Cranks – or “How Too Break Your Thumb With One Easy Pull”

  Before and in the infancy of having electricity, around 1949 in the area I lived, much of the every day life involved a “Crank”. Besides all early model cars and tractors needing to be cranked, gas motors were used for a variety of jobs, that in later years and up to today, you just have to flick a switch and the electric motor kicks in. One of the main uses for a motor was to pump water from wells. On a farm when watering all the different animals, etc. it would involve a lot of manual pumping. The types of motors varied but they all had one thing in common- you had to crank them! A secret to a successful ‘start’ is having the engines gas and air ratio adjusted properly – if you don’t the motor could, and often would, ‘back fire’. When a motor back fires (when being started), it actually changes the direction of the ‘crank shaft’ and turns everything backwards, including the crank you are holding in your hand. This happens very quickly and would cause the crank to violently ‘kick back’ (in the opposite direction that you are cranking). A person doing the cranking would never wrap their thumb around the crank (in the same way you would hold a glass of water) – to do so would mean either a broken or severely bruised thumb. The proper way to crank any engine was to tuck your thumb in along with your fingers so they were all on one side of the crank handle – and use your LEFT hand. Holding the crank this way, if the motor did back fire, your left hand would just slip off of the handle. You could use your right hand with your thumb along your fingers, but – the ‘kick’ could still hurt or break a person’s shoulder. Most other devices that worked with the use of a crank were not as dangerous, but some of them could be tedious. The odd one is still used today, but most are obsolete, thanks mainly to electricity. Some of the things that I grew up with that had to be cranked – egg beater and pencil sharpener (still used today!!). A couple of the tedious ones were a butter churn and the ice cream churn – but the tedium was overshadowed by the expectation of how great it was going to taste. A coffee bean grinder, meat grinder (to make ground beef), A milk separator had to be cranked (slowly). Wash day – wringer washer, had to be cranked. For any emergency, mainly fires – the fire alarm had to be cranked – the faster the more shriek the sound! Some stores still had the large cash registers that needed a crank to operate. I am not sure when the gestetner  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestetner was first used in the school, but again, a crank was used. We had a small ferry that crossed the river and it was operated using a very large crank to pull it back and forth. Without the crank, our phonograph player would not have worked – you would crank it up to its fullest, then listen to your records, as soon as the voices and music started to sound slow and deep, you knew it was time to crank it up again. As you cranked, the sound pitch would quickly rise until back to normal – it was kind of fun letting it run down, just to hear the slow voices! There are so many other pieces of equipment that depended on a crank – but for communication, without a crank, how could we ring up someone on the party line with our telephone. Everyone on a party line (more than 1 household and often up to 12 using the same line) had their own ring. Our number was 207, which meant line 2 … and the 07 meant 2 shorts and a long, my Grandfather’s was 215, 3 longs on the same party line (2). More about this subject in a future Blog. Wood and coal burning stoves had a crank that allowed you to shake the ashes into a container below, which you would empty often. Some of the items I have listed, because they were labour intensive, took up much more time (compared to today) to do many everyday chores – BUT – there was no Monday Night Football on TV – cause – there was no TV! So, it seemed we had much more time to do many things.  Try turning off your TV for a week - and enjoy some of the simple things in life.