// Contains memories of a device engineered by my grandfather to test empty batteries.
To test batteries, my grandfather constructed a little wooden box that resembled something like a flashlight. The box had two compartments, both open, the bottom one for the battery and the top one for the lightbulb. One could see the wood that was painted a thick metallic silver, perhaps to suggest metal, was cut by hand, and as such, not all the joints, connected with small black nails, lined up seamlessly.
The batteries that would fit this device were 4,5 Volt batteries, big, flat ones that had two protruding metal lids on top. The only device I knew that would use these batteries were the actual flashlights that my grandfather had modelled this battery-tester after. The difference being that the real flashlight had a metal casing and the lightbulb was hidden behind a round, reflector-like glass. My grandfather had two of these, a pale blue one in the living room, and a dark red one upstairs in the bedroom.
I liked this wooden device my grandfather had made because of its simplicity. One had to just attach the two wires to the battery and the light would go on, nothing more. It was not even necessary to flick a switch. For my grandfather, this device not only served as a tester for batteries, but also a tester of lightbulbs. I imagine that whenever my grandfather’s real flashlights did not work, he could take out the battery and test it in the device, and then find out whether it was the lightbulb or the battery that didn’t work. In this sense, my grandfather’s makeshift device could then also be used as a spare flashlight, might the real ones break down. That said, since he had two flashlights he could have also used the second one if the first one was not working, therefore the reason why my grandfather built this flashlight still eludes me. However, as a kid, I didn’t care much about the reason. What impressed me was that my grandfather had made a device, with his own hands, that could make light.