Fiedler Story

[IkeH]

via the 2xbasslist:
Arthur Feidler was adored in Boston. Few knew he was a "sparky" or fire buff. He would always show up at big fires and conflagrations, often riding on a fire truck from his Brookline home town as "mutual aid" to the Boston Fire Department. He was assigned his own fire helmet. Once there was an enormous mob, mostly students from Boston University, at Kenmore Square, perhaps 30,000 war protestors. The police couldn't handle the crowd who got so nasty it was decided to have fire hoses ready. Arthur arrived standing up in the front seat of an aerial ladder truck. He took off his helmet, shook out his busy white hair, raised both arms and slowly lowered them. The crowd went to pianissimo, broke up and went home. True story. Everyone respected him.

[poomshanka]

Couldn't find anything on the protestors, but here are a couple mentions on the fire buffs...

http://home.fuse.net/frontline/ExtraAlarm1.htm

http://www.signal51group.com/Unipages/buff_code.htm