Old Dispatchers Never Retire ... Well, Mitch Fiandt Did

I read once that the average 911 dispatcher works in the field for about seven years before calling it quits. My (now former) boss worked in the field for 35 years. He's one of the few who actually retired, rather than moving on to a different job.

The man's crazy.

That's Mitch Fiandt on the left in this picture, with me in the middle and my immediate boss, John Urso, on the right. (The photo is of me getting recognition for 25 years of service, which makes me almost as nuts as Mitch is.)

Rather than repeat all the facts and figures, here's an article about his retirement:

https://www.kpcnews.com/albionnewera/article_91d70e1a-11ca-5e25-8c16-d24583d57a6f.html?fbclid=IwAR21s72jnYfBAdDwAsWoKpla7Lr7i5VNVYusYeiigJz7uQlZYLDrKe-LFBk

I believe I first met Mitch at a burning building. Let me clarify: At the time we were volunteer firefighters on neighboring departments, which perhaps should again lead you to question our sanity. Later he moved and joined my fire department. He also became assistant director of our communications center just a year after I joined the Sheriff Department as a jail officer. Like him, I went from the jail to dispatch, and so up until now he's been only the second person in charge of dispatch since I got there, a quarter of a century ago.

So ... yeah ... feelin' a little old.

It seems to me the only job more stressful than a 911 dispatcher is the boss of the 911 dispatchers. Oh, there are more stressful jobs, I assume: bomb disposal expert; Alec Baldwin's anger management coach; anything Mike Rowe does. I've been told twice that trained monkeys could do my job, both times by people who wouldn't make it through fifteen minutes of a Friday night shift in dispatch. Heck, they probably wouldn't make it through ten minutes on a Wednesday in October.

But at least I can (mostly) let it go at the end of the shift, go home, and think about other things. I don't have to worry about the off-duty ringing of the department cell phone. I'm a simple third shifter: I don't get involved in funding, hiring, training, scheduling, technology, dealing with government entities from townships on up to the Feds, and the constant, constant, meetings.

I hear a lot of armchair quarterbacking about my job, from people who don't know a football from a foosball. It's why I tried not to spend a lot of time second-guessing Mitch's job. I never wanted someone to say, "Fine: You try it."

In a profession where most people don't last long enough to take retirement pay, he made it through almost three dozen years. Mitch Fiandt earned his retirement. Congratulations, Mitch: I'd imagine you need the rest.

Although I've heard his wife has a long "honey-do" list, so maybe he'll come back.

On writing: The Big Courtroom Scene, and How To Get It Wrong On Purpose

You know those dramatic courtroom scenes that appear in so many movies and TV shows? People shouting and pointing and objecting, and stuff? They're wildly inaccurate--that kind of crazy stuff rarely happens in real courts.

So I wrote one into Coming Attractions.

It's the climactic moment in the book, and honestly it's one of the favorite chapters I've ever written, anywhere. The scene concerns a property dispute at the heart of the whole story--whether a beloved drive-in movie theater will continue to operate. It ends in a moment that's fun and funny, emotional, dramatic … and utterly unrealistic. Originally I wanted to write a scene that was as realistic to what would really happen as possible, but in the end I threw courtroom procedure out the door and just went for it.

May the attorney and judges of the world forgive me.

The scene takes place in this courthouse, because I'm too lazy to invent one of my own.

I don't advocate this, by the way. Yeah, fiction is fictional--it's right there in the definition. But in my sometimes humble opinion, writers should strive for a certain amount of accuracy when it comes to real life occupations. Nothing throws me out of a story faster than, say, firefighters who enter a burning building without establishing a water supply, when they clearly could. (I threw that book across the room.) Maybe some attorneys and judges will appreciate my attempt to just have a little fun; maybe some of them hope to see me in their court someday. For Coming Attractions I threw caution to the wind for the sake of entertainment, but that kind of thing can boomerang.

Why did I take the chance? In the end, it was just so much fun. And that's the same excuse that in other cases starts with "Hey, watch this", and ends with "Don't worry, you'll be out of that full body cast in no time".

The Noble County Courthouse in Albion, Indiana, is a few blocks from my home. My writing research budget is very low.

Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

We're coming to the Avilla Freedom Festival again this year--with family

A couple of years ago Emily and I set up a book signing booth at the Avilla Freedom Festival. We didn't get around to doing any author appearances last year, so when my sister-in-law suggested sharing a booth at this year's Festival, I jumped at it.

As book signings go, it might be close to a record--after all, a typical book signing is only for part of one day, not to mention being indoors. It'll be shorter for me this year, because although Cathy Hunter plans to be there the whole time (and my brother much of it, too), I'll be working during that period, so I'll only be able to be there part-time--and I don't know about Emily's schedule yet, either. But I want to be there at least a few hours Thursday and Friday, and all afternoon Saturday. We'll leave signed books behind for any buyers when we aren't there.












So look for us on June 20,21, and 22 at the Avilla Freedom Festival, and you'd better believe that will be in Avilla, Indiana. Cathy sells jewelry such as necklaces, and bracelets, good quality homemade stuff. Artists run in the family! There will be plenty of other vendors of many different things there. More about the whole thing later, when we're back from vacation.

Oh, and the overall times for the vending books are 4-10 p.m Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m.-- 6 p.m. Saturday.

We've put out two new books since our last author appearance, so we hope to see you there!

It should look something like this ...

Speak of the Devil: Aunt Becky And The Bad Cellmate

Speak of the Devil: Aunt Becky And The Bad Cellmate: I have an image blog today. Enjoy!

Writing Bad, But Keeping It Happy

My wife told me the other day that I was writing too much "downer" stuff, which puzzled me. Mostly, I write two things: humor, and "buy my books!" Usually I try to combine the two, so people don't know I'm trying to sell them something.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

In any case, I try to be funny when possible, so I wasn't sure what she was referring to. Then she pointed out that yes, they were humor pieces, but lately they'd been humor pieces about everything going wrong. Winter--which is wrong by nature--for instance. Sinus infections. My epic fails in the area of holidays and anniversaries. That kind of thing.

And she doesn't even know about my two written but unpublished blogs, involving my misadventures with medical testing.

It's a good point, but I think it's often in the nature of humorists to write about bad things. In general, when good things happen it's just not as funny.

But I have blood stored on standby, just in case.

"Hey, we had my birthday party the other day, and everyone was happy and I loved my gifts and the food was great! How cool is that?"

"I cleaned my garage the other day and nothing fell and broke and I didn't get hurt!"














 See what I mean? (By the way, buy my books!)

Last month I rammed my foot into a piece of furniture that's been in the exact same spot for twenty years, and thought I broke it. (The foot, not the furniture.) That's a story. It's not much of a story, until I embellish it the way I embellished the Infamous Exploding Lawn Mower Incident, but it's still a story.

If I'd gone by the furniture without injuring myself I'd have been a lot happier, but there would have been no story at all.

So I went back through my blog, and almost all my humor pieces were either about something bad happening to me, or me complaining about something. That's not the way I am at all in real life. If every thing I did led to something or someone getting smashed, I'd have been in a grave in my twenties. If I complained about every little thing that presented itself to me, people would run away every time I walk in the door.

Which some of them do, but I thought it was just my deodorant.

It's the same with my fiction. My first published novel opens with a tornado, followed by a cop getting into trouble for false arrest. My second started with another cop getting into a confrontation with a politician. My third started with campers being upset because of a drought, and at the opening of my fourth my main character hits a deer. These are not good things. And yet all those works have comic elements, or at least that was the plan.

Ouch! Paper cut!

Think of your favorite TV show, book, or movie. Chances are, not long after the opening something changes for one of the characters, and it's usually something that really shakes up their lives. Ever watch Doctor Who? He runs into most adventures happy, anxious to make discoveries and meet new challenges. By the first commercial he (well, she, now) is desperately trying to keep any more people from getting killed.

So, yeah, I'll probably keep writing about things that are downers. And I'll probably also keep trying to get you to buy my books, but at least I'll be funny about it. I hope.

(And remember: Every time you don't buy one of my books, the groundhog sees his shadow. Stupid groundhog.)

It's just a relaxing hike in the woods; what could go wrong?

http://markrhunter.com/

Still Slightly Off the Mark, the sequel progresses ... and a review

I've finished the second draft of Still Slightly Off the Mark: The Prequel!

Subtitle: Why I hate Cats, and Other Lies. I figured if I put in the word "lies", it would attract political junkies, even though there's no politics in it.

No, I'm still not sure what the title will ultimately be, but I have finished picking and placing photos. I chose about two dozen to go into the book, but Emily might cut a few of those, after reviewing them and slapping me around a little. Thank goodness for editors.

I've also chosen a theme to hold the book together. It's: "making fun of me". Granted, that's what I was already doing, anyway. But I've found my writing has changed much in the almost twenty years since these columns were first written. Even after making major changes in them, they still often reflect a very different time, so I'm going to poke a little fun at that along the way.

If you can't make fun of yourself, how are you making it through life?

Here's a review of the original Slightly Off the Mark:

https://josbookreviews.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/slightly-off-the-mark-by-mark-r-hunter/
 

And where to find it for sale:

https://www.amazon.com/Slightly-off-Mark-Unpublished-Columns-ebook/dp/B00W68ZOKK

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25393086-slightly-off-the-mark

But at least it's not snow

Before we went for a walk earlier this week, we first had to find a place that wasn't a path of mud, or a new stream with mud underneath. Mud was fun when I was little, before I was responsible for cleaning it up; these days, not so much.

So we settled for the campground at Chain O' Lakes State Park, where the roads between the sites are paved, and that worked out pretty well.

As long as you didn't go off the paved roads.

 Elsewhere things are the same as they are all over the Midwest--soggy. The park's beach is gone, and a beaver dam we spotted over the winter is either washed away, or completely underwater. Every swampy area around is now a lake, although I suspect that's not going to cut down on the mosquitoes.

Last I heard, we were about two and a half inches over our normal rainfall for April, and April's usually a pretty rainy month. Still, there are places that have it way worse than us, especially those near major rivers.

Besides, April flowers bring ... well, you know.

Speak of the Devil: The Cranky Purple Sourface Grump

Another Avengers: Endgame review:



Speak of the Devil: The Cranky Purple Sourface Grump: “You could not live with your own failure, and where did that bring you? Back to me.”  ~ Thanos “Who hasn’t been to space? You’d b...

Move review -- Avengers: Endgame

 Now all new and spoiler free!

Okay, let's get this out of the way right now: They should stop making superhero movies. Just give it up.

Because Avengers: Endgame is the perfect superhero movie.

Or at least, as close to it as a work of entertainment can get. In fact, it's a damn good movie period.

I'm trying to make this spoiler free, so chances are good I'm not going to say a specific thing about the plot past the first, oh, hour. But that's okay, because once I got started I'd have to divide this up into three or four parts, and besides: I already made my view known in the last few paragraphs.

At the end of the last Avengers movie Thanos--who until then I'd always called Darkseid-Lite--collected all the fabled Infinity Stones into a gauntlet, snapped his fingers (curse you, Starlord!), and turned half of every living being in the universe to dust.

That's one heck of a glove.

But Darkseid doesn't have a cool glove.  (https://geeks.media/who-came-first-the-copycats-of-comics)

The very first scene is one of the most heartbreaking of the whole movie. We see Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, who has no idea any of this has been happening, sharing a fun cookout with his wife and three kids. He's happily giving archery tips to his daughter, and debating and correct condiment to put on hot dogs ...

And that's when my heart froze, as I realized this was happening before the snap.

Fast forward five years. Hawkeye has disappeared, although there are disturbing stories about his activities. The rest of the survivors are dealing with the fact that they're survivors.

Tony Stark has retired as Iron Man, Captain America is trying to guide others through a new, darker world, and Black Widow is searching for Thanos and trying to keep the other heroes together. These three, in my mind, are the heart of Avengers: Endgame. But it's another hero, who's managed to avoid the entire disaster altogether, who comes forward with a way to save all those who've been lost.

I don't think that last part is a spoiler at all. Of course some plan will be hatched to bring the dead back to life. They're not going to let that whole group, especially Black Panther, Doctor Strange, or Spider-Man, just vanish without more movies. And there are a surprising number of light moments along the way.

So the survivors gather for a mission that will give them one chance to reverse the snap, even if it means sacrificing themselves, because that's what heroes do.

Yeah, I've left a lot out. The movie's three friggin' hours long, after all, although it didn't feel that long to me. To say lots of stuff happens is putting it mildly, and yes, some of the heroes get shorted (how could they not?) Brie Larson's Captain Marvel, especially, has less screen time than I suspected, although what she does get is spectacular.

There is, naturally, an epic battle at the end, but for me the most joy was the mission in the middle, which I just can't talk about and boy, is that killing me. The heroes are divided up, and we get to see some who aren't ordinarily paired working together. We also get lots of popular secondary characters, and they also sometimes get put together in ways that bring joy to my geeky heart.

I said this about the last movie, but how they managed to juggle all these characters and keep things straight is beyond me ... but they do. That must have been one heck of a diagram.

In the end, as with any great movie, the characters don't exist for the epic battle scenes. Avengers: Endgame is about people. With a combination of great actors and great writing, an amazingly unlikely number of characters get their chance to shine.

And yes ... bring tissues.

My rating:

Entertainment value: 5 out of 4 m&m's. My rating system, my ratings.

Oscar Potential: 3 out of 4 m&m's. This movie is Oscar worthy. Not only for the usual things like effects, but for several of the actors and even Best Picture consideration. Change my mind. No, don't bother trying.