Priceless Flashlight

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Modernflame

Modernflame

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 27, 2017
Messages
4,383
Location
Dirty Dirty South
Every contributor to this forum has valuable torches. My topic is this priceless torch, which could neither be replaced nor superseded, even with limitless funds. I buried my father earlier this week. The grief is thick, palpable. Many of his possessions are being sold to help my mother, but I have claimed this little flashlight as my own. We bought this together. Well, technically, he bought it at my recommendation in 2018 and it accompanied him everywhere. He loved it and I shall continue to love it on his behalf. We are not a people who grieve without hope, but someday, it may go into the ground with me. Does anyone else own a flashlight like this? It shall be neither a user nor a shelf queen. It's used and roughed up, rather like me, but it wouldn't be at home in a display case. Perhaps I will find safe uses around the home. For those keeping score at home, this is an HDS rotary 3' O'Clock High with a flush button and the silver bezel.


20200925-183826.jpg
 
im so sorry i know he watches over you. your in my thoughts and prayers
 
Very sorry for your loss my friend. Its hard now, but with time it will get easier. The tears you shed and the grief you feel now, will eventually give way to smiles and thoughts of the great times you had with him. Its great you have his HDS! May it light up any dark time when needed. I have many, but none on that level of priclesness. Thank you for sharing.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
 
Johnbeck180 said:
Very sorry for your loss my friend. Its hard now, but with time it will get easier. The tears you shed and the grief you feel now, will eventually give way to smiles and thoughts of the great times you had with him. Its great you have his HDS! May it light up any dark time when needed. I have many, but none on that level of priclesness. Thank you for sharing.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Bless you, my friend.
 
I have a few HDS lights, special metals, limited emitters etc. but I do not have one like this...very, very special and indeed, priceless.
In my basement is my Grandfathers old, thoroughly beat up bench vise mounted on my work table. I don't use it much since the jaws have long lost their grip and a modern one is installed on the opposite end of the bench. But there it sits...sometimes I just go over there and look at it and wonder about the saw marks, dings and dents, blobs of long dried up glue (rock hard)...all the scars he left on it through 50 years of use. It a piece of him that can never be replaced. Such an old and worthless thing to the outside world...but just like your Dads HDS, it is absolutely priceless. Thanks for reminding me... I carry many people with me in my memories, they are always with me.
I hope to give my children my HDS collection someday...I can only speculate but I pray that they keep them and use them and hold on to a little piece of me and will, like you, consider them priceless!
 
Johnnyh said:
I have a few HDS lights, special metals, limited emitters etc. but I do not have one like this...very, very special and indeed, priceless.
In my basement is my Grandfathers old, thoroughly beat up bench vise mounted on my work table. I don't use it much since the jaws have long lost their grip and a modern one is installed on the opposite end of the bench. But there it sits...sometimes I just go over there and look at it and wonder about the saw marks, dings and dents, blobs of long dried up glue (rock hard)...all the scars he left on it through 50 years of use. It a piece of him that can never be replaced. Such an old and worthless thing to the outside world...but just like your Dads HDS, it is absolutely priceless. Thanks for reminding me... I carry many people with me in my memories, they are always with me.
I hope to give my children my HDS collection someday...I can only speculate but I pray that they keep them and use them and hold on to a little piece of me and will, like you, consider them priceless!
Click to expand...

That's awesome, man. May you and your children celebrate every bit of life's joy. I particularly enjoyed the part about your grand father's bench vise.
 
Best regards mr flame. Your pop had good taste in flashlights. It sounds like that light will be doing exactly what your pop would want.

My pop had a small twin blade pocket knife that was his fathers, that has a blade with about 1/4 missing from being sharpened so many times.

One day he said "go back there (pointing to a room at the rear of his house) and get my sharpening stone. He pulls out his well worn pocket knife and begins to hone it for the umpteenth time. Now I had seen him sharpen it my whole life, but for some reason that time was special. So when he passed away that knife was what I requested.

Regarding any old flashlights of his one year he purged all of his flashlights due to leaked batteries and went to a farm supply store and bought a bunch of Dorcy lights and Coleman flashlights. Everybody in the family received a flashlight that Christmas. He kept a few for his house. I have his 2aa glove box light in my glove box only it has an LED bulb and lithium batteries now. His "fridge" magnet light is magnetized to mine and his favorite, a 2D Coleman was restored shortly after I joined CPF.

Now my "priceless" light would be a 1st generation 2D Kel-Lite with a medium head built for me by Don Keller himself. When I was a lad I used to be the child who got to hold the flashlight while my pop swapped a tube in the tv worked on his truck etc. The light I remembered using was a knock off of the 2D Kel-Lite made by Radio Shack. A 2D Kel-Lite was $20. A made in Japan Radio Shack version was $8. Not sure if the light ever truly existed I asked Don Keller if Radio Shack ever made a 2D Kel-Lite. He said they had done one in 1975 with a second generation medium head, which was never used on first generation bodies.

He said "I have some extra parts if you'd like me to build one". So I am the proud owner of a Don Keller built knock off of a Radio Shack first generation Kel-Lite knock off. It has a Maglite PR base xenon bulb in it. My mom had a 4C Maglite that my pop gave away when she passed away. So I have an older version of that one similar to what my mom had. It has a 3 cell bulb in it for an extra kick. Both are shelf queens.
 
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I really feel for you. I have buried both my parents in the last two years. I have two sisters and in my father's case he had three swiss army knives around the house. So I cleaned them up and sharpened them and we now have one each. It sits on my desk in front of me as I type this.
 
bykfixer said:
Everybody in the family received a flashlight that Christmas.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Bykfixer. I can definitely see the family resemblance. :)

ven said:
Very sorry Mr flame, thoughts with you.
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Grateful to you. Blessings.

Toulouse42 said:
I really feel for you. I have buried both my parents in the last two years. I have two sisters and in my father's case he had three swiss army knives around the house. So I cleaned them up and sharpened them and we now have one each. It sits on my desk in front of me as I type this.
Click to expand...

And I feel for you. I think he'd be proud of what you did with the knives.
 
1 Thess 4:13 indeed.. I often wonder about all these lights sitting around here and what may become of them one day in my absence. I pray that my sons may do and feel as you..
 
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