Sarah Callan is a new volunteer firefighter. Although she’s only 31, she has already lived a lot of life, starting with converting to Islam at 16, then marrying a man in a remote part in Pakistan for seven years, then leaving Islam and returning to Waldoboro. She speaks Pashto, Urdu and knows Arabic. She’s worked on lobster boats, at the Maine State Prison’s Commissary, at Quarry Hill as a nurse’s aide, and is now a planning tech at Bath Iron Works. Sarah has two sons, 9 and 13, and lives in Waldoboro.
One of my biggest fears is not living up to my potential, not having a chance to make a difference in the world. I was in a car accident this past December. I almost died. It made me
realize that life is finite. It’s short.
So, after the accident I started wondering what I could do to help others. One of my co-workers at BIW used to talk about his time as a volunteer for the Waterville Fire Department. His face always lit up. He was so proud of his work there.
But I had this hesitation, like I’d had about BIW, about being in a male-dominated workplace. And then I thought, it doesn’t matter! I’m going to help people. So I went, I applied and now I’m in basic training. I’ve just been learning the ropes.
But I’ve been out already on a real job. It was to to clean up after a car accident with three cars. There was wreckage everywhere. I found it hard because it wasn’t long after my own accident. I did a lot of thinking as I was picking up the broken mirrors, people’s cassettes, antennas. It was very humbling. In the grand scheme of things, we are so small and insignificant. And yet, each life has meaning. And there I was, sweeping and bagging things and hoping everyone was okay. It was like my time at Quarry Hill, dealing with people at the worst time in their lives, when they’d lost everything and their world was ending. Those days weren’t easy. It was always hard to bring myself back to the present. But knowing I could help, that was comforting — it’s more tolerable than being surrounded by chaos.
I’m not the only female in the Fire Department – there are two of us (a third is leaving to go to another department) and about 10 or 15 men. That might have made me nervous. But I’ve come a long way. When I first started at BIW, I was timid. Back then my hair was long, down to my butt, and men would come up from behind and stroke my braid. I didn’t like that, so I cut off all my hair. (Sarah’s hair is about an inch long now.) I told myself, nobody’s going to touch me without my consent. It was so empowering. I took my body back. I stood up for myself. And when you do that, people respect you. They don’t try to mess with you.
So, I wasn’t too worried if I’d fit in at the Fire Department. It turned out to be exactly atmosphere I was looking for, a place where the guys joke around, and we have fun together. We’re a team. Even doing something as small as folding up the hoses and putting them in the truck. You’d think it’d be easy, but those hoses are 50 feet long and heavy. It takes a conga line of us to put them away.
Maybe I got some of this resilience from my dad Millard Creamer. While my mom would disappear sometimes for weeks, or be in a good mood and then poof, in a bad mood, my dad was always there for me, the one constant where I found security and safety.
I grew up on his boat. Watching him work, I saw how you have to keep working at things, keep going, and let nothing stop you. I carry that into every job I’ve ever had. Back then, it was measuring lobsters, banding them, and bagging bait. You get used to smelling like fish all the time. But you learn that when you get dirty, you can wash.
I love Waldoboro. Sure, it would be great to have art galleries downtown and restaurants serving food from around the world, like the old kabob place. It would be fantastic to have a playground for kids with nice equipment and not something that’s been there since I was a child and falling apart. Maybe when the economy is better, it will happen.
But it’s the peace here that I love. Sure, home was rough with a bi-polar mom and a schizophrenic brother who could be violent. But I could always go off and find a quiet place. When we were little, me and my sister would grab old bedsheets and a box of Life cereal – it had to be Life and no other – and we’d climb up the tallest trees in our backyard. We’d tie the sheets to branches, lean back in our hammocks, read Women’s Life magazines and talk about the insanity of our lives. It was a crazy thing to do. But that’s what I think of when I think of Waldoboro – just hanging from a tree and not a care in the world.
And I think about Dot Sprague. She’s passed now, but I used to go with my dad to deliver crabmeat because she was in her eighties. She’d always crack a joke, and later, when I’d drive, I’d see Dot on her hands and knees in her garden, at 90 years old. She used a bedpan from one of her hospital stays to hold the garden tools. Now that is something I would do. It made me laugh. She was so kind and welcoming and very independent. She’s the kind of person I aspire to.
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