Living 50 Plus 2021

Hodges. She slammed on brakes and said, ‘Hey!
The house is on fire!’ I jumped up and ran back to
the house, opened the door up, the house was full of
smoke. I could see the pot on the stove right there. I
had a tea pitcher, filled it up with water, threw it on
the stove, and that was it.”
Albeit a small fire, Gordon says this gave him a
jumpstart to begin his long career. “I was watching
everybody working, my dad had been a volunteer
fireman at a fire department back in the days. I never
thought anything about it until that night.” Gordon
decided that night of his kitchen fire that he would
start to give back to the community. He worked for
18 years as a volunteer fireman until he was offered
a full time position. When he was asked to take the
full time position, he took it without any hesitation.
He admitted that it comes with hardships. “Like
anything else,” Gordon said, “the older you get in
life, you can’t do things you did earlier. This is one
of those jobs you can tell, the older you get, the more
you have to concentrate on being careful about what
you eat, how you do things, trying to stay active, to
maintain some decent level of physical fitness to do
this job.”
But Gordon hasn’t stopped. He still goes out to
fires. He still suits up and straps his boots on and
goes to work, saving lives, making the worst day in
someone’s life just a bit better. And Gordon credits
a lot of his success to the fact that he works with an
incredible team.
“The guys I work with are very knowledgeable, very
competent. I hardly ever have to say anything to the
guys; they know what they’re supposed to do and
how to do it. A lot of the times, they’ll tell me, ‘Look
here, Pops; we got this.’”
Gordon can still remember what it was like when
he began his tenure at the fire department. “When I
first started, we all had a pager. When a pager went
off, you knew it was either a wreck or a fire, and your
heart started racing. You started wondering what
you’ve got and you’re all excited about it.” But now,
Gordon’s thrill for work has passed. It has, instead,
been replaced with a level of calm that he tries to
pass on to his younger compatriots. “When we go on
call, I’m very calm and relaxed.
“As far as knowing what you’re doing for someone?
It’s still there,” Gordon added. “I have a sense of
gratification from knowing I stopped someone’s
problem from being worse than what it could
have been. You defeated a dragon. You stopped the
progression of destruction.
“Everyone is always learning,” Gordon further
stated. “It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been here
five years or 50. You can learn something everyday.
Listen to the people that came before you, and pick
their brain. Ask them questions.”
PERRY
FA M I L Y P R ACT I C E
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Dr. Kelsay McFall
Allyson Lancaster,FNP-C
Holly Lavender, FNP-C
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Sarah Harris, FNP-C
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