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Outdoors

Derek Gann

2004-03-01 16:02:00

: How old should children be before taking them camping?

ANSWER:  Kids love to learn and kids love to be outdoors. Nature is one of the best places to teach children. There are so many amazing things to see and do. Imagine the excitement of a child when they spot a deer or other type of wildlife, their enthusiasm to locate items on a hike or scavenger hunt, or the anticipation of catching their own fish! What about the creativity they have with leaves, sticks, pinecones etc. when doing outdoor crafts? The outdoors is also a good place for them to learn life lessons such as teamwork, self confidence and self worth, awareness, innovation and the respect for nature and others to name a few. A lot of quality time can be spent with your children in the outdoors.Camping with children can bring you back to the simplicity of nature. It increases your awareness of your surroundings and can refresh your appreciation for the many things that often go unnoticed. So many things are learned and experienced for the first time each day in the life of a child. Patience is almost unavoidable. It is so important to take the time to enjoy the journey of these new experiences with your child. In nature there are many amazing things to discover. Camping can be a wonderful adventure. Just think- birds and animals, plants and trees, the rocks, the streams and ponds, the insects, the sounds, the weather, the wildflowers, and the many activities that can provide so much. By planning successful, enjoyable camping trips when your children are young, you will set them on the path to a lifetime of outdoor adventures.  Getting the kids interested in the trip by having them involved, builds their excitement and anticipation. Plan the camping trip together: • Decide where to go; consider interests, outdoor experience and children's ages. • Plan and shop for meals. • Prepare and pack the equipment and supplies. • Try a backyard campout before you go for the first time. • Teach the kids how to set-up a tent. • Try some outdoor cooking. • Experience a night outdoors in sleeping bags. • Search the sky for constellations. • Listen to night sounds.  • Don't forget the special nighttime snacks. • Get them familiar with the outdoors in order to eliminate their fears. • Teach them about safety and to respect nature. Teach outdoor skills and ethics. • Let them collect firewood, fill water containers, hammer in tent stakes, camp cooking etc. Have contests for gathering the most kindling, best camp cooking, most organized gear, fastest clean-up etc. • Take a day hike in the woods.  • Go fishing. • Take an evening walk. • Read related books. • Go on a flashlight walk. Take the necessary gear and supplies:• Extra clothing and shoes--the kids will get wet and extremely dirty. • Warm clothing--it may get chilly especially in the evening/dress in layers. • Insect repellent--consider timed-release formulas. • Sunscreen--they'll be outside all day. • First aid kit--for those little accidents. • Rain gear--keep them dry and warm. • Toys, games, and activities--you want to keep them busy. • Familiar bedtime items--pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, dolls etc. • Flashlight/glow sticks--to help relieve nighttime fears. • Snacks--all this activity is going to make them hungry. • Drinks--avoid dehydration.

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Outdoors

Derek Gann

2004-02-01 15:36:00

: I am not fond of "roughing it" but occasionally I will camp with the family. What is the best way to organize the basic supplies (hair dryer, curling iron, battery operated TV) without packing the whole house?

Derek Gann Question: I am not fond of "roughing it" but occasionally I will camp with the family. What is the best way to organize the basic supplies (hair dryer, curling iron, battery operated TV) without packing the whole house?Answer: I can easily answer your question, although I'm pretty sure it is not the answer you want to hear. Organizing the basic supplies is one thing, organizing the supplies that you mentioned is another. It's really quite simple. Leave those articles at home! You might want to work out a compromise with your family. For example, send them camping and treat yourself to a spa, or enjoy a weekend at home alone with a good book. If compromise is not an option, open your mind to options that can make your trip more enjoyable, eliminate the "roughing it" perception."Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." Walt WhitmanThe majority of women don't commonly participate in outdoor activities including hunting, fishing and camping. I believe that this is due to lack of knowledge. Most women just haven't learned the skills to participate in outdoor fun. Leaving the comforts of home for a camping trip with your family should mean that the everyday responsibilities such as organizing supplies, selecting food for the trip, cooking and cleaning up, should be shared to allow you time to discover a wide range of outdoor activities that you enjoy. Modern day camping can be almost as convenient, and comfortable as staying in a hotel. Almost. Shop for a portable, lightweight grill that gives you an open flame at the touch of a button (just like your gas grill at home). You can grill, griddle or cook stove top on these. No reason to fight the smoke while trying to prepare food over an open campfire. Save that treat for toasting marshmallows. Purchase or designate cooking and eating utensils just for camping. That way, they can be stored and ready to go at the drop of the hat, any time the camping urge hits you. Keep non-perishable travel-sized ingredients and condiments stored at the required temperatures so that they can be easily packed, eliminating having to re-shop for these items each trip. If time allows, prepackage or prepare any meals ahead of time. This will only allow you more time to relax during your trip, and to participate in the outdoor activities that you are learning to enjoy. Backpacking, biking, hiking, canoeing, stargazing, sailing, nature walks, rock climbing, nature photography and more can be enjoyed alone, or with your family. If you need peace and quiet, treat yourself to a comfortable and lightweight foldable lawn chair. Add a good book that you've been trying to finish, pack a snack, your favorite beverages, and head for the hills. To kick-off your stress free day, (and remember you don't have to be the designated chef) begin with a good breakfast such as the one featured below.  Above all, enjoy your "roughing it" days. Believe me, good bad or otherwise, they will provide you hours of entertaining stories to share with your kids and grandkids later!

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Outdoors

Derek Gann

2004-01-01 09:18:00

: I love football season and tailgating. I'm concerned about food preparation and how long my goodies can go without refrigeration, etc. Can you help me? 

ANSWER: You're right to be concerned about the food that you plan to serve others. One of the greatest dangers at tailgate parties stems from the improper handling of food. You and your family can breathe a lot easier knowing that you'll go home safe, healthy and happy, after a great day at the tailgate party if you abide by a few food handling rules: · When transporting food & beverage to your tailgate party, always use 2 plastic coolers, one for food and one for beverages. This way, with people continuously opening the beverage cooler, the food in the other cooler will stay cold and safe. • Never place cooked meat, fish or poultry back in the container that the raw meat, fish or poultry was in. Use a clean pair of tongs and a clean plastic plate or platter when removing the cooked items from the grill. • When marinating meat, fish or poultry, discard leftover marinade after placing items on grill. Never baste cooked items with leftover marinade. • Bring several inexpensive, portable plastic cutting boards. Use one exclusively for the chicken, meat or fish, one for fruit and vegetables, and another for anything else. Wipe them clean with paper towels at the time of use, and toss them in your dishwasher to sanitize when you return home. Wooden cutting boards tend to absorb juices and hold bacteria. • Use plastic bowls instead of glass, as well as plastic beverage containers. It is too easy for an accident to take place due to broken glass. • Bring a package of sanitary hand wipes and always clean your hands before handling food.· Place leftovers that have cooled in a shallow plastic container or in zipper locked plastic bags. Store in the cooler with plenty of ice and transfer to the refrigerator when you arrive home. • If you are not sure if food is still safe to eat, revert to the golden rule, "when in doubt, throw it out."• Lastly, use common consideration for other people and for your surroundings when tailgating. Always clean up after yourself and discard your trash in a proper receptacle.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2003-04-01 11:23:00

:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?

ANSWER:  (seventh in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. ‘02, Dec. ‘02, Jan. ‘03, Feb. ‘03 and Mar ‘03 issues) Whether Coleman's Model R was the first of the portable gasoline table lamps may be academic. In any event it seems to have been the model for numerous other lamps which would insure the success of the gasoline lights and eventually would lead to the highly utilitarian outdoor lantern.Prior to 1916, most gasoline and kerosene mantle lamps required preheating in order to begin the vaporizing process. The most common preheating device was the alcohol torch. Often the torch was little more than a bit of cloth held by a twist of wire. After being dipped in a container of methyl alcohol, the torch was ignited and applied to the generator.The building of a better generator became almost an obsession with inventors. The solution to the problem turned out to be quite simple. The generator was lengthened by adding a loop or pigtail to the generator's brass tubing. This added about 3 inches of heating surface. When two lighted matches were applied to the sides of the loop the vaporizing process was underway. The alcohol torch soon disappeared.Some 10 years later, the generator would be improved further, but by then the Coleman Quick-Lite lamps and lanterns had gained a leadership position in gasoline vapor lighting.The 1920s may well have been the most productive period in the gas-from-gasoline era. The portable table lamp became a familiar sight in millions of homes beyond the reach of electric lines. The lantern, which was by now virtually stormproof, was favored by many farmers and others who worked outdoors.The burning apparatus common to the lamp and lantern also was being employed in self-heating irons, domestic water heaters, camp and utility stoves, full-size kitchen ranges, hot plates and blow torches.The product parade continued into the war years. The allied forces ordered over one million gasoline lanterns and another one million special military burners from one company alone. And when the war ended, far from being obsolete, the lantern and its companion, the folding camp stove, found favor with new generations of campers and picnickers.Any attempt to assess the role of pressurized gasoline and kerosene lamps is without end. Their origin can be traced to the vapor or "spirit" lamps of the early part of the 19th century. The gas machines of the '80s and '90s were a forward step particularly after they incorporated the Welsbach mantle. Then came the hollow wire and tube systems and almost concurrently the development in the early 1900s of self-contained hanging lamps, wall lamps and table lamps. Gasoline lanterns gained favored status during the first World War by lengthening the hours farmers could work in the field.During the same period missionaries, explorers, archeologists and big game hunters would carry gas lanterns with them thus introducing millions to the marvel of their bright light.Commercial application of gas lanterns proliferated.   Night workers on shipping and loading docks, commercial fishermen, railway repair crews, forest rangers, operators of newsstands on the sidewalks of metropolitan cities, and shopkeepers in oriental bazaars all came to rely upon the brightness and dependability of the ubiquitous gasoline and kerosene pressure lamps.It has been reported that gas lanterns have successfully guided aircraft to safe landings in the high Andes. Emergency surgery has many times been done by lantern light. In almost any natural disaster in the past 50 years, lanterns have preceded emergency electrical generators. To this day, the lantern, along with candles and flashlights, are the prudent householder's best friends in power outages.The gasoline pressure lamps and lanterns have had their successes and failures, their champions and detractors. But one thing is constant: the principles which guided their development are as unfailing today as their bright light.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2003-03-01 11:49:00

:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?

ANSWER:  (sixth in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. ‘02, Dec. ‘02, Jan. ‘03 and Feb. ‘03 issues) It is not known how many companies were engaged in manufacturing gasoline lamps and lanterns during the 1900-1925 period. One manufacturer stated that more than 50 claimed to be making gasoline lighting devices but that "to our positive knowledge not more than one-fifth of these concerns do any more actual merchandising than is involved in packaging goods or putting goods into a shipping case or putting connections on wire.” 1Whatever the total may have been, progress was being made. One of the earlier advances was the inverted mantle. One source 2 states that it was not until 1900-1901 that the inverted mantle became a possibility. Development was credited to Bernt, Cravenka and Kent whose work on high pressure burners was reported to have covered a span of several years.The inverted mantle seems to have come into general use between 1905 and 1910, a critical period in the development of hydrocarbon lamps and lighting systems. The mantle was widely accepted because it was relatively simple to manufacture and apply. Whereas it could be shipped flat in an ordinary box or envelope and tied to the lamp burner with an asbestos string, the standing mantle had to be shaped, hardened, burnt off and encased in a protective carton before leaving the factory.Lamp manufacturers were learning early that fuel tanks and lamp fonts had to be made strong enough to withstand pressures of as much as 100 pounds per square inch. Among the first to learn the lesson was Coleman. Being in the lamp rental business he found that much of his time was occupied in repairing and replacing leaky lamps so that he could collect his fee. He succeeded in persuading the Edward Miller Co. to correct the deficiency, but only after he had acquired the patent rights to the Efficient lamp and renamed it the Coleman Arc Lamp. In 1905 he began making his own lamps.Although the hollow wire and tube systems helped popularize the idea that there was more to twentieth century lighting than Edison's carbon filament bulbs and coal oil lamps, there remained a critical need for a fully portable table lamp which would produce up to 300 candlepower yet would be safe to use even if it were dropped on the floor or accidentally upset.While in Chicago in 1907, Coleman saw a table lamp that worked on gas vapor fed to the burner by means of a rubber tube. The lamp was portable to the radius of the tube.Coleman returned to his little factory in Kansas and began work on what two years later would be introduced as the Coleman Model R Reading Lamp.3 A patent was granted the inventor in 1910.Whether Coleman’s Model R was the first of the portable gasoline table lamps may be academic.  In any event it seems to have been the model for numerous other lamps which would insure the success of the gasoline lights and eventually would lead to the highly utilitarian outdoor lantern.Next time we finish this series with the secret to the success of the Coleman Company in the early 1900’s... the building of a better generator.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2003-02-01 12:11:00

:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?

ANSWER:  (fifth in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. ‘02, Dec. ‘02 and Jan. ‘03 issues) Early in 1899 Coleman was selling typewriters in Alabama in order to replenish funds with which to complete his law studies. He saw his first Irby-Gilliland lamp in a drug store window. The intensity and steadiness of its light so entranced him that he vowed to own one. When he discovered the lamp was not for sale but only for demonstration, he bypassed the territory salesman and negotiated directly with Irby-Gilliland. Later that year Coleman purchased twelve lamps and chose Kingfisher, Oklahoma Territory as the center of his sales effort. He arrived in Kingfisher on January 1, 1900, the first day of the Twentieth Century.One of the setbacks Coleman experienced was the near total sales resistance of the merchants of the small but prosperous frontier town. The reason, he learned, was that an itinerant salesman had sold gravity fed lamps to just about every store on Main Street. One by one the lamps failed and there was no one to repair them.Coleman met the challenge by offering to rent his lamps, fuel and service included, for $1 per lamp per week. No light; no pay. Within a few months Kingfisher was the best-lighted town in Oklahoma Territory and Coleman's little Hydro Carbon Light Co. was providing service to a half dozen nearby towns.In November, 1901 Coleman moved his lamp rental service to Wichita, Kansas, a young city with an electric system that did not satisfy the demands of its customers. This situation was not unusual for the times. Merchants along the main streets no longer were content with low- level lighting and were good prospects for modern gas lighting.It followed that early inventors of hydrocarbon fueled mantle lamps concentrated on high pressure lamps capable of producing light of 300 to 1,000 candlepower. By design, such lighting was geared to the needs of commercial establishments, churches, meeting halls and street lighting.   In fact, one criticism of householders was that the modern lamps that made their own gas from gasoline were too bright.The attraction of high level illumination extended to Europe. By 1901 inventors there had devised gasoline and kerosene burning pressure lamps with mantles for use in lighthouses,1 The lamps were approved by both the French and British governments.During the very early years of the new century, interest seemed centered on what came to be known as hollow wire lighting. A hollow wire system consisted of a central tank for fuel and air, a copper tube 1/8 inch in diameter, and a series of lamp fixtures leading off the supply line.  Each lamp had its own control valve, generator, burner, mantle and a shade or globe. The lamps varied in intensity depending upon the size and number of burners.The fuel tank usually held 3 to 5 gallons of liquid fuel with space remaining for compressed air added by means of a tire pump. As many as 30 lamps might be on the system although the number employed generally is believed to have been considerably less.A variation of the hollow wire system was reminiscent of the much larger and more complex gas machines. Instead of forcing liquid fuel through a hollow wire, it fed into a central generator where it was converted to a vapor. The vapor was conducted to the lamp fixtures through 1 1/2 inch galvanized iron pipe. In order to distinguish the system from hollow wire lighting manufacturers referred to it as a central generator or tube system.  An added benefit claimed for the hollow wire and tube systems was low cost of operation. According to sales literature of the period, the gasoline vapor lamps were far more economical than electric, manufactured gas, acetylene lamps and even the kerosene wick-type lamps. It was pointed out that when properly adjusted, the high intensity of hollow wire and tube lights consumed a mixture of 5 percent gasoline and 95 percent air. That same ratio still applies to the gasoline pressurized lanterns made today.During the heyday of the hollow wire and tube systems, roughly the years between 1900 and the early 1920s, outdoor street lamps fueled with gasoline attained some degree of popularity. At one time Chicago was reported to have 8,000 gasoline street lamps. Other cities used them for lighting parks and thoroughfares beyond the reach of existing electric lines. A larger number, however, were destined for use in small towns and villages which had no electric service or had a light plant with insufficient generating capacity to serve the combined needs of both the public and private sectors.The more advanced street lamps were self-contained in that the fuel reservoir was concealed in the lamp post. Gasoline and air were added at regular intervals. A clockwork device could be set to turn off the light at a specified time but lighting the lamps had to be done manually. Another version of the gasoline street lamps was to give them a carefully measured amount of fuel and when the fuel was exhausted the lamp went out.Among the companies active during this period were the American Gas Machine Co. of Albert Lea, Minn., Acorn Brass Mfg. Co., Akron Light Co., Martin and Moorhead, Superior Mfg. Co., Standard-Gillette, Gasoline Lighting Co., Yale Light Co. and the Hydro-Carbon Light Co. of W.C. Coleman.Next time we will talk about the ‘inverted mantle’ and the first Coleman Model R Reading Lamp.  1 Recent Improvements in the Lighting and Buoying of the Coasts of France" Scientific American, Supp. No. 1350, Nov. 22, 1901.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2002-12-01 11:12:00

:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?

ANSWER:  (fourth in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. 02 and Dec. 02 issues) Last time we talked about  the Blackman lamp that had a generator/vaporizer that was heated by the flame of the lamp and which had a minute vapor-outlet.Next we come to the vapor lamp of William H. Irby1 of Memphis, Tennessee. Irby filed his application on April 28, 1900, and on September 18 of that year received U.S. Patent No. 657,936. It will be noted from the patent application that many of the details of earlier patents were incorporated in Irby's design. One significant difference was what Scientific American referred to as the lamp's "oppositely disposed tubular arms serving respectively to convey the hydrocarbon to the generator and the gaseous mixture to the burner."In his application Irby said the object of his invention was "to improve the general construction of lamps through the better assembling of the parts, a more certain control of vapor and air, and the burner and accessory elements rendered more accessible for cleaning, priming, or any desired purpose."What the Irby lamp may have lacked in originality it made up for in utility and durability. The lamp remained in production for nearly 20 years and its progeny, represented by the Coleman lamps and lanterns, are produced still at a rate of over a million units annually.In common with many of the other hydrocarbon mantle lamps around the turn of the century, Irby's lamp was intended primarily for commercial purposes. It operated on 40 pounds of pressure and was said to produce up to 750 candlepower of bright, white light. It weighed approximately 10 pounds. The fuel reservoir was bowl-shaped and made of heavy brass. The capacity of the bowl was one gallon - enough fuel for up to 24 hours of lighting service it was claimed. All joints in the frame were threaded and brazed. If the lamp fell or tipped over fuel to the burner was cut off and the lamp went out. An alcohol torch was required to initiate the vaporizing process.The Irby lamps were made under contract with Edward Miller & Co. of Meriden, Conn., a leading manufacturer of burners, lamps and trimmings.Irby and his partner, Forrest Gilliland, were engaged in the crockery business in Memphis. Irby's lamp, tradenamed "Efficient," was a sideline. Instead of selling lamps, Irby-Gilliland engaged a salesman who followed a practice which seems to have been prevalent in the early days of the lighting business. The objective was to acquire agents who would agree to buy an exclusive territory.  Acquisition of a territory carried with it the right to buy lamps from Irby-Gilliland.One who encountered the Irby-Gilliland territory salesman was William Coffin Coleman, a young man with poor eyesight and a burning desire to exchange a career as a school teacher with that of an attorney at law.Next time we will take a look at when and how W. C. Coleman first got involved in the lamp and lantern business.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2002-10-01 13:43:00

:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?

Herb Ebendorf Question:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?Answer:  Thank you... I will be most happy to do so, but to do it right, I have to go back further than W. C. Coleman’s work in these areas... so it will all make sense.  I will do this in several parts over the next few months.  Hopefully I will make it an enjoyable trip for you.  "The peculiar feature of the gas lamp of Dr. Auer von Welsbach consists in the incandescence of certain metallic salts placed in the middle of the flame of a Bunsen burner."1It was in this manner that Scientific American introduced its readers to an invention destined to have far-reaching and enduring effects on the history of illumination.The principle of the incandescent mantle was not new. Readers were reminded the Welsbach mantle was the same as that in the Clamond lamp in which the incandescent substance was a little thimble of magnesia threads.Dr. Auer had gone a step farther. He had taken an ordinary Bunsen burner and had suspended above it a hood of cotton or woolen material. The hood, which later would be identified as the Welsbach mantle, was about 6 or 7 centimeters in height and fastened at the bottom by a platinum thread. As soon as the burner was lighted the hood or mantle, which previously had been washed in a preparation  of mineral salts, came aglow with a whitish blue light said to be remarkable for its steadiness and intensity.Two months later Scientific American2 would report that the Welsbach system of gas lighting had been demonstrated successfully at the Marlborough Picture Gallery in London. The Welsbach mantle lamps were screwed onto the gallery's ordinary gas fittings where, it was said, "they emitted a white and brilliant light resembling somewhat that of an incandescent electric lamp."Dr. Auer had begun work in the field of incandescent gas lighting in 1880 at the Bunsen laboratory in Heidelberg. He obtained a patent on his mantle in 1885 but several years would elapse before he would settle upon a solution of 99 percent thorium oxide and 1 percent cerium oxide as the combination which would give the best light.Dr. Auer’s patents in Europe and the United States gave limited protection and by the close of the 19th century, there were scores of mantle makers.  One of the more successful ones was Candescent Lite & Supply of Wichita and Denver.If the Welsbach invention would seem to be linked irrevocably to the Gay Nineties, its importance, although overshadowed by the excitement which attended the early days of Edison's incandescent lamp, proved to be of lasting significance. The principles which guided the development of the burner and the incandescent mantle are far from being obsolete. Operable hydrocarbon mantle lamps and  lanterns, whether used for pleasure, emergency or decoration, today number in the millions.Next time we will look at how the burner and mantle got together, with fuel, and the host of inventions and patents that were granted in a very short period of time.

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Outdoors

Herb Ebendorf

2002-08-01 12:54:00

Question:  Tell me about the Coleman Reading Lamp?

Answer:  The idea for a portable table lamp was conceived about 1907.  After two years of experimentation the lamp was put into production.  Designated the Model "R", the Coleman Reading Lamp consisted of a nickel plated brass fount, standard, a generator tube, valve, air intake and burner assembly, two inverted mantles, shade, shade holder and heat bell.  To light, the lamp fount was filled with gasoline and air pressure added by means of a small hand pump.  A forked torch made of felt and wire was then dipped in alcohol, ignited with a match and held beneath the vaporizing tube.  After a few seconds of pre-heating, the valve stem was opened causing the fuel, vaporized by heat, to ignite.  This lamp was improved later and called the 'No. 3'.  It was a safe, sturdy lamp, difficult to upset yet easy to handle.  No chimneys to clean or wicks to trim.  It burned a vaporized mixture of gasoline and air and produced up to 300 candlepower of a light at a cost of less than 1 cent per hour of use.