boys! It seems to be a popular topic over the past few weeks.
I apparently and quite mistakenly brought it up couple of weeks ago when talking about what kind of new chief should be hired to head up the Meeker Fire and Rescue.

I said then and I still believe that I would rather see a professionally trained and educated fire chief hired in Meeker than to bring in one of the local good ole boys as the new chief.
That is a statement I would make face to face to anyone in this town, this county, this state or this country. There isn’t a derogatory tone in any way involved in that sentence, that thought or that belief.
Let me explain.
I have lived my life in Denver (birth), Colorado Springs, Boulder, Grand Junction, Aspen and, now, Meeker, Colo. I have lived in Riverton, Worland, Casper, and Rawlins, Wyo. I have lived in Fayetteville, Rogers and Eureka Springs, Ark. I have lived in Phoenix, Sierra Vista and Kingman, Ariz. And I have lived in Yreka, Calif. Those towns have ranged in size from over a million (Denver and Phoenix) to a couple thousand people (Eureka Springs and Meeker).
Every single one of those towns had good ole boys (male and female).
Thank God they did!
The best analogy I can come up with is that the good ole boys are the equivalent of the worker bees in a bee hive. They are the ones who get the job done. That is why they call them the “worker” bees. Without them, no hive would survive. There would be no need for the queen or the hive or even the workers.
The workers would survive on their own.
But within each of them is a sense of community, sharing, taking care of each other, doing what needs to be done. They are the good ole boys of the hive.
Sorry folks, but there is nothing negative to say about them. Paint me with whatever brush you want, but I have never spoken nor written in a derogatory manner about the worker bees or the good ole boys in any of towns in which I have lived.
But not everyone is a worker bee. And that is a good thing, too.
Wherever there are worker bees—anywhere in any form of any society—there have to be those who lead. Thankfully, there are.
Here among us humans as well.
Take any form of society such as, say, a Fire Department/EMT/Search operation. There are the good ole boys (the worker bees) and the leaders (the queen bee and her drones). No one is any better than the other, they just have different roles to play.
Worker bees and good ole boys do what needs to be done. They know what that is, they are good at doing it and they don’t complain of working conditions.
And yes, Mr. Dodds, after 39 years as a journalist and four years as a certified reserve deputy working at least 40-hour weeks in Carroll County, Ark., I have seen more than my share of heart-breaking events.
Just a few of the most unpleasant: Helping a county coroner scrape a body off of a mattress by the chunks of rotten green flesh because he died about two weeks previous of carbon monoxide poisoning; arriving at a funeral home to interview the coroner only to walk into the embalming room to find the coroner performing an autopsy on my date from the night before (after we both headed home she was in an auto accident, was thrown from the car, landed face down in an irrigation ditch full of water and drowned; finding the body of a kid I knew who was killed late on a rainy night in a single truck rollover. I had to accompany the body to the hospital only to arrive there to find my brand new suede calf-length boots had filled up with his bodily fluids; and, then there was the elderly woman friend who committed suicide with a .357 to the temple, and I was the first one on the scene. Not only was it tough to deal with this woman’s death, but because her 13-year-old son wanted—no, insisted—on seeing his mother one last time, I had to clean skull fragments and the full contents of her skull off the wall before we would let the son in. There have been many more events like these that have followed me as a journalist as well.
I admire the hell out of the good ole boys and girls who can continue to do what they do on a regular basis. After this last incident with the woman and her son, I gave up the deputy role and concentrated on the journalism, which hasn’t been without blood, guts, gore and tragedy involving those I have known and those I didn’t know.
However, while the past involving Meeker Fire and Rescue has been a history of stellar performances, sacrifice, tragedy, endless ugly hours, etc. I have been trying to say there isn’t a group around that can’t get better.
Yes, I have heard complaints about a couple of board members who are up for election regarding perceived nitpicking and micromanaging, which has no place in a workplace—paid or volunteering.
But the only thing I have been saying is that I believe a fully trained professional, one who has done the work and been professionally trained and educated, is the type of chief that Meeker deserves.
There are new technologies, new methodologies and new equipment out there, and Meeker Search and Rescue has enough money on hand to afford the best—a trained chief and some updated equipment.
There have been quite a few ideas bandied about by former chief Marshall Cook as to how the department can be improved—starting now and improved slowly over time.
I love the good old boys and girls. They are truly invaluable and nothing can replace them.
But I also think Meeker needs a professional fire chief who can lead Meeker Fire and Rescue to even greater heights and performance.
And, for that, I apologize to no one.

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@ht.1885
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