Lost all electrical, then it came back. What's going on here?

Seriously? Is that what that is? I always wondered what that was.

View attachment 1716056368
That's a ground link.

Actually, there's a resistor/capacitor assembly according to the folks that rebuild 'em. It's built into the bakelite on earlier switches and piggybacked on later ones ('72-up on A/E). There's considerable extra cost involved in the rebuild if yours is missing or shot for some reason.

20170626_093431-jpg.jpg