Welcome to the Zoo

About the Book

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 author’s 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.

About the Author

Bob has lived his life doing rescue work—at sea on the North Atlantic and in the city of Portland, Maine, as a firefighter. Today he is a Reiki master, a shamanic practitioner, and he is in integrative, holistic health care. He works with cancer survivors and veterans. As a shaman, he is a student of the spiritual belief systems of all the indigenous cultures around the world.