Page 43 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

MA INVENTS THE ELECTRIC TIMER

The next thing ma did was try to figure out a way to keep from burning the lights all night long, because
she knew the chickens needed some darkness so that they would get some sleep, and she did not want to
pay an electric bill for lights she was using more than she needed to, so she very ingeniously figured out
a way to get the chicken lights turned on in the wee hours of the morning without her having to get up
out of bed to do it. She got an alarm clock which we would deem to be an old fashioned alarm clock
today, and for those who are old enough to remember the old types of alarm clocks, there was a key on
the back of the clock that you turned to wind it up so that it would keep time, and keep running, and
there was another key on the back that if you wind it up tight, and then set the alarm for whatever time
you wanted the alarm to go off, it would cause the alarm to be able to make the clanging noise that these
old clocks made. But, of course, while the alarm was clanging, the key that you use to wind it up with
would physically unwind, and turn all the way back to whatever the starting position had been before
you wound up the alarm.

So, ma figured a way to make the alarm clock actually turn on the lights in the chicken houses. She had
pa take a brace-and-bit and bore a very small whole in a light switch which Otis Stewart had placed
behind the kitchen door, and she had him build a small shelf about the size of a half sheet of paper and
mount it just above the light switch. Then she placed an alarm clock on that little shelf, and took a piece
of 20 pound test fishing line and tied it to the hole on the light switch, and run the line up behind the
shelf and attached it to the wind-up key on the back which began to turn when the alarm went off.

Then she would set the alarm for 2 or 3:00 in the morning, or whenever she wanted the chicken lights
on, and as soon as it got to be that time, as the alarm went off it would wind the fish line around the key
on the back and eventually pulled the light switch up, which of course turned on the lights in the chicken
houses.

Ma may have been the one to actually invent the electrical timer, although crude it might have been, but
it worked.

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