Hey Guys, the Redhead's Back!

When you're faced with divorce, getting back into the workforce, raising two teenagers, and taking care of eight horses, it sometimes help to have a sympathetic ear. In my case, the sympathetic ear belonged to my horse, Amigo. Unsympathetic ears belonged to the men of the Shaker Heights, Ohio Fire Department where I spent time researching for a book about the fire service. During the process, I not only rediscovered the person I was before my marriage, I found a new career in the fire service. This book is about how it all came about.

Laurie Loveman shares her experience going through several years of a divorce and the process of trying to regain the self-assurance and confidence she had before her marriage. It was critical to her future that she accomplish this, and after a brief introduction, Loveman begins her memoir in 1979 when her husband and she determine their best future is not as a couple. In 1980, a friend’s daughter dies in a house fire, and that sets Loveman off on a quest to find out how fire departments operate. Her research takes her from a role as a visitor at the Shaker Heights Ohio Fire Department to becoming a member of the firehouse family. Over the course of the years 1981 through 1983, she is forced, through no-nonsense treatment, to once again become a strong self-sufficient woman. Along with raising two teenagers, trying to figure out what she’s going to do career-wise, and managing a barn full of horses, Loveman confides her fears and frustrations to her horse, Amigo; the one confidante she can depend on to keep what she says to himself. Her firehouse experiences, marital ups and downs, and her moments with Amigo are interwoven throughout this journal of Loveman’s rediscovering herself as her life changes. Hey Guys, the Redhead’s Back! approaches divorce and career changes with an insightful, often playful tone.