The Local Beat »

Gary R. Ryman’s three-decade career as a firefighter may have given him pride and a wealth of knowledge to pass on to his son, but it also earned him a lot of stories.

The second of three generations of firefighters, the 50-year-old Scott Twp. resident spent over 30 years risking life and limb in several states, including a run as chief of the Scott Twp. Hose Company, and has been employed as a fire protection engineer for over 25 years. Now in the “twilight” of his career as firefighter, Ryman spent about four years chronicling his family’s tales in the Fire Men: Stories from Three Generations of a Firefighting Family, released in April 2011.

“I wanted to write down some of the stories, some of my stories and some of the stories from my father, essentially just to capture them. I had no real reason, and I thought maybe it would be something down the road that my kids and maybe their kids would ultimately be interested in. So I kept writing down the individual stories, and when I had a little over 100 pages and a lot more stories yet to tell, it started to dawn on me that maybe this was really just a book trying to get out,” Ryman explained.

“I was exposed to (firefighting) as I was growing up. It was something that I always wanted to do, enjoyed immensely once I was able to get involved with it, and something that I just continued to do ever since.”

With a bachelor’s degree in Fire Science from the University of Maryland, he spent his early career in upstate New York learning from his fire chief father, later battled flames in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and presently mentors his son in the “family business.”

“Every area can have unique challenges. I think, for example, in the area that I was in when I went to school in Maryland, we had a lot more multiple residencies – in other words, garden apartment buildings, townhouses, high-rise apartment buildings, and the like. That can be contrasted with Scott Township, where one of the major issues that we have to deal with is water because of lack of fire hydrants,” Ryman noted.

“Friends of mine who are in the fire service have read it and they liked it because it made them remember their own experiences and their own stories, and it brought back things for them. I’ve had people read it without fire service experience and what they liked about it was essentially being able to learn what we really do and some of the things that we really see that they had no earthly idea about.”

Despite his accomplishments, he admitted that he didn’t believe his book was going to be published until he wrote his name on the contract after several changes in agents, editors, and publishers, finally publishing with Tribute Books in Archbald.

“There were a lot of stories that aren’t in the book that I wrote. I just tried to pick the ones that I thought would help to paint the overall picture. Obviously, some are hopefully amusing, some are tragic, and some are kind of in between. That was also part of it, trying to get a balance or a mix. It wasn’t designed, obviously, to be a complete humor book, but on the other side of the coin, I don’t think anybody would want to sit down and read a book that was just filled with accident and trauma after accident and trauma,” he recalled about the writing process.

“I think anybody in the fire service that experiences any kind of serious incident, particularly those involving children or neighbors or people they know or anything like that, is affected by it in one way or another. I think that to a certain degree it, and I talked about this in the book a little bit, hardens you to certain things, and on the other side of the coin, it makes you want to avoid certain things. For example, you have to work through these incidents and you have to remain focuses on them in order to do the job, but because of doing all this, I guess, I don’t find movies or TV shows where the boy’s dog gets shot entertaining. Sad things like that I just avoid because I’ve seen enough real world tragedy that I really don’t go looking for it on TV for entertainment.”

The finished product, however, has a happy ending.

“My son had not that long before turned 18, which meant he was of age to be able to ‘go inside,’ as we put it – go into the building. You don’t know when that first time is ever going to come as far as a real situation, and I didn’t know if I would be around when that happened, as far as being on that particular incident with him,” he continued.

“So when it turned out that I was and actually got to be on the line with him his first time inside, that was, to me, almost like a fairytale way of being able to end the book. But it really did happen!”

While he has done several signings, the fourth free Writers Showcase at New Visions Studio and Gallery on Saturday, May 12 will mark the first time that the author will read excerpts from his book aloud to a live audience, and Ryman continues to tread “entirely different” territory as he pursues a master’s degree in American History, researches his thesis, and begins work on a fiction novel about his soon-to-be former profession.

“I think it’ll be fun. I hope it gets a good reaction,” Ryman said of the reading.

“All I can really bring is just my stories, and I hope that people find them interesting.”

The Local Beat »

Even if you think you know a lot about local history, you may end up bested by a high school student.

Valley View and Riverside High School students began meeting in February to search the achieves of the Lackawanna Historical Society to craft questions for the society’s third annual “You Live Here You Should Know This!” local history game show on May 11 and 12 from 6-9 p.m. at the Scranton Cultural Center’s Shopland Hall. Proceeds benefit the Historical Society.

WNEP television personality Ryan Leckey will be hosting the event Friday and Entercom Communications’ Tony Bartocci will cover Saturday. Teams of four will answer questions in five categories – land, industry, people, recreation, and a miscellaneous category that will include photo questions – in a “Family Feud”-style format.

2009 champions Catherine Cullen, Dominick Keating, and former Scranton Mayor David Wenzel, along with 2010 champion Margo Azzarelli, will return as competitors while former news personality David DeCosmo, actor and “Behold! Scranton” creator Conor McGuigan, and State Senator John Blake will join the show, which will again be broadcast on Electric City Television.

While they may be the public face of the show, Lackawanna Historical Society Director Mary Ann Moran-Savakinus was quick to give credit to the students behind the scenes.

“They have to do a lot of research. It’s time-consuming. They do get very involved in and they know things about towns in Lackawanna County that I never knew about. And they have fun while they’re doing it, so it’s a win-win for everybody,” Moran-Savakinus explained.

“The Historical Society wins because we get this great entertaining program, plus we get to work with young people and hopefully instill a value in their local history interest while they’re young so they’ll continue that as they get older. And then they win because they get to learn in an entertaining way and really create something brand, new, I think, so it’s fun.”

Shawn P. Murphy, fourth grade teacher and public relations coordinator at Riverside Elementary West School, served as advisor to the Riverside students and helped select those who would be involved.

“I look back at students that I’m familiar with that I know are interested in this kind of stuff and are good students. They have leadership skills and they’re reliable. Some of them I have taught, and some of them I just know from around the school district,” Murphy said.

“It’s kind of like enjoying the fruits of the labor because some of the kids that participate in it were either in my class play, which is a local Taylor history play, or did things on an elementary level. It’s nice to see them all grown up and basically reaching the next level of all this kind of stuff, which is research.”

Students often learn national and world history throughout their academic careers, but Murphy believes it is just as important for students to understand their own local roots as well.

“If can learn about your own area where you’re from, I think then you can make that connection to the rest of the country and world…It’s one of many programs that our school district is involved where the students can go out into the community and learn, and not just learn, but also contribute to the community. We’re taking something, we’re learning from these resources, and we’re also leaving something behind,” Murphy said.

“We hope they take away an interest in local history, first and foremost. We hope they learn about their own local history as they’re doing it, and we hope that they see that it can be fun to get involved in a local organization,” Moran-Savakinus added.

The students and the contestants, they noted, won’t be the only ones learning something, as the audience often remarks about what they took away from previous shows. Responding directly to questionnaires filled out by previous audience members, the show has developed and become increasingly diverse in its knowledge base over the last three years.

“Maybe there wasn’t a Gouldsboro question or maybe there wasn’t a Madisonville question – well, there will be this year,” Murphy pointed out.

“All of the students had about five municipalities to cover and they had so many questions for each municipality, so we feel it’s more well-balanced across the county this year…The audience members are going to learn lots when they’re there. That’s a great thing.”

Murphy admitted that he learned much about the area right along with the students, particularly about Luna Park, which suffered a fire in 1916 that led to its closure.

“Luna Park seemed so ahead of our time – the different rides that they had there, the ornate look to the park…It’s amazing when drive down Interstate 81 and you’re looking across and you can see Nay Aug Park and you’re thinking, ‘Wow, I’m driving through what used to be Luna Park.’ It blows my mind, actually,” he said.

“Another neat thing is the Gertrude Hawk (Chocolates) story. I don’t want to give too much information because we’ll be giving answers to our questions!”

While we live in a “fast-paced world,’ he continued, he feels that all residents should take a moment to recognize how we arrived at where we are today.

“You’re in a car and you’re driving around and you just don’t pay attention to anything along the way. I think this opens up their minds to what the area used to be like and maybe gets them thinking, ‘What can it be like in the future?’” Murphy said.

“It’s always good to know where you come from. It’s nice to get anyone, especially out youth, to appreciate the past.”