SOUTHINGTON Kids to get acquainted with firefighting gear

New signs banning skating, biking and four-wheeling will go up at the gazebo park.
By MARY LEE THORNDIKE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
SOUTHINGTON -- Fire Chief Tom Strock is preparing his own & quot;show and tell & quot; for schoolchildren for Fire Prevention Week in October.
Strock got trustees' approval Wednesday to take firefighting gear to school so first-graders and perhaps kindergartners can study it.
Strock said he'd read in a fire chiefs magazine how scary firefighters look to children when dressed in their gear. Children have been known to hide in closets or under beds in a fire when firefighters need to get them out quickly.
Besides huge coats, hats and boots, the breathing gear firefighters wear includes a mask and tanks on their backs that make them look like monsters to children, Strock said.
Gazebo park signs: Trustees, meanwhile, approved putting up two signs at the new gazebo park in Southington Center. Kids have already damaged a specially painted sign by skate-boarding on it, they said. The new signs will say "no skateboarding, skating, biking or using four-wheelers in the park."
Trustees estimate that the new gazebo will be finished in October.
Another problem: Trustee chairman Sam Plott said he's written a letter to the Ohio Department of Transportation Division 4 office in Ravenna about the traffic ruts at U.S. Route 422 and state Route 534.
He said ODOT promised to resurface about 2,000 feet there sometime within the next two months.
Plott also said that all the old and rusting & quot;Welcome to Southington & quot; signs have been replaced except the one at the Nelson-Southington line. That one was missed, he said, but will also be replaced.