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.

Power Outage

Power Outage

“THE DAMN FOOL

HUGGED A TELEPHONE POLE

WITH HIS TRUCK.

That was at one thirty (in the afternoon)...

            WELL... they got THAT fixed (electrical power restored) by FOUR

            So we had our supper.

            The STORM was still just STARTED

            Then.

            YOU’D THINK... not that anyone THINKS anymore...

            That the DAMN FOOL would SLOW DOWN.

            That’s the THRID ONE of them

            In SIX WEEKS

            That has HUGGED A POLE (taking the electrical power out) with their TRUCK.

            DAMN FOOLS:  SLOW DOWN.”

            “After supper that POWER went AGAIN.

            I could tell they was still messing with the POLE so

            I didn’t... WELL... I DID:

            I got my coffee pot out of the shed.

            Yep.

            BROUGHT my (18^th century wrought iron hand held) TOASTER IN TOO.

Figured OH HELL.

            Handful of (colonial style pierced tin) LANTERN CANDLES too.

            It was snowing and started to blowing.  I figured

            HERE WE GO.

            We did.

            I went to bed and that power come back on like I figured.

            But then it was STILL SNOWING.  Blowing.

            You know:  WINDING UP.  Sticking.  Freezing to the trees.

            OK I say and sleep.  At two I wake up and it’s OFF again.

            This time I knew it weren’t a TRUCK hugging anything.

            So I got up at three and started the fire.

            We were that way for the next three days.”

            “What happens when your power goes off?”

            “BETTER CHARGE YOUR (cell) PHONE DEAR” happens FIRST and that’s based on the forecast.  Then there’s a general ‘hunker down’ air of behavior within the old house and... outside the old house.  Barns doors are ‘hitched’.  Shed doors are ‘hitched’.  ‘Firewood’ is ‘brought in’.  The OUTSIDE (old stone) foundation and sill line of the house has already been ‘SEALED’ (covered) with ‘plastic’ and ...a lot... of Balsam fir bows and small fir trees.  That had been done in the ‘last month’ (November).  What happens there is that ‘work’ is ‘covered’ quickly by the snow, freezes solid and... so... ‘SEALS’ ‘the house’.  The plastic is reused over and over and ‘holds’ for about ten years of usage.  And we don’t buy the plastic.  Over ten years one can ‘get’ ‘a lot’ of plastic... these days.

            THEN the STORM starts.

            THEN the power goes out.

            THEN... when we had the electrician putting in the new ‘box’ he was soooo ‘insistent’ about ‘putting in’ an ‘outlet’ ‘for a generator’... I let him do it.  I personally have never TOUCHED the thing.  Anyway; there’s a switch to throw for THAT... to ‘work’.

            WELL WE throw our own switch and that is to simply STEP BACK two hundred and fifty years to when THIS HOUSE was ‘MADE’.  It was... ‘MADE’... for ‘weather like this’.  We ...start the fire... in the ‘old’ fireplace kitchen and... live... ‘in that room’ for the next few days ‘just like’.  NO:  ‘exactly how’.

            That room... like the house... is ‘pretty small’.  ALL the damn rooms... there are only FIVE in the whole HOUSE... are ‘small’.  This room is the biggest of the small rooms.  If she and I had our picture taken ‘sitting there’ the CAMERA would be against the outside wall of the house.  The other wall would be behind HER.  The WALL behind me goes into the ‘buttery’... room... that is a SMALL room.  So we sit at the fire in the fireplace... kitchen... for a few days.

            The chimney is very large and is a giant heat sink.  The opening at the top is forty-two by forty-eight inches.  That’s huge and was made that way intentionally.  The ‘house’ is a small wooden structure ‘built around’ ‘that’ (the chimney).  There’s a ‘fireplace’ in the ‘other room’ downstairs and... a fireplace in the (upstairs) ‘chamber’.  IF it is really cold I ‘run’ the fireplace in the ‘other room’ TOO.  THAT will ‘keep the pipes from freezing’.  If it is ‘really cold’ all this will not keep ME from freezing so WE (her and I) are ‘hunkered down’ at the fireplace kitchen just like it was made for us to do.  THAT ‘works great’.

            Then the power comes back on.  We put the cook pots away.  Put the coffee pot away.  Put the candles and the lanterns ‘back’.  Open up the buildings.  Dump out the buckets of well water. 

            Go into town and get the mail.

            “ALL THAT DAMN FOOL DID WAS PUT HIMSELF IN THE HOSPITAL, destroy his TRUCK and TAKE OUT the power to the WHOLE DAMN TOWN.”

            Henry Coombs said to me while he was next to me getting his mail

            Too.