UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
				ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

INTERVIEW #1109
JACOBSON, PAM

JACOBSON, PAM (1956-)
Firefighter
At UW: 1974-1978

Interviewed:  September 24, 2010
Interviewer:   Pat Calchina
Index by:        Pat Calchina
Length:          1 hour, 28 minutes
Series: 	          Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960’s-present
00:00:00 	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction
PC:	 September 24, 2010. Pam Jacobson, J-A-C-O-B-S-O-N. Interviewed by Pat Calchina. Let's give your date of birth one more time, Pam. 
PJ:	 11/3/1956. 
00:00:19 
PC:	 So why don't we start with when you came to Madison, and why you came to Madison, or were you born in Madison? 
PJ:	 No. There aren't that many people I know that were born in Madison. But I went there to go to school, like a lot of people. So after my five years-- 
PC:	 And what year was that when you began college? 
PJ:	 '74 I graduated from high school. So I was 17. And turned 18 shortly after I got to college. So my degree was in psychology. Near the end of my time, I wanted to get my degree because it was starting to go on longer than four years. So I kind of thought about changing my major, because everybody told me you're not going to be able to get a job with the psych degree. I was getting a little worried about what I was going to do. So I decided not to change my major, though, because it would take me even longer. But I started taking some women's studies classes because I had some credits that were just electives. So I took women's studies classes and I was like wow, these are great. One of the classes that I took was called education and sex role socialization. It was actually cross-listed. It was a class cross-listed with the curriculum in education, I think, department.  [SIDE CONVERSATION] 
PC:	 So you had taken a class. 
PJ:	 Yeah. I got advised about going to this class, it was called curriculum and instruction, I believe or ed policies. But whatever, it was cross-listed with women's studies, and I didn't really know that at the time. But the class, it was called education and sex role socialization, and my mind got blown day by day, because I was like are you serious? They duped us women into thinking we only have these roles, and we could only do this or that. And I was very traditional. I mean I was a little wild, but I looked traditional with long hair. I got up every morning, put a bunch of make-up on. Not tons. But wore these cute clothes and stuff and got ready every day for school. If you would have looked at me through that class, you would have seen me change, even how I looked. My hair went back in a braid at first. It was long. Then my clothes were more simple. I would get up a little later because I'd think well this is just something women are told they have to do. I don't have to do this. I can just look natural, more natural, and have it be easier. Not have another hour and a half every morning getting ready with make-up, blah, blah, blah. And there was a lesbian in that class. I didn't even know any lesbians, but I just was like fascinated by her. She was kind of butchy. But I would just watch her. Like once she asked me to borrow a pencil or something. I was like oh, I lent a pencil to a lesbian. Really funny. So once in a while we'd talk about lesbians, just because usually in the women's studies classes I think that teachers did get the lesbian issues in there somehow, even if it didn't quite fit. I'd look at her, and I don't know if she said she was a lesbian or how I knew that. Because it wasn't just because I had the radar or anything. So my mind, it just got opened up, like wow. And she was kind of a little butchy, stereotype. So I thought OK, so lesbians are like that. But I was like well, why couldn't anyone just be a lesbian? I was involved with a man at that point, and it was a good relationship. I had had good ones and just OK ones. But I thought wow, that's an interesting idea. Like just to actually be with a woman. Hmm. But that's all I thought about it. But then I was taking a bunch of women's studies classes because I could and they were fascinating. But then I knew they were women's studies, not just cross-listed. 101, 102, 103, and then all these other ones. They didn't have a major at the time. By the time I'd graduated, I worked on a committee at the women studies. That's why we saw each other to begin with one time because I was at a meeting or something at the women's studies building. It was for getting certificate. We were trying to say what kind of requirements should there be? What do the other places do to have a certificate? So then I was into it, like getting all the stuff for the certificate. But I loved those classes. Oh my gosh, they were fascinating. To me it felt like it was filling all the holes in my education. Plus I was interested. I wasn't interested in regular history because it was about wars and I just couldn't keep it in my mind, but I'd loved to hear about women and history, or women and art. That was a great class, too. I don't even know the title anymore. It's too long ago. But just all of them. The women and their bodies and health and disease. Fabulous class. All those teachers were-- there was really no teacher that I didn't think was great. Some weren't maybe as feminist if they were more into their other field. But mostly they were just phenomenal. So it was good quality and learning about consciousness, not just to women studies credit, not just in the area of women, but in all the isms-- racism and all the connections. Just great stuff. So when I graduated, which ended up being five years rather than four, I had my certificate also in women's studies. Then down the road later I went back. Once there was a major, I went back to finish up a couple more classes so that I would actually have a major in women's studies on my transcript. So I don't just have psychology, but I have psychology and women's studies. In 1979, but I don't know when I got the extra, maybe like early '80s, I was a firefighter by then when I went back to school. That was cool to me to have that, say and women's studies, or to know I had the major requirements as well. 
PC:	 When you graduated from college, did you already know you were going to firefighting then? 
PJ:	 Not at all. Well then it came true. What am I going to do? Now that I have this major in psychology and women's studies, what am I going to do? So first, my parents' gift to me for my college graduation was to go to Europe. A certain amount of money so I could go to Europe. So my friend and I were going to hitch hike. Well near the end of college, I was in a class and I sort of got a crush on a woman. But I was involved with a man so it was kind of messy. I did things kind of messy since that time anyway. But that woman-- I thought what's this really going to be like? It's one thing-- because I remember distinctly. I was writing notes and I was writing down drawings, doodlings, and it was like women with women, women with men, women. Hmm. It was like wow, I could be with both. That's kind of cool to not just have to choose. But I had never been with a woman. And this other woman that I kind of had this little crush on, she also hadn't been with anybody, but we would talk about it a lot. And then we realized, well we have an attraction, but were we really lesbians? We had taken a lot of classes by then. She was kind of similar. She had taken a lot of classes. So we got involved, and I remember thinking, this is great. I like being with a woman. So it was like I just decided why, as a feminist, I wanted all my energy to go to women. Even my intimate energy. Now, I look back and think I'm probably just on the continuum. I can go a broad range. I don't know that everybody can or just deep in them, they might be very hetero sexual feeling or very lesbian feeling. But I could easily see the whole range. So it was more like what was it going to be like, and it was great. 
00:09:46
PJ:	 This particular woman was so different, because the men I was with before that, the last few men, they were these big guys-- tall, really muscular, not just be a normal, but weight lifter guys. And I liked it. I liked how big they were and muscly and stuff. I was really into it. And here this woman, she was smaller than me. So like 5'3" or something, 5'4", and little and roundish. Real curvy. So it was like could you get any more different? But it was nice. She was nice. She was really just great. So that was my first lesbian relationship. Now was I off the subject? 
PC:	 You were in college still. 
PJ:	 So I was still in college. So then my parents, that was it, my parents' graduation gift was to go Europe. And this woman that I was involved with-- but I still was with this guy-- she went off to Europe and she was going to be living in Spain for one or more years. Then their gift was for me to go to Europe. So I met her-- they didn't know that part. But I met her and we traveled together. She knew Spanish-- that was her thing, she was fluent in it. So we got to travel to places and she could just talk away and it was really fun. Even though we only ran into one harrowing thing there. It was still a great experience to do that. However, we kind of decided maybe we weren't going to be monogamous. Actually, I guess we broke up during the trip and said we need to go our own ways. So we did. I came back and I believe I had one more fling then with a guy, the same one that kind of before her. So then I was faced, when I came back, with what am I going to do. I'd been working at a couple part-time jobs, so I was thinking oh, I guess I'll keep doing that. But what am I going to do, this can't be the real thing. I was a weight lifter at the time. I'd been competing in the Amateur Athletic Union, and events usually with boys in my weight class, the 123 and one 132 pound weight class. I'd be with boys, because boys are usually that size. And women didn't really weight lift that much then. So this was a really unusual thing when they'd see me come in to be in the meet or whatever, they'd be like woah. But I was really into it. My former boyfriend was very well-known. He was-- I wonder if I better not say who he is. I just don't know. So anyway, he helped me train. One day he'd read in this paper, he said, hey, look at this. These two women sued the city for firefighting. You could do firefighting. And I was like firefighting? I never even thought of it as a job. He said, that would be perfect for you. You're strong and all this stuff. And I was like what do they even do. I don't know. I mean I know the stereotype. I guess they go to fires. But I wasn't even a person who noticed the fire engine really, and much less know the difference between an engine and a truck and all that equipment and stuff. So I went to the fire station, I had an interview with Chief Durkin, and he gave me a tour. And I was so impressed, especially with the auto extrication stuff. Like what happens when not just auto extrication, but what happens with weird accidents. Car accidents or some kind of weird thing that happened where somebody gets their head stuck-- the kid, get their head stuck in the banister or their foot in a bicycle. Who do they call? Fire department. And there's all this cool equipment. I just thought that is great. It's great that people do all this stuff. And the fire stuff, that's good too, but I like all that interesting problem-solving, how to do this work. So I guess I'll try. And there was just a series of things. So I tried the first thing and it was some kind of written test and it was so easy for somebody in college. I was like this is easy. So I'd take the test and then I just would kind of forget about it, and then I'd get a letter, oh, you passed. On to the next. And then it was a physical thing. I'd be like all right. I go to the physical test and you had to do this and-- And then I was kind of serious because I was a little jock, so I thought oh, I want to do well on it. This one thing was kind of hard, a ladder in the air, but I just got a little early and watched how people did it, and I saw a really good way to do it that wasn't the usual way. It was a different technique where you put your leg over and pull yourself up. So I did it that way, everybody did it-- once the few people who had started doing it that way, other people saw that, everybody would do it because it was so much easier than doing a push like this. All the objective was to get up, it was a suspended ladder, to get up and over that ladder. So just stuff like that. Well, I passed that, the physical agility test. Well, I still didn't know anything. And a while later, get a letter, yeah, you passed. Next is going to be an oral interview. There were two oral interviews. The same thing, the police and fire commission. Passed. And the next oral interview with the chief. He already liked me because we had the tour, and he was recruiting heavily good people. People he thought had good potential. 
PC:	 And trying to recruit women and minorities at that time. 
PJ:	 Totally, yeah. And he wanted people that he thought would be successful. He didn't just want to do anybody for numbers. He really wanted people that wanted to do it. And he would go right up and down lines of athletes. Like when they used to have different events or something, he'd go there and just pick people out and say, you want to be a firefighter? Stuff like that. And I heard about it a different way. But I've heard from other people that a lot of people got recruited in various ways. 
00:15:58
PJ:	Eventually, I got a letter saying I was hired to be a firefighter. I had passed all the tests. I didn't even realize thousands of people, maybe it was hundreds then, I don't know, but tried to do this. I just was slowly doing the thing and working at my two jobs, and then eventually I was one. Firefighting training is going to start February 4, 1980. I had graduated in '79. So I went there that day. I didn't even think of it as this is now my new career. I was like what a great job. 
PC:	 Or that you were breaking down any barriers. Did you know you were the first class of women? 
PJ:	 I didn't know anything. I was just like OK, here I go. Probably the chief said, he probably said we haven't had women yet or something. Because I knew about that article with those two women, because it had to do with them suing the city. I would know a lot more about that later. But I was just more thinking I'm going to have a job, and it seemed oh, you can help people. That's great. Maybe my psychology will come in handy because I'm going to have to work with guys. My family was girls in the family. I wasn't like a farm kid or anything where I worked with equipment really. The thing I had going for me, which was true for a lot of the women, is that I had something behind me. My thing was that I was the weight lifter. So I was strong, especially for my size. I knew it's the [GRUNT NOISE] factor. I knew how to just-- women generally don't know this unless they've had some experience either as a farm kid or in equipment operation or something where sometimes you just use the bigger hammer and you-- you don't care how it looks or if you're groaning or whatever. Just like with weight training. You gut it out sometimes and you might not look so pretty or whatever. Not that there isn't technique, because that's a huge part of it. But there's also like blood and guts, just gut it all and hit the thing as hard as you can. And women tend, especially then, to be a little more tentative, oh, I'm going to hit it. And you had to hit it. You could just maybe hit it. But if it was a technical thing, you had to hit then the right way. So then that came in there too. But anyway, at the time, no. I was just like here I go, I'm going to have a new job. I knew there was sexism by then because I'd had all that women studies. But I just didn't really-- I just knew the chief. I didn't know any firemen at the time. I didn't know any male firefighters. I just knew one woman a little bit because she, I think, went on the tour with me, Bev. That was it beforehand. So here I was just walking into this thing going to training. I thought it was going to be some more education, and then physical thing, yay. That's perfect. So I was blown away when people weren't receptive and happy that we were there. 
PC:	 How many of you were there? 
PJ:	 In our class it started out with 33 people, and about, it was like thirds. A third of them were women, approximately, a third were minority men, all African-American, except for one so-called a Hispanic. We will call him Latino. And then 10 white guys who basically were all relatives of firefighters one way or another that Chief Durkin had picked specifically. People all had to pass all those tests, and then he got to pick at the end who he wanted for sure. He picked relatives for the guys because that was what had been traditionally. So he did that partly so that we would all-- when people pointed fingers and they'd say well you're just there because you're a woman, then the opposite of that would be well you're just there because you're so-and-so's kid. So nobody could really have anything up on each other. But what we did have were these groups, because I, of course, gravitated to my women. And I thought all the white guys knew everything already because they were kids or nephews or something. I subsequently found out they don't know everything either. But to me it seemed like they did. Plus they sometimes knew even training officers. At least met them or something. Some of them. Then the black guys, they had different stereotypes, but they didn't have the strength thing. They had the other stereotype, which is they weren't smart enough supposedly. There was a thing about well one of them couldn't read. Just terrible stereotypical stuff. Because these were also-- I mean we were more educated than traditional firefighters were because they were trying to get more educated people in the fire service, so they offered incentive pay, a percentage higher than an average firefighter if you had a degree once you got done with your probation and your apprenticeship. That made the guys in the station, some of them, really mad because we got paid a lot more. It was like 10%. It was a good chunk of change. To me the whole thing was huge. Like this is so much money. I was a college student to getting paid for a real job. Plus, after a while, incentive pay for having college. So I was expecting people to be kind of like Chief Durkin with open arms. Here you are. We're waiting for you all. Aren't you successful and everything. And no, not at all. It was like you guys-- we don't even think you can do this. Even if we see it, some of us aren't going to believe it, and we're going to spread any horrible thing we can about you. So then, right away, very shortly, we, the women, got together in a tight little group to support each other, and also to share information about how to do stuff. 
PC:	 So you weren't altogether in the same station. 
PJ:	 We were in training for three months first. 
PC:	 OK. So you're still in training at this point. 
PJ:	 We're in training, and we had regular meetings together to try to make sure we could get through it. 
PC:	 So did you feel that they were trying to make you fail? 
PJ:	 Yes. They clearly were. They'd already done that with the two women I'd read about in the paper. Those two women, Marsha Holts and Mary Sweeney, they had been supposedly flunked out for lack of upper body strength, which traditionally happens in every city. A similar something. So they flunked them out, and they did it by they would have us sign these evaluations, but they said, these don't matter. It's OK to sign them. When you sign them it only means that you've received them. But Marsha and Mary knew from the legal process that that doesn't really mean that. Once you get in the legal thing it means you agree to it. And they used it against them before. So they would tell us stuff like-- you have to sign it because they made you. But at least write your version of whatever the thing is. So they'd say like you failed tying this knot or something. And you'd say, I was just learning that knot for my first time. Something like that. Because a lot of the stuff was your first time with something that was completely unfamiliar to you, like about pump operation or something. Or especially a physical thing, like a complicated six person ladder raise where it was all rigid. Like that second person has to go out. Really crazy stuff. And you couldn't learn it that fast, especially if you didn't have the background in mechanical things or a chain saw or whatever, which I didn't.  I was pretty handy, but I didn't know how to run a pump of a fire engine. To me it was like what? I don't even know how it works. I didn't even know that the water came from the hydrant, it went to the fire engine, the engine has a pump, it increases the pressure, and it went out the hose. But they didn't explain it like at the beginning. They weren't that good teachers in my opinion. Some of us have shared that opinion. But they would just say here, we're going to learn about pump operation. But you don't even know how the thing is set up, much less-- that doesn't help you when you're starting to learn details about something you don't even know that the water comes from here to there. So it was very difficult. We felt so attacked. And we knew, because we got to know that in the stations, they were talking about us. Who they were going to get, and who failed what, and what this and that. We were always hearing reports of-- it could be not even about us, it might be the African-American men. So and so blah, blah, blah. And so the pressure was like if you've ever did not do something right, then it kind of meant that you all couldn't do x. So of course, you want to do everything. That was one of my hardest things throughout my career, because personally I didn't want to look like I didn't know things. That's a really bad way to be, actually, in life, is to be somebody who's afraid not to show if they don't know something. So I had to work on it, but there was always a seed of it there. Like you have to know, and you can't know everything, especially in something like that. So there's endless amounts to know. You can just do the best you can and try to keep up on things. But the really cool thing was I had been living in this apartment and broken up with the guy that I was seeing. And that was good because training was really-- I had to really focus on it. I needed to have a roommate or I wanted to-- just for money purposes I guess. And I had put one sign up in A Room Of One's Own, a feminist bookstore. Just said need a roommate, something, I don't know what. One person came to the door, or call me and then came over, and it was Marsha from training. I didn't even know her. But she had seen one sign at Room of One's Own, because she had found out the result of the lawsuit, because they'd been fired. She found out the weekend before she could go to firefighter training for three months. She was farming at her parents' property, so she didn't know about this. And Chief Durkin had a hand in this as well, like how this happened. But anyway, it ended up being last minute, she came in and needed a place to live because she had to go every day. She couldn't come from Mukwonago where she was from. So she was at my door, and like aren't you in firefighter training? Because it was kind a blur. This was right at the beginning, a few days into it. So we ended up being roommates in firefighter training. Then what's even weirder is a year and a half before that, I went to, I think, it was Meg Christian concert at some funny little place. I don't remember where, but wherever. I can almost think of it, but it's not there anymore. So we went to this funny little place, I went to this funny little place with my friends, and I saw this woman there and thought she was so beautiful. I was joking to make friends the whole night, look at that woman, isn't she something? She's so pretty. And just look at her smile, it lights up the world. Like that and joking. I was still involved with a guy, but was like, uh-hum, I like that woman. And I was watching her the whole night. Whenever the lights were on or whatever, who she talked to, what she did, what she was wearing, all this stuff. 
00:27:55
PJ:	So Marsha moved in. And then I realized a couple days into it. I was looking at her one day and I'm like that is that woman that I saw at that concert. I know it is. Because I stared at her for the whole-- I'd never seen her, because I wasn't really in the community. only [? Les ?] [? Estrada ?]. There wasn't this big community. Plus I was new, so I didn't really know anybody. But I had these friends that I had commented to. So I was like I think it's that woman. So I asked Marsha if she was at that concert. She said I was. She said, I went to it. She lived in Mukwonago, but she came to go to that concert. I said I saw you there. And she said, what? Because she's real shy, modest. She's like you couldn't have seen me. I said, I saw you. Here's what you were wearing, corduroy pants, plaid shirt. You talked here, you sat there, all this stuff. She's like oh my god, she's embarrassed. I just went out on a limb and told her I had a crush on her. And she didn't say anything. She was just like OK. I was like, oh great. Then after she-- I'm like oh, this is just great. Now we're living together, going to firefighter training, and I just completely made a huge mess. And she had to go off to the farm, and I don't know, some time went by. Not a lot, but some time when I just felt terrible and stupid. But after a while she came back and she told me she was in love with me. 
PC:	 Wow. Just like that. 
PJ:	 Yeah. So then we went to firefighter training. So then even though they were horrible, I was in love. I was like this through the whole class staring at her. I was like, oh my god. And not only that, but she was a firefighting guru. She loved all that stuff. And she'd been through it before, a certain amount of training. So I'd say, I don't get this ladder raise. It's crazy. Why does the second person have to come out and do the left arm? She'd be like that's just stupid-- they were writing it militaristically. It just means you need to push the ladder this way. See? And she'd show and I'd be like oh, well I get that. I just didn't get why you have to do the right foot-- because it was crazy the way stuff was written. Really cumbersome and they had bad stuff. And later, once she was in training many years later as a chief, she could iron out crazy stuff like that because that was a gift she had. But not only was I ahh, through training, there she was being here's what we do. And not just with me. We had our group. So we would share, hey, if you get up to the top of the ladder, all the way up, then you can look it with your leg and pull this heavy ladder up and it's a lot easier than trying to muscle it. We'd share all our little stuff. So we were really close. And reality was, a lot of us were lesbians. We were either identified as feminists and very cool, or lesbians. 
PC:	 Or both. 
PJ:	 One woman was straight. Yeah, we were. It's like a given, like the lesbians were all feminists, but that's not always true. But yeah, but not every single woman was a lesbian. But usually everybody didn't know we were lesbians, but we had hair rule. Your hair couldn't touch your collar. So of course, we all looked like lesbians because we all had these short haircuts, because it couldn't touch our collar, and if you had it all long right here it would look really dumb, so we all had short haircuts. So we looked like a bunch of lesbians, we were strong. I was the weight lifter and Bev was the-- people had a tough time with her because she was so educated, even more than we were. She had her Masters. So that was like oh, she's really smart. So they really made fun of her because of that. Rorie was the judo champion. That's what she was kind of known for. She was the judo champion. And Marsha was a one who sued the city. Well there were a couple of women that didn't have any of that going for them. They were just kind of average. Not that they were not great people, but they appeared to be like more average women, a little smaller. See, Bev was tall, so that helped, and whatever. Well, the smaller ones, and one even smoked cigarettes, and one had kids-- oh my god. They actually did fire them. We found out later they were planning to fire as many of us as they could. Not because of Durkin, he didn't even know that. But he knew-- it was basically over his dead body. They would have to approve this somehow. 
PC:	 So they did ultimately though, fire the woman with kids? 
PJ:	 Those two. The one with kids, and the other woman who actually was a relative of a firefighter, and somebody made her dad tell her because he was still on the job. And she did blow your mind, because she was just a tiny, little thing. Didn't work out, looked like she worked out that much. Maybe she did, I don't know. But she smoked cigarettes, and the guys smoked like fiends in the fire station. God, you'd sit in a cloud of smoke, it was awful. But to have a woman smoker, to have kids, no. You had to do a certain amount of stuff or you just were shunned, even though you were already shunned. Like one woman, she tried to kind of be one of the guys. That didn't work either because you couldn't be one of the guys either. Later that came to really help us because if you're not used to be one of the guys, you don't have anything to lose later when you're a lieutenant or something because you aren't going to get cast out from a group that you never were a part of. So then we were able to stand alone and do things, or stand up for a safety thing, or whatever the thing was. One of our original things was we didn't want people calling us girls. The feminists of us, we would say we're women. And they'd be like, they want to be called women. You know how people used to be though in the '80s? To say woman it'd be like, oh, lady, oh-- anything. It's like could you just say woman? It's not that hard. That nice lady-- and we'd like, we're women. Are you going to say firelady? How stupid is that? We can just say women. Well after we said it for years, they would say women. They couldn't help it. They just heard it a lot, and they started to say women too. So all those arguments. But the fact was, there were actually lesbians, too, of course. And Marsha and I were a couple, but they didn't know were a couple. People didn't know we were a couple, except our inner circle, because we now were really close, the lesbians, especially. We had our own little group and then the feminists and lesbians, and then the women were loosely altogether, and then we were kind of buddies with the African-American men, too. Then we weren't so much buddies with the white guys. There really were kind of groups. We felt like they didn't see when we did stuff right. So I, anyway, had resentment about things, because I wasn't used to be treated poorly, basically. I was used to being successful and having people say, hey, she's good, or whatever. Not like with a microscope. 
00:35:26 
PJ:	At one point we made a film about our experiences, a video, and it got-- well, we were a little bold and we were doing it in the administration building. A guy came in to get something in the room, and here we were sitting at a table. At that point we were enacting a scene in the fire station in the kitchen, and we had noses and mustaches on, the men of the scene had those nose/mustache things. This is so terrible, but it was kind of true. Pillows in our shirts to make guts, because we were all jocky, so we were making fun, basically, because we were mad. We were, by now, out of training in the fire station, so we were doing this after hours, but we did it in the administration building, and a guy came in and he saw it, and he backed out. And then it went zoom, around the whole fire department that they're in there making fun of us. And we were making a video for a women's conference, actually, which we did do it, and the women loved it because they could all relate. All the ones could relate to all the stuff that we showed. We showed vignettes. At the time it was hard to make a video. 
PC:	 And where is that video now? Do you know? 
PJ:	 We erased it. 
PC:	 OK. 
PJ:	 We erased it because we got so much terrible-- there was so much flak about it. We had a division with the women because some of us wanted-- the guys wanted to see it. And we were like let's show it then. They want to see? We're good with it. But some of the women that had come on after us they weren't quite seen in the same way as the first ones were. Some of them, in particular, didn't want to show the video. That was basically the divide, because they were in it too. The guys liked them more, they had more to lose, so they didn't want to show it and we did. We went with them because what are you going to do? You either have to show it or not. We talked and whatever, and so we didn't show it. So then Bev erased it so that we could say we erased it. 
PC:	 I see. OK, so you're a firefighter now-- 
PJ:	 I'm in the station, and involved with Marsha. 
PC:	 Involved with Marsha. So at the fire stations, were you able to work as a group? Did you have other women with you at the fire station? 
PJ:	 At first, no. Well, the only people that worked together were Marsha and Jan. They were together at the big fire station. But that was considered too weak links together, if there were two women. Because one was one weak link, so if you have two, then for sure. But they were together, and then all the rest of us were each at our own station, even on different shifts. So I saw Bev on our shift change in the morning, and we were three women each on different shifts, and each of the three shifts were put at this one fire station where West Town is. It was a brand new fire station at the time. We each were put there. One reason that we were sure we were put there is because they had this big ladder, it was a three section ladder. It was really heavy. They made us-- and this engine, you could have different ladders mounted in different ways, but it was real high and heavy. So you had to get it off up here, and then muscle it down. You could just bounce it or something easy. They had made us, because we were going to that fire station, they make Marsha and Bev and me raise that ladder all the time by ourselves. It's really a three-person ladder. But we had to do it-- 
PC:	 All by yourself? 
PJ:	 We had to butt it up against the building, that means put the bottom on the building, so that holds it and then raise it. We had done that a lot of times, because they would always pull out these crazy things for us to do that they didn't even do any more. Ladders that they didn't even use that were really heavy. This is another thing a lot of departments would do, and say, oh, well you might have to use this sometime, which could be true with anything. Yeah, you might have to lift up that fire engine too, because it ended up on a person's leg. But you can't. So they'd keep bringing up-- and then the guys in our class would be like geez, this is hard even for the guys. There was just a bunch of stuff like that. So we had to raise that huge ladder at Station Two. And then once we got there, we'd already raised it a lot. But each of our crews had to see it, too, because they couldn't, of course, hear that we did it, they just had to see. It didn't matter if I did it, they haven't seen Bev do it or whatever. Anyway yeah. So were each at different stations. And of course, it was before the type of cell phone-- I sound so old when I say stuff like that. So we couldn't call each other easily. Like now people who have free time might talk on their cell phone. But then there was the outside line and the inside line, and the inside line you could talk to someone at a different station, but you had a five minute limit. So you could only talk for that few minutes. Well Marsha and I were on different shifts. So we didn't get to see each other. She worked 24 hours on one day, and I worked 24 hours the next day. We would do that on and off for a while, then we'd have a couple days off that we both had off. But it was very weird to be on different shifts. Later on, once years went by and there were marriages even on the fire department, and lesbians that were involved for years and stuff too together, sometimes they liked being on separate shifts because they could take care of kids or whatever. But for us it was really weird to be on different shifts. So we'd want to call each other, but we could only talk for five minutes, and then we'd have to call back, and we didn't want to call too much or they'd know we were a couple. But then one day Marsha and I were coming back from somewhere-- well it was her farm in Mukwonago. I was so tired, so I laid down on her lap, which later I realized that's a dangerous thing because you can-- what if you got in an accident? Once I was on the fire department, anything can be in an accident. I'd seen so much stuff. But at that time I was still naive, and I had put my head down on her lap. We were almost home. Well evidently a bus went by with this fire captain was riding the bus. And he saw me get up from that because we were almost home. So I got up, and he spread around the whole department that we are basically having sex in our truck, or some crazy rumor. Chief Durkin make him come over to our house and apologize, which I have never seen a guy that scared to come over. But I heard later from somebody, just a couple months ago at our reunion, our 30 year reunion, I heard that that officer, he actually didn't say bad stuff after that. Like he did change. At least he never said anything bad, he was upbeat, and he used to be one of those pot stirrers that would always say-- that's why he said that to begin with to get people to-- Well then we were basically outed. So then we were like, OK. We just might as well-- we're not going to kiss in the station or something, and we're not going to be unprofessional because we both wanted to be very professional. So even if we worked together, which we didn't very often because there were times you could get for the day, you might go somewhere around even a different shift, that we would work together. And we're not going to sleep in the bed or something together, like we're not going to be stupid. But at least we could not be so funny about calling because people knew then. So that was very-- 
PC:	 Did you get any harassment around that or anything else? 
PJ:	 A lot of other stuff, yeah, but around being a lesbian, I don't really remember it like that. It was more being a woman. Almost being a lesbian made it easier in a way. One of the problems that people would always talk about are the firefighter wives. And I think it just made it a little easier, maybe. My theory would be that the men would be able to say she's a lesbian-- she's a big dike, whatever. 
PC:	 I had heard that. 
PJ:	 So she's safer or something. But I didn't really feel that so much. It would be hard to say it, though. Like one time later when I wasn't with Marsha anymore and I was in a long-term relationship with somebody. Then there'd be an event and I'd invite Mary and then they'd say-- like somebody that I didn't know was on the crew and said well who's that? It was really hard at the time to say that's my partner. Like now it seems more normal because they're really used to it and people have had kids. They've met a bunch of different lesbians. But we were the only ones. So I remember saying that's my partner and then I turned around and went like oh, god, I said it to the whole bunch of guys sitting at the table. OK, what's going to happen? Is lightning going to strike me? And then it would be like, oh, OK then. And it was OK. It wasn't like I would bring it up, but the stuff that was stronger for me is just the anti-woman thing. When they would either do it-- it got to be that they could do it subtly by saying how stupid their wife was or something, which kind of meant see how women are. Rather than so and so couldn't do this. But early on it was more like, well did you hear that so and so didn't do that? We rose pretty quickly through the ranks, so then we had control over the environment more. And so if you're the lieutenant, people aren't going to be able to say stuff because they will be in trouble. 
00:45:37
PC:	 How quickly were you made lieutenant? 
PJ:	 Well Marsha was first. I think I was second maybe, I think, of the women. That was about, I think, maybe-- I'm not good at timing, but I think was seven years into the job, which is pretty early. But there happened to be, a big giant class was made. And I was on the panel of people that took the test and did the oral stuff and whatever. So was Marsha. So that was really good for me in a lot of ways. I mean, I liked what I had done right before that, which was being the driver, what they call now and engineer, because you also run the pump and stuff. That was a good too. But I really liked being a very good, the best I could be of a supervisor. That suited me. Well I'm the oldest kid in the family, so I literally like to tell people what to do. In the fire station, in my opinion, they had it backwards. They would act very militaristic in the fire station, which is not where you have to be militaristic because you eat together, you do stuff, you can be communal there. But then when you're on the fire scene, you need to be militaristic. But there wasn't a very good hierarchy there. It was kind of like freelancing and goofy people doing unsafe things, like yeah, let's knock this wall down. Like wait a second, there needs to be organization. Well the whole fire service was changing and getting incident command in place, and getting structure on the fire scene. I'm not saying I knew all about that because I didn't, I was just learning as well. But I was, and I think the women with our different socialization, we were able to bring in why not let people have a hand in how we are in the fire station? Let's have pictures on the walls here. We live here, basically. My fire station, it wasn't even my idea, but somebody had decided to put pictures of us, the firefighters, doing stuff at the fire station or on scenes on the walls. And it was great. It really felt neat to see these pictures, and I think they're still up. I think other stations did that as well. There's a new fire station now in Middleton, it's brand new. Beautiful volunteer department, and a couple paid chiefs or whatever. 
PC:	 I think I've been there. 
PJ:	 And they've done all this state-of-the-art stuff to make it home-like, so that when the people are there, because it's volunteer. They're not going to volunteer if it's yucky. A few do. And so that has been taken to a way further extent and it's amazing where you can really take it. People work out, there's a beautiful fitness facility. People can bring their kids and have a place to be with their kids. Where they sleep in their bedrooms is really nice. When we first slept there, most of the stations had one giant sleeping room for the firefighters, and then one for officer. Sometimes there was an extra room, and that was usually used for the person who snored the loudest because they would keep the other one's up. Well some of the guys were really weird about women sleeping there, so they would say well the woman should sleep in there. But then the other guys would be pissed because they'd be like why don't I get my own room? So mostly we just wanted to sleep-- what were we going to do in a bed? When you got a call, you got up and got your gear on. I slept in shift and shorts. The guys were like-- we'd hear that, well we can't run around in our underwear. Guys were not always running around in their underwear. They're either in their bed or they were getting their gear on. You're not running around thinking you're going to have dinner now in your underwear or something. So there were all these crazy things that weren't problems at all that people were really hung up on. One of them was the bunking situation, that you're all going to be in bed in this big room, and it wasn't that great. Sleeping in a room with a bunch of men? I'm just saying that it's a little weird, because men have different habits and stuff, and they don't snore louder than women in general and whatever. But as time went on, the newer fire stations were built with several separate facilities, and then after a while they even put partitions up so that everybody had a separate little area. And people like it because some people want to read at night in their bed and other people want quiet. So the partitions gave everybody a little privacy, and you could just put them up in a big room. Then they even got a little fancier. I've never even been to the new fire station in Madison. It's even solar powered. I mean there's like eco stuff. Anyway, very cool stuff. So what else you got? 
00:50:29 
PC:	 Well, I have heard stories of harassment. How was it for you individually? 
PJ:	 So about as being a woman? 
PC:	 Yeah, as being a feminist. I mean I've heard the term the radicals that you were called the radicals. 
PJ:	 Yeah, I forgot that. Yeah, since I've been away from it for a while, I haven't thought of some of the stuff. But yeah. For me, yeah we were. Because some of us that were really feminist-- I mean we weren't just regular-- a lot of women that we've met, they're just kind of more average women, not political oriented women necessarily. But we're in Madison, Wisconsin. The atmosphere in general is more progressive. And those of us that came from the college arena were more progressive, and Durkin had chosen us by being people he thought would be successful. So we were strong minded, we had come from athletics maybe, or in my case, other thing. So we were radical. I had really radical ideas about stuff. And to be in what's called a paramilitary organizations, like I'm really glad it's not the military. That it's actually service, not that people aren't doing service, but for me, I didn't want to be in the service, but I liked providing this service that people really need, firefighting. And all of a sudden I'm making a bunch of money too, which is like woah, I can feel good about it and making money. So even if I was called radical and different people were doing stuff. Like both Marsha and I, for instance, we would write notes down because I'm used to writing notes when I learn stuff, so I don't have to go later what button did you push first before you did the chain saw? And safety things were really important to me. So I'd write a lot of notes down. I also wrote down if people said really mean stuff or did stuff, like all the pornography that was in the fire station. There was tons of it in the fire stations. They'd always have a big thing about-- well we don't really know what pornography is. I knew from my feminist classes that this was happening in all different arenas that people were, like they were in lawsuits. That's not pornography, well what is pornography? And it was happening in fire stations. So the guys would say we like to share that. And the women would say, those of us who would speak out, it's not right. We almost came to blows in a big meeting we had to have with the whole department. These guys were red face and screaming some of them. That's ours to share, that's our personal stuff. And then other people would be like, well then put it in your locker. Women. Because the guys weren't sticking up for us. It was just the few women who would speak out. But we might as well, because some of us, they didn't like us anyway. So we paid a big price for saying our stuff. Like people really didn't like me, I mean certain people, hadn't even met me. I could see when I'd meet them. I'd go to shake their hand, and we both-- like I would have heard so and so is really a jerk when you meet him. Don't do anything, but he will whatever, try to get you in trouble or something. He had heard about me, whatever. But we'd never met. Because you kind of knew who the really bad ones were. And they knew all our stuff that went around about us. So I can remember meeting more than one guy, and when we'd go to shake hands say, oh I'm Pam, and he's so and so. And we'd both be like-- we expected to meet a monster. And here it's just like, hi, I'm Pam or whatever. Then he'd be like, and I'd be thinking oh, you're Jim so and so? And he'd be like well you seem kind of nice and you're kind of cute. Then they'd be like ah, because the stories would get-- I mean the fire department is just amazingly able to just spread stuff around instantly. So there were different things that would happen. And if real things did happen, like the pornography thing, we were throwing it out and we had incinerators. So we were gradually throwing out pornography. Marsha and Jan started it when they worked at that fire station together. We were on probation. You can get fired for anything when you're on probation. But we still would sneak and we'd throw little by little in the incinerator, in the incinerator. And I still have a little bit of it because I would save it and say this is the kind of stuff people had just to show. Because it was gross. Some of it was normal, "normal," quote, pornography. But some of it was pretty disgusting, you know, books or whatever. Or written stuff in the bathroom. Just really mean. This is a professional place. And politically this is not right either. So they were throwing it out. Then when I got there, we got our stations all switched after our first year, so I continued throwing the pornography out. Until one day when there wasn't much left and I just said I'm just throw the rest of it out. But I knew, I knew. Even though if it was little by little, they were noticing, but they couldn't really know for sure. And they were really supposed to put it in a locker, but they didn't. You'd have to clean the men's locker room and there it would be. That day I threw all of it out and oh, I thought there was going to be a riot. I mean people were not talking to me on my crew of 11 people or whatever it was. Silence, no eye contact. Even the nice guys. They were civil at best because they felt like that was their right. It was just a war, basically. 
PC:	 Yes. wow. 
PJ:	 And my officer asked me if I threw it out. 

PC:	 And what did you say? 
PJ:	 No. He knew I threw-- everybody knew I threw it out. But he would have had to take it further, and I was too afraid. So I just said no. And then nobody could do anything. 
PC:	 Smart move. They had no evidence. They couldn't prove that you threw it away. 
PJ:	 Right. Because it was burned up. We had to clean the incinerators too, because we were the rookies and all the rookies had to do all the jobs like that. Oh yeah, there were tons of things. And just not only that kind of stuff, but just stuff like the bad training. Guys who were little were hired sometimes. But guys who were little knew how to work that system because they'd been doing at their whole lives. So they would function, even though maybe it wasn't the best education on how to-- plus they were guys. Some of them had done tools and things before. But also just the whole-- I mean you'd walk into a room sometimes and it was so, just charge, like really not-- we put it in our skit for that movie. Was in the morning at shift change, it's be Johnny, how's your boat. And then oh, great, I went up North last weekend, it was so much fun. And then you'd be like hey-- they'd just say hello and nod. Really stiff. Partly because they weren't your friend. Later it was different, but at first it was so yuck. And those of us who were early paid a price. I mean those later women, they liked them more. They'd already-- some of them even liked us a little bit. If you were perfect they might like you more, but you couldn't be perfect. But like Marsha, she could always remember everybody's name, and even if somebody was mean to her every day, she'd still say, hi, Johnny. Whereas I'd be like, hi. Then I was told-- the thing about me was that I had a chip on my shoulder because I was kind of reserved, but I also just couldn't pull it up to always be really friendly, because I would be nervous. So I'd show it in a weird way. Plus I didn't want to look like I didn't know things. So I was sort of-- 
PC:	 Sure. 
PJ:	 One of my friends said one time when she saw me in my uniform and everything, she goes, oh, you have your firefighter face. It was like totally stiff and different. Just a whole different thing. And I think it's very true for the pioneers of different fields. It can be true where they don't necessarily stay as long, or they get burned out and just don't want to do it the whole time, maybe. Or who knows how they pay. You could become alcoholic. I mean there's lots of ways you could pay for something as being a front runner there. But it would be hurtful to be like-- they'd be like, well she's so nice. And I'd think, she's my friend. She just came on after me. We're not that different really. But it just is a different thing in the timing. Those women who did come later, they're amazingly able to say you pioneered, we know. Because things also got subtler over the years, which is a very hard thing to fight as well when things are subtle. So we had some blatant stuff, and we had subtle stuff too, once people got wind of don't do this, but you can make this comment because it's subtle, and no one said you can't say that. That's what some of these big controversies would be. It's like well what can you say then, if you can't say this, can you say this? And be like, god. But that's why there's a legal system because it ends up being black and white. No, in the workplace you cannot say this. You can't even apply it, actually. Then there's other ways people can do stuff if they don't like that. To me it was because there was this hero image, and the women made it like how can you be a hero if a mere woman can do this? 
PC:	 Oh my god, very good. 
PJ:	 And if you get a bigger city, the hero image would be even worse because it's a bigger city and there's a hierarchy among fire departments. That if you're in New York, they're the firefighters of firefighters. So the women there are women, but the women that we knew was like-- she was a lawyer and thought things through-- she was a lawyer before she became a firefighter. So she had to fight on some other levels because she was in the hero of heroes city. I mean it's just incredible. In some of the cities, the women-- what a lot of cities would do is only hire one woman at a time, so that's where Chief Durkin did a very different thing by hiring all of us. In many ways it was great because we had each other and we changed the world more because there were more. One on one takes forever. So he did that. But the hard thing was it was more threatening too. Because here we come. Usually when there's one woman, the guys totally make that woman adjust. Like there was a woman before us that had been on, I think in Ohio, and she breast fed in the fire station. Oh my god, you would have thought she-- and she was married. I mean it wasn't even like she was a lesbian. Those kind of things. I'm losing my train of thought a little bit. 
01:02:11
PC:	 How many years did you end up working for the fire department? 
PJ:	 18. 
PC: 	18. And why did you leave? 
PJ:	 Well I was in a relationship with somebody in a different city. Well, she was a firefighter in a different city. And I wanted a change. I was a lieutenant and it was pretty good. I had a good crew, I was pretty happy. I realized people actually kind of liked me and thought I did a good job, and I worked hard to do a good job. But I wasn't like-- I wanted to do other things with my life, too, so I had like an itch to do some other stuff. Since I was in this relationship, and one of us really needed to move to continue-- at least that's what she said. I could have been OK still doing distance. But anyway, I said I'd move. And that was a very big thing. Because I'd always kind of thought, I don't really think-- I mean the way I came into it wasn't like this is now what I'm going to do for 30 years. So that I even stayed that long, like there were days I'd be day by day. OK, I'll do this another week, but I really don't want to do this forever because I want to be appreciated, too, and feel good. I dreaded going to training. I felt sick every single day driving there to the training center. 
PC:	 And were you leading the training? 

PJ:	 This was when I was in training, being a student. But then years later when I was put in the training division as a captain, I would feel sick still going down that same road. It took me a while. After a while I wasn't. But that whole area where MITC is, that's where our training center was, I got that same feeling back of just tension and stress. And it'd be like OK, I'm in charge now with my cohorts. It's OK. But even just thinking about it, my shoulders go up and I can feel like don't make a mistake, you've got to perform. So it's just blah. It was so amazing to me, because the people in my training class that I taught with others-- I wasn't the only trainer is what I'm trying to say. But in other training classes as well, they had fun in their training class. They'd be like oh, it was so fun. And I was like there were moments of fun, but that was not fun. I mean I could have been fun because I love doing ladders and all that. That would be so fun, but to be evaluated and have people-- I mean we had people that would lean on our ladder so that you couldn't-- a technique with the ladder is when you're the person on the bottom, the butt person, you're holding it, you lean back because it lifts the weight off. We had guys that would lean on our training-- one of our training officers, lean forward, partly because he wasn't great at knowing what the best way to teach was, but also just to make it hard so that you couldn't hardly raise the ladder because he was leaning on it. That's the kind of stuff we'd tell each other, but there's a point where you had to muscle it, because you can't say lean back. He was the officer. So when people said-- I mean that was a great gift. Like my people that were in my training class that I taught, they said, we love this. And it was fun to teach things in a good way and say this is the safe thing to do and here's why we teach this like this, and here's why we need this particular knot. OK, these are the different chain saws, and this is how you run one, assuming nobody knows how. And the people that know, they just had to sit through it. That's the problem with teaching adults, that some people know a lot, and some people know zero. So it's not that easy to be-- sometimes it's really boring for some people. And not only that, but in the fire service there's a lot of stuff you have to go over and over and over because time goes by and you haven't done it, but you have to be up on it if you do need to do it. So it's kind of boring if you're somebody who remembers it or use a chain saw every day cutting up firewood. But this other person only does it on the job. Well, you got some differences. And that's only one thing and there's millions of things. So I don't know if that was even an answer to the question. 
01:06:25 
PC: 	No, it was. It was. So while you were a firefighter, did you have time to be politically involved in Madison? Were there things that you did that you recall? 
PJ:	 The most favorite thing was starting and being part of starting the organization GALVAnize, Gay and Lesbian Visibility Alliance. Well by then people knew I was a big dike. And it just seemed like the cool thing to do, and I had my free time-- firefighters have a good schedule with chunks of time off. For a year I was heavily involved organizing the first march in Madison. And that was really great, because Madison hadn't had one, and it's a progressive city that needed to have a march. And we even had at least one of the meetings in the fire station because the fire stations have areas for public meetings. They had to kind of find out if there was going to be any trouble around that, but no, it's for a public meeting and that's what we had. Of course, nobody even came in or anything. Like oh my god, these people are in there. There weren't even any flaming gay guys. They were just a group of people coming and having a meeting. So yeah, so that was really cool. But one of my coworkers came and picketed at that march. Ronnie Grier. 
PC:	 Ronnie Grier, uh-huh. 
PJ:	 And he had been somebody that I really liked in training, and so it was really sad that he came to picket against rights and pride for gays and lesbians and supporters. 
01:08:10
PC:	 How about the lesbian variety show? What was that like for you? 
PJ:	 That was-- 
PC:	 Did you ever perform in it? 
PJ:	 I did. Yes. I don't remember the year anymore, but I'd gone to it a number of times. That's kind of when I was starting to think I might-- I was involved with that person, this woman from another city, and I was kind of thinking I want to kind of explore my art side more. I mean I could do stuff on my time off. That's what people would always say, well why don't you just do it on your time off? Well even though we had this good schedule, on your time off you had to do all your regular stuff. OK, so we worked 24 hours-- I'll get back to the variety show-- but on your time off you had to do everything. Do your laundry, do your shopping, do your errands, do all your stuff in your day. So all of a sudden your day would be gone and then the next day you'd be at work. And if you were tired because you were up with calls, which people have a lot of calls, because primarily firefighters go on medical calls. That's like 98% of the fire calls. I don't know if that's still true, but probably. So then your day would be spent sleeping, or doing your stuff. And then even a regular thing like going back to school, it required a lot of finagling because you never had the same days off. So you had to get people to work for you. I did go back to school and I took physiology, anatomy, chemistry, different stuff, those women studies classes. Different things just because I'm interested in a lot of stuff, or I would take a class in pottery, this art stuff. So I just wanted to kind of explore that side, like performing. I was interested in dance, I was taking some classes, and I thought I'm going to perform in that show and do an interesting kind of-- I didn't know what I was going to do, but some kind of dance with a theme, and then it evolved into starting out looking like a guy, but ending up being a woman. That was just what I wanted to do, and then dance around with it to good music. I think it was a little better [INTERPOSING VOICES]. Sounds kind of bad. Probably was bad if I saw the video tape. I think they told me they really liked it. I remember it was like wow, I never thought I really enjoyed performing. That wasn't really one of my things is wanting to perform, especially when I took dance classes. People really, when you take a dance class, it's like really geared around performing usually. But I just like doing the dancing. I like learning how to do your feet and all the different stuff. And I didn't like performing. In fact, I realize now that what I didn't like was having any more pressure in my life. If something was pressurized, I shied away from it, except for going to school had a certain amount of pressure. But I just didn't want to be pressured, because I was pressured already. But the variety show just seemed friendly to me. And that it would be kind of fun to have a deadline and actually perform it. So I did that. And now I remember, I was in a couple other times doing country line dancing, which I wasn't like totally into country line dancing, but it was fun to do it with a group. A couple of firefighters did it too, the firewomen. And we'd practice and we'd try to figure out which days we all had in common off so we could have a really good thing. And that was really well received too. People wanted to have classes in it. We taught classes for a while in country line dancing. 
PC:	 And Terry-- 
PJ:	 Marsha and Terry continued teaching that at Apple Island. 
PC:	 Apple Island. 
PJ:	 Right. 
01:11:49 
PC:	 And did you attend events at Apple Island? 
PJ:	 I did. Yes. I got to do a lot of cool stuff. I even was on shirts and skin basketball. 
PC:	 Really? 
PJ:	 We had an event where we decided this isn't right that men get to go around without their shirts on and women have to wear their shirts. So we're going to start at Orton Park and half of us are going to take-- 
PC:	 Were you part of that? 
PJ:	 Yeah. Were you? 
PC:	 Uh-huh, but I heard about it. 
PJ:	 No. And so we did it. We played shirts and skins basketball there. Then we rode our bikes without our shirts on through town, through Picnic Point, out of this person's house that had a pool out wherever. And I'm telling you, I mean I was a little radical. People didn't do anything. I thought I might get arrested or something. So I had my shirt right next to me so I could put it on quick, or I don't know what I thought that was going to do. But no, they didn't-- nothing happened. People would just look and look away. They didn't know what to think or do. I forgot about that. Because that was one of my things. I was like that is so unfair. 
PC:	 Yes, it certainly is. 
PJ:	 And then at least they should wear their shirts then if we're going to have such a thing about that. So yup. I can't even believe I did that now when I think about it. Like god, that was pretty lucky. 
01:13:14
PC:	 Did you play sports? Were you part of sports teams in Madison? 
PJ:	 We didn't have sports so much for girls when I was growing up. In my high school we only had after school basketball-- GAA it was called, Girls Athletic Association. You just played with each other after school. Nobody taught you or anything. So it was awful. And we had tennis, track, and golf. 
PC:	 Golf? 
PJ:	 That sounds funny. Maybe bowling or something. I don't know, but I was only interested in track, but I was a cheerleader. That was what the jock girls did then. They might do the other things too, but I was really bad at tennis, so I didn't like that. So I did track and cheerleading for basketball and football four years of high school, and I loved cheerleading because we did major stuff. That was before boys were cheerleaders really. So we had mounting or we'd be at-- sound bad when I talk about lesbian stuff. But we had where we'd stand on each other's shoulders and stuff. 
PC:	 Yes, like they do in the college teams now. 
PJ:	 Right. And they do even crazier stuff. But we did simple stuff, but at the time we'd go to cheerleading camps and everything and learn all this great stuff where we'd be lifting each other and doing really fun stuff. I really liked my position because I was in between. Sometimes I was the one on the bottom where I'd be holding the person up on top or-- I have pictures of me doing stuff. Or I'd be the one on the top standing on their shoulders. So you had to learn how you hike the person up there. I could do it right now. I could do in two ways. I could either stand like this and have somebody climb up me and hold them up here. Or I could bounce them a certain way and get up there. But if I had to jump up on their shoulders I'd have a little-- my knees would be like oh, that's a little tough. Yeah, so that was the jock thing. So to answer the question, I didn't really play sports because we didn't really have anything to play. But when I was a pretty new lesbian, that's what everybody did. Play basketball and softball. So I learned as an adult, but I was not very good. I got better at basketball with practice, but I still just didn't have the instincts that you do when you're a kid. I struggled with it to not be kind of stiff and funny. And softball, I was either terrified or bored the whole time. So sometimes I thought I was like that in firefighting too, either terrified are bored. And it's a bad way to be really. Then I'd realize why am I doing this? Then I would get hurt playing softball, too. So that was good that I didn't do that. But it was fun to have kind of that camaraderie because I had done individual things more when I was young. 
01:16:03 
PC:	 How about the bar scene? Did you have anything to do with the bar scene? 
PJ:	 A little bit with it. Not too much. Like I said, there was [? Les ?] [? Estrada ?], but then it burned down. We even talked about that, because some of us inspected that building, because that's one of the firefighters' job is to go inspecting. But we didn't really do the big inspecting, we just did the kind of easier stuff. But that owner wasn't good. Wouldn't do the stuff they were supposed to do. So it was almost inevitable. What's the coincidence with that? [? Les ?] [? Estrada ?] burns down. Um-hmm. Yeah right. I don't know what it was ever ruled, arson or whatever. Same with when Hotel Washington. I went to that as well, and that was just sickening to see that one place-- We don't have much, you know. Then comments were made about it. I just heard of the comments. People didn't say much to me. But there was always kind of thing not only because it was gay and lesbian, but also didn't people, weren't there apartments there for lower income people or something. So that was kind of like eh, that place or whatever. We have to go on calls there a lot or whatever. so I wasn't totally involved because I never drank. I did a little in high school just to see, and a little in college just to-- that's what you do. But I never liked it. So then I just realized I don't even like drinking, I'm not drinking anymore. So I didn't. And I still don't. 
01:17:35 
PC:	 How about feminist things, like Take Back The Night and stuff like that? 
PJ:	 I would go to lots of stuff. Yeah. I would go to not everything, but I was pretty involved in stuff for a lot of years. And then I kind of eased back later, and there wasn't as much stuff. It was kind of like the younger women were doing that more, and I was more being a-- doing just my personal stuff. 
PC:	 Right. What about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival? Was that important in your life? 
PJ:	 It was. I loved that. I wish every woman would go to that, straight or lesbian or-- well no, transgender. Now I finally decided it's OK if transgender people have their own festival. But I just think it's great for a woman to go there, and see everything that's there, and just experience what a woman's community can be. I mean we used to-- going back to firefighting-- we would talk about that. Like what would it be like if it was a bunch of women? All women on the fire crew-- the officer, the driver, the people. We wanted to have one to show-- to have guys come in one at a time and be the one guy there that day. And we wouldn't have even been mean, like we had-- But just because it's weird to be-- And now there is a crew that's almost all women, the officer, the driver-- I met three of the crew, anyway. And some of the guys were, like they'd be kind of-- now, this is so many years later, 30-- kind of shaking in their boots a little bit. But then they'd be like-- the women were saying the guy was like this is kind of weird being the only guy, and they're like well we're being nice. What are you talking about? We're trying to actually make you feel comfortable and you still feel weird. So you can imagine. So yeah, and the days of the two weak links that two women were on a crew. I had this one crew where I was one of those two, supposed, two weak links, but there were also two guys, a Latino guy that was smaller and a white guy who was skinny, and there were a couple of average white males on there too. People heard about us all over. We were called the hand-picked 4B crew, because supposedly we were hand-picked to be together, a bunch of misfits or whatever. So when people were detailed to our crew, they wouldn't want to come if we needed a person for the day. They would be like no, we don't want to go. People didn't want to come to our crew. But then when they would come, we knew they had fun. Because we have so much fun on our crew. That was the first time I ever had fun was with that captain and that crew because he was fair. I got to drive the fire engine. Like these guys, they never let me drive. Same with Bev. You know how I told you I loved that equipment when I first took the tour, I hardly got to do that. I didn't get to be on that vehicle that much. And they didn't let women drive the trucks, the bigger ones that are even longer with the huge ladders on top. If we did get to drive, the truck's considered a big man vehicle. And the engines are the ones that carry the water and have hoses. And women sometimes could drive that, but usually not. But my captain, one day when the driver didn't go to get gas when he wanted to, he said, Jacobson, you're driving today. And from then on I was in the rotation. So that's how I was able then to be an officer leader because I had experience being a driver, because my captain did that. And he should have done it. Because I was, I'd go get gas if he wanted to go before the shift started. I wasn't going to argue like this guy. He was like, come on, I'm having my coffee. And I would be like, yeah, I'll clean it right now. That's what I would do. I would do whatever because I wanted to do a good job. I was getting paid for that. That's just how I did, and that's how a lot of us did. Not just regular, we did double. We wanted it to be really good so that people wouldn't find something wrong. 
01:21:51 
PC:	 Was it stressful to have to do that? 
PJ:	 Yes. And that's one reason, I was telling you before, I didn't finish, that I kept my book for notes because I couldn't always remember it. And then maybe late-- and I never wanted to do something-- I mean what if you actually did do something wrong. Just lived in fear, and I'd be laying in bed thinking oh my god, what if this happened? What about that? All the way along once I was a driver, I'd think what if I had a call where I had-- that one picture downstairs where I have me with hoses and-- I was pumping into all these other things. I was the engine operator, and I had to know what was going here and what was going there. That was my first time was on State Street that I had to know what-- like that was kind of one of those things I laid in bed worrying about. How am I going to do all that? Somebody came by and said, because I had all this stuff in my head about numbers and pump operation and this one should have 144 and this one should have that. Somebody said you can see up there. You can also just see if it's a good stream. One of them anyway. Some of them you can't see because the hose is going away. All you know is this gauge here. And a person has to have water, and you have to do it right or they can't control it, so there's a lot of pressure. So here the real thing happened, but it was OK because I had trained and I practiced and I kind of pictured what different things could happen. So it was stressful. But another time I was on the squad, it was called, and it was that vehicle that carried all that cool auto extrication equipment. But we were on it by ourselves. One person having to find your way at night somewhere around the whole city if you got a call. 
PC:	 All by yourself? 
PJ:	 Yeah. And so later it changed. But one night I got a call. I was the one the squad, because I was at the downtown station, and I got a call to go to such and such. I knew I was on the squad, so I go down and I look at a map first, and I'm like OK, it's kind of here and I think there. All right. And I have books, because at the time there's not navigation or anything, so I have books there too. But you don't get to stop on the side of the road and look at your book or whatever. I got close and I was really mixed up. I thought this isn't it, it's Cottage Grove Road. I'm not familiar with that area. I'm not sure I'm there. I think I tried to look in the book just for a second, but I sort of pulled over, and there was no traffic. And I was just in a panic because what I didn't want to do, which is what I should have done, was tell dispatch I didn't know where I was going, and to tell them. But I didn't want to tell them because I was then a failure. And I was letting everybody down and they were going to talk about me, and on and on. I keep hitting that, so that's not good. So I don't even remember exactly what happened. But I took too long to get there. Nothing bad happened because of that particular thing, like whatever had happened happened. It didn't matter, which was lucky because what if they needed the jaws, because I think that's when the jaws was still on there. But anyway, by the next morning everybody knew that I got lost in the squad. And the whole fire department, they had to call in the middle of the night somehow to tell-- or get calls and talk to people or whatever, and it spread all around. Almost all of us have something that happened like that because you're going to make a mistake at some point. 
PC:	 When you made a mistake, the entire fire department knew about it. 
PJ:	 Not just me, but even the other women. Like once Bev had a little thing with the fire engine where she went over a curb or clipped something a little bit, which happened all the time to guys. I mean they're really weird to drive at first. And hopefully you try not to hit stuff, but people also help you and say things. And with us, they just were like, there you go. Nobody was running out to tell me how to get there necessarily. Or my buddy-- whatever. It could have been different I think, and I could have felt comfortable to say I don't know where I am. I'm not that good at this particular thing. I'm easy to get lost and I don't know that area or whatever. But I would just study like crazy hoping I knew everything, and I didn't. So I got lost. And it got talked about for a long time. But eventually the rule changed because it wasn't right. Two people should be on there. One to navigate and the other to get there. And there's a lot of work to do. One person knowing all that equipment. I mean that equipment's interesting, but there were millions of things to do and hook up to power. When I was on that squad, I would spend hours going over all the equipment, making sure it was perfect, running, I remembered how to use it. Yeah, stressful. Yeah. Especially because, I'm handy, but it's not like I love knowing how to do a hydraulic whatever. I'm actually a little scared of batteries and car stuff. That's not my thing. So I would sometimes be like OK, I'm a firefighter, but I hope that doesn't blow up. And it probably isn't even a thing that would blow up, but that's just in my nature to kind of be like a little cringey about it, especially when I didn't really get to admit it early on. Marsha would explain a lot of stuff to me and she'd say OK, this is this, and here this was connected, and so you don't have to worry. OK. Well she had a double dose. She had the firefighter training and she was a farm kid. And farm kids had a good amount of exposure to equipment, and so that was cool. 
01:27:34 
PC:	 Is there anything else thinking back on your time in Madison? Is there anything else that you want to talk about, or that you remember? 
PJ:	 There's probably a lot, but that's a lot already. 
PC:	 Yes. 
PJ:	 I used to love riding my bike to the fire station. I just loved it. And it's the beauty of Madison, and also that the firefighters union over time got the schedule to start at 7:00 in the morning, so it's before there's traffic. So I'd be riding my bike and there'd be a sunrise by the lake. I'd get to the fire station and the first thing you do is check your gear out, and I would be so happy just because I'd just ridden my bike. Like what a way to start your day. And then in the morning when I was kind of tired or whatever the next day, I'd be riding my bike home, but it just was a good transition. And I liked being-- I liked in a way that I had such an unusual situation with the people that I came on the job with because it's forever a special bond with them. And I can kind of get pulled back sometimes into some of the negativity, but I also even have made peace with some of the guys that I didn't even either like or even know or even care that much for in a general way. Either I've worked with them over the years or I'd talk to them at times. But the friends I made, the really close women, are my lesbian sisters. And even the women that weren't the lesbians, but the feminists, too, were just great. They'll always be-- I would just do anything for them. They're amazing people, and I'm so honored to know those people still. And also to have had such a cool job. It was a cool thing to be able to say I'm a firefighter. And even I can still say it because I did it, and it's a neat thing. So even though I didn't stay for all that time, I had a better and better time the longer I was there. And it's given me a lot. It gives me the life I lead even now, just because there's a pension involved. All that experience with all those people. And it was a diverse group. Our group was diverse, which wasn't always true in the circles I ran in. And what I'd realized, they'd always say how it's this brotherhood and it's a family, and I'd feel like eh, I don't really feel part of the family unless it's a very dysfunctional part. But even now, going back to this reunion that I did for 30 years, it is a family. And there are some things that are dysfunctional that you could work on. But also there's really special ties there. And even though I haven't been there for a number of years, I'm still part of it. I'm still part of the stories, they're still part of my stories, my thoughts, and it's great. It's really cool. It does feel family-like that way. 
PC:	 What a wonderful legacy. 
PJ:	 Thank you so much for asking, Pat. 
PC: 	Thanks, Pam. 
PJ:	 It's been great.