Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 31. HUGH McLEAN AND THE ELECTRIC LIGHT BULB (Pp 60-61) One of my best friends
when I was a young man was Hugh McLean. We were buddies and had lots of good times together. I was living in Waycross when my brother, Elvie, was very sick in the McCoy Hospital and I went down to Folkston to see him every day. Sheriff Jim Sikes was also very sick about that same time. Each day I visited the hospital I saw a nurse that was working there. I had known her when he was a little girl but hadn't seen her for years and didn't recognize her. I got up the nerve one
day to ask her "Don't I know you?" and she said "I don't know. Do you know Hugh McLean?" I answered "I reckon I do!" and she told me she was his daughter, Helen. I thought about an experience Hugh and I had in Jacksonville and told Helen about it. This is it: "When we were young men we were looking for work so we went to Jacksonville and rented an upstairs room in a cheap boarding house. This was before there was electricity in Folkston and we didn't know a
thing in the world about electric lights. Over the middle of the bed was a light bulb hanging from a cord. Hugh had just got in bed and said "Madison, I can't blow that light out!" I said "Well, let me try." I took my hat and fanned it and it didn't flicker. I couldn't put it out either so I said "Hugh, I'm going to cut that string and put this light in the dresser drawer so we can get some sleep." So I got my pocket knife and cut the cord.
When I came to I had been knocked under the bed and the room was full of lightning coming from the cord over the bed. People in the boarding house were making lots of noise running down the hallway hollering "Fire! Fire!" Hugh and I jumped into our clothes and ran to the door and saw folks going out the window at the end of the hall. I thought they were jumping out of that two-story house but when it came my turn I saw there was a tin chute to
slide down. Everyone was stampeding, trying to get out before the others did and the boarding house owner was afraid someone was going to get hurt. He was standing on the ground where they landed after sliding down the chute saying "Don't rush, plenty of time! Don't rush, plenty of time!" When I slid down the piece of tin, Hugh came right after me. As soon as I got over the shock of hitting the dirt I said to the boarding house owner who was still telling folks
to take their time, "Well, if there's plenty of time, why didn't you put your britches on?" When Helen, the nurse, got through laughing about her daddy's experience with electricity in Jacksonville, I admitted to her that I had made it all up! | 
