I was always a dreamer, but to create reality from my goals proved to be quite a task. First I dealt with my physical limitations, then my mental intelligent to overcome all obstacles which lay in ...ver maisI was always a dreamer, but to create reality from my goals proved to be quite a task. First I dealt with my physical limitations, then my mental intelligent to overcome all obstacles which lay in my path. Which include various persons instructing me of the great impossibility of my hopes and dreams. It was not until later in my life that I stop taking negative advice, because things that I’ve done, others could not do before me. I found out that I was blessed to find success, happiness in a career choice, and to have lived a fulfilled life.
My experience with the United States Air Force changed my goals, and understanding of a career choice. I took all the tests and passed them with eighty and ninety percent scores. I was always told that I could be what ever I wanted to become. I guess I was swept up in the race to the moon. When President Kennedy commissioned the entire nation to be the best you can be. My fascination with flying, my love of heights, and science is what made me want to become an Astronaut. I was very embarrassed the moment when I told my recruiter what I wanted to become. They all laughed out loud as they told each other what I wanted to be. Then he composed himself and told me that I need to grow up, and the best I could be was a mechanic. Math Science and Sports were always my favorite subjects, Physics, Trigonometry, Psychology, and Art I excelled in at Mumford High School in my last years. My last year at school I went to Washington D.C., I visited the NASA research center in the summer. My father was a navigator in the Air Force, that’s why I wanted to join. Now I see that being a Negro at the time, there were only a few things that we were able to do. Now that I think about it, it might not been so bad after all to be a mechanic. I went to California to become an actor/ dancer it only took six months till I was on my way back home to join the Detroit Fire Department at my father’s request. There were a lot of new things happening in Detroit when I joined the Fire Department. Mayor Coleman A. Young was the first Black Mayor (1972) and he had committed himself to change the Police and Fire Department become fifty percent Black. This action put a lot of racial tension in many Police and Firehouses. White flight was at it’s maximum, and there were many vacant homes being set a blaze for fun and profit. 1977 was the year I was assigned to Engine 49, this area became my personal ground to protect, while at work and, later when I got off duty. We received the highest fire service in the city that year. It only took me a few fires to let me know this job was for me. I loved fighting fires, cooking at the fire stations, living, and working in Detroit city streets. I would travel with my equipment everywhere I went if there was a fire I would throw on my equipment and run in to help. This is what I lived for there was no greater feeling than knowing that you are doing what you were created for. I had no idea what hidden plans laid hid for me.
The reason I’m writing this book is to show that in looking for a Career, there will be many obstacles in your way. The only way to find your place in life is to keep searching, keep learning, if someone tells you what you can’t do, don’t give up. Nothing is going to work out by itself, first you have to first speak it, and then do it, that is how the world was created in the Bible. There will be many obstacles in your way, but if you look hard enough you can find a way around them. If you search hard enough you will find what you search for, another Bible quote, seek and you shall find. I guess my real advice would be to open your mind to accepting a job not exactly what you want but in the field, because through the years you can work toward getting there.
Fire tales are just a part of this book. In this book is the way these incidents really occurred. It is also the way I felt when they happen. Real miracles that happened in these fires which opened my heart back to what I was taught long ago about God. There is a God, I saw his hand as his angels protected my back. The way we learned to fight fires was by telling stories afterwards this would help us in the next fire. My life will be opened up for examination, what I was thinking at the time and what I learned later about certain incidents. I was working on two other manuscripts at the same time, one about relationships, and a Cookbook. I’m putting them all together with my own recipes, and I’m also putting others recipes that firemen taught me. I must thank my love ones that left this earth, my grand parents Walter Haller, Momma O, Conley Abrams SR, and Mother Nora whose love and upbringing gave my parents and I what we needed. My young friends I loved Jesse Bigham who taught me about starting a business, and Garcia Moore a young man with heart who looked up to me as an older brother. To my young nephew Joshua Abrams who was younger but lived longer than I who passed at a very young age. All who lived passing their years searching for a place in this life, as they touched my life. Many times I was to join them, but God saw fit to save me to do another work to show his Grace and Mercy. Last and not the least I thank God for my Mother and Father and how they raised me. Sometimes I feel like I’m the last person raised by a mother and father in the same house. Everyone wasn’t blessed the way I was by, having both parents, and a clean up bringing. After finding God again I was told by a Detroit Pastor some good advice, “never let a man stand between you and God”. I learned to take it one step further by never letting nothing stand in the way of your goals and dreams.ver menos