Candle Nubs

Candle Nubs

After the wind blew and the trees fell down...

The “Power” was “Out”.

Electrical power was no longer available

Unless

“You” “Have a generator”;

A gasoline powered engine that “makes electricity”

Many have them

About us;

They started them promptly and continue to be “running” them as I...

This for you.

It is not cold.

It is not wet

It is seasonally (fall) damp

It is Halloween

But that was cancelled

“Because the power is out”.

“Some of them still don’t have power yet but ours came on

Last night” .

This is a coveted interlude that, this time...

Considering the scale of the “outage”, has failed to “recover”.

Buying more gas for the generator is.... very fashionable in certain circles

I notice.

The wiz bang lawn mower engine “purr” dominates the ‘new housing’ suburban lots of subdivisions to the Maine forest... with its sound and reasonable judgment that if one keeps the gas tank full, the throttle on full and the optimum usage... managed... one may...

“Make it through this”.

“Really”.

Quite brave of it I say.  It... is the their generator.

I’ve come away feeling better about my collection of candle nubs.  I have six now... since the ‘outage’ began.  I put them; the candle and then its nub, into “pierced tin lanterns” and... use them light when I need light... in the dark... which I don’t need very much anyway for I am adept at using “daylight”.

They were often... a long time ago... titled ‘Paul Revere Pierced Tin Lantern’.  I remember that... fifty years ago.  One was shown one of them and told that about the funny cylinder cone topped stab punch decorated tin candle lantern with its little tin socket at the center bottom inside its door that not only opened and closed but, too, “latched”.  Yes... I remember when these lanterns were shown by grandmothers to little boys who “wondered” what that is and then became obsessive about “light it” to “make it work”.

Soon I found out they were ‘antiques’ and that one may ‘buy and sell them’ as that and... That was it.  I began a long relation of that; buy and sell them.  I always had them around; a ‘buy and sell them’.  I did.  Sometime I’d have two.  Sometimes four.  Sometimes six.  The last group I had, a ‘two years ago’, was four.  I sold them to an antiques dealer who “Likes them” he said.  I haven’t had one since but... one or two will come along.  That doesn’t explain how I get the lantern candle nubs... if I do not have any old Paul Revere Pierced Tin Lanterns.

How do I?  Well... an odd thing has happened for me.  In the 1970’s New England historical organization... in their gift shops... offered for sale absolutely splendid hand made Pierced Tin (Candle) Lanterns.  Perfectly made of superior materials... including sheet copper... in various sizes and for various ...but always expensive... prices... these were not ‘give aways’ and... not bargains and not, well... sought by gift store browsers but fortunately for I... enough were purchased and homeward bound that today; ‘these days’, they have burped to a ‘resurface’ as abandoned property in ‘house clean-outs’.  And  these lanterns here found are, too, promptly stated to be “NOT OLD” (so not ‘antique’) too.  They are “not valuable”.

Again?

“They are not valuable”.

Really.  I find them at tag sales for two bucks.  Six dollars is gouging.  These, I state again, are brand new (never used) handmade Paul Revere Pierced Tin Lanterns.  They are identical and ‘if not’ superior to the classic ‘antique’ (1760 – and later) lanterns. That’s right and I use them.  I am using three of them right now “with the power off”.  That’s cute isn’t it.

Okay so if I go outside right now with the generator purr going in the dawn’s edge darkness do I

You

Tending your generator

To keep off the goblins of “Power Out”.

Yes... that’s it... right there:

No power is a goblin... in the dark.

One of the fascinations of the design form of the Paul Revere Pierced Tin Lantern is its beatific function.  The stab piercing are not decoration.  They are function, as is the whole form, including the cone top and the candle holder.  They were intentionally created to make that candle lantern function very... very well; to make it... purr.

I am not going to expostulate on the lantern’s farm home function for... once one does ‘use one’ on and about the old Maine farm... that for two hundred and fifty years, at least, did ‘not have (electrical) power’, one will discern the lantern’s superior functions

In its

Natural habitat.