# Do you remember...#2



## Pappy (Jul 15, 2015)

Going way back on this one but I can remember these torches. Before flashing yellow lights, on road repairs and construction sites, these torches were used. A person filled them with kerosene, lit them, and they would burn all night.


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## Falcon (Jul 15, 2015)

They are like the "smudge pots" used out here in the California orange groves when there is a frost warning.


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## imp (Jul 15, 2015)

I posted the following as a new thread in "Reminisce" in Feb., 2007, in my home town's own forum. It's how I remember it!    imp


Don't know when these things disappeared from the Berwyn scene: When I was a kid, a street crew opened a hole in our street for some kind of work, piping probably, and did not finish by day's end. Surrounding the open abyss they left several devices which looked very much like dirty black bowling boalls, having a "flat" so they wouldn't roll, and a little cupola on to with 4 holes in the center of which a FLAME burned all night long, to warn the unwary of the unfinished job lying there. 

Guess they were filled with kerosene and had a wick like a lantern. If the wind blew, the flames danced wildly! Those little pots were intriguing to a kid interested in fire- which one wasn't? The danger inherent in leaving burning devices overnight did not then warrant concern. My, how times have changed!  

Anyone else remember those things? "


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## AZ Jim (Jul 15, 2015)

They left the scene about the same time the metal chain hanging on fuel trucks did.  They were used to 'ground' the truck, made sparks at night as the truck rolled along.


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## Meanderer (Jul 15, 2015)

I remember that the City Water Dept use them to mark open holes and work sites.  The Gas Company....that's another story!


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## Pappy (Jul 15, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> They left the scene about the same time the metal chain hanging on fuel trucks did.  They were used to 'ground' the truck, made sparks at night as the truck rolled along.



Holy cow, Jim. I had forgotten about those chains. Use to see them all the time.


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## SifuPhil (Jul 15, 2015)

Sorry, Pap - those were a bit before my time. I DID run over a lit traffic horse once, though ...



Oops - sorry - I mean ...


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## imp (Jul 15, 2015)

My wonderful little cat, whose demise was painful beyond my imagination. For the record, though, can anyone identify the grayish-brown machine, a part of which is pictured to the very right? Cat and machine are on my work desk, 1975.    imp


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## Meanderer (Jul 15, 2015)

...looks like a Dagwood sandwich!


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## RadishRose (Jul 15, 2015)

ROFL !!!!

(Guessing an adding machine ?)


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## SeaBreeze (Jul 15, 2015)

I'm sorry to hear about your cat, I hesitate to ask how she passed.  Is the machine a Fax machine?


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## Pappy (Jul 15, 2015)

Looks like a typewriter to me.


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## SifuPhil (Jul 15, 2015)

IBM Selectric II?


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## Cookie (Jul 15, 2015)

Remember the IBM Selectric very well.  Used to do a lot of work on that machine in the 70s.


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## Falcon (Jul 15, 2015)

Dang! Phil and Cookie.  You beat me to it.  I have been using one for the last several years, but recently turned it in and bought a new
 Brother with all the bells and whistles.
 My handwriting is shot so I need it to write checks and the occasional letter. It's also electric.


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## imp (Jul 15, 2015)

Pretty sharp, folks! Only the on-off switch is visible, I dragged that typewriter all the way to Vegas from Chicago, had gotten it free anyway. When getting divorced, I put it up for sale in a little weekly free publication there, "Nifty Nickel".

I got at least 100 calls, I had asked $50, one guy offered me $200, but learned it had sold to the first caller! If a guy only had a non-cloudy crystal ball! That was the 2nd. time I could have "cleaned up". The first was in the late '60s, when I bought 100 Bright Uncirculated St. Gaudens $20 gold pieces @$48 each, sold @ $92 8 months later. Today those coins go for numbers in the thousands!  Poor me. Donations accepted!       imp


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## Ken N Tx (Jul 16, 2015)

Pappy said:


> Going way back on this one but I can remember these torches. Before flashing yellow lights, on road repairs and construction sites, these torches were used. A person filled them with kerosene, lit them, and they would burn all night.



We lived in the suburbs of Chicago and when we went into Chicago one day the kids saw these warning of pot holes in the street. One of them asked who would be BBQ'ing in the middle of the street!!!


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## RadishRose (Jul 16, 2015)

Omg I thought the photo-shop of the sandwich was so funny it didn't register that your poor cat had suffered. I am so sorry for seeming insensitive. I lost 2 cats under horrifying conditions myself.


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## imp (Jul 17, 2015)

RadishRose said:


> Omg I thought the photo-shop of the sandwich was so funny it didn't register that your poor cat had suffered. I am so sorry for seeming insensitive. I lost 2 cats under horrifying conditions myself.



I never learned what had happened to my little female kitty. I assume some of the damned neighbors' dogs which roamed freely, had killed her. I went to the "pound" daily for several weeks, searching past many, many caged animals, hoping to see a glimpse of her. It was not to be. I was as heartbroken as a grown man has any right to be. The big guy, the male, my other cat, they were brother and sister, lived to be 18. I loved him too! Sorry, for throwing this in, I forgot, only one Member of the forum knew about him.   imp


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