[Today’s run: Schaffer’s Chapel – 5 miles]
Another thing we saw at the Iowa State Fair: antique engines.
Back in the old days (before my time) they used single cylinder kerosene/gas engines to run things like irrigation wells. They had gas engines to run clothes washers and other household appliances. I guess this would particularly have been good before rural electrification put electricity on farms.
Anyway. They had a display of “hit and miss” gas engines at the fair. If you ever see one run you will know why they call them that. There’s a big flywheel, about the size of a hubcap or bigger. There is a mechanism for holding the valves open until the RPM gets below a certain point. So the thing goes ‘pop’ round round round round ‘pop’ round round round, etc.
They are cool. Cool like old cars and steam locomotives and radios with tubes inside.
Sometimes I get the hankering to have one. But then…. I remember that one of the reasons they moved away from such stuff was that it was more expensive. And another was that it was more dangerous. And I remember that I really don’t like working on cars that much (I have a pickup truck old enough to have “antique” license plates.) <sigh>
Here is one thing that I did have at the Fair: a deep fried, sugar sprinkled Snickers bar (on a stick!)
