Damn, I wish I would have known about this. Recently I threw away my 3 year old mag-lite cause the batteries were stuck inside from leaking.
Mag lights are legendary in my family. In fact, it's the footnote to one of the greatest stories I can ever tell about my childhood:
When I was around 10 or 12 years old, my Dad took us on one of our usual desert camping trips for the 4th of July weekend. This was one of the big ones, we had the neighbors along, plus some of my extended step-family, if I recall correctly. When darkness on the 4th finally rolled around, the Dads (mine plus the neighbor) dragged all the kids out away from camp with the promise of a surprise. The moon was waxing, so we had to follow the adults out single file - a parade lead by my Dad and his four stick Mag. The surprise turned out to be a massive cardboard box filled with fireworks. This was a huge treat for us, not just because we were city kids, but because we were city kids from a state where fireworks weren't just illegal, but we deemed them as akin to nuclear munitions in terms of how much we were NOT supposed to have them.
Now, I may have impugned my father a bit, so I should say that while technically illegal, this was a relatively responsible bit of fireworksmanship. The area was purely sand desert, not even scrub brush, and only the adults were actually handling and lighting the pyrotechnics. The kids just stood back and egged them on. By now our eyes had adapted enough that the mag light went into the cardboard box, well away from the "launch pad", and the brief flashes of light from a bottle rocket or screamer were over bright.
We were about 15 minutes into our personal celebration when out came the mortars. They looked, to my pre-teen eyes, like cardboard ice cream scoops on top of cardboard ice cream cones. The first one popped straight up and wow'd us all with a longer-lasting color burst than we'd seen from any of the bottle rockets that had very quick pops. The second one must have misfired, or failed somehow. I'll never really know, but none of us will ever forget the sight of the mortar launching. Instead of shooting straight up, it spiraled off at what seemed to be an unnatural angle. It arced brilliantly and brightly, fortunately perpendicular to the assembled crowd of kids... only to land directly into the cardboard box filled with the remaining fireworks, some fifty paces away.
You know the sort of bittersweet thrill you get during the grand finale' of a normal fireworks show? Like, you're awed and happy to experience this incredible display of color, light, and noise, but at the same time sort of sad when you realize that this means the show is ending, too? Well imagine that feeling coupled with sheer terror as the now engulfed box of fireworks begins to detonate. Bottle rockets lit out at wild angles. Chinese cracklers hit their machinegun staccato. The last couple of mortars - miraculously well positioned within the box - launched upward as their manufacturer intended, and a myriad of other novelty pyrotechnics all began to cook off, many never leaving the confines of the increasingly fiery and noisy box.
I remember there were a few stunned moments where no one could believe what had just happened and we just watched, but the adults did recover first and began to usher the kids farther away. The "finale'" lasted several minutes and then the rhythm of the assault began to die down. Dad never did let any of us get too near the remains of the smoldering box, but I do seem to recall a cleanup effort, followed by my father, a bit chastened, ushering us off to bed.
The footnote to the story comes after we returned home. Apparently during the cleanup, my father had recovered the mag light from the ashes. The switch cover and housing had burned away, but the body was still intact. I wasn't there for the recovery, so I don't know if the batteries or bulb needed replacing, but I have a vivid memory of being back at home and being able to push my finger down into the switch hole and get the flashlight to turn on, momentarily.
I don't know if my father ever told the story, honestly, to Mag, or if he simply asked for a replacement switch assembly without getting into the details, but I do remember being simply amazed that a couple of weeks later the switch was replaced and that 4D Mag was back in service.
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