This site was for those who used 5 instead of five in the address. But since it's here, might as well use it.
Go To http://savestationfive.blogspot.com/ as the main site to understand this issue before reading this. I am making use of this redirect site to soap box some of what is behind my fight personally. My integrity is something I had, lost, and got back in spades. This rant fills in the "questions" as to why I am putting forth this degree of effort to save this station, and for the other issues I though about, came to a decision and act upon. If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.....
Rant and Rave
The first Station Five was built in 1897, and served and protected the city until this current station replaced it in 1910, because after the fire of 1901 and in response to growth it was simply needed. The first "engine" used real horse power. Jacksonville didn't get motorized engines until 1913 I think, and I am just learning the rich history of this station. Did you know that in the back of the building on the second floor three windows are bricked up, and the middle one has a cross in it as a memorial to a firefighter who took his own life at the station. I haven't confirmed that, but a captain told me that story. Stories. Stories feed the mind and nourish the soul and fill the imagination with wonder, teaching life lessons. This building is a story. It is our story, even if the city is adopted, it is your story. If it is home, it belongs to you.
No details of the drama unfolding in the fight here, just thoughts and feelings. Think of the thousands of feet to walk upon that soil, countless firemen who slept in its bunks, ate at its table, who rushed away from hot food to hot embers in an instant. How many lives has Five saved? I have no idea, but it has to be a good number. This land was meant to live on, to continue to save lives and serve its people. I think at a century a building and land fuse and come alive. This is the last thing left along the river that's a century old from The Fuller-Warren to The Hart, maybe further. For no other reason it needs to stay. All the displaced souls from other buildings which have fallen to progress maybe wind up there, just hangin' out, laughing at how we rush by as they leisure with a cup of coffee, wondering where our integrity went.
I wonder too.
Integrity means being whole, with morals and values and deeds and commitment to match. I think I piss some people off because I come on strong sometimes, and am unrelenting when I think I'm right. That is because if you have come to understand and can judge right from wrong, you simply don't tolerate wrong. It has no place except to define your direction against it.
What is the sense of knowing right from wrong and having morals if you aren't willing to fight what is wrong. To let what is bad exist unchallenged is to commit a wrong yourself. There is an inherent duty to combat that which is bad, to take a stand. Why be able to make a definition in the first place? If I think to bulldoze history is wrong, then I must fight that at all costs, especially in this matter because once this building is gone or has moved away from its site, it is lost forever, and with it everything even near a century old from The Fuller-Warren to the Hart. Think of that, the last.
Now let's add it that it can serve to save more lives being a highly visible teacher of fire safety and prevention, and a resource to groups like Camp Amigo, who can hold picnics there every other month as a support group of children who are fire survivors. It not only can continue to save life, but enhance it.
Ever drive east on Forest approaching Riverside, this is the landmark you turn at, and you can still see the river with it there. With a giant glass box that view would be lost. Nice face for the city at first meeting, isn't it. No way. That's another reason.
The city says a wider sidewalk will make easier access to the pocket park below, which only has 28 spaces. No one will even know there's a park down there, so it won't truly be serving the public, but the lunch interests of corporations down there. Leave the Station right there and you KNOW it's the front door to something like "Fireman's Park", a safe place with a rescue professional always there teaching fire safety and history. Man, I see all reasons for and can think of none against.
Back to pissing people off. I piss off people who don't understand my motivation, or if they do, don't care about honor and integrity. And I admit, I fall shorter than I'd like to often. But I have a drive that makes me press on, which gets grudging respect from some and admiration from a few. This is why I want "ThreeSecondsRed" and "Busheat" and "SaveStationFive" to win out. I was thinking yesterday that one day I'll drive down to "Firefighter's Park", wait at a light with a three second red clearance (three seconds all red for added safety), see a school bus with air conditioning (then mandatory) unload kids who are going to watch a demonstration in fire safety and education, with hands on training, who will learn the history of Jacksonville and that of firefighters. They can "feel" the history knowing that this is where it took place, in the very building it took place in. That is something you can't "make" or recreate no matter how much money you throw at it.
http://busheat.blogspot.com/ The effort to make mandatory all new buses coming into service come equipped with air conditioning to prevent excessive heat exposure and improve the ability of students to learn and feel cared for and respected by the society and system sworn to protect and educate them.
ThreeSecondsRed@comcast.com Email me to learn how going from one second all red to three will allow intersections to clear to flow better and reduce crashes and the resulting death and injury and property loss from accidents.
They are different issues, yes, but all seeking the same ends. To serve and protect society, save and cherish life, and generally make the world just that much better. Your responsibility to fight to correct a wrong being understood, your culpability is equal to your ability to effect a response. In other words, if you come across someone who fell and busted their head open, and walk by them, then "yo"u pushed them down yourself. It's the same. I'm not saying anyone has the responsibility to fight every ill or wrong, but there is a duty to get involved somehow, somewhere. That's what a "community" is. It's good to feed the table, and to eat what gets served as well, but when all you do is eat and never provide, especially when you have the ability to bring a bounty, then you are a leach upon society.
That brings us back to the idea on integrity. You can have morality and not have integrity. You can have values or a good and decent heart and not have integrity. Integrity is a total package of your make-up, and it requires action.....deed on your part....it takes some effort. Funny thing is when you become a truly decent person with a sense of conscience, morality and values it no longer is an effort to do the right thing, it just comes naturally, like breathing. You don't have to question what the "right" thing is, it's innate, and anything else, wells up in you pity and disgust and contempt. If there is any reason for a degree of arrogance, it is forged in the hearth of decency where impurities are smelted off. You just don't want the slag.
Now the question is, is that a bad barometer or not? The thing that defines this question is your level of compassion and understanding and humility. They have to balance and wash against the spinning dynamic of integrity. We all, the best of us, get unbalanced. Your true salt as a member of humanity is your will and desire to keep integrity balanced. Humility is the vehicle that allows reflection and change. Only the power of owning what you do, right or wrong, and the ability of calling a spade an spade within yourself as well, keeps you on trek. Compromise has to be metered against a sense of greater good, and you have to have some altruism and be willing to sacrifice your own selfish desire and leave yourself open in order to "rise above" the muck that bogs us down. Only when you "own it" can you have power over things like your own shortcomings. That "easy path" really is the hard one, because at the end of the day, it is only adherence to mandates of your own conscience that bring you true inner peace and happiness. Well, unless you're just simply a selfish bastard that gets off on screwing people over for your own benefit.
It's that lack of integrity, by the addition of individuals in a society, that creates the need for police and laws and jails and locks on doors, fences around property, and legal briefs to resolve problems. It seems society was making a progression Once Upon A Time. We call the WWII generation The Greatest Generation, and maybe that's because they had that standard just a wee bit more. And my own shortcomings.... I don't always fully keep my word or commitments, but that's almost always because circumstances limit or prevent me from doing so, and it bothers and weighs upon me and I usually try to make amends, and so I have to realize my imperfection and try to fix it, and not just excuse it away and blow it off. You don't have to always succeed, you do, however, have to at least try, even if you think it'll be in vane. That's when you win.
I came up with a saying, and yes, I coined this....
"A shot in the dark is occasionally a direct hit"
You see, a hundred years ago there was more of this around somehow. I can't tell you for sure if it was a personal or social thing, but I think on personal levels. You could keep your doors open without fear, and not worry about a "horse jacking". There was more social injustice and inequality, but there was more of a sense of morality and willingness to help your neighbor, too. If the sense of decency in people kept pace with the advances in social justice and equality, we'd be in Utopia by now. But we've lost something of value. Station Five reminds us of that time, and makes you think of that time, and maybe it's a way in which to hold on to what was good and worth saving about the past.
On Friday I walked with Jon and Kurt from Fidelity, so he could show me what good they've done down there, because I hurt and offended him by my implications that Fidelity was greedy and selfish and Peyton corrupt and a corporate rich boy with concern for other corporate types over his duty to the people. But that's what makes a decent man, because he sought me out because he thought I had a bad view of him and wanted me to understand what good was coming from him and them. I think money can make you lose sight of some things, but I saw clearly the social conscience and decency that resides in their glass tower, and now feel the idea to develop that property is more misdirected than evil. Peyton now, and the JEDC and whomever crafted this stupid violation of the public trust, I'm still on the fence about. You see, my hardball attack prompted a response to correct my view, which it would in anyone decent. If someone insults your integrity, if you truly have it you'll be hurt and offended and respond if it isn't true. So does the silence continue from the mayor. People doing the right thing aren't afraid of answering you, and if they are doing a matter of questionable compromise in which they think they are doing something decent, they will defend it, and if they are caught doing something wrong, they will admit it. That's the honesty aspect of integrity, does he have it, or is he a sneaky little weasel out for power and money and a good public image without any true moral substance?
And this is what Five would serve. It would be a reminder of how people once were, and I mean the common man, and how firefighters are today. They, as a group, usually along with nurses, which is why so many get married I think, well, that and they run in the same circles, have this elevated level of integrity as a group. Most cops and military fall into that as well, in fact, some areas of public service bring that out and foster it. Well, most anyway. It seems some judges, prosecutors, and cops who are in what they do for the power trip and often change, they can abuse that power or justify their compromises. Guess it comes with the territory. Our sheriff is one of those men of higher ideals I think. and I've met some really decent people in my quest to get air conditioning on school buses, get traffic signals changed to a longer red, keep a school open, this thing and a few others. Not everyone has lost their decency or honesty. They just sometimes forget or have to choose their battles. Goodness. It's like a secret club. We kinda recognize each other, and I usually get along well with people who are decent.
It will take time to heal the ills that make for so much human litter, so much crime, and the murder rate to go down. Some people just have to stay the way they are, because some people you just can't change, and never will. ThreeSecondsRed is a compromise, because people will always run red lights and always make improper left turns, and there just needs to be an allowance for that aspect of human behavior. And a little compromise here and there isn't a bad thing, its a way to navigate through it all. But some things there can be no compromise in. You have to take a stand and say "no more" and Five will stand as a reminder to what was good and decent in us, and inspire kids to remember those things, and maybe help build their character in a place they can feel history, and not just hear about it.
Damn, sam, it is a web, isn't it.
I remember well when we met and spoke for a few minutes, Mr. Mayor. You told me you'd have an "open door" and that it might take some time, but if I ever wanted to meet with you you'd make time for people to speak to them, and me, you made that promise to me, while you were seeking election, and I crossed party lines and voted and campaigned for you. Liar, liar liar, liar, all your office does for the most part is blow me off, and so do you, LIAR!
Call it what it is.
Be true, and never fear to say it, and call it what it is.
Integrity.....When we get that back as a people, maybe we will fight crime and social ills in a way where we don't have homeless sleeping at the foot of city hall or along our parks alone the river, and see shopping carts being pushed along our roadways, and see yellow police tape and news crews running to stories of death and pain like kids to an ice cream truck. You drew the line in the sand, and I stepped over it, and screw you, this station stays, not only because I want it to but because every fire fighter I've spoken to does, every citizen almost, and to think our fire fighters FEAR speaking out as their rights allow them to, well, screw you again. Thems fightin' words, varmint.... damn skippy! Will you puss out and run away to your SUV, or face this like a man, and answer
Remember, you promised me an open door Peyton, and I'm still knocking. Stop hiding with the lights off and answer the door. I challenge you to honestly discuss some issues and state your positions.
Now there's my line in the sand.
And the eyes watching this are growing, because to my delight, I'm finding more and more people of integrity who care.
