Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 6 · column 3 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
mgiiL mv, i/urxi on me siren, ana the headlights would go out. You’d have to turn off the siren to get the lights back on, and they’d go off again once you turned it back on,” said Woodward.
In those days, emergency callers in Woodville, Boston, and Castleton dialed a number that connected them with Cannon’s store. The store was operated by Cannon’s mother, and she was responsible for turning on the siren that alerted volunteers to the emergency.
“You could hear it clear to Amissville,” said Cannon. It was operated with a code, with certain kinds of siren calls indicating specific emergencies.
“You could always tell when Ray or his brother (Assistant Fire Chief Alfeas Cannon) were operating the siren. They never did it right,” remembered Woodward. When those early volunteer fire fighters got to a fire, they fought it very differently than they would today. They had no bottled oxygen, and they prided themselves on it.
“We were all smoke eaters then. You weren’t a man unless you could eat that smoke,” said Woodward. They also used different tactics. “Now they teach you to attack the fire inside the house and push it out. Back then, we probably burnt some houses down by pushing fires in, shooting our hoses in through the windows, “ recalled Woodward.
Despite those dangers, the Castleton Fire company has never lost a firefighter to a fire in its fifty years of operation.
“I got hot, but I never got burned,” said Cannon. “We just took chances and managed to come out alive. Everybody helped everybody,” he added.
92.3%