Daveroo
Members +
no ones sure just when this photo was taken,but its late 1950s,very early 1960s,this is the Auburn Volunteer fire departments rescue squad,the jeep on the right in the pic with the siren and light on the fender is an official FD vehicle,they had a really cool 1958 GMC heavy duty truck as well,not sure if they had it at this time or not,but there was a big pile up on interstate 80 at the bottom of a long steep grade right at old town auburn,westbound,and two cattle trucks,loaded,came barreling down the hill and plowed into the crash scene,no one was hurt in this additional part of the melee ,but the GMC got crushed under one of the trucks..the two jeeps on the left were privately owned,and more than likely belonged to members of both the FD and the Auburn jeep club,at one time the two sort of went hand in hand,and the majority of the jeep club jeeps were painted red and white and had metal covers over the rear tire that looked like large cock bottle caps,they had auburn jeep club on top and AFD on the bottom,and notice the lic plates..they start AFD,,,Harry Yue,,kneeling front left,,assistant chief went to DMV and got every fireman who was active in the department at the time plates that started with AFD,Henry Geitzen's,the Chief of more than 65,almost 70 years,,he joined in 1922,had the plate of AFD 001,Harrys was AFD 002,the man far right,Ray Meyers,also an assistant cheif,was AFD 003,Henry was the town Baker,Harry owned a Bar,and Ray owned the local beer distribution company. Ray told me a story one time though,,he was a youngman and was a delivery man for some store.he was driving a wagon that was being pulled by a horse up "sacramento st",which was dirt at the time,he had no yet joined the fire department,but the horse he was using belonged to the grocer from oldtown and who happened to be the man who provided the horse for the hosewagon for fires. well Ray was minding his business and was just about to cross the railroad tracks when he heard the clanging of the fire bell on the firehouse in oldtown.before he could react,and why should he?..he wasnt a fireman...the horse reared,,spun the wagon around..and bolted back down the road towards oldtown...Ray had no control at all...at this point Ray could see smoke off to his right,oldtown is to the left,well the horse must have seen the smoke too,,and must have supposed he had the hosewagon because he turned on high street and headed to the smoke..dragging Ray and his grocery wagon with him...they pulled up right in front of the fire like the horse knew to do...but Ray..was at a loss..Ray never forgot that..and when he was of age..he joined the department...i ofcourse didnt tell the story as funny as ray told it...but can you imagine???...
