photo John McColgan, author of the recently published "Where ever The Truth Might Lie," will hold a book signing Sunday, Feb. 19, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Arrowhead Chocolate shop in Joseph.

About 25 years ago, my wife Pepper said to me, You ought to join the fire department. At the time we were living in Talent in southern Oregon, where Pepper and I were scraping by and raising our four young kids. Feeling already happily overwhelmed with the extracurricular commitments of coaching little league, leading a Cub Scout pack, teaching Sunday school classes, and playing softball, I gave Pepper the first reply that popped into my head, which was: I dont want to join the fire department. I have plenty on my plate. Why dont you join the fire department?

So Pepper, who has never been daunted by the prospect of doing something unconventional for a woman, and who evidently needed additional excitement in her life, decided to accept her own invitation. She became just the second woman ever to serve on the volunteer fire department in Talent.

Her very first 911 call would have cured me of any impulse I might ever have had to follow her suggestion. Her job was to do traffic control on an accident involving a car and a pedestrian. Sounds simple enough, right? Just holding a sign and waving people around to a different route? Until you realize that the accident involved a mans death, and that Peppers very first emergency response had been to witness the aftermath of a persons brains getting splattered all over the highway.

Over the years, Pepper responded to hundreds of calls as a volunteer, many of them fires, but many more that were medical. She eventually gravitated more toward the emergency medical side of the job, and gradually moved up the ranks of EMT 1, 2, 3, and 4 to become what is now called a Paramedic. She also responded to fires for about four years, right up until her last one in 1993, when she shattered her ankle after falling awkwardly from a parapet onto the roof of a burning warehouse one night in Medford. I was by her side at 1:00 in the morning at the hospital while a neighbor kept an eye on our kids, and Ill never forget the grisly sight of the bones sticking out of Peppers flesh after the doctors cut off her boots and turnouts. Pepper needed three operations on her ankle during the next year, and she missed more than six months of work and about a quarter of our yearly family income because of that fall.

They say what goes around comes around, and about a month ago, it was our turn to be very grateful for the firefighters from Joseph and Enterprise who responded at about 7:30 a.m. to a fire on our roof. Doing what firefighters always do, which is to put their own safety at risk in order to guard other peoples lives and property, these brave folks scrambled onto our frosty roof and climbed into our attic to put out a small fire on our shakes that could have become a complete disaster within just another 15 or 20 minutes. Our thanks go not just to the good people who left their own beds and houses to help save ours, but also to the sharp-eyed Allens on Barton Heights, who first spotted the flames and smoke on our roof from across the river and who made the 911 call that saved us and our wonderful home.

Pepper and I were very lucky that day, and we keep reminding ourselves of our good fortune even as we trudge through the necessities of haggling over the insurance claim, drying out our house, and making repairs. The Nortons and Grange Hall members in Lostine know all too well that things could have turned out much worse for us, and Im sure they are equally grateful to the brave volunteers and professionals who risked their lives to contain an inferno which had involved exploding tanks of oxygen and acetylene.

The only words that are even remotely adequate to express our appreciation for what selfless firefighters and paramedics do are very simple, old-fashioned ones: Thank-you.

John McColgan writes from his home in Joseph.