What our group found surprising about chapters nine through eleven was the chapter titled "Cat." This chapter started off with a story about the author having to kill a sickly cat. The reason this surprised us was the fact that Perry started with this story, and didn't follow up on it later in the chapter. In every other chapter so far he has started with a story and ended by coming full circle and talking about that story again. We believe this is because the chapter was focused on coming and going, and once something is gone, like the cat, it's gone. Some other parts of New Auburn that have come and gone in the past years, according to Perry are the brick factory, the old wooden schoolhouse, and the old three-corner gas station at the corner of Main and Old Highway 53, and the old Farmers Store to name a few. Like the cat story, once Perry was finished telling the story, he didn't talk about it again in the chapter. One of the old-timers once said to Perry, "Well, it served its purpose" (pg 170).
The assumptions the author had coming into the book were the reader was interested in learning more about small town life and firefighting or that the reader already knew about it. The author assumed that one would have a small knowledge about these aspects of his book. Perry did explain some details such as what certain farming equipment was or explain parts of firefighting just incase one didn't know everything about firefighting or small town life. The assumptions our group had at the beginning were that the book was going to be based off of a firefighter living in a small town, but it was much more than that. A large portion of the book was dedicated towards discussing the life of being a firefighter living in a small town, but it also explained the author's life lessons, the life of a close-knit community, and the hardships the author had to endure. We found that this is much more interesting than just soley the life of a firefighter. We can understand why he has the opinions he does and he is generally more personably.
The most interesting thing we learned occured in chapter 9 when he was talking about getting out of bed quickly for alarms. He said, "a firefighter's heart rate increases by over sixty-beats per minute in the first fifteen seconds after an alarm sounds" (pg 144). When Perry writes he generally uses his own ideas and how he perceives things, but we were happy he threw in this quote. We can see that he used outside sources so that it is not just his opinion, and also it is a staggering quote that makes you think about it more than just saying "and our heart rate speeds up". The was also interesting when you think about it what is actually happening. One minute a firefighter might just be sitting around, maybe reading a book or doing something on the computer. Then next thing they know an alarm has gone off and their heart rate has increased dramatically. In just fifteen seconds, a firefighters heart rate increases by sixty beats per minute, thats pretty interesting if you ask us. It would be interesting to see research conducted on this piece of data and how it might affect other people individually.
The ideal audience for this book is anyone who is interested in learning more about the small town life. Also, this book is great for anyone who is interested in firefighting, more specifically, in a small town setting. Anyone who has ever lived in a smaller town would be able to relate to this book and be able to connect to some of the points Perry makes. For example, anyone who has lived in small town knows that there are certain characters that everyone knows and will remember for some time after they pass away. This is just one of the many connections that a person could make with Perry's book. Ultimately, the ideal audience for the book Population: 485, is for people who have lived in a small town, or are curious about the interesting lifestyle.
A question that we would've like to have seen addressed by the author is what other people thought about his opinion on certain subjects. For example, what did other firefighters think about having to deliver a baby? Also, it would've been interesting to see what the people of New Auburn thought of thier fire department. A situation that wasn't in the book that we were curious about was what happens after the fire. The author briefly mentioned once about cleaning up, but how long does it take? Who is in charge of the clean up? Is the fire department even in charge of cleaning up after a fire or is that job delegated to a different task force or simply left to the owners of the property to decide what to do? Overall, the author did a great job covering all different sorts of situations and questions a reader might have.
