Sep 07, 2024
Time for a puzzler. Here we go.
Many years ago, I went on a vacation to Cape Cod. Took a few weeks off to just be up in Cape Cod.
And during that vacation I was able to go to a yard sale in the area. It was a big old house where they had a barn with a bunch of old junk in there, wagons and baby carriages and all this stuff that they were going to throw out.
There was a lot of automotive stuff in the yard sale too. And in sifting through the tables of stuff, I found one very interesting item. It was a headlight, half of which had been painted with black paint. This thing was painted black on half of the front part, half the lens. So, I looked around to see if I could find the other one, since they are supposed to come in pairs. But I couldn't find it. This thing was a very old headlight, and it was a 6 volt headlight.
So, that means at the time, it was at least 45 years old, though now it would be considered ancient!
So, the puzzler question is, why was this very old 6 volt headlight painted black?
Note, the answer has nothing to do with running out of paint!
And a hint, you're not be likely to find one of these in a similar yard sale in a place like Ohio...
Good luck.
So it is finally time to answer this puzzler.
The puzzler question was, why was this very old 6 volt headlight painted black?
Note, the answer has nothing to do with running out of paint!
And the hint was, you're not be likely to find one of these in a similar yard sale in a place like Ohio.
And the answer is, you won't find this in Ohio, or anywhere else not on the Atlantic coast, because it has to do with World War 2.
Back then, during WW2, they required that on the coast, in areas that might be attacked by airplanes, that all the headlights were painted black, to block out most of the light and make it harder for the fighter planes to find them. This was enforced around military installations and areas near the coast.
So that is why this old head light was painted black.
