What is it? Set 503

[j Burns]

That pole looks just like the flagpole in front of an office building a block from here. I know where it is! It's a defunct military base.

Some soldiers would try to be indoors during colors so they wouldn't have to stop and stand there saluting. Evening colors could catch them by surprise because it happened at a different time every day. Those boxes were built for such emergencies. Beetle Bailey could jump in and close the door so he wouldn't have to salute. It would be a breach of etiquette for an E-1 to jump in on top of an E-6. So they're marked, 1-6.

[Rob H.]

You're correct about it being on an old military base, it's actually a park now, this is on the same land as the Voice of America switch matrix from last week. If you look at the last photo of the matrix you can see some of the boxes on the right.

I don't think anyone identified the fourth item, but the rest of this set were all properly answered:

Rob

[Bruce L. Bergman (munged human]

Go to any County Fair or theme park and order a Churro. Then go look at the ovens they come out of...

It's weird, things like that you should be able to "pick up anywhere" but I've never seen a catalog where they list things like that. You used to get the various twist and link chains and sprockets with Erector Sets and would be useful for many Rube Goldberg-ing projects.

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