For lunch Sunday, I went to an Indian Taco fundraiser for the Hulen Volunteer Fire Department on Rt. 65. The building buzzed with conversation. Just the aroma of homemade tacos being deep-fried just outside the door, made my mouth water. A lady sat and collected donations for the meals. Hulen's fire-chief dipped burger meat, and another lady added beans in an assembly line. We got to pile on the fixin's. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the ladies rolling out the doughballs to make the tacos. Talk about volunteers. They must have rolled and patted over 200 tacos. Aren't volunteers great?
Our entire family attended. It was tough keeping 3-year-old Kinsey's fingers off the baked-goods for auction as we waited in a long line to get our tacos. An array of goodies lined two tables along the wall of the Methodist fellowship hall where the lunch was held. Kinsey had to touch the orange ribbon tied to a stack of chocolate-chip cookies. Just before I got my taco, we passed the desserts that were cut-up for eating. I got lucky. I grabbed the second-to-the-last piece of homemade 3-layer Italian-cream cake. Dee-licious! Worth every dollar of my donation.
Senator Don Barrington and his lovely wife, Jennifer were there. So was Rep. Ann Coody. They praised the volunteers for all they are doing in Oklahoma. This year, Oklahoma awarded volunteer departments five-thousand dollars each. It seems our state's budget cuts may hurt this support in coming months. (All the more reason to support fundraisers, huh?) I was surprised to learn that only 39 departments have paid firemen in the entire state. The other 389 are all volunteer.
My dad was a volunteer fireman for decades; I have a soft spot in my heart for them. My grandson volunteers at Hulen. He absolutely loves the idea of helping the community this way. But ya know? I also take tremendous pride in the ladies who support these fellas. I thought about bidding on some of those cakes they'd made, until the bidding began and a pumpkin roll cake sold for fifty dollars. Then a beautiful Hummingbird Cake sold for eighty-dollars. Those desserts were on fire! Good thing the auction was close to the fire-house, don't ya think?
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