#sqai

               Here’s a film and a digital shot of the same fire station in Seattle. I don’t even know if it’s currently a working fire station or not. I took it though because my grandfather was an Ann Arbor firefighter. He died a while ago and despite being named after the man I didn’t really know him that well. In some ways from what I know of the man he was sort of a hard man. Stuck on prejudices and older sense of what “manly” meant. Not in a romantic way at all.  It meant sometimes he was an asshole when he really didn’t need to be. He didn’t really believe in things like hobbies, or art, or culture. Sometimes things happened that frankly shouldn’t.

               But people are complicated. True they are a sum of their parts, but those parts often have multiple sides to them. He was someone who worked his entire life. Married when he felt like it was the responsible thing to do, never left his spouse, took care of his kids, ensured his grandkids went to college.

               In some ways I think about him and the sum of those parts. Like how he chose a life of firefighting. Being that guy who runs in when everyone else is running out. Sometimes making hard decisions because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. It is fascinating to me because his older brother was a Michigan State Trooper. And there’s other examples of people in the blood line with some sort of service.