The rookie and the veteran: Chesterton Fire Chief Skip Highwood visits with Walter Pliske, who had already served 24 years on the Chesterton Fire Department when Highwood joined in 1962. Pliske retired after 52 years of service in 1990, eight as chief, when Highwood succeeded him. Pliske’s room displays just several of the fire-service awards and citations he’s received.                           (Tribune photo by Paulene Poparad)

By PAULENE POPARAD

Walter Pliske clearly remembers the first time he met Skip Highwood.

Understandably, Highwood does not.

“He was a little baby,” explained Pliske. “His Dad brought him into the fire station and said, ‘Here’s your next fire chief.’”

Fireman Offley Highwood had to wait 48 years for his prediction to come true, but Highwood did succeed Pliske as Chesterton fire chief in 1990.

Pliske retired after serving 52 years on the department, which marks its 100th anniversary this year. Recently, Pliske and Highwood --- the veteran and the rookie in 1962 --- swapped memories, traded compliments and recalled the best and worst of being a Chesterton firefighter.

“Do you remember when the bus was hit by a car by the Beverly Shores golf course?” Pliske asks Highwood. “That was before my time, Walt,” Highwood replies. Similar exchanges happen often as Pliske taps his rich well of department history.

Pliske went to a fire one day in 1938. “A guy said, ‘Why don’t you be a fireman?’ I said OK and he said, ‘You’re a fireman.’” Today, Highwood said applicants must pass a battery of physical agility and written tests before being accepted onto the department.

After joining the fire ranks, Pliske worked at the A&P grocery store on Broadway near the Calumet Road fire station. From then on, “If I was waiting on you and the fire siren went off, I was gone.”

To be a good fireman, you need guts, said Pliske. “When you go to a fire you think who’s in the fire and what you’ll do. I’ve carried little kids out of fires, even a dog. One fire we started to go in and there was no floor in the house. It was all burned up. Good thing they didn’t just barge in or they’d had firemen hurt.”

Added Pliske, “Any time there’s a fire burning you get scared. If there’s somebody’s life involved, you don’t think of yourself. It’s getting that person out. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.”

Pliske, who at the time of his retirement was the fire chief with the most seniority in the state, said firefighters help their community in both good times and bad. But it’s the tragedies that he remembers most.

“The biggest heartbreaker was when four kids and their mother got killed. I cried all that night. We went to a truck fire once and the fireman said, ‘Where’s the driver?’ and I said, ‘You’re standing on him.’ It was tragedy, one thing after the other. One time a car was tipped over and a guy was under the car and we picked it up off him.”

Today, “We have thermal imaging and extrication (equipment). It makes a big difference,” said Highwood.

“The equipment we didn’t have. Now, the equipment they have is out of this world,” said Pliske, who had to man the pump to get water out of the first fire truck he used.

As has their equipment, so has a firefighter’s role changed. Observed Highwood, who has a degree in fire science, “Years ago, all you basically did was put fires out. Now you have to be a doctor, lawyer, chemist. You’ve got to leave a paper trail for everything. There’s insurance, liability.”

According to Pliske, who held every department rank and became chief in 1982, the biggest firefighting advancement he sees is the expanded availability of water. For Highwood, “It’s the training we get nowadays. There’s so much more offered than years ago.”

Another major change is the fireman’s protective clothing.

“We had a fire call one day right after church and here I went in a full dress suit, up on a ladder with a hose,” said Pliske. That “absolutely not” would happen today, said Highwood. Firefighters are required to wear 50 to 60 pounds of turn-out gear including portable breathing devices.

A key factor in rapid fire response is communication.

Pliske initially had to listen for a fire siren that not all the volunteers would hear. Once, only he and another fireman responded to a dump fire. Pliske later was instrumental in moving fire departments throughout Porter County to a single radio frequency in 1960. Highwood said modern siren-less pagers now used to summon firefighters and the 911 emergency telephone system are marked improvements.

Another is the way fire and accident victims receive medical attention.

In the early days, said Pliske, “We’d throw them in the back seat of a car or a hearse and take them to Valpo (to the hospital).” It was his vote that enabled Porter County’s first modern ambulance service, NOPAC, to begin operations out of the Chesterton Fire Department.

Despite the advent of mobile intensive medical care that has saved many lives, Highwood said the Duneland area still has no trauma center and must transport its victims to Valparaiso.

Highwood said his 40 years of fire service have brought him satisfaction in doing something he loves to do. Surprisingly, Pliske said the thing his fire service career has added to his life is “the heartache of seeing people suffer.”

During a time of tragedy, firefighters are expected to deal with victims in shock, both those who can’t watch their trauma unfold and those who can’t look away.

“Sometimes,” said Pliske, “you had to worry how you’d hold together.” Highwood’s firemen participate with other emergency personnel in critical incident stress debriefings to help them deal with what they’ve seen and were called to do.

The tragedies observed while firefighting made him more appreciative of what he had, said Pliske. “I had a good life. You look at your family and you’re lucky to have them.” He speaks often and lovingly of his late wife Kathleen.

Pliske misses riding the fire trucks. “I could handle anything we had and I expected anyone else to do the same. You didn’t know when you’d be the head guy at a fire. Whenever we had a fire, look for Walt on the hose at the nozzle. One of the main things was after a fire, at the station to get everything back in shape for the next fire.”

When Highwood joined the department, his own father had already retired from it. Pliske said he taught the rookie to “just follow my steps. If they didn’t come up to my rules, they weren’t a fireman.” Pliske couldn’t tolerate someone who wanted the glory yet wouldn’t work to earn it. “He was strict with people,” said Highwood.

Pliske’s reputation as a stern taskmaster contradicts a favorite photograph of him costumed as the Cowardly Lion on a Wizard of Oz festival parade float. “I had the time of my life,” he recalled. A carpenter by trade, Pliske is an accomplished woodworker who crafted decorative bowls, plant stands, furniture and even a windmill, much of his handiwork given away to friends.

In March of 1993, the Chesterton Fire Department dedicated its new fire truck, Engine 52, to Pliske, the first such honor it bestowed. Next month he turns 89. “I’m pulling for 90. I think I’ll make it. I’d pull for 100 if I thought I’d make it.”

Pliske helped write the fire department’s comprehensive rules and regulations and supervised the inception of an incident command system here; he would encourage anyone to be a firefighter. “If you can make it, get on the fire department. That’s how you can help people out the most.”

Highwood has 12 full-time firemen assisted by 21 volunteers, down 10 from the number he’d like to have, a reflection of the busier lives being led today and laws which bar Chesterton’s full-timers from volunteering on their own department during off-duty hours.

Pliske and Highwood speak with affection and respect when discussing each other’s careers, and Pliske takes pride in helping shape the firefighter Highwood has become.

“This is the best guy I know,” Pliske says of him. “The town wouldn’t have the department it does without Skip.”

The same could be said of Pliske.

---------------------------

South Haven Fire Department marks 40th

The public is invited to celebrate the South Haven Fire Department 40th Anniversary Celebration from 2-6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17 at the firehouse, 398 West 700N, South Haven.

Fire house tours, door prizes, a dunk tank and raffle of a firefighter will be featured. Also hot dogs, punch/coffee, chips, desserts and cotton candy will be offered. A DJ and clowns are also scheduled.

Posted 8/9/2002