Retired Lynn firefighters cover hot topics

They don?t have a name for their group, and they don?t pay dues, but the men who meet for breakfast every month share a decades-old bond forged by fire and sealed with friendship.The Lynn Fire Department retirees converge on the Highland Avenue International House of Pancakes and laugh and joke about the fires they fought and the occasional fights they got into inside Lynn firehouses.?These are the guys who really loved the job,” said retired provisional District Chief Lawrence Godbout.Godbout is one of almost 30 IHOP regulars who meet for breakfast on the last Friday of every month. The group includes Donald Beliveau, who retired in 1980 and will turn 90 in May. Retired Deputy Fire Chief William Conway is a regular attendee. Soon after leaving the department in 1999, Conway ran into the late Edward Vickers, a fellow retired firefighter, and the pair started talking.?He said, ?Let?s get together for coffee.? Our first breakfast had six guys show up,” Conway said.The Friday get-togethers delight IHOP servers Annie Pace and Fabiane Dellorto, who always make sure they take the firefighters? pancake and coffee orders.?They?re awesome – their personalities make me feel right at home,” Pace said.No one is off limits for friendly kidding when the group gets together. Godbout gets teased for ordering a morning lunch, and retiree Donald Sullivan quickly makes fun of Martin Robichaud as the firefighters pass around a get-well card they plan to send him.?Just call him ?rubber shoes,?” Sullivan said.When William Edwards visited a fellow firefighter retiree in the hospital, he had no difficulty explaining why he should be allowed into the intensive care ward to visit his friend.?I shared the same bed with him for years,” he told a surprised nurse.The men who gather at the IHOP spent years living in two families – the biological one and the professional one inside a firehouse spent with firefighters working two days and two nights a week.?It?s like living with eight brothers,” said 2011 retiree Marc Ducharme.Firehouses see their share of differences and disagreements, but retiree Jack Gallagher said a fire or other emergency turns firefighters into a team of people completely dependent on each other.?You beat the devil on his own ground and come back and talk about it. It creates a bond,” Gallagher said.Beliveau said a firehouse felt like a comfortable place after spending almost three years in the Navy. He is not the oldest retiree who attends the IHOP gatherings: George Mancinelli, 93, is known as “cutie” to Pace and Dellorto.The retirees talk about the fires they fought, but they also talk about grandchildren, vacations, health problems and friends, such as Vickers, who no longer join the breakfast crew.?We talk about a little of everything,” said retired Capt. John Barry Jr.Fellow Capt. Alan Downey retired in 2003 and drives from New Hampshire to attend IHOP Fridays. He said the alternative to meeting firehouse comrades over eggs, coffee and pancakes is seeing them at wakes and memorials.Conway is the group?s unofficial cashier who computes the bill for each Friday?s breakfast and divides up how much is owed by everyone. He recalled how the late Francis Smith?s children came to the IHOP after Smith died and offered to buy their father?s fellow firefighters breakfast as a gesture of appreciation for their friendship.?We didn?t let them pay,” said Conway.