#3 - Thunder and Lightning

The first thunderstorm in spring is a noteworthy event. We had one the other evening just before dark, and I went out on the front porch to watch. My wife followed me out a few minutes later. We like thunderstorms. It's the lightning.

Lightning is amazing, mysterious and sometimes frightening stuff, and it causes people to do peculiar things like counting the seconds between lightning and thunder clap, or crawling under the kitchen table.

Lightning turns practically everyone into hifalutin' theoreticians: "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place." Hah! I know of at least one water well whose submersible pump has been struck half a dozen times. And I've read about a wonderful theory of some scientists in Japan who say that if you have a zipper on your pants you are less likely to be hurt by a direct hit. They contend that the zipper would dissipate a lot of the electricity. Well, To be truthful, I don't particularly care to get struck in the zipper.

Even though the remote odds of being struck by lightning are a classic example of improbability, the human ego always has itself pegged to be ground zero for the next hit. We often get into serious contests of one-upmanship: Who's come the closest to getting struck before? I have come pretty close a number of times myself - so close, in fact, that I could feel a tingling electric sensation and smell the ozone in the air. And, one time, a very large pine tree nearby was not merely struck by lightning but was blown apart with an accompanying thunderclap that was easily the loudest sound I've ever heard. (My theory is the electrical energy instantly turns the tree's sap into steam and simply blew the tree up.) There were huge splinters of the trunk thrown 80 to 100 feet through the woods.

Whether it's a trick of the ego or not, a couple of close hits can make a guy a little jumpy. We had one the other night that seem closer than necessary, so we hustled inside and watched from the doorway where it was much safer.