"Mother . . . "

The storm finally came through around 7 last night dumping much needed rain. It didn't last long, maybe two hours, but since we haven't had even a drop since I don't remember when, even that little bit was an improvement.

We don't have a garden for any fancy plants to worry about when it gets this dry. What bothers is memories of 1998 when it seemed like all of Florida was one big wildfire. Weeks and weeks of nothing but smoke. Everywhere, with out-of-control blazes to the north and west of me and even one small but persistent fire just down the road.

You really take stock of what's important when the possibility exists that with little warning you might have to grab what you can, jump in the car and just go.

And now Da Kid's a firefighter in a one-man station out in the middle of nowhere with wooden Smokey The Bear in front that warns all passers-by that the fire danger is HIGH.

Where am I going with this? Dang, where did I start? Rain? Rain!

Once again I have absolutely no idea when Da Kid's going to be home. It used to be that either he was at Job One, his part-time job or school. Not much has changed. He's either at his station, another one of the stations or since he started Firefighter II, school!

He left Friday morning for his shift, had school Saturday for an unknown number of hours AND / OR might be working some overtime , might be working a swap shift Sunday, and had his next regular shift Monday so he might be home until . . .

When he walked in this afternoon I exclaimed, "What are you doing home?"

He'd worked his shift Friday, had school while on call at another station Saturday before heading back to his station, and had school again today BUT, they got out early so . . .

"Get any rain up there?" I asked.

"Yep." And that's when he started telling me some of the "high points" since he'd left Friday morning.

Friday night was a controlled burn that didn't stay that way. I started to interrupt asking with the fire conditions the way they are, what fool would approved a controlled burn.

"Mother . . . " (I hate it when he calls me that. I hate it even more when he knows what I'm going to ask before I even get a chance to!)

Da Kid was at school while on call at a different station when his radio went off. His station was responding to a fire (with a chief on the way so Da Kid said he knew it wasn't an "ordinary" fire) at the exact same address he'd been to the night before.

Despite the fire ban in effect, the property owners were having a fit with the firefighter there putting out the fire they'd again started.

They had a permit, you see, and it was good for a year.

Too bad the dingbats hadn't read the permit. It was good for one day only, for 24-hours after its issuance . . . a year ago.

So last night Da Kid's back at his station. It's raining like hell and just as he finished closing the bay doors for the night, the power went out. That's when the radio started "toning."

I still haven't figured out how many stations Camden County has, but with all the trees and wires down per Da Kid, only two weren't sent out.

His was one.