A Long, Long Time Ago. . .

Provo Ladder 2012

My love of fire engines/ladders/trucks ( I will use trucks in this blog post to universally refer to the differing types), is not exactly the worlds best kept secret.  There was even a time where I frequently used my love of fire trucks as the interesting fact about me.

"Introduce yourself, and tell us something interesting about yourself."

"I'm Kaitlin, and I have a strange obsession with red fire trucks."

Then I realized people really didn't get it. Additionally, no one really pays attention to, or cares about the random interesting fact you tell about yourself in introductions.  So, I changed my interesting fact to something far less interesting and personal, and allowed my fire truck obsession to remain slightly more guarded out of the lime light.  This is not to be confused with a diminished love, but rather a protecting of something greatly cared for.  In fact, some of my more recent acquaintances may be surprised to realize exactly the extent of my fetish.  

San Fransisco 2007

For any reading this blog who don't know (which is unlikely, but possible), there are actually some limitations to this obsession. . . some guidelines if you will.

1.  Fire trucks should always be RED.  None of this yellow, blue, green or white nonsense.  RED.  Red and white is acceptable, but not preferred. 

2.  Usually, there is something more enchanting about old fire trucks.  Don't, get me wrong, I still absolutely love brand new ones (so long as they are the correct color), but there is just something about the character of the old ones.

The Beast- Evanston, Wy July 2012- These guys literally had no idea how internally giddy I was- though slightly embarrassed that I'd been such a creeper.  This guy caught me ogling his beauty three times before inviting us over.

Over the years, I've had a variety of responses to my strange obsession with fire trucks.  I've gotten every thing from odd and unusual, to endearing.  I have friends who now think of me when they see or hear fire trucks.  Commonly though, I get the questions "Why?"  or "How did you get started on that?"   I don't really have answers to those questions.  Why?  Really?  Because they are awesome!  People like weird things. People collect weird things.  My thing just happens to be fire trucks, get over it.   The how is a lot harder to answer.  See, I've loved fire trucks as long as I can remember.  I guess you'd have to ask my parents about that one, but I'm not sure they'd have an answer for you either.  I did come across something interesting the other day though.  I have a set of drawers of old stuff.  Some of it I just can't get rid of because I get all sentimental every time I go through it, most of it is stuff that needs to meet the shredder, and some of it really just needs to be junked, but I'm usually tired of going through it by the time I get to it.

  Anyway, hidden in this memory treasure trove was this set of pictures taken back in the day. . . you know, when cameras actually had film, you got 24 pictures at a time, you had to wait to develop the film, and it cost a small fortune to do so.  These pictures were taken on a beautiful summer afternoon outside of my elementary school.  I have absolutely no idea what they were doing there. . . besides acting as models for my very poor camera skills.  I'd estimate that I was 8 or 9 when these pictures were taken.  There are three pictures missing from the original 24 (I think in 16 years that isn't too bad), and there were two pictures that did not contain fire trucks, the final unrepresented picture did contain a fire truck, but at too far a distance to make it worth adding here.

Horrible Photography skills, yes.

For those who have always claimed my fire truck obsession is due to fire men, and not the trucks themselves, I'd like you to note that firemen only appear in two of the pictures in this post. I can only imagine what my poor mother thought when she picked up this package from the photo developers.  An entire roll of film wasted on fire trucks!  Little could she have known, that this roll of film would still be cherished nearly sixteen years in the future.  I think this is evidence enough that the obsession dates back pretty far.

What can I say?  I really love fire trucks.