You should take up writing again!
AND, posting such visuals! :)
Thank you for sharing this one!
The graphic is the actual lantern. It is an Embury 150 "Little Supreme", made somewhere around 1926. My garage is full of the "tools of the trade" of my grandfather. Crosscut saws, broad axes and broad hatchets, single and double bit axes, carpenter saws, draw knives, spoke shaves, etc. I have them because they are next to impossible to find today. I've accumulated them over the years as I found them in various little "hole in the wall" antique stores. Unfortunately, my grandpa's tools were all stolen from his basement shortly after he died... It would have been nice to have them, but they are still just tools. It's what he taught me regarding them that is priceless. If you've ever heard of the "Foxfire" series of books, they were based upon how people used to live their life in the Appalachian Mountains - and those books were written by the school children from county just across the Georgia state line from my grandfathers county in North Carolina. People lived hard lives back then, but they didn't complain because it was just the way life was in that area.
I have hundreds of tales regarding my grandfather's childhood and his growing up prior to W.W.I... Perhaps I can share them sometime for all to have a good laugh. Hilarious stories that are still family clean. There was no television signal that reached the area... With the exception of WSM 650AM out of Nashville, there was no radio signal clear enough to tolerate for any length of time. So that's what we did on summer nights - listen to stories. Mountain legends of lights in the sky (The Brown Mountain Lights)... Stories of young boys trying so hard to impress the girls, only to embarrass themselves terribly. Stories of the panthers (aka Mountain Lions to many) that would prowl around peoples' houses at night... (And then all of us little kids would have to go into the house and try to sleep with the windows open! All we could think about was panthers on the prowl! The night I finally heard one, I think I covered the entire length of the house in under one second, screaming "GRANDPA!!! THERE'S A PANTHER OUT THERE!!!" Closest I ever came to wetting myself out of fear... Probably would have too, if I had had the resources!)
It is still wild country in that area, though not as much as it once was... But we are talking about the rural county in N.C. were Eric Robert Rudolph was able to hole up for what, about 5 years? People thought that something like that was impossible... I can tell you first hand that in that area of the country not only is it not impossible, it is downright easy if you put your mind to it. To someone that knows how to live off of the land, that place is like a Garden of Eden. Everything you could ever need is there, unless you are a criminal and get lazy, deciding to go "dumpster diving" behing the local grocery store. If only I had taken to the time to actually look for that boy, I could have been $1 million richer... After I heard about where he was living and how he was traveling, I realized that I had actually been within 50 yards of him at times. I know the area that well... Still go back there at least once a year, usually twice.
Oh well, enough of my ramblings... Time to hit the hay.
Regards,
Raven6