Editors Note: The following is a personal account of Glenn Haskin’s life, written by Haskin himself before his passing on March 19. In 2014, The North Kitsap Herald also published a story about the celebration of Haskin’s 90th birthday, that story can be found at KitsapDailyNews.com.

My name is Glen Haskin, I am currently 93 years old and I have lived in Poulsbo all my life. Technically, though, I wasn’t born here, as my birth certificate states that I was born “Four miles west of Poulsbo,” or where Bangor is located now. I am the oldest living Poulsbo Volunteer Fireman with 35 years of service from 1946 to 1981, but my story starts well before that.

I was born Aug. 13, 1924. My mother, (maiden name of Oen) was 100 percent Norwegian. She and my father ran Len’s Cafe on what is now F rant Street. I attended elementary and high school in Poulsbo. In 1942, during my senior year in high school there was a war going on. Two buddies and I decided to take a trip to Paine Field in Everett one day and enlist in the Army Air Corp. I was accepted, but they instructed me to return home and finish high school.

In the summer of 1943, I boarded a bus just outside of the family restaurant and headed to Seattle. From there, I travelled by train to Amarillo, Texas where I went through initial training. Upon completion I was sent to southern California and Tucson, Ariz. where I learned to fly the Boeing PT-13 and PT-17 Stearmans. Later I went to Luke Field in Phoenix to fly the North American AT-6.

At another base in Lincoln, Neb. we were issued all our squadron gear and told we were headed to England to fly the infamous P-51 Mustang fighter. Our orders were changed at the last minute and instead we went to Waycross, Ga. where we finally got to fly the P-51 and that is where I earned my wings. Before I could be sent overseas, the war ended and I was discharged in 1945. My parents drove across country to Georgia, stayed an extra week while I travelled to Tampa, Fla. to be officially discharged, and then all three of us drove home to Poulsbo. That’s a lot of traveling in two years for a 19-year-old Norwegian kid from a small town in the northwest!

Back in Poulsbo, I worked at, and lived above, my parents restaurant in town. In the summer of 1946, there was a fire convention in Bremerton and the Poulsbo Fire Dept. showed up in force. They had an old, rickety fire engine with twisted ladders and wood buckets hanging off the sides for use in parades. If three men stood on the back, the front wheels would lift off the ground. It also had to be towed up hills because when on a hill the gas tank was lower than the engine and it would stop running. On the back was a 55 gallon drum full of water, for which the only purpose was to spray bystanders along a parade route.

One evening, to announce their arrival in Bremerton, the volunteers decided to light a fire with a stack of old pallets in the middle of 6th Avenue across from the Elks Lodge. With only 55 gallons of water on board and a single hand pump to disperse it, the fire quickly raged out of control. The Elks came out to watch and soon after the Bremerton fire siren sounded. The Bremerton Fire Department was summoned to come put it out and four of the Poulsbo volunteers were immediately thrown in jail. All were released within an hour because the “mad Norwegians” made such a racket in their cell that the city thought it was best to just send them home. The rumors that they had been drinking remain unproven. The truck however, was allowed to stay in Bremerton for all three days and ran in several of the parades. With such fine examples, I decided to join the Poulsbo Volunteer Fire Department that same summer and would stay until 1981! Five of those years I served as Fire Marshall and another six as Fire Commissioner.

Of course, volunteers received no pay. After meetings we would put our own money into a volunteer retirement system. Even the Fire Chief was a volunteer at first, but this eventually became a paid position. After a year or two, an official pension fund was started and the city would donate to it every time volunteers responded to a call. After 35 years, my pension amounts to about $200 per month.

Fire calls were sounded by a siren mounted to a pole at the intersection of Front Street and Jensen Way, where the Nilsen’s Appliance store used to be. City hall and the fire department shared the same building (demolished in 2016) and the call operator would push the button to sound the alarm from there. At the sound of the alarm, all volunteers within range would drop everything and run to the station. We had 15-20 volunteers at any given time and we came from all walks of life. It was common to see Ole Berg (an auto repairman), Martin Anderson (a realtor), and Rudie Iversen (a butcher, in his bloody white coat) all running down the street when the siren rang. As soon as enough volunteers showed up to man a truck, off it went as the remaining volunteers piled into other vehicles and followed behind. When the siren went off at night, I was out of bed and rushing to the fire hall. On winter nights I put jeans on over my PJ’s to keep warm.

At first we had an old Dodge truck with a water tank on the back, but the city, with help from the fire district, soon bought a “modern” 1941 Ford fire engine from a company in Ohio. It was volunteer firemen who traveled back east to drove it home to Poulsbo.

We didn’t have a place to meet in old city hall so we sat on the running boards of the fire truck for our weekly meetings. The library, also part of city hall, had a small room behind the truck stalls and when the library eventually moved to its new location (now Valholl Brewing), we held our weekly meetings and drills there. In this new space, the meetings often allowed for a beer from the fridge and might even include a game of poker. In appreciation for the room, the volunteer firemen hung all the drywall, built shelves and finished the new library building before helping them move all the books into their new home. For the record, once the Fire Chief became a paid position, the rules changed and the beer and poker days were over. In my opinion, the best Fire Chief I ever served under was Jim Shields.

We used a hose tower to hang the wet hose after a call or training because the hose would mold if you just left it wet. Today’s hoses are made of a much better material, but after every use we would first hang the hose in the tower to dry, wash up and then go back to our work. I was a driver initially and drove the tanker too. The tanker had no interior baffles so the water just sloshed around in back making every turn and stop an adventure. We rotated drivers so that each volunteer would learn how to use and locate all the equipment on the truck. Volunteers could also attend a fire training school in North Bend if they wanted. At first, we didn’t have good boots and it took some time to get boots with steel insoles. Until then, if you stepped on a nail it would go right through and into your foot!

Living in a small town, we were lucky that most days were quiet and most fires were only chimney fires that our single truck could handle. We did have several house fires too and Clarence Paulson, through the public works department helped to install fire hydrants within 500 feet of each home. Because of that effort, for a time Poulsbo had the best home insurance and the best water rating among small towns.

One of the worst fires we had was in 1957 when the paint store on Main Street (Front) caught fire. It was early evening and our chief and some other officers were out for dinner in Bremerton. The building was just north of Len’s Cafe with the paint store on the first floor and apartments on the second floor. The paint cans were exploding inside of the store and it got so hot that the roof would raise up a good six inches before settling back down.

Main street was closed as fire trucks and hoses were all over the street and there was paint everywhere. Before the fire, I saw a freight truck unload a 50 gallon barrel of paint thinner and put it in the back storeroom. When the Chief and officers were back on duty, they put me in the back of the store with a 1-1/2” hose. My job was to keep the paint thinner cool so it wouldn’t explode! After the fire, the building was condemned, but we did save both buildings on either side. One was a barber shop and the other was my parent’s restaurant, Len’s Cafe.

Another fire involved a house up in the Lincoln area. Leif Ness and I were on the roof of the building when the chief asked me to get off the roof and go to the other end of the house. As I walked across,.I slipped and started sliding off the roof. I yelled to Leif to hang on to his hose as I was going to grab it on the way by. He did and it held, which kept me from going over the side. Firefighting is a dangerous job for many reasons, falling off of buildings being just one of them. Another dangerous night, we responded to a fire in Keyport only to be greeted by the sound of loud pops as several boxes of ammunition stored under a bed were going off like firecrackers!

Volunteers know how to celebrate also. Each Christmas season we were responsible for decorating the downtown streets with cedar greens, lights, and a wreath in the middle. We would use ladders to hang them across the street from pole to pole and the lights were simply plugged into whichever store was closest.

Once a year, we would sponsor a Fireman’s Ball. It was held at the high school and visiting firemen were invited to come to the dance. Being good hosts, drinks were free for any visiting fireman. To make this possible we would save all our empty McNaughtons whiskey bottles and fill them with a cheaper whiskey just for the dance. Norwegians can be very frugal. One year for the ball, Rudy Iverson cut down a large weeping willow from his yard to use as a decoration in the gymnasium. Upon arrival, it wouldn’t fit in the door, so it was cut in half after which it would no longer stand up. Eventually, the solution was to nail it directly to the gym floor and tie it to the rafters with by rope, which we did. Norwegians can also be ingenious.

While I was involved in the Poulsbo Volunteer Fire Department for 35 years, my primary jobs varied. I have worked for my parents at Len’s Cafe. I worked as a sweeper and in the parts dept. at the Ford Garage. The owner was George Knudsen, and if I was to marry his daughter, I needed a real job! After hours I became the on call driver of the garage wrecker. I co-owned a business for several years installing septic tanks and drain fields. I spent five years working for Fred Hill Materials, and 17+ years with the Kitsap County Maintenance Dept. I have worked in construction and remodeling. Most of those business are no longer around. I still am. I have been a member of the Poulsbo Masons for 72 years, and at one time was Master of the Lodge. I have also been a member of the Poulsbo chapter of the Sons of Norway since 1968.

My name is Glenn Haskin and I am a volunteer.