Hook & Ladder’s Heavy Equipment Display Encourages Tots And Others To Touch

By Andrew Gorosko

Tiny tots and others last Sunday had an opportunity to get close views of heavy equipment at the Newtown Hook & Ladder Volunteer Fire Company’s 2nd Annual Touch-A-Truck event held near the fire company’s Main Street firehouse.

The tots, with their parents in tow, raced about a spacious parking lot where an array of equipment stood ready for their inspection.

The centerpiece of the display was Hook & Ladder’s ladder truck from whose upwardly extended ladder a large US flag flew on the windy day during the four-hour event. That flag formerly flew on the Main Street flagpole.

Besides fire equipment, pieces of heavy equipment such as cranes, bucket trucks, excavators, backhoes, tractors, payloaders, and bulldozers were displayed.

The fire company held the event as a fundraiser for its various expenses, explained Fire Chief Ray Corbo. Mark DeWolfe organized the event.

Besides the sale of picnic foods and T-shirts, the Touch-A-Truck program included a series of raffles at which youths won various scale-model versions of the types of equipment which were on display.

Among the exhibits was Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue’s (NUSAR) scuba diving equipment truck and its dive boat, which NUSAR uses at bodies of water in the area.

Fergus, a 5-year-old bloodhound, which is used by NUSAR for tracking purposes, obligingly posed for photos at the event.