JEFFERSON CITY, MO. ? For more than four decades of Allen Beck’s life, there was no such thing as a snooze button.

Whenever the alarm sounded — whether in the middle of the afternoon or the wee hours of the morning — Beck, a firefighter for the Jefferson City Fire Department, had to be ready for any kind of emergency.

“You’ve got to get up and go,” said Beck, 64. “Most people need a few minutes after they wake up to go somewhere — to go to the bathroom, brush their teeth — but we have to be somewhere five minutes ago.”

Now, however, Beck is able to sleep in as long as he wants. The lifelong Jefferson City resident hung up his yellow coat and retired at the end of January after 41 years of fire service, 26 as a captain.

‘Wear out’

“Dad always said, ‘wear out, don’t rust out,’ and at almost 65, nature says to slow down, so it’s time for me to get out of Dodge,” Beck said. “Firefighting is a young man’s job.”

But his colleagues and crew don’t see much wear or rust on Beck.

“Allen is a dedicated individual who, in his 41st year, his love for the job is as much as year one,” said Assistant Fire Chief Dennis Horn, who worked with Beck for 32 years. “He participates in things and often acts like a 21-year-old does.”

“He’s an incredibly capable guy,” said Corey Sapp, one of Beck’s crew members at Station 5. “I wouldn’t think twice about going into a burning building with him.”

Beck has definitely seen his lion’s share of burning buildings.

Following a three-year stint with the Navy that ended in 1960, and another three with an area oil company, a friend convinced Beck to give the fire department a shot.

He did, and the rest is history — some would say ancient history.

Changing times

When then-Chief John Sullivan hired Beck in 1964, Jefferson City had two fire stations.

There now are five stations, and Beck guesses he has outlasted six different fire chiefs and has worked every shift at every station.

He has also seen technology change drastically over the years.

Fire engines were smaller and simplistic convertible-style vehicles, a far cry from the high-tech and specialized engines used today.

The gear also was minimal.

In the mid-1960s, the department had four military rebreathers (“basically just fancy filters,” says Beck) to share among everyone, but they weren’t often used.

“If you used one of them, you used to be considered a wuss,” Beck noted. “You had to come out of a fire looking like a big, bad bear.”

Eventually, the self-contained breathing apparatus became standard, as did other innovations like thermal imaging and positive pressure ventilation.

“When I first came on, you had your rubber boots, and helmets and your stiff hose and you were basically just there to put water on fire,” Beck said. “We still do that now, but there’s a real science to it.”

No hero

Another positive change, Beck said, is the public’s treatment of firefighters since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Instead of being taken for granted, firefighters and police have received much more awareness and support since 2001. Just don’t call Beck a “hero.”

“It’s nice rhetoric for the evening news, but heroes are people who do extraordinary things at special times,” Beck said. “I don’t see myself as a hero. I see myself as an ordinary man doing a job that needed to be done.”

An ordinary man who will be missed dearly by the Jefferson City Fire Department and the community.

“He is just a great inspiration for us,” Horn said. “A lot of guys here said, ‘I was able to work with him on a regular basis.’

“I feel lucky that I got that chance.”