Welcome to the Zoo

In mid-December of 2014, this author received a call concerning an old friend who had been hospitalized. His name was Karl Learned. He was a retired Portland, Maine, police officer. When the author visited him, they chatted for over two hours. His friend made his journey back to the spirit world ten hours later. He left with the memory of this comment that he made: Bobby, we have a lifetime full of memories. Some of them we never want to forget. Some of them we wish that we could forget. This book contains some of the authors memories from 1967 to 1989 while he worked as a firefighter in Portland, Maine. Aptly nicknamed the generation that burned the city. These stories will raise chuckles, sadness, old memories, and perhaps resentment. These stories are about both the good side and the dark side of firefighting.