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A few days ago, Don Klingler retired.
Don had been on watch -- fire watch -- for 33 years. He'd earned the right to step away from the heat.
I interviewed Don for the third time this past September. He was a resource manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
His job was to protect state forests from forest fire, and, if one got started, to put it out.
I first interviewed Don in 2018. Forest fires and their severity were increasing nationwide, generating concern about the threat of fire in our area.
You have likely heard of the Metz fire of 1908. It was a major wildfire that destroyed thousands of acres of forests, extending from Presque Isle County's northern reaches to Alpena's outskirts. Fed by gale-force winds, it "jumped" Grand Lake and reached the shore of Lake Huron.
Seven hundred people were left homeless. Thirty-seven people died.
I asked Don if a Metz class fire could happen here again.
He was careful with his answer. Don wanted to emphasize the positive changes: better weather forecasting, modern communications and coordination, more access roads, improved firefighting equipment, advanced firefighting techniques, quicker responses, and better public education.
But Don was careful also not to imply that a Metz-class fire could never happen again, for there were new risks: more frequent periods of intense heat and dryness, invasive species attacking our woodlots, leaving forest tracks diseased, dying, and drying.
Don told me that the fire risk index he monitored remained at its highest level for 20 continuous days this past summer -- an unprecedented duration. I asked him if he thought global warming was the cause, but Don would say only, "Something's going on."
Something is going on.
At the conclusion of our interview, I asked Don what his retirement plans were. He smiled and said he would continue fighting forest fires, contracting with the National Forest Service.
Don would continue working with people he knew, respected, and trusted, people he was proud to work with in the dangerous, vital, neverending work they do.
Don would remain part of a team.
Was it a feeling of comradery that held him? Did working with such people doing this work rise to that level? Are we talking about something close to family here?
I decided to ask Alpena Fire Department Capt. Andy Marceau. He told me that's exactly what we're talking about.
Andy said he works with 26 people. They have religious differences, age differences, sexual differences, political differences, and the list of differences goes on. He is closer to some than others.
But, when a battle is joined with fire, with all its ramifications and complications, any differences that exist are folded into a single-minded, all-encompassing, unified response.
Capt. Marceau will soon be able to contemplate retirement. But, like Don, he is concerned about doing so, for he would be leaving a family, his second family -- a circle of comradery.
Our society has traditionally valued comradery in its appreciation and protection of the freedoms we share. But political, religious, and secular forces, aided by irresponsible, unrepentant mass media controllers, have worked incessantly to tear that unity asunder.
Religion has been incorporated into political accusations that are destructive of our communities. Wearing robes or political symbols, these sanctimonious advocates deny inclusion to many in their vision of what humanity should be, promoting hypocrisies that poison susceptible mentalities.
I hesitate to cite religious premises, as I lack any indicia of qualification. Still, I was gratified by Pope Francis's recent promotion of unity's compassion when he approved priests giving blessings to gay couples. Pope Francis said: "We cannot be judges who only deny, push back and exclude."
A meaningful step toward the unifying principles Jesus revealed in Matthew 7:12 and Mark 12:30-31.
There are many secular examples of these same principles. I know none better than the one revealed in "The Boys in The Boat."
There, a group of rough-hewn young men from Washington State University, the sons of fishermen, farmers, and loggers, who, against formidable and contrived odds, took gold in rowing at the 1936 Olympics, much to the chagrin of "more sophisticated" oarsman of the Ivy League schools and a certain autocrat named Adolf Hitler.
Hitler promoted a non-existent "Aryan race," one he claimed was superior to all others. He was filled with revulsion at the notion that Jews, Blacks, people of other races, and LGBTQ people would be allowed to associate and compete with his fabricated chosen people.
But the PR opportunity was too much to forgo. Hitler built the "Olympiastadion," a symbol to the world of the Third Reich's fallacious glory, a predicate to unparalleled hate and violence.
Joe Rantz, one of the last survivors of the 1936 gold medal crew -- on his deathbed -- spoke to author Dan Brown:
"But it wasn't until he began to talk about his rowing career at the University of Washington that Joe started, from time to time, to cry.
"It was when he tried to talk about 'the boat' that his words began to falter, and tears welled up in his bright eyes.
"At first, I thought he meant the Husky Clipper, the racing shell in which he had rowed his way to glory. Or did he mean his teammates, the improbable assemblage of young men who had pulled off one of rowing's greatest achievements?
"Finally, watching Joe struggle for composure, I realized that 'the boat' was something more -- it was the shared experience -- when nine good-hearted men strove together as one, gave everything they had for one another, bound together forever by pride and respect and love."
But there was more:
Though Joe lamented that vanished moment, it was not its loss for which his tears were shed; rather, it was "the sheer beauty of it."
The beauty of comradery engendered Joe's tears.
A blessing we are in danger of losing.
Doug Pugh's "Vignettes" runs monthly. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.