Born
for a Firetruck
Jack
Clarke may have been a New York City police officer, but from
the very beginning his youngest son, Michael, had this affinity
for firefighting. "When he was young, he just loved to sit in
the engines at the fire house," said Michael Clarke's father,
who remembers giving his son that bright red firetruck he pedaled
around in. And so, even though he became a top student at Wagner
College and a star on the hockey team, it was not a surprise to
his father when Michael Clarke joined the Fire Department three
years ago. Firefighter Clarke, 27, was delighted several months
ago to be transferred from Staten Island to Engine 8 and Ladder
2 on East 51st Street in Manhattan, "because there was much more
action in Manhattan," his father said. Sept. 11 was a scheduled
day off; Firefighter Clarke went to work because he had switched
days with another firefighter. Now, at Wagner College, they have
retired Michael Clarke's hockey number — 34. His father misses
those regular phone calls from him, the ones that came to mean
so much more after Jack Clarke's wife, Eileen, died three years
ago. "He'd call every day," the father recalls. "And he'd say,
'Hi, Pop. How you doing?' " Profile published in THE NEW YORK
TIMES on December 8, 2001.
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