by dada » Sat Dec 26, 2020 5:43 pm
But I think my favorite anecdote for this time of year is the story about Ben Franklin almost electrocuting himself while trying to cook a turkey, two hundred and seventy years ago.
(In a letter dated 25 December 1750, Franklin describes his attempt to electrocute a turkey, which didn’t work out as he had intended) “I have lately made an experiment in electricity that I desire never to repeat. Two nights ago, being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my own arms and body, by receiving the fire from the united top wires with one hand, while the other held a chain connected with the outsides of both jars.”
Onlookers report a bright flash accompanied by a loud crack. Franklin vibrated violently, then was knocked unconscious.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.