My much younger friend Jack and I exchange e-mail messages often. A lot of our online chats consist of nostalgia. He was brought up in this area and has sharp recall of his childhood memories. His recollections help me bring back my own.

A few weeks ago, he wrote: "The other day I was walking by a home that had a fresh seal on the driveway. It reminded me of growing up in Dannemora when they would repave the street, putting asphalt down. They had little pots that burned at night and were used as markers to keep the cars off the new asphalt. You know what I'm talking about, but I can't articulate it very well. The pots looked like they were the size of bowling balls."

Yup. They did. They were called "smudge pots." I told Jack that I have one on my garage shelf right now. Don't ask why. Did I snatch it off a sawhorse during by misspent youth? I'll never tell. But there it is in all its blackened splendor.

CARTOON BOMBS

Like the dwindling telephone booths, smudge pots at road construction sites have all but disappeared. Gone, but not forgotten. They have long since been replaced by blinking amber lights run by battery or some other electrical source.

When did smudge pots come into regular use along our roadways? My research pinpoints the year as 1927. I have no clue when the last one was used, but my best guess would be the late '60s or early '70s.

Smudge pots didn't get their name by chance. They burned just about any kind of liquid-flammable fuel including kerosene, sump oil or diesel fuel and had a wick on top that created a black smudge when lit. There was far less concern about air pollution in those days.

If you're younger than 40, chances are excellent you've never seen or heard of those round smudge pots. They always looked to me like the cartoon bombs with a fuse sticking out of them that were so popular 50 or more years ago. Remember those? I will ask my cartoonist friend Sid Couchey if he ever drew them for his comic strips.

I should point out that the definition of "smudge pot" is somewhat broader than its use as a safety light on the highway. A modified version with a chimney has been used for almost a century in citrus orchards to protect fragile fruit during periods of frost. For orchard use, the smudge pots have another name, as well: choofas -- so named because of the sound they make. That's probably more information than you wanted or needed.

BUG CONTROL

And the same size smudge pots we once saw on those sawhorses here in the North Country are available locally and on the Internet for use on your patio.

They're different from their roadside ancestors in that they come in several colors and textures. The object is to fill them with citronella, then light them to keep the bugs at bay. Even if they don't work, they look darn good.

I learned further that the North Vietnamese often used a variation of the smudge pot to hide some of their important war installations during that conflict. They hoped the black smoke would divert our laser directed bombs.

Much of the time, we simply dropped conventional bombs directly onto the smudge.

There are many stories from World War II of smudge pots used to illuminate makeshift runways in several theaters of conflict. I have also read of rural landing strips in this country, Canada and Europe using smudge pots to guide planes in for a landing throughout the history of aviation.