Fighting fires with a smile
By Nadine Gilmer
Sun contributor
Twice a week, Mr. Happy drives to work for a 24-hour shift. Mr. Happy is a firefighter, and also goes by the aliases of “tinker-boy” and his given name, Andrew Anthony. I call him “Mr. Happy” because that is what the vanity plate on his truck reads. The name suits him well.
Anthony is tall, but his biggest feature is his smile (with the possible exception of his heart). Apart from a full-time position as a firefighter, he is a father of two children, a husband, a foster parent, a volunteer for the 4H robotics club, a CPR teacher for foster kids and families, a certified driving instructor, and occasional Glen Lake School guest science speaker.
Andrew Anthony’s degree is in Electronic Engineering Technology, but his love for this area has led him on a circuitous path of odd jobs, including log home building, auto mechanic and as a volunteer firefighter.
He’s been with the Glen Arbor Fire Department for 13 years, the last three of which have been full time. During his volunteer days, he also worked full time at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City. “They came to me and asked if I wanted the job for the same pay and two days a week,” he recalls. “Would you turn that down?”
Probably not, but what does one do on a 24-hour shift, and how does one stay awake so long? “We don’t,” he responds, flashing a grin that covers his entire face. At 7 a.m. Anthony arrives and is debriefed on the news of the previous shift, after which the team tests their vehicles (always after 10 a.m., so as not to awake the sleeping Glen Arborites), and continues with their projects for the day. By 5 p.m. they enjoy down time, followed by an eight-hour time period set reserved for sleeping.
Anthony says that the Glen Arbor Fire Department has more time to train and maintain their equipment because the department receives fewer calls than do Traverse City or other areas. The most calls (taking out the trucks) ever recorded in Glen Arbor were six in one day.
Anthony used to be the training officer, and still makes many familiarization runs. This entails taking out the newer team members so they can familiarize themselves with the local roads and the procedures of the truck. Anthony says he “trains people to cover [his] butt.” His tone grows more serious and his face belies brutal honesty. “I train them to replace me.”
“Because we rely on each other to watch our backs, we’ve become a very close family,” says Anthony. When his brother was murdered in Colorado, a fellow firefighter couldn’t stand to see him so glum, so the colleague paid for a plane ticket so Anthony could retrieve his brother’s body. “You just can’t buy friends like that,” says Anthony. I imagine that any co-worker would bend over backwards for Andrew Anthony if “Mr. Happy” turned up to work missing a smile.
He recalls that when he began volunteering, in 1996, only two of the firefighters had kids. “My number one priority is home life,” Anthony says, “even though this is the best job I’ve ever had.” Anthony currently has two kids and one foster child, who happens to be his own cousin. His plan was to have two biological children, then adopt, but he found a greater need in foster children. He and his wife began as weekend foster parents, to give the biological parents a respite, and now they are full-time parents.
As a family man, Anthony understands the importance of talking to the families of the patients when at a scene. “The other patients are the family members,” he says, “I explain to them what’s going on.”
If you’d like to watch Andrew Anthony on the job, in a non-emergency setting, stop by the Glen Arbor Fire Department’s open house this Saturday, July 31. At 10 a.m. the crew will open the station and show off their fire-fighting prowess. These open houses typically feature the extinguishing of a simulated grease fire, a dunk tank, fire-extinguisher training, and a car that you can attack with a sledgehammer. Mr. Happy may appear in the dunk tank or he may help kids use hoses to put out a simulated fire. Just look for the guy with the big smile.