Comment by ghm2180
20 days ago
Every second house had a diesel generator back then. Ours had to be cranked started by hand(not for the heartless) before push button starters became a thing. The shutoff though was simple tug on the switch; I attached a twine that ran to my bedside for shutoff, which was a godsend at 2:00 AM when the power came back on to make those crazy summer days a bit easier to sleep through.
Small tangential note, but I think you might mean "not for the faint of heart".
Oh boy, those Honda maniacs would fire up the entire market area. I can still smell the diesel as I type this.