Post
by 2nighthawks » Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:53 pm
When in high school, I had a '28 Model A Standard Coupe. One Saturday or Sunday, I was over at my girlfriends house (who eventually became my good wife of now, 55 years) and apparently, somehow, had accidentally left the headlights on all afternoon, and when going to start the car to go home, found that the battery was completely dead. Because of my Dad, who was a railroad switchman in Chicago, I always carried a switchman's lantern on the package tray by the back window. I took the 6 volt lantern battery out of the switchman's lantern and jury-rigged a hook up the the Model A ignition system, while my girlfriends dad stood there laughing at me, saying how silly of me to even think that the car would run that way. I then proceed to get the hand crank out of the trunk, hand cranked the engine to a normal start the normal way (a couple pulls choking and a "start" on about the third pull) and proceeded to drive away just like it was no big deal! I can still see my girlfriends dad standing there, wide-eyed and with mouth hanging open in surprise as I drove away!