A father remembers Robert Evans

Robert Evans, 36, of Franklin Square, was a member of the city fire department's Engine 33 in Manhattan. He was killed in the north tower.

A father remembers

Life at the firehouse suited his son perfectly, Ed Evans of Franklin Square recalled. That's because Robert Evans loved the camaraderie and the action.

"He had the opportunity to go to a firehouse in Queens Village," his father said. "He didn't want that; he wanted the action, and where he was on Great Jones Street was very busy. He loved it."

Once, he said, Evans turned up at his father's house right after a fire. He had been to the hospital to get some medication for his neck, which was severely burned when a portion of the ceiling fell on him. Ed Evans said he took his son's helmet to wash it off.

"He didn't want it washed. He was more concerned about the helmet than the burn on his neck," Evans recalled.

"It was part of the badge of courage," he said. "The little flashlight on his helmet was melted." He wore that helmet with its burn marks "forever."

"He was into it," his father said.

Even with the intensity of the job, though, he still had a sense of humor. In fact, Evans was an avid practical joker whose colleagues at the firehouse nicknamed him Jerry Lewis. As a teen, his adventurous pranks had even included once climbing a water tower.

A decade after the terror attacks that killed his son, Ed Evans said it seems nearly everyone except those who lost someone has "slipped back into complacency." If there has been any change in how people feel with the recent death of Osama bin Laden, he said it would be short term.

One enduring change for the father: "I don't trust as much as I used to.

"I go into Manhattan often and I hear complaining when I go into Grand Central Station about the presence of so many armed peacekeepers," he said, "but it's just fine with me."

-- Ridgely Ochs