Slightly Off the Mark: November 2024

R.I.P. Firefighter / Dispatcher Mitch Fiandt, a friend

A week ago I wrote here that Mitch Fiandt was fighting cancer, and now he's gone.

Just like that.

That's Mitch on the left, still in his dispatch uniform pants. Yeah, that's me on the right. We were so young.

I've had so many friends fight and beat cancer, at least for awhile, that it never occurred to me he wouldn't. But Mitch died just short of fifty years as a volunteer firefighter, having started at Orange Township Fire before he was even eighteen, back in the days when you could do that kind of thing. Cancer takes a lot of firefighters, especially the ones were around in the days when breathing protection was a mild suggestion. He told me once he breathed in some particularly bad stuff off the hot side of a burning house, back before he moved to Albion and joined our Department.

That old lung damage was one reason why he usually drove the fire trucks and ran the pump, rather than going inside--not that I didn't see him go in, more than once. And yet, when we had our annual lung capacity test, he always passed and usually ran circles around the rest of us.

There's not much I can say that isn't in his obituary, here:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Mitch-Fiandt?fbclid

If memory serves, in addition to being the Albion Fire Department Chief Engineer--a kind of honorary title acknowledging the fact that if we needed an apparatus operator, he was there--he also served as Secretary and Treasurer on the AFD.

He was also my boss for several years in Noble County Communications, or the 911 Center, or Dispatch, or whatever people will call it next year. He was there for 35 years, which did not bode well for his sanity, and was 911 Director from 1999 until he retired in 2015.

Here Mitch and John Urso, also a combo firefighter/dispatch, present me my 25 year dispatcher award, along with a certificate for a free psychotherapy session.

Mitch and I both served at various times on the Albion Town Council and the Albion Plan Commission, and he was in about a hundred other things as well, being the type who was always helping out. Even with my writing gig, he stayed busier than me. He was the first to tell me I should write a book about dispatching, which I will, as soon as the statue of limitations runs out.

The last time I saw him was at my grandmother's funeral: He had a part time gig with Harper's Funeral Home here in Albion. I don't believe he ever had a job or hobby that wasn't, in one way or another, about helping people.

And if that it's the best thing you can say about a person, I don't know what is.

Firefighters, Death and Cancer

UPDATE: Sadly, Mitch Fiandt also passed away, late on November 24th, from his cancer.

We lost one of our past firefighters this month, and a present long-time member is fighting a deadly disease.

Joe Meyer was one of my trainees when I was an Albion Fire Department instructor, and he remained a member for ten years, alongside his brother.

That's Joe second from left, beside me. I particularly liked this group of trainees, only partially because they came in a group--it can be hard to train one or two firefighters to do a job that requires a team. They were a great bunch.

Here's Joe's obituary:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Joe-Meyer

Joe was a character, and not just because he could pull off a cowboy hat with his turnout gear. (I don't remember the circumstances behind this photo ... maybe he just got cold easily, like I do. That's probably not it.)

Mitch Fiandt remains a member of the AFD, after transferring from the Orange Township Fire Department when he moved many years ago. He has, I think, six or eight years on me in the longevity department.

Now Mitch is fighting cancer, which is sadly not an unusual thing for firefighters. I've had a couple of scares myself, but Mitch is pretty sick--treatment is ongoing. Chemo, as anyone who has experienced it themselves or through loved ones knows, is rough by any standards.

So say a prayer for Mitch, Joe, and their families, and if you don't pray send good thoughts their way. I expect it's not going to be a fun holiday season for anyone involved.

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Oodles of Books: The Gift That Keeps On Reading

"If the Beast gave me a library like he gave to Belle, I'd marry him too." -- Aya Ling

So, my wife's bosses were going through storage units, and had to sort through all the books their daughter collected over the years. Some were damaged, but they offered to give Emily and me most of the rest. Their daughter, they said, read a lot.

Not long after, they filled our Ford Escape with so many books I was afraid it would bottom out on every hill on the way home. A few days later, they did it again. Then again.

Mountains of books! Forests of books! More books than you'd ever read in a lifetime!

Ahem. If you'll pardon me for quoting Beauty and the Beast. I may have cried a little. I also may have cried a little while we were carrying them all up the steps into the house, but enough about my back.

It was Emily who had to clean up the books because, as it happens, I'm allergic to both dust and mold. Never thought I'd be glad about that. But I forgot, and later when I was cleaning our former bedroom/new reading room (our own library!) I gave myself an allergy attack. Too bad--eight hours of sleeping off the Benadryl, when I could have been reading.

Freaking scads of books!

We're still sorting them, by author and genre. Authors like me, who don't stick to a genre, will be a problem. But many of them were novel series (love a good series), which helped. We unfolded a table and Emily got started while I was cooking and doing the dishes, which is completely understandable when you realize how much more organized her mind is than mine.

Really, the only member of the family who wasn't thrilled was the dog. (This all happened before Beowulf passed away.) When we first put up the table he liked to lay down under it, but as we unpacked more books that space became filled, too. Sometimes he just walked up to the table and looks sadly at his former doghouse.

"I am NOT amused. I can't even read."

A large percentage of the books are what's called high fantasy, which I take it are better enjoyed when you're high. Wait, let me check ...

Oh. Well, it means epic in scope, with forces threatening a world that is not our own. Game Of Thrones stuff, and didn't it take us a whole year to read through those massive tomes. The novel I wrote (and am currently trying to sell) is low fantasy: mostly set in the real world, with the addition of magical elements. Now we're talking about Harry Potter and the Giant Dump Truck of Money.

Many others are space opera, again similar to another novel in my submission process. Think Dune, the Lensman books, and of course Star Wars. (My Junior English teacher in high school was the daughter of E.E. Smith, who authored the Hugo-nominated Lensman series. Fun old-timey SF, and possibly an inspiration for the Green Lantern.)

There are also history books, mostly involving World War II, which made me squeal a little. Okay, a lot. There are mysteries, and both nonfiction and fiction books about horses, and encyclopedia yearbooks covering all the earlier years of my life and some before. We have our own library of books--something I always dreamed of.

I took this photo to document that someone decided to leave their shampoo behind, and buy a book instead. If you never leave your couch, you don't need shampoo.

It all made me a little sad.

Let's face it: even if I gave up writing and put all my spare time into reading, there's no way I'll ever get to all these books, plus the ones I already have, plus the ones on my reading list. We've still got books in boxes in the garage. I've got friends writing books that I want to read. It makes me want to retire to a rustic cabin in the woods and just become one with a comfortable chair.

Still, just having all those books up on shelves around us will cheer me up substantially, and better too many than not enough. With books, I may never go anywhere again--but I'll go everywhere.

That's a pretty good way to spend your time.