Middletown’s Annual Firefighter’s Parade

Every Autumn Middletown comes together to thank our bravest heroes.   It’s touching that the Middletown Fire Parade still marches through the town with shiny trucks, dress uniforms, and honored members.  Grand Marshall, John Horan, retired Commissioner of Fire Services for Orange County leads the parade.

Every year I get the same nostalgia as the pipers serenade the crowds with their distinct song, but my true delight appears when the Marching Middies round the bend.  No band can compete with the Middies not here not on our own turf.  Sure I enjoy the Dixieland and the Boy Scouts of America Bands, but I have pure love for the Middies from Middletown High School.

Every year my kids sit waiting stretching their necks out as far from the curb to see past the heads in front of them to get a glimpse of the next shiny apparatus.  Then it happens you hear the beat, you hear the crowd, the Middies are coming and boy do their eyes light up.

Its surreal to me that in a few years my kids will be old enough to join the Middies I remember being a kid and the thrill of watching my older cousin’s march.  They had awesome 80’s uniforms with white cowboy boots with pom-poms, big loose swinging skirts and crisp clean cowboy hats.  I remember watching them march through the Orange County Fair twirling flags in awe thinking nothing could ever be cooler than that.

In Middletown our Fire Department has volunteer firefighters and paid professional drivers most other local communities are all volunteers, dedicated loyal heroes who are the first responders to most emergencies.

On October 5, 2000 my 10 day old infant went into cardiac arrest at home.  Although we called for an ambulance it was the Fire Department that arrived first on the scene.  I happy to tell you that my daughter recovered fully from that event, but without the availability of these great service members I don’t know if I would  be able to say that.

It’s fitting to me that this parade happens here in Middletown every October, standing there clapping for the many companies who travel far to participate in this great day I’m hoping that my presence and the presence of all the community members supporting them lets them know how amazing they are.

This was the 154th Middletown Fire Department Parade.   Tom Amodio, Fire Chief.     Grand Marshal:  John Horan –Retired Deputy Commissioner of Fire Services for Orange County.     Held October 5, 2013.

Post and Pictures by

Jennifer Brenner

Big Believer in My City