LUCINDA, Pa. (EYT) – “Shocked and Loaded” is the title of Monday’s episode of American Pickers depicting their visit with Morgan Jones of Lucinda to be shown tonight on the History Channel at 9:00 p.m.

“The guys encounter a mad scientist who creates his own lightning and hypnotizes Frank,” states the description of the show.

(The above video is a demonstration of the lightning machine for exploreClarion.com.)

exploreClarion.com visited Morgy Jones on Friday afternoon in the remote wooded outskirts of Lucinda and found an interesting 72-year-old who looks a little like Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, complete with the creativity and heart of both the icons.

“There’s a bunch of crazy stuff we did here,” said Jones. “The main thing that got them up here wasn’t the stuff I had to sell; it was the lightning show. The tanks and the lightning show is what got them here.”

Jones also collects just about everything and anything related to the military, but also has a sense of humor and approach to things he collects.  For example, an old long black hearse is parked outside of his home and includes several Halloween characters along for the ride.  Morgy plans to take it for a ride on Halloween…probably before or after American Pickers.

Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz asked Morgy to play along with them for the show opening.

“They had me at the end of the lane (to his house) saying a bunch of rigmarole like ‘this is private property what are you doing in here?’  They had me do that, but I don’t treat customers like that.  It was all staged there.”

Jones has a business of building complete exhaust systems, but readily admits he likes to “experiment around and do all kinds of stuff.”

Morgy decide to build his own lightning show in a three story building on his property that also includes an observatory on the third floor.  He decided to build it there because he is out in the country, likes his neighbors, and didn’t want to move.

“I’m sort of a scientist and built a two story lightning machine,” said Jones. “It’s a big giant Tesla Coil and puts out a million and a half to two million volts.  This is kind of what got their attention at American Pickers.”

The Lucinda Renaissance Man puts on lightning shows whenever anyone asks, and there are usually weekly shows, whether it is neighbors, customers, or the curious.  He considers it a tourist attraction.

The lightning machine wasn’t always as powerful as it is now.  In June of 2008, he was arrested by the FBI and placed in Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh for 16 months.  (exploreClarion.com will publish another article in this series that details the Federal charges.)

“The Feds looked at the machine and thought it was too dangerous and thought I should tear it down,” said Jones. “I said the hell with that, so when I got out of jail, I souped it up, and it never did what it does now.  I can only run it a few seconds because I’ve got it so powerful that the volt transformer or the circuit breaker can’t take it. A few seconds is enough for good demonstrations.”

Hypnosis another interest

Hypnosis is another aspect that the American Pickers wanted to look at for their show.

“That hypnotizing Frank was a short segment…I shouldn’t be saying too much yet….I have hypnotized people and a lot more in the past,” said Jones. “Ander P-Jobb from Emlenton who was just on American Pickers and Charlie Glenn and I were getting together a lot in the 1980’s and hypnotizing people to lose weight, quit smoking, and even hypnotized people to get back to past lives and stuff.  We had done a lot of things like that.”

A fading “Charlie Glenn For President” bumper sticker can still be found on one of his modified military vehicles.

Military vehicles

“I’m sort of an experimenter and like military vehicles,” said Jones. “These are collector items.  If you want to make an investment, there’s nothing like an army vehicle that goes up in price every year.”

“Some I can get to a parade, some I can’t — like that armored personnel carrier 41,000 pounds, 10 1/2 feet wide I couldn’t get that over there too well.  There’s a British Ferret Scout car with twin 30’s on it and an Army mule with a fake 50 calibers on it, a halftrack, an Army Weasel, and a Duce and a Half. I’ve got an armored personnel carrier, too, or as I call it my tornado shelter.”

One of his proudest pieces is the armored scout car that gets trophies running it in the Fryburg Mayfest Parade.

“The liberals over there in Clarion don’t want to run anything with guns on it in their parade, but they’re fake guns anyways,” said Jones.

Told that the U.S. Army is now a major sponsor of the Autumn Leaf Festival, Jones is considering trying to include the vehicle in the next ALF parade.

American Pickers

Jones earlier saw a notice in local newspapers from American Pickers for anyone who would like to be considered for a show and sent photographs.  The show asked for more photographs and were interested enough to send some forward scouts and decided he would make a good show.

“They scheduled to come in here on a Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m.,” said Jones. “Oh my god — there were about 15 or 20 people with all kinds of cars and photographers and people to go through stuff.  They spent the whole day.  It’s not a simple thing like they show on TV. Mike and Frank were pretty good decent people, too.”

Jones said they did buy some things from him, but he isn’t allowed to say before the program airs.

“It wasn’t what I expected to sell.”