Firefighters make a 97-year-old retired teacher's dream come true

Bill Grun in a fire truck.
(Image credit: YouTube.com/InsideEdition)

For his 97th birthday, Bill Grun lived out his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter.

The Doylestown, Pennsylvania, resident spent 70 rewarding years as a teacher, but always admired firefighters. "I'll say one thing about firemen — they are really gutsy," he told Fox 29. "We get choked up on candle smoke, and those fellas have to face all that stuff. It's tough." He was surprised on Monday by the all-volunteer crew of the Doylestown Fire Company, who came and picked him up from his retirement home with a ladder truck. While there weren't any fires to fight that day, Grun did have a very important job: He was in charge of the siren. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.