Do you remember...#2

Pappy

Pappy

Living the Dream
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Moved back to NY from Florida. 🤓 2025
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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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? "
 

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