By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN John Archer didn’t know who that woman was who embraced him a few years ago until she told him.
”She came up to me and said, ‘I’m the person you pulled out of that car 20 years ago,’ and then she gave me a big hug,” Mr. Archer said.
”That’s the good kind of pay you can’t get with the pay companies,” he added.
For 30 years, Mr. Archer, now 60, wasn’t paid a dime on the borough’s all-volunteer Hightstown Engine Co. #1 while he pulled people out of wrecked cars or burning buildings. And that was absolutely fine for the man who laid down his official title as chief Jan. 1 after 10 years in the position.
For him, it was all about just serving his community.
”I just want to help people,” he said this week. “That’s basically it. It’s the whole reason I joined. My family’s always been into community service.”
A lifelong borough resident, the former chief also has worked as a foreman in the Public Works Department for the past 14 years. That meant he was always around for a call, and it allowed him to add a personal touch to the borough’s hometown fire department.
The man who is replacing him, his longtime deputy, Larry Van Kirk, said Mr. Archer’s pervasive presence on calls and the care he showed for his neighbors in trouble translated into a chief who was never off-duty.
”In the middle of the night, people wouldn’t even call the fire company if their alarm went off; they’d call John’s house,” Mr. Van Kirk said. “You just knew he was going to be there, he was always around to help.”
That attitude made it hard for the chief to retire. He’ll still be a member of the company although he hasn’t gone into a burning building in about two years or so now. In fact, that was what Mr. Archer said has been the hardest part for him since taking a leadership role.
”When you’re chief, you have to back up and make sure all your men are safe and doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said.
It was a tough adjustment to make for a man who said he was always eager to be the first one in when arriving at a structure fire. Even now, he said, he still finds it difficult. But true to his nature, he is ready to help whenever he can.
”I’m getting up there, but I’m not going to quit anytime soon,” he said. “I can still help out as pump operator, training, ladder operations; you name it.”
What is surprising is being a firefighter is not something Mr. Archer ever dreamed about as a child.
”If you’d have told me growing up that I was going to be a firefighter, I’d have laughed at you. I wanted to be pretty much everything but,” he said.
For the first 30 or so years of his life, he wasn’t a firefighter. Mr. Archer graduated Hightstown High School and studied electrical engineering for a bit at Rider University in Lawrence before joining the Army in the late 1960s. He served one year in South Korea in 1969, then came back to Hightstown to work in construction and real estate.
In 1978, he took the advice of his second cousin, borough Public Works Director Larry Blake, and joined Hightstown’s volunteer fire company.
”I figured, I’d give it a shot. I had no idea I’d like it as much as I did,” said Mr. Archer, a man Mayor Bob Patten described as an “outstanding chief with outstanding leadership skills.”
He eventually became an officer in the company, and while he spent a long time as deputy chief, had no aspiration of taking the top spot.
”I was perfectly happy being deputy chief. Being chief was never something I actively sought,” he said. “It just happened that way. I was next.”
Along the way, he collected dozens of stories, being at nearly every call. Some he remembers with joy like meeting people he’d rescued years later.
Others make him laugh.
Once he was called to help remove the remnants of an armored truck accident on the Turnpike that took about four hours to clear.
”The thing was hit by a tractor trailer and exploded quarters all over the road,” he said.
”While we’re working, we had state troopers walking around with their hands on their guns telling us, ‘Hey, don’t touch that money.’ They’re quarters! What was I going to do, get a cup of coffee?” he added.
But there are other stories he wishes he didn’t have to tell, ones that illustrate how dangerous his job is and how much fire should be respected.
”You don’t want to see some of these things, like kids in car wrecks or people trapped in fires. They stick with you,” he said.
One in particular involves a young family, burned alive in their car after their gas tank ruptured during an accident.
”There was no chance of saving them,” he said.
”The mother was six months pregnant, and they had an infant child.
”We found the infant in the back seat as an afterthought,” he added.
”You just have to keep going. You can’t react to it while you’re there. You put it aside and deal with it later,” he said.
His job did have its share of such experiences, and they underscored the need for him to be in the company all the more.
However, his favorite times were bringing the borough’s fire trucks to the Mercer County fire safety competition.
”We won five times in a row, which is phenomenal because it’d never been done before,” he said. “The pride the guys show when doing this is something special. I was glad to be leading such a group.”
From what Mr. Van Kirk said, the feeling from the men and women under him was mutual.
The new chief called his predecessor a mentor, not only to him, but also to many of the firefighters in the company. That’s even if the chief didn’t always do things by the book.
”He had these things we called Archerisms when he used the radio. It didn’t come from a manual, but you knew what he meant,” Mr. Van Kirk said.
The retired chief said he was aware people often poked fun at his cavalier radio style.
”It was colorful language,” he said while laughing, “stuff you probably can’t put in print, but I think the guys always got the picture.”
There won’t be as many Archerisms floating through the airwaves now that he’s taken a reduced role. That’s likely to be missed by members of the company.
But what won’t be missing is the spirit of service and dedication the former chief instilled in all the people who have come and gone from Hightstown’s volunteer fire company over the years.
That is likely to be the most lasting legacy Mr. Archer leaves behind.
”You know there might be people out there who’ll say it was an honor to serve with me and so on,” he said. “But, really, it was a honor for me to serve such a group as chief.”

