Traffic light – 3 Feet From The Street

When you think you have an idea where something’s going to go, you’ll often find it’s never where you’d want it to be.
Me, about twenty minutes ago

Among my early aspirations, was a desire to write comic books. Nearly every dime I earned mowing lawns and slinging papers was devoted to expanding my comic collection, exploring the perils of Spiderman, The Avengers, Captain America. I wanted in on that world, that ability to create a universe where costumed wonders swooped out of the sky and POW, SMASH, BOOM, the day was saved and earth was once more safe and at peace from interlopers bent on domination.

As a huge fan of Marvel comics, Stan Lee was the man. He built this universe of heroes that was unparalleled (yeah I know, DC was good too. I had plenty of Superman, Batman and Justice League). I imagined him sitting there at his desk and this cerebral big bang occurring, enveloping him with this infinite universe, allowing him to pluck these extra normal gems from the ether, create lives around them, making them almost real to young kid.

I would write, scribbled notes, jottings on paper and finally, when I had a decent typewriter, tak, tak, tak away (thanks to a high school typing class) I could see the lives of the characters I was penning, felt their turmoil, enjoyed their victories. I submitted work that initially was met with a degree of interest, but I didn’t have the follow through, ultimately led to believe that there was no career or future.

Nope no future at all. BTW have you seen the box office gross on the Avengers movies?

Blah, blah, blah, lots of words, life didn’t turn out great. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, ok. It took some time to come to the realization that maybe just sometimes we aren’t as talented as we’d like to think we are. It’s fine to reach that conclusion. If you don’t, the time lost pursuing a dream that never comes is the greatest asset wasted.

Dropping an ounce of gold down a toilet would also fall into that category of a great asset wasted.

As I drove through the streets of far Rockaway on a frigid Saturday morning, this was my pondering. I had just retrieved two very fine examples of O scale locomotive technology for a friend and decided to embark on a little exploration of the area. Not that I hadn’t been there before.

Curious to see the recent evolution of the area, I followed a fairly popular and recognizable chunk of infrastructure that threads it’s way through the communities there. The Rockaway Freeway runs along a decent portion of the MTA elevated subway line and despite a few signalized intersections, flows fairly well. Though much like the beach community of the Rockaways, some of the roadway there has transformed as well, not necessarily for the better.

The only thing missing is a sign reading “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”

In all honesty, the freeway is not a bad stretch of road though I couldn’t see it handling any serious rush hour traffic. Many of the formerly signalized intersections there have actually been eliminated but there are now a couple of spots that have been closed off and repurposed for parking or simply decommissioned so continuity of travel is a tad inhibited.

The morning started chilly and didn’t improve so my exploration desires waned quickly. I’d seen what I wanted to see in the Rockaways and my intent was to shoot directly home. I grabbed a quick shoot at one intersection and found myself at a dead end at another…

…so off I went. Now for a guy looking to make tracks (sorry) I probably took a path most traveled (at least in Nassau County.)

Those of you not familiar with NY 27 or Sunrise Highway, picture it like this; take a perfectly good highway and add one hundred times the normal driveways and access points any one highway should have divided by the number of intersections required to drive a person to the brink of insanity.

Image result for free stock photo road rage — Maybe he should reconsider the Venti triple espresso next time. Courtesy depositphotos.com

But the funny thing about waiting for a light to change at an intersection, you can look up and down a side streets. Though I’m not sure what made me look this time, Spidey sense, women’s intuition, I felt compelled to double back at the next intersection and head up this particular side street.

Jaw dropping moment in 3…2…1…

Is someone missing a dryer vent cover?

While only a fire station light, I was under the impression that Long Island had surrendered anything unique and vintage a long time ago. Well color me happy to be wrong. The thrill of finding a vintage piece like this in service made my blood flow so I took a chance that this road I detoured down might yield something else.

Head spinning moment in 3…2…1…(I really should see a neurologist about all this jaw dropping and head spinning.)

That reminds me, anyone else see Dumbo?

It just shows that a day planned is not always the best day you can have. I’d anticipated a quick ride out and back, such is my mood these days. Instead I was turned on my ear by simple sights and some exciting finds, hardly generic but nothing I was looking for in particular. In the end, I found more than I could have and not even close to where I started. I hold out hope that there still might be more finds in the future.

Excelsior!

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900 square feet. For six plus years now that has been the limits of my living space give or take a few feet. For most of my adult life, my dwellings have been full fledged houses with real green grass property. When the time came, post divorce, to establish residence at a post divorce income level, I was able to get into a classic multiple unit facility with a bit of a walk from the parking lot. This meant I would have neighbors all around me 24 /7 and as such daily actions such as ferrying signs and signals in would come under some scrutiny outside the walls of my humble dwelling. Indeed, it is true an eyebrow or two was raised.

Now, I could have collected anything in my life. I believe there is a gene within my families DNA that perpetuates this. Over the years I have collected many different things from coins and stamps. In my youthful years, trinkets that little boys often pick up in their meanderings, bottle caps, beach glass handfuls of rocks. Later it would be model trains. Some collections endure while others vanish into the folds of time. These flirtations were later replaced with my boyhood love affair with…comic books <choir sings, clouds part and heavenly rays of sunshine stream down>. I worked hard to support that collection and enjoyed it thoroughly. I began to envision myself a writer and artist in the pulp comic world, but reality fermented other considerations and I placed that dream in an acid free, Mylar sleeve.

***“Collect us or else, bub.”***
Xmen comic cover courtesy of Marvel Comics

***All the best stuff is made of plastic***.

Passions come and passions go. Well, perhaps they rise and fall as they never really leave. The circumstances of our lives put these passions into perspective. It wasn’t until I received a gift on my 18th birthday that one of my interests gained a whole new dimension. I had loved traffic lights since I was a small boy. I will never understand why, but through out my childhood I had this overwhelming fascination for traffic signals. My mom, sensitive to this, managed to adorn my room with some form of traffic signal decor. This is not uncommon for children as it is one of the ways parents teach them traffic safety.

Jump to my 18th birthday and on this sunny summer afternoon my folks present me with an honest to goodness real, fresh from service traffic light. Could this be? Could a plain old citizen have one in his home? I had seen these in business and restaurants so I assumed they were expensive to acquire, but damn if there wasn’t one right in front of me, green and mean and ready to be hooked up. Clearly branded on the back Crouse-Hinds, I now knew the manufacturer but it would be two and a half decades before a little thing called internet would tell me the model (Type R). What’s more that there were dozens of different varieties past and present. A collectors dream!

collecting traffic lights is like eating Lay’s potato chips, you can’t stop at just one

I have heard fellow collectors say that collecting traffic lights is like eating Lay’s potato chips, you can’t stop at just one. True to form my collection currently boasts in excess of 60 signals in various conditions. Some of these date back as far as the 20’s and 30’s. Not all of these are within the boundaries of my 900 square foot abode however, most are stored elsewhere until they receive the attention they deserve.

As for my stoic roommates, these guardians of the intersection serve now at my leisure. A bit of entertainment and a distraction to tinker with. Oh sure, I could have pursued a coin collection, (as my son often wishes when a sizable find needs to be lugged home) but there is nothing that is as deeply rooted with me as there is with this fascination and admiration for the venerable traffic light.

and because we needed a few more traffic signals here…

**crouse hinds single face d/dt w/adler lenses and two** **SIDED 4way**

I sell signals…

…and signal related equipment through Facebook and eBay. Please look at my ebay listings and then contact me at 3liteguy Signal Salvage – Traffic Signals for Sale to purchase.

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Tag: Traffic light

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and because we needed a few more traffic signals here…

I sell signals…

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