I grew-up nextdoor to Fire Station 7 here in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Station 7 was a large two story stucco building which blended in with the architecture of the neighborhood at that time.  It was located at the corner of Line Ave. and Wilkinson St. with the driveway opening onto Wilkinson.  Line Ave is a busy north-south corridor while Wilkinson is a regular neighborhood street with private dwellings.  The station had only one bay, but it was deep enough to hold two engines. In side the station was the alarm console and two brass poles - One toward the front and the other toward the rear of the apparatus bay.  In 1971 the old station was demolished and a new three-bay station was built. The first engine that I remember was a 1925 American LaFrance type 75. See the photo below.  It had a brass deckpipe right over the hosebed.  In the photo taken of the brand new station in 1922 you can almost see that it had large grassy lawns on both sides.  These made great places for the neighborhood kids to play games like football and baseball.  Almost always with the fireman joining in.

Plez Foster and his bicycle
As a very young child one of my very first recollections of going into the apparatus bay, I vividly remember a bicycle parked right behind the pumper.  It was many years later that I found out that the bicycle belonged to Plez Foster.  Plez was one of the founding members of the Signal 51 Group.  Before I really got to know Plez he had moved, but never lost the love of everything to do with firefighting.

When I met Plez many years later I asked him about the bicycle.  He told me that he would chase Engine 7 whenever they went on a run and that one day the firemen chipped in and bought him a siren for his bike.  The bike siren was mounted on one of the forks holding the front wheel and would be actuated by a chain that ran up to the handlebar.  When the chain was pulled it would push the drive mechanism on to the front wheel and the siren would scream.  Plez said it sounded just like a police motorcycle siren.  One day he was responding Code 3, with his siren blaring, a block or two behind the engine as it raced to a fire.  A policeman stopped him and told him, in no uncertain terms, to remove the siren and never put it back on his bike.  Which he did.

Plez said a few days went by before the firemen noticed the siren was gone.  When Plez told them what happened they really got pissed.  Word got back to the Chief of the Fire Department who contacted the Chief of Police and Plez had his siren placed back on his bicycle and never was bothered again by the police.

My First Fire
Glen Crow took me to my first fire.  Glen was a few years older than I and lived three houses down Wilkinson from the fire station.  He was old enough to read the holes punched in the fire alarm register tape,  One day while I was with him we went to the station.  Engine 7 was out of the house and Glen went to the alarm console and read the register tape.  It was a signal 2-2 on box 2225 (a General Alarm) at Robinson and Creswell.  Glen very excitedly said, "Come on, let's go!"  It was only a few blocks away.  I must have been 4 or 5 years old because he made sure I was careful crossing streets.  As we approached the scene there were a large number of fire engines and some of them were pumping.  The hook and ladder from downtown had its crank-up aerial fully raised and using a ladder pipe off its fly.  It was the Wales Apartment building and it was going good.  Hose was all over, flames were shooting out of most of the windows, smoke was rising high in the sky and also rolling over and laying in the streets. The pumping engines were really making a great deal of noise.  Firemen were breaking the glass out of windows, chopping holes in the roof, spraying water out of handlines and deckpipes.  It was organized chaos and surreal for a guy my age.  Right there some of my genes must have been altered because that is when I became a fire buff.

Vacant Lot across the Street from No. 7

There was a large vacant lot across from the fire station.  It was a great place for the neighborhood kids to play cowboy and Indians.  Some of the older kids rigged up a cable from the top of one of the high pine trees down to the base of another tree.  Boards were nailed on to the tree so you could climb up to the where the cable was attached and grab on to a medal cylinder and slide down the cable.  It was a little dangerous but was a great deal of fun.  Incidentally,  to get the cylinder back up to the top you would sling-it with all your might so that it would slide to the top and wedge between the cable and the tree.  They also put up a swing which was made of a sand bag attached to a rope that was secured about 35 feet up on one of the limbs of a pine tree.  In order to really get a good swing they built a launch platform about 15 yards away from the base of the swing and toward the middle of the lot.  It had several 1 X 4's planks across a the "Y" part of an old tree that made it about 10 to 12 feet high.  They used ropes tied to 4 stakes driven into the ground to guide the launch platform.  You would use a small guide rope tied to the sand bag as you climbed the launch platform so you could pull it up.  You would then untie the rope, place your legs around the sand bag and swing a great distance.  In fact, you would swing from the middle of the lot half way across Wilkinson St.

Station 7 Firemen Saved My Life
I was about 10 years old when a friend that live close by, Dickie Appleton, and I were taking turns swinging.  A couple of girls that Dickie knew came walking up Wilkinson and he went down to talk to them.  I kept on swinging.  Getting tired of wasting time undoing the rope, I just looped it around the top of the sand bag.  I climbed up the launch platform and started pulling the swing toward me.  It was just about to me when the rope unraveled from the bag causing me to lose my balance and fall backwards from the top of the launch rig and my back landed on one of the sharp guide stakes.  It impaled my back, just missing my kidney.  Somehow I was able to roll over off the stake and on to the ground on my stomach, but I could not move my legs.  I was bleeding badly.  The way I landed I could see my home, and the fire station because the lot sloped down in that direction.  Dickie came running to me and saw that I was hurt and started yelling as he ran to my house .  My sister heard him and as she ran to me she told Dickie to go get the firemen.  Dickie ran to the station and before you knew it the firemen were charging out of the station like the cavalry.  I heard the captain tell one of the men to get the first aid kit off the engine.  They stopped me from bleeding to death.  A small Ford ambulance came for me and I was loaded in lying on my stomach looking forward out the windshield as we sped to the hospital.  It was a pretty cool ride, but I could not stand the site of an ambulance for several years.

I Got Busted
One time, when I was a sophomore in high school, I had the flu and had missed school Monday through Thursday.  My Mom said I just as well stay home Friday and be sure I was well.  It was just after lunch and I was sitting on my back steps when I heard the bell next door starting to ring.  I jumped the small retaining wall between my house and the station, ran across the lawn, through the back door and jumped on the tailboard of the 1928 American LaFrance.  By then I had worked my way from chasing fires  by foot, then with my bike, later on my motor scooter, to the captains just letting me ride-out with them.  Oh, it was not without a price.  I was taught early how to use a grass-flap to put out grassfires which they had a great deal, and I was also made many a trip to the neighborhood grocery for cigarettes and other stuff for the firemen.  The '28 LaFrance was the fastest fire engine in town at that time.  We came out the station on to Wilkinson and made a left on Line Ave. and headed south with the siren blasting.  As the fire was south of my school (C.E. Byrd) we went right in front of my school.  I think every teacher I had was hanging out the windows watching ole Number 7 whiz by.  There is no place to hide when you are on the tailboard of a '28 LaFrance.  I received double cuts for all the days I missed that week.

First Fire Call I Heard on Police Radio
My family had a very nice floor model Philco radio.  It had a short-wave band in addition to the regular AM band.  In the short-wave portion on the dial there was a segment marked "Police".  I guess I must have been about 11 or 12 years old and playing with the dial on the radio.  Just as I moved the dial across the police segment I hear "House on Fire 703 Wilkinson, house on fire 703 Wilkinson.  That is all.  KNGP "  I could not believe it  - The call was on my street and about 6 houses down the street.  I heard the pumper start up next door and I took off running down the street.   Fire was coming out of a couple of windows and Engine 7 was catching a plug and laying two 2 1/2 lines.  They quickly knocked down the fire, but I will never forget it since it was the first fire I took-in from listening to a radio. 

TO BE CONTINUED

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