and he won't back down.

The whole story is a little too complex to tell in the space allowed, but the bottom line regarding the pension seems to be that he was in the old city pension Plan A, and in fact was the only person left in that plan (city teachers were covered by Plan A until they were dumped onto the county in '87). When they put him on leave while preparing to terminate him, Harold was offered a lump sum settlement of $60K plus a few bucks. This is an outrageously paltry offer, because it is a fraction of what he paid in over nearly 44 years, so he turned it down.

Most 67-year-old guys with heart conditions facing losing their jobs and their insurance would probably have taken the money, little as it was. Not Harold Owenby -- he's fighting them again, even though in the meantime it leaves him without income.

I've got as much respect for this man as anybody I've run across in a long, long time. I could fill a book with the anecdotes other firemen told me about him. He commands tremendous respect from his peers, and they used the word "legend" more than once to describe him. I had an anonymous call from a fireman today who said that Harold was one of the very few older guys who mentored young firefighters.

I kept thinking of Tom Petty's "I won't back down" as I worked on this story. This is a towering injustice to a good man, and speaks volumes about what I was trying to tell Bill Lyons about the way the fire department is run.

Seriously, think back to the assistant chief who was arrested for DUI last week in his city vehicle and told the cops that he'd had 11 or 12 drinks -- that guy still has a job. And got promoted over Harold Owenby.