Here, at last, is your second periodic report. We have the opportunity to expand our horizon, (but) one matter requiring our immediate attention is additional financing to meet a pressing need. Renew your interest, adopt our slogan, “Share More in ’64,” and return cash, check or money order…

As well as that subtle request for fresh funds, the second report – five and a half years after the first – contained 24 pages, lots of pictures, year-by-year coverage from November, 1958, and, in a section headed “Future Plans and Projects,” the first hint of what SPAAMFAA might eventually become:

We are also investigating the possibility of incorporating SPAAMFAA as a legally-recognized, non-profit corporation.

That turned out to be several years away. First on the 1964 agenda was pooling modest amounts of “Share More” capital with similar quantities of my own, and engineering a three-way, two-for-one apparatus transaction worthy of a John Gambs.

The replacement Seagrave aerial was purchased for $450 and became my fifth machine – SPAAMFAA Truck 2. After giving up several of her goodies to the new girl, 1923 Truck 1 was traded to a collector for $400 cash and his stripped 1928 Seagrave 1000 gpm pumper (ex-Syracuse, No. 53716), which I intended to use as a future parts source for the two Seagraves running under the SPAAMFAA banner. Net expense, $50; net result, a far neater aerial ladder truck and a mobile Seagrave “spares” supply to boot.

That year, volunteers pitched in with our first hands-on engine rebuild project, and we paraded and pumped and polished to our hearts’ content. Seventeen new stockholders signed on – including Mary O’Brien’s champion Dalmatian, Margaret – giving us a 1964 year-end tabulation of 94 members with two legs and one with four.

No new rigs in ’65, but an active apparatus year during which six more shareowners climbed aboard, pushing the total to 101 (that’s 100 and a dog), which is where it stayed until the next step forward.