JOCELYN

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MERCHANDISE SALES HELP SUPPORT OUR ANNUAL HOLIDAY TOY-DRIVE TRADITION

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MEET THE FLEET

1990 FORD C8000

The fire truck that started it all—two fires, one crazy idea,
and the most fun $5,000 ever spent.

TWO FIRES AND ONE CRAZY IDEA

When we purchased the Bellevue property, one of the old houses had already suffered a serious fire. People had been breaking into the abandoned buildings, and a fire had destroyed approximately half of the Victorian home a few months before the property was listed for sale.

So we already had one fire on the property before we even owned it.

After purchasing the property, we began cleaning up years of accumulated garbage, overgrown weeds, and abandoned materials. There were roughly six acres of open fields that needed mowing. In late June 2021, less than a month after purchasing the property, we were using an older riding lawn mower to cut through the tall, dry grass.

Our original plan was simply to mow a wide driveway through the field so we could get our trucks and trailers to the back of the property and haul away piles of garbage.

Everything was going fine until we noticed a little smoke. Somehow, we had started a fire.

We weren't sure whether a rock had struck the mower blades and created a spark or whether the hot exhaust had ignited the dry weeds. I grabbed the little bit of water I had in my truck and tried to put it out. That didn't work.

What started as a small circle of flames, maybe four or five feet across, grew to approximately 50 feet in diameter within a minute. Another minute later, it was closer to 100 feet across!

I immediately called 911. Unbeknownst to me, an alert neighbor behind the property had already called for the fire department as well.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department arrived about four minutes later. By then, I estimate nearly an acre had burned, and the flames were racing toward a 60-year-old wooden barn.

The fire was only about three or four feet from the barn when the firefighters got their hoses connected and the water flowing. Thankfully, they started fighting the fire closest to the barn and worked their way back into the open field. Within approximately 20 minutes, the fire was completely extinguished.

Had they arrived just a little later, that old wooden barn could have gone up in a massive fireball. We definitely learned a hard lesson that day!

A few days later, I was at work late one evening, probably around 10:30 p.m., talking to Jeffrey on the phone. Naturally, our conversation turned to the fires at Bellevue. The property had now experienced two fires in 2021—one before we purchased it and another that we had accidentally started ourselves.

At some point during that conversation, a crazy thought popped into my head.

HMMM... I WONDER IF WE COULD JUST BUY OUR OWN FIRE TRUCK?

So I opened Facebook Marketplace and typed in two words: FIRE TRUCK. And whaddaya know? A fire truck popped up for sale in Northern California!

A $5,000 Fire Truck? This Has to Be a Scam!

The truck was located in Ceres, California, and was a 1990 Ford C8000 fire engine. It had previously served with the Madera Fire Department and, before that, Yosemite Lakes.

The listing had plenty of photographs, and the seller claimed everything worked—including the water pump and emergency lights. The asking price? Just $5,000!

I immediately sent the listing to Jeffrey. Now, sending Jeffrey listings for fun “big boy” toys is usually a bad idea because he's almost always going to talk me into buying them! But this time, we were both skeptical.

A full-sized, working fire truck that could pump water, with functioning lights and equipment, for only $5,000? Come on. It HAD to be a scam!

We waited about a week, but the listing was still there. Finally, one evening around 8 p.m., I decided to call the seller. I figured that was a good time to catch somebody at home and talk for a few minutes.

A guy answered the phone and immediately started talking a mile a minute. He confirmed that he had the truck, but within about 30 seconds, he was already trying to get me to agree to come see it. That made me even more suspicious.

Here was a guy trying to convince us to drive out to the middle of nowhere in Ceres with $5,000 cash. Were we about to get robbed?

Nevertheless we took the gamble, we arranged to meet him a few days later. Jeffrey and I drove out to Ceres after work. When we got close to the address, we realized the meeting location was probably three or four miles off the freeway, out in the middle of nowhere. Once again, we started wondering whether this was some kind of setup.

So we decided to play it smart. We texted the seller to let him know we had arrived, but instead of pulling directly into the meeting location, we parked down the street and waited to see who showed up.

About ten minutes later, here comes this big red fire truck driving down the road!

Well, that was a pretty good sign! We figured that if the guy actually showed up driving a fire truck, the listing probably wasn't a scam after all. So we drove over to meet him.

MEETING THE SELLER

WE HAD JUST BOUGHT OUR VERY FIRST FIRE TRUCK!

What started as a crazy idea after two fires at Bellevue quickly turned into something much bigger. Almost immediately, I started taking Jocelyn to community events.

I've driven her to work on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and other holidays, usually with a big American flag flying behind her.

We've taken her to school events, church gatherings, car shows, car cruises, children's birthday parties, and special events around the Bay Area. I've given rides to friends, their children, and plenty of excited kids who probably never imagined they'd get to ride in a real fire truck.

One of Jocelyn's earliest community appearances was at a Trunk-or-Treat event at our church in Livermore in October 2021, which has continued every year since then. During the COVID years, these outdoor Trunk-or-Treat events became a fun way for families and children to celebrate Halloween.

Jocelyn was a big hit! Seeing all those children dressed in their Halloween costumes, smiling and gathering around the truck, made the experience even more rewarding.

But one of the most meaningful things we've done with Jocelyn began that same year.

When I first typed “FIRE TRUCK” into Facebook Marketplace that late evening in 2021, I certainly wasn't planning to start a collection of fire trucks. I was just wondering whether we could buy something to help protect our property in Santa Rosa.

A few weeks later, Jeffrey and I were driving home in a bright red 1990 Ford C8000, grinning like a couple of kids.

What began as a $5,000 purchase has given us years of great memories, adventures, and opportunities to bring smiles to children's faces. And it all started with Jocelyn.

The Most Fun $5,000 I've Ever Spent!

Jocelyn's First Christmas Toy Drive

The Fire Truck That Started Fire Truck Bros

I got to drive our new fire truck home to Livermore. It was probably close to 100 degrees outside, and I was absolutely burning up inside that hot cab. But you couldn't wipe the smile off my face!

Driving that big red fire truck down the highway was an absolute blast. It felt like every little boy's dream had suddenly become reality. As kids, we played with toy fire trucks. Now, here we were, actually owning and driving a real one!

The drive back to Livermore took about two hours, and the truck performed perfectly. No mechanical problems. No overheating in the summer heat. No brake fade coming down the Altamont Pass. Nothing!

When we finally arrived at my house, Jeffrey took the truck for a drive himself and had just as much fun as I did. Then we filled the water tank, engaged the PTO, fired up the pump, and shot water out of the deck gun mounted on top of the truck. We were having the time of our lives!

How Jocelyn Got Her Name

People often ask me how I came up with the name Jocelyn. Well, the answer goes all the way back to that first drive home from Ceres.

The Ford C8000 is a cab-over truck, meaning the driver sits almost directly above the front wheels. Unlike a conventional truck with a long hood, a cab-over tends to bounce and shake you around a little more as you drive.

During that first trip home, I noticed how much the truck was jostling me around. And that got me thinking. When people say the word jostling, it often comes out sounding like jostlin'.

Say “jostlin'” and “Jocelyn” out loud. They sound almost exactly the same!

In January of 2020, I started thinking about building a small addition onto my house in Livermore, California. I drew up the plans myself and, in February of 2020, went to the City of Livermore to get the first stamp of approval on my designs.

My best friend Jeffrey was going to do the construction. He was already working on projects at our church in Livermore, so it made sense for him to take on the addition as well.

When COVID hit in March 2020, everything changed. Businesses shut down, churches closed, and construction projects were delayed. Even though my auto parts business was considered essential and remained open, our sales dropped by about half for several months.

During that slowdown, Jeffrey decided to tackle some much-needed improvements at his home in Santa Rosa. Since business was slow, I started spending my one Tuesday off each week helping him with construction, electrical work, plumbing, and whatever else needed to be done.

While spending time in Santa Rosa, I began looking for a property near Jeffrey's house. The idea was to find a fixer-upper that would give him steady work close to home. Instead of commuting an hour and a half each way to Livermore, he could work just minutes from his house and spend more time with his wife and three daughters.

I searched for the next year looking and waiting for the perfect property, and in April 2021, we drove past a property on Bellevue Avenue with a For Sale sign out front.

It was approximately seven acres with two old houses. One was a Victorian-style home that had partially burned down, and the other was in terrible condition. The property had been abandoned for a few years and needed an enormous amount of cleanup and rehab.

To most people, it probably looked like a nightmare. To us, it looked like a great project!

I made an offer, negotiated back and forth with the seller, and eventually purchased the property in early June 2021.

Little did I know that buying this property would eventually lead to us owning our very first fire truck!

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

We spent about 30 minutes talking with the seller and learning about the truck. It turned out he was a commercial roofer. During the summer, temperatures in Central California regularly exceed 100 degrees, so his roofing crew worked overnight, from approximately 8 p.m. until 8 a.m.

Suddenly, everything made sense! Remember how I called him at 8 p.m. and he was talking a mile a minute, trying to get off the phone? Well, that's because I had called him right when he was supposed to be starting work! He wasn't trying to rush me into a scam. He was simply trying to get to his job!

The seller told us that his father had worked for the Madera Fire Department, which was how he originally acquired the truck. He had owned it for a few years, thinking it would be a fun toy, but never really did much with it. Eventually, he decided to sell it.

He also explained that the fire department had replaced all six tires just a few months before retiring the truck from service. For most of its life, the truck had been professionally maintained by the fire departments that operated it, and it was still in excellent mechanical condition.

He showed us how everything worked—the PTO, water pump, valves, emergency lights, and other equipment. Then we took it for a test drive. Surprisingly, it drove extremely well! Jeffrey and I had both been driving larger trucks for years, so handling a fire truck wasn't particularly difficult.

After looking everything over, I made my decision. I paid the seller his full asking price of $5,000.