I’d never been so nervous to interview someone for rocoinhoco.com (as Robert and Colleen have allowed me to do many times now). I was sitting in my car a couple weeks ago, sweating—because it was August in Maryland…and because I was in the parking lot of the Station 5 Fire Volunteer Fire House, that one near the Giant in River Hill on Signal Bell Lane…about to go in. I’d be talking to F. Patrick Marlatt, the station’s Chief. I insist on showing up to things on time, despite being of Pakistani origin I don’t just show up “around” the time I’m expected to. I show up on the dot. Alas, I found myself sweating in way too dressy clothes, I realized, for what was supposed to be a relaxed interview about you know, saving lives, being people’s heroes, showing us all how to give with no expectation of return. Just little stuff like that.

Who am I? A paltry person—a writer—who is worthy, sure, and as good and bad as anybody else. Yet can any of us help thinking—“Hmmm…today I binge-watched ‘Succession,’ ate some popcorn, texted for two hours—WHILE THE VOLUNTEERS AT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT SAVED WHO KNOWS HOW MANY LIVES!”

I found you just have to get it out of your system, that obsequious “gush-fest,” as my dear friend, Deeba Jafri, a regular reader of this website, once rightly called my effusive style of writing. It was an article about Delegate Eric Ebersole (D-44A), one of my faves—what’re ya’ gonna do!

Onward and Upward…and Into the Station

So I pulled myself together, blasted the air conditioner in my car for a few seconds to dry me up, and hoped I didn’t look like a wreck. Just before I I came in the second-floor community room (community for sure—a relative of mine had her henna ceremony there a couple years back!), a group of people in what looked like police uniforms but with scuba gear on too jogged by me. One of them waved at me. I bowed my head slightly, and waved back sort of…weakly. Again, because I felt like, “Wow—OK, then!”

Inside, the temperature was mercifully cool. When Chief Marlatt’s secretary came out to greet me she reached out to me and grazed my shoulder. Her delicate touch relaxed me further, just as the familiar surroundings had.

Kitty led me to a room two floors down, my tennis shoes squeaking on that gray linoleum, and opened the door to a conference room with a long, mahogany table with some documents, papers, and a pen set up at the nearest head of the table. I sat down in one of the comfortable chairs upholstered in green fabric.

“Oh, no!” I thought. “He prepared for this! I’m totally going to mess this up.”

Somehow, even though we were down below, sun shone through the windows.

In came Chief Marlatt, standing tall and quietly welcoming—and now I fully relaxed. I remembered something—when personnel from Station 5 have literally saved my life 5 times before that day, that moment I relaxed in their presence in much more dire circumstances, too. This is one of their miracles, these first responders—and Chief Marlatt being their leader—they instantly relax you. He sat down and gave me an affirmative nod-and-grin.

Related: See what Delegate Natalie Ziegler and decided is the solution to disinformation in the media.

“We’re in the business day to day, routinely, to come out and help someone who’s having the worst day of their life,” said Chief Marlatt to me. I agreed with him and told him how first responders have made me feel, on the worst days of my life—this last, fifth time being THE worst—that everything will be ok.

Let’s back up for a minute: first Chief Marlatt asked me a question. It was a perfectly valid one, but not one I was ready for. And normally, I pre-organize obsessively for my interviews.

“Why do you want to interview me?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and nestling the back of his head in his hands.

I thought it was obvious—because these people are heroes. But I learned from Chief Marlatt that day and from my experiences with the station personnel , they don’t sit around congratulating themselves for their work. And with their, unusual, shall we say, schedules—twenty-four hours on, forty-eight hours off for career firefighters and as-they-can for volunteer—they do have some time to think. I’m sorry, but if I were a first responder, I’d be like, “Hey, guy—I’m a FIRST RESPONDER! What are YOU?”

ABC–Akbar Breathe Calmly

Normally, ABC is the acronym some first responders use as a toll in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

I took a deep breath. I said to Chief Marlatt, “I just really want to know what this job is like and what your day to day is like.” But there’s no typical day. How could there be when they could rarely know what’s coming.

Chief Marlatt smiled with a touch of a twinkle in his eyes, as he told me this. He’s been doing his job for fifty-five years. He wouldn’t have lasted that long had he not been a kind person, with a hint of playfulness to augment it, even in professional settings.

I asked him how Station 5 began.

“We’re not something that came in from someplace else. We’re not some club that settled here,” he replied. He said the fire station was based on the community itself. “It was not something that was dictated by government.” Clarksville didn’t have its own fire protection—it was coming in from other counties. But when someone is having the worst day of their lives, time matters a lot. So, a group of people got together and decided to start a fire station here.

How, I asked him, did he think Station 5 fits into Columbia’s founding ideals of civility, diversity, equity, and such.

“We very proudly have had an extremely long experience in dealing with people within our community. And that is to say that, we have all kinds of people in the career and volunteer fire department.” he said. Chief Marlatt and his team don’t define or categorize them. And their diversity manifests in many, many ways. Race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual identity (Chief Marlatt remembered a gay couple that were members at one time—this isn’t “strange” because they were gay, but it’s heartwarming because they were a couple).

The firefighters diversity manifests in terms of different skill sets too, Chief Marlatt told me. He put his hand on one side and then the other of the table in front of him when he told me, “Some are good at doing this and horrible at doing that…we have people go with their positive skill set.”

It’s hard to describe the awful feeling I had this last time I was rescued by two incredibly kind Station 5-ers. They talked me down, while I actually could not speak. Dennis described exactly what he was doing each moment, sometimes followed by an, “OK?” It made me feel like I had some agency in a situation in which I really had none. I gave it up to caring people like Dennis. Despite how the ambulance, filled with the smell of diesel fuel and loud instruments, shook and shimmied as we raced to Howard County General Hospital, both Dennis and his coworker, Kevan never wavered. Their warm and wonderful energy filled the small space. It made me know everything would be fine.

Kevan told me so. Someone who devoted this much time to saving people’s lives with no self-interest wouldn’t lie to me. And he didn’t—because here I am writing this.

And: Another service we couldn’t do without–the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for Tomorrow We Don’t Die

A couple weeks later, I went to the fire station to bring Dennis and Kevan a bite to eat as a show of appreciation. It was quite literally the least I could do. Their friendly coworkers, all smiles and light-but-firm voices took a few minutes out of their time to take me to where those two would probably be. They smiled when we entered the room. It looked like what I imagined military bunkers look like…except happy. Kevan, despite how tired he seemed, his chin resting in the palm of his hand, told me it was good to see me up and about.

I’ll never forget those words spoken by that person. Dennis even engaged me in conversation about rocoinhoco.com! And I made a new friend named Josh, also a volunteer there. It’s hard for me to imagine being calm and friendly–and reaching out to make a friend–when any minute an alarm could go off and you’d have to go on a who-knows-what mission. Really–no one tries to make friends anymore.

“Who knows what they’d been doing before—saving another HoCo resident’s life?” I thought, “Oh, that’s right–people do care!” And the switching from chaos to calm—how do they do it?

There’s something else I’ll never forget: Chief Marlatt told me he lost two daughters to the tornado that tore through College Park in 2001. For a few minutes after that, every question I asked seemed trivial. I think I even got a little dizzy for a minute. But I pulled myself together again—because these people didn’t let anything get in the way when I, an utter stranger, needed their help.

Chief Marlattt’s son is a career firefighter at another fire station in the County, and again. It’s a family affair, just as Howard County should be and these people try to make it.

Some years ago, in a County Council hearing on the Length of Service Award Program for volunteers in the County a citizen accused the volunteer fire departments in the County of being racist.  The matter was investigated by the Human Rights Commission, which was fine. But we had to prove a negative,” Chief Marlatt said. Their accuser didn’t have to prove his claim of racism.

When the investigation wrapped up, the commission decided the volunteers were not racist. Station 5 is proud of having appointed Howard County’s first black line officer. “…And we’ve had women members for years,” Marlatt said to me, smiling, underscoring that the Station 5-ers don’t discriminate or judge. They see a person in need and respond.

You really have to keep your cool at this job—not a hint of anger or resentment was in Chief Marlatt’s voice, when he told me this story. He and his station had a job, and they did it, with the same equilibrium they do their day to day. At least that’s what I would imagine.

The Commission that investigated the accusation of racism, asked Chief Marlatt, “Wow—what can we do to encourage even more diversity?” Chief Marlatt replied that the county should encourage people to apply. “We don’t turn them down. We can’t get them to apply.”

Later my father came home from a day at work as one of the medical directors at a local hospital. I asked him if he had found his 35 years as a firefighter-adjacent ER-doc–stressful. “No,” came his terse reply.

“We are a combination fire department career and volunteer. If you go downstairs today, there are six career firefighters working here. There’s a captain, and every shift has an officer. And then there are five other people on that shift,” Chief Marlatt told me.

A cell phone notification came in, and he excused himself to respond to another “important matter.” He stayed in the room, though, with me.

I thought, “Wait a minute—my dad worked in the ER at Sinai Hospital for 35 years!” Chief Marlatt and he both have the same resolute but gentle vibe. And even when you can tell they and their colleagues are tired and overworked, amid all those irritating beeps, rings, and patients’ pained cries, they somehow manage to jump into action when need be and smile just to be nice.

Then we reentered the conversation.

The volunteers come in as they can. The staff is “seamless”—you’d never know who was career vs. who was volunteer.

The same goes for Chief Marlatt’s connection to the county. It’s seamless. He was born and raised in Howard County. He went to Cardinal Gibbons High School in Baltimore, just as I had attended The Park School of Baltimore.

I blinked for a little more than a second and said, “So people just do this to be nice?!?” Chief Marlatt just smiled. Again—there are people who simply care.

Raise High the Roof Beam, First Responders

The same goes for the way Station 5 raises funds. People donate money to help keep the station running—the ambulances and fire trucks running, the firefighters running. The station does mailings, and that brings revenue—donations—in as do other methods of fundraising. The station also holds fun events for the county. For free! Pizza With Santa, National Night Out, and a general Open House—fun and free!

Also: Why Dr. Scott Berkowitz, M.D. is a hero too!

These days, Chief Marlatt mostly handles the administration of the Station 5, supporting the responders. But he used to be one of them. That’s important. For example, if he got a $10,000 donation, I asked, what would he do with it?

“I’d talked to my officers and others. What do you think would be the most beneficial thing that we could do with it?”

Chief Marlatt is on the Deputy Director of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute, a faculty position with the University of Maryland College Park, and he’s been on and chaired committees for 30 years with the National Fire Protection Agency.

But it was clear his work as a volunteer means so much to him. And they say a work environment is created from the top down. Remember—the super-kind first responders come in when possible, and the last two who saved my life were volunteer.

“I’ve had a great career. I’ve had a great life here.” It’s been “holistic” he said. For example, he’s heavily involved with St. Louis Roman Catholic Church—right by Station 5.

He mentioned that change was coming. Volunteer fire stations around the U.S. are consolidating because they can’t sustain themselves alone. Chief Marlatt said this struck him as neither good nor bad—just facts. Having been involved with many fire and rescue organizations around the country, he knows what’s up. I hope the change elevates the work of volunteer first responders around the country, and not the opposite

“The Station 5 Fire Department has put out fires on our farm. They were lifesavers–it was really terrifying how fast they spread,” Delegate Natalie Ziegler (D-9A) told me when I asked her to speak to the importance of volunteer alliances.

What won’t change—I personally promise you—is one thing. That’s that both the career and volunteer firefighters, the secretaries, and chiefs, won’t stop working, just because they’re good people who—Oh, that’s right…people—these people—care.