History of the Owego Hose Teams as told by
Ithaca Times Sports Columnist & Owego Native
Steve Lawrence
Author's Note
When Pat Gavin reached out to me earlier this year and asked me to write a story about the Owego Hose Teams on the occasion of 2016 being the 65th anniversary of the teams’ founding, I said I’d love to help out. There are some memories that take us back a decade, some that take us back a half a lifetime, and some that register among our earliest memories ever.
For me, being reminded that the Owego Hose Teams won the state championship in 1959, when I was 3 years old, brought back an amusingly unsettling memory. The following year, I was standing along North Avenue in Owego as a 4 year-old parade watcher, and I recall being told that the purple hearse I saw rolling down the street was known as “the Purple People Eater.” I think I clutched my mom’s hand a little tighter, and I was worried about my dad. He was, after all, walking in the parade, and that damn Purple People Eater thing was 10 feet behind him, gaining ground…
I told Pat Gavin that I’d like to be a co-collaborator on this project, as I believe my observations and perspective as an “outsider” will be enhanced greatly by the view from the inside. I can bring, in Janis Joplin’s words, “A little piece of my heart” to this story, but Pat can do a lot better than that.
I’d like to thank Pat and several of my lifelong friends for the honor of sharing some thoughts paying tribute to the Owego Hose Teams. Writing this brought back some wonderful memories, and reconnected me to some very special people.
– Steve Lawrence/Sports Columnist, Ithaca Times
HISTORY OF THE OWEGO HOSE TEAMS
Americans live about 80 years on average, right? Since I am a sportswriter, I tend to frame things in a sports context, thus I will put forth the contention that when we are 20 years-old, we have reached first base. At 40, we have hit a double, sixty is a triple and at 80, we cross home plate. Of course, we can “stay in the game” so to speak, and I have actually known a handful of people who have made it to 100, thus getting to first base again and going 2-for-2!
I just slid into third base earlier this year, and I have lived long enough to know that opinions and perspectives can take varying paths. There are some things about which we feel the same way throughout the entire course of our lives, and other things that mean so much to us at one point in our lives, and later, we could not care less about them. And some things – and for me, hose racing falls into this category – come full circle.
When I was a little guy, I looked at Owego’s hose racing teams with a mixture of awe, fascination and pride. My dad was Leo Lawrence, and I had heard the whispers that he was a Korean War vet, and had trained for the Navy’s elite Underwater Demolition Team. People told me that my dad was a two-way starter for Owego Free Academy’s football team in the 1940’s, and that he was a tough-as-nails center and linebacker.
My dad was one rugged guy, and someone told me that he and his buddies – Dick Franz, Ed Franz, Leon Halstead, Pete Porcari, Bob Thompson and Dick Hilker – had represented the Croton Hose #3 station at the 1959 Central New York Firemen’s Association (CNYFA) hose racing state championships, and had brought home the first-place trophy. When they talked about that achievement, they did so with obvious pride.
As a kid not quite old enough to play Little League baseball, I sometimes tagged along when my dad went to meetings at the #3’s firehouse on Talcott Street, which the legendary “Flat Rats” used as their home base. I watched some football on television and played on the pool table, and that state championship trophy – like my dad – looked about 10 feet tall.
As mentioned, I had also been to some parades and watched my dad and his friends ride in and walk alongside that famous “Purple People Eater.” The guys were cheered loudly, and while I applauded along with everyone else, I didn’t yet understand the community’s collective affection, gratitude and respect for volunteer firemen.
The late 1960’s were a time when my buddies and I would jump on our bicycles on weekends or summer mornings and find a baseball game at Nick Raftis Field, go fishing in the Owego Creek or bother girls. Our parents didn’t worry about us, and they knew that eventually we’d get hungry enough to find our way back home.
Sometimes, as I was pedaling from one adventure to another, I would see a bunch of guys practicing their hose racing drills, and I could see that some of my own friends were anxiously awaiting their opportunity to represent the “Flat Rats.” John Porcari made it clear that he wanted to follow his dad Pete into the brotherhood, as did the Franz brothers. I grew up with these guys, and while I felt a connection with all of them, I lived on Glenmary Drive and was therefore not an “official” Flat Rat. It was a strange sort of limbo – I lived 100 yards from the Flats, but I was an outsider.
As the years passed, the torch was passed as well. In the 1970’s, the Franz boys, the Fergusons, Louie Striley and other guys my age were coming into their own as hose racers, mentored by the new breed of leaders like Joe Fuller and Steve Gavin. I had found my own niche as a baseball player, and I was planning to play in college, so any thoughts I ever had about joining the #3’s and the hose teams went by the wayside. My dad didn’t really push me toward being a volunteer firefighter, and I knew I would be going off to college, so I didn’t pursue it. I did have a bit of envy for the guys who followed their dads into this tightly-knit fraternity, but it never came together for me to be a part of it. And, by the mid-70’s, I had become a member of Owego’s baseball “town team,” and given we drew big crowds on Sundays, I was getting my needs met from the standpoint of being recognized for being good at something and being a part of a team. As baseball players, we joked that some sports – like hose racing – were for guys that couldn’t hit a curve ball.
I went off to college for a few years, and relocated to California from 1979-‘81. When I came back to take a job at Cornell, I attended many of the Memorial Day parades in Owego, and I saw that the “new guys” were carrying on the hose racing tradition. Tommy and Larry Ferguson, Louie Striley, Dave Franz, Rick Hinchcliffe and Steve Tiffany were all involved, and some holdovers like Joe Fuller and Steve Gavin were still going strong.
I recall a Pennysaver story boasting that the hometown boys had hosted the 1987 CNYFA convention and had won yet another championship, this one made sweeter by the fact that they won it on home turf, and 2 years later, they won the trophy for the third time and were therefore allowed to retire it. That was another first for the Owego boys.
It was sometime in the 1980’s, soon after my return from California, that I happened to be in Owego when a big fire broke out. Like many others, I was drawn to it, and I saw some volunteer firefighters in action. They were focused, they were fearless, and the skills they had honed during the hose races were on full display. As I watched them, I acknowledged my own foolishness… Maybe these were guys that couldn’t hit a curveball, but the time they had invested in learning to fight fires sure seemed a lot more useful than any skill I had learned on a baseball field.
I sat down with Pat Gavin to get this story telling process moving, and I was struck that he was not the kid I once knew. I grew up with Pat’s mom, Toni – we were neighborhood friends and classmates – and I held his dad, Steve, in very high regard. Steve and I were not close friends, but I knew he was a hard-working guy, a loving father and a dedicated firefighter. When Steve passed on from a heart attack after fighting a fire, I mourned with the people of my hometown. He was only 52 years old.
Pat and I clinked our Ithaca Beer bottles together, and I said, “There sure are a lot of multi-generational names on this hose racing history you sent me.” Pat said, “Yes, it’s definitely a rite-of-passage for a lot of these guys. You turn 16, you join the fire department and you run hose. In my family, there was my dad, Tim, Dan and me… There’s Dick Franz and his sons David, Jimmy with sons Pete and Richie, Bobby, and Tommy, Ed Franz and sons Mike and Chris, Billy Franz and sons Craig and Dan, Walt and son Eric Pianosi, Pete Porcari with son John and his son Matt, the Donovans, Ed, Steve, Mike and Scott Bidwell, Chuck, Moe and Andy McDowell, the Reese, Riegel and Fairlie brothers… It’s a long list, for sure.
Pat thought back and added, “My dad started hose racing with Scotty Smith, and Scotty came out of retirement to hose race after my dad died. That was really something special. They were really close.” Pat looked around the room, as if someone might be listening in, and added, “I remember hearing the story when they were racing in Cortland in the 1970s and Scotty ripped out a parking meter and carried it around on the truck like a trophy!”
Pat and I talked about some other friends who had passed on too soon, and he said, “I remember when John Porcari passed (in 2000), and we had the John Porcari Memorial Race on Delphine Street. Matt (John’s son) was really involved in that, and then he passed on too.”
Pat, while only in his thirties, sat back and offered up one of those “Back in my day…” stories, saying, “When I first started, we were 16 and we practiced every night. We’d even do indoor practice at the Boys’ Club during the winter months. There was a time when there were hose races throughout the area every weekend from May through September, and now we only get to a few races per year. Then, there were about forty teams and now, you’re lucky to see a dozen.”
Pat is well aware that times have changed. People have kids, two jobs, other responsibilities. Pat shrugged and said, “Yep. Life gets in the way.”
I brought up the fact that my narrow-minded perspective had changed dramatically when I saw the guys working together to fight an actual fire, and Pat offered,
“Yes, the whole premise of hose racing is to sharpen basic firefighting skills. Seconds matter. We might save someone’s property, or even their life.”
A few weeks after I had a cold one with Pat (no conversation about my dad and his buddies would have any credibility without a cold beer), I climbed the familiar stairs to the second floor of the #3’s fire house on the Flats. One of the first guys I saw was Bobby Thompson, one of my dad’s best friends and a guy I have loved and respected since I was a kid. I wanted to give Bob a big hug, but a handshake was what happened instead. The last time we had seen one another was in a waiting room at a doctor’s office! Well, I suppose that beats some other possibilities… As a member of the early teams, Bob brought a unique perspective. He said,
“We didn’t have schools to learn, or older guys. We learned from our fathers, how to ‘set up’ a fire, how to hook up a hose.” I asked him if the guys took a lot of pride in this multi-generational connection, and he said “We sure did.”
Dick Franz, another close friend of my dad was there too, and I got a little teary-eyed seeing those guys – now well into their 80’s – at the old fire house. My dad passed in 2007, and seeing his friends always makes me realize how much I miss him.
Joe Fuller made the trip too, as did Louie Striley, Jim Morris, Chris Franz and Mike McNaughton. I had asked to meet with some guys from the various decades dating back over the 65 years, and the Croton Hose guys complied.
Bob kicked off our trip down Memory Lane, recalling that “We bought that old retired hearse and put it together as the Purple People Eater. We had three teams from the #3’s then, and in ’50 we won the state championship. He nodded toward me and said, “Leo was really good on the ladder.”
Bob then started speaking hose racing language, and I will leave it to Pat to translate all that in his segment. Bob did mention something that brought back some very old memories, saying “We practiced every Friday night and we had some big fun afterwards! The beer on tap was always Iroquois!”
Dick Franz took us even farther back, saying “When I came on board, Bob Hand was a part of it, Fred McKeel, Junior Ferguson, Bill Andrews, Ray Smith and Ray Thompson. It was amazing that Dick Ferguson ran hose with us and he had lost an arm. A lot of these guys were coming back from the war, and Mario Pannetti would have been there with us too, but he and Channy Moreland died in the war.” Dick said “That was when we came up with our slogan that has been in place for a long time, and that is “We Are Alive!” He added, “Back in those days, the Flats was a big community with a lot of festivals and clambakes. It was ‘Flats Against the World!’”
As Dick told his stories, I asked Chris Franz if he was proud to be carrying on the Franz family’s long tradition if service, and he said “I sure am. It means a lot.”
Joe Fuller shared some of his recollections, saying “I was active from ’68 to ’96 and some of my mentors – Bob and Dick – are sitting right here… and of course Eddie and Bill Franz, Pat Panetti, Pete Porcari and Leon Halstead. Joe added, “I brought in Steve Gavin and Jim Van Norstrand in 1970, and we added more teams. The first time we won was in 1972. In fact, that was the year we broke the “Y” record. It was 24 seconds, and we got it down to 20.9.”
A decade later, the #3’s set a motor hose record that still stands.” Joe said, “We held every record at one time.”
By that time, the Purple People Eater had given way to the Orange Peeler, and Joe said, “We had it from ’68-’71, and a funeral home saw it and sold us another hearse we named the Goofy Grape! In fact, when I got married, I came out of the church and there was that purple hearse.”
That got a laugh from Louie Striley, who grew up on Delphine Street and watched a lot of the practices. The number one fire hydrant in Central New York sits on the corner of Delphine and Charlotte Streets in Jim Raftis’s front yard. Louie said, ‘When I came on board, Joe Fuller and Steve Gavin recruited me. I remember when John Porcari and I were 12 and 13 years old, and we said we couldn’t wait to be old enough.” That was fine with Joe, who added, ‘We needed some fresh legs!”
Joe admitted that one didn’t have to be a Flat Rat to run hose, saying “We found some guys downtown… like Mike Hilker, Tom Simon, the Gilfillan (Kevin & Rusty) and Reese (Ernie & Wilber) brothers and Rusty Fuller.” He added, “I grew up on Williams Street, and I remember one year they had a convention on Front Street. I thought that was the greatest thing.” One memory really stood out, and Joe offered, “I watched a guy from Montour Falls dragging hose with a cigar in his mouth! I remember all the teams had their own mystique – Apalachin Hose Twisters, Cortland, Preble, Montour Falls Swamp Stompers, Watkins Glen Hose Lines – and I remember the races, and the parades and the respect.”
Louie, who was one of the guys who came up after Joe, pulled a few more stories out of the cobwebs, and I watched him look at Dick and Bob with respect and affection that went back a half-century. The elder statesmen are for Louie – and the other guys sneaking up on 60 – a link to the past, and it is clear they took seriously the task of carrying on the proud tradition.
That pride was not limited to Louie and his pals taking the proverbial torch from Dick, and Bob, it was also evident when the guys in their 30’s spoke about Louie, and John Porcari, and Tom Ferguson. When Pat and I sat down, he too spoke of his predecessors with great respect.
Jim Morris and Mike McNaughton waited their turn, and when asked what drew him to hose racing, Mike said “I was told there would be beer!” He laughed about the “Body of Water” tradition, and said, “If we lost, it always had to be someone’s fault. In ’09, we were in Old Forge and Matt Porcari said, ‘If we lose, someone’s jumping in the lake!’ Well, we had a connection fail and we lost. The next thing I knew, Matt was taking off his boots and he jumped in.” Addressing a more serious component of the team, Mike added, “When you answer a call, you’re always racing a fire, so hose racing is good preparation.”
Jim said the teamwork concept drew him in. “I was told that when you joined the #3’s, you weren’t just a part of the hose team, you’d be doing a lot of things as a group, as a team.”
As we wrapped up our gathering at the #3’s, I looked around the room at the several dozen trophies. I knew each of them had a story attached to it, and I wished I could stay longer and hear them. I took one last look at the photo albums Louie had brought, and I saw the Purple People Eater again. I saw a photo of Louie and John, young guns ready to roll. I thought to myself,
‘ I’d love to go back to that time… unless, that is, I had to drink Iroquois Beer…’
One last look at the photos offered a look at that fire I saw the guys fighting 30-some years ago. I remember thinking as they got the fire under control – surely saving some property and likely saving some lives – how much their dedication really mattered. These were volunteers, guys with kids, guys with jobs, but they were out there putting their lives at risk. I realized that my feelings about hose racing – and about volunteer firefighters – had indeed come full circle.
Incorporated as a not for profit in 2015, the Owego Hose Teams Inc. have been competing in firematic hose racing since 1951. This year marks their 65th anniversary season. The teams have won a total of 23 Central New York firematic hose racing titles and are known throughout the state for their racing prowess.
