Hi list.
Ain't it strange how things sometime all fall together at once?
This autumn I managed to slip away for a little while to Big Bend National
Park with a pal of mine where we stayed at a campsite called Glenn Spring.
This is located in a rather desolate desert area in West Texas only several
miles from the Rio Grande "River" (too thick to drink & too thin to plow).
Back in the 19-teens, Glenn Spring was the site of an Army Camp (6th Cav if
memory serves me correctly) whose duty it was to firm up and patrol a rather
"fluid" southern border of the United States on horseback. (Shades of the
Wild Bunch!) This was back in the heyday of Villa and Caranza down in "old"
Mexico. Spoiling parties composed of Mexican banditos and other persons of
low character regularly raided the borderlands of the US for personal gain
or to gather items and/or persons to ransom in order to support the expense
of the Mexican revolution. Anyway, there is still quite a lot of the
encampment to see if you know what to look for and where to look. While
poking about (I am an bonifide scrounger even while on vacation) I came upon
some rather oddly shaped carbon-arc rods with a copper conductor on their
bases. Some were burned and some were unused. Now I know of only one use
for such a rod and that was for a search light. But at the time this was
only speculation. VERY odd since the last time the camp was active that I
knew of was in the late 19-teens. Well, we also found government .45 cal
and 30-06 brass shell casings dated from that era and dated 1941! Could the
Army have had a listening post and/or anti-aricraft gun emplacement posted
there in WWII? I can picture a completely bored bunch of doughboys sitting
in the middle of nowhere, amusing themselves by plinking away at cans and
bottles while watching for enemy aircraft that would never arrive. Well, I
had to verify that the rods were of a type used in the search-lights in
order to be one step closer to solving the mystery.
This time of the year, many fireworks stands pop up along the freeway,
selling to prospective New Years revelers and one of the tools for drawing
attention of otherwise dull-witted drivers is to put a searchlight out in
front. There is a company here in town who has taken WWII searchlights and
mounted the lamp assembly and generator on one custom trailer, discarding
the original two-trailer configuration (the heathens)! So on the very same
day I discovered the WWII searchlight trailer, I found a searchlight in
operation with someone actually there maintaining it who I could ask
questions of. I stopped by and introduced myself, described the carbon arc
rod to the fellow who stated that what I had found on the ground in the
middle of the desert was very likely just what I thought it was. And,
making a sweet deal even sweeter, he let me stick my nose in the generator
section to see (and HEAR!) the Herc JXD (essentially the same engine that
powers my Scout Car) happily humming along keeping the searchlight powered
up. (I know this sounds stupid, but I was thrilled.)
There are forces at work here I am sure I don't understand.
It's going to be a strange new year.......
Happy New Year, guys and gals!
TJ
Regards,
TJ
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:26 PST