Fires That Were Not There

By John Styer III

This is a hilarious collection of true stories of one towns fire department and other knee slapping events that took place in Espy Pennsylvania set back between the mid 1800s to early 1900s and brought together into one complete short story of events that ultimately leads up to a fire department who unknowingly sets out on foot to try and put out what could not be done.
Though the names of the people and businesses have been changed, the names of the towns and the events that took place are real and have been compiled together to create one good book that will be talked about for years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546254560

John Styer III

This young dedicated man has perused his passion of recording and collecting Historical stories documentations and artifacts on Espy Pennsylvania as also is the Historian for that village and through eleven years of hard work and dedicated researching efforts, he has been able to bring together this collection of funny but true stories that has been almost forgotten but now can be told as a short story worthy to be enjoyed and cherished for generations to come.

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Copyright © 2018 John Styer III. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/08/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5457-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5456-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I       The Story Begins

CHAPTER II       Mail Order Fire Wagon

CHAPTER III       Ruckus Above Shop

CHAPTER IV       The Name For The Fire Team

CHAPTER V       Men Not Horses

CHAPTER VI       The Susquehanna Island Skunk Farm

CHAPTER VII       The Other Towns Inferno

CHAPTER VIII       Stop Or Go

About The Author

NORTH FIRES

CHAPTER I

The Story Begins

It was June 9th 1930, and traffic was bustling in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, and it was that time of the morning when businessmen old and new began the tasks of the day to make money while serving the peoples needs. It was a quiet morning, and not much happening in the world of newspapers.

Mr. McCallister was prepping his office and typewriter for what may be a busy day writing articles for the section of the paper that would be sent out to be printed, and as he bent down to open a small drawer near the bottom of his desk, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Come In! Mr. McCallister said as he knelt back down to find his note pad he was sure that he had placed in that particular drawer last night.

The heavy wooden door with one pane of glass near the middle top half of the door with his name in black opened up, when in, came an old acquaintance of his, dressed in blue over alls held up with suspenders and a flannel top shirt had walked through the door.

Mr. McCallister looked up and as he realized who it was, he said well well, long time no see, how the hell are you" as Mr. Edgar walked into the room and stretched his arm out to shake McCallister’s hand.

I am doing just fine thanks for asking, and then McCallister told his old friend to pull up a chair as he walked back over to the desk trying to remember what it was he was trying to find before his friend walked in and interrupted his Trane of thought.

Mr. McCallister looked up and asked so what brings you all the way up here from Espy? and Mr. Edgar responded with well, I was sitting at home and really did not have much to do, so rather then just twiddling the thumbs, I thought Id ride up here to see how things was going for you.

Mr. McCallister finally remembered what he was in the middle of trying to find when he managed to look down and there was the tablet that he was so desperate in trying to locate.

He placed the tablet on the desk and then asked his friend if he wanted any coffee, Mr. Edgar said sure, why not, thanks and Mr. McCallister walked out the office door, and in two minutes time came back into the room with two cups of mud, he handed the one cup to Mr. Edgar, and then with that same hand had shut the door behind him.

The conversation of shared thoughts and memories that they had, lasted about a half an hour, which for the both of them was a time of revisitation of the olden days when the two used to hang around together as boys.

The tales of dragon sized frogs found near the old Espy Bog, and the trouble they would get into by tying Mrs. Beatles horses tail to the handle of the barns door made them both chuckle and wishing some what that they both were able to step back in time and relive it all over again.

Suddenly, a piercing clang clang clang and a high pitch tone of a siren which was caused by a fire man cranking the handle of the alarm maker was heard screaming from the engine that was heading to a fire somewhere, and in fact, the loud siren had echoed through the office.

The siren had gone silent down the street which got both the men’s attention, and so they stood up, sat their cups on the desk and went out through the building to the macadam to see what was going on.

It was a small fire that was caused by an over stocked coal stove down on Butler Avenue, an event which both of the men knew happens allot, as did they remember the few that caught homes on fire in Espy as they were growing up, like Mr. Rutledge who lost a house to an over stocked stove, the old Jane Case residence whose home burnt down when the general store called the Keystone Store Company right next door had caught fire and burnt down do an over filled wood burning stove.

The two men stood a few moments while watching the events of the day take place, finding out how lucky the family was that the fire seemed to stay within the walls of the chimney.

Once the two had heard what was going on, the two men just stood in front of the newspaper company and gawked at the commotion before they looked at each other, then looked back at the smoke down Butler Avenue before the small fire was put out. After about an hour of knocking the flames down, the fire engine headed back up the street and went right passed the two nosy gawkers, and they both watched the shiny red thing go by them, and had anyone seen the two standing there in place, they would have gotten a chuckle over the two gentleman’s expression on their faces which had a show of aw, as if they had just seen the most beautiful women they both had ever laid eyes on, in fact, they both were taken back as if they were both little boys again.

Mr. Edgar watched the thing as it disappeared around the corner when he looked at Mr. McCallister and said do you know that back when I was a boy, that Id would always go a mile or two just to see a fire engine?, and I’ll tell ya, I have seen allot of changes in them over the many years