[TheForge] OT Lightening story

Sat Jan 31 21:00:01 2004

This reminds me of a time in the late 70s when I was living on the South
fork of the Yuba River in CA, working a placer gold claim.  A storm rolled
in and proceeded to drop torrents of rain.  Lightning followed, with a
couple of bolts hitting some 100+ foot pines.  The sound was unbelievable as
the sap boiled and split toe tree like a giant hot dog.  Oddly, there was no
resultant fire, which was lucky for us.

Grant
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "magichammer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 7:00 AM
Subject: [TheForge] OT Lightening story

> 45 years ago when I was 10, I spent the summer with friends that had a
> huge watermelon farm in rural southern Mississippi. One hot lazy morning
> my friend Roy, his sister 'Cooter' and I were we were way out in one of
> the fields busting open the ripe melons and eating the centers from them,
> swimming in one of the ponds and just having a carefree time.
> The sky turned gray, the wind started blowing and it began to sprinkle.
> Since it was nearly lunch time, he headed for the house about a mile away.
> As we were making our way through the endless rows of ripe watermelons
> and the thick green tangles of vines and leaves the rain began to really
> pour down.
> Being young carefree children we delighted in the urgency and utter
> hopelessness
> of trying to beat the rain. We scampered toward the young oak tree that
> topped the rolling hill, thinking that the tree would afford us some
shelter
> from the downpour. We were about 20 yards from the tree when lightning
> came from the sky as if Thor himself had flung it. With an explosion that
> knocked us to the ground and left us all temporarily deaf, the little oak
> tree
> had completely disappeared, blown to a billion bitts by the force of the
> lightning.
>
> dave m
>
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >         Lightning is some weird stuff.  Butthole's house was stricken
> > >         about 6 years ago.  He and his wife were asleep when suddenly
> > >         KA - *BOOM*.  Their antenna tower was hit, then jumped to the
> > >         side of the house and blew a THREE foot diameter hole through
> > >         the exterior wall, blowing them both out of bed.  One of the
> > >         cats wound up cinged to a crew cut all over its body.  I
showed
> > >         up a couple days later and had I not seen the hole with my own
> > >         eyes, I'm not sure I would have believed it.  They were told
> > >         that it's something of a small miracle nobody was killed.
They
> > >         told me the light was so bright that they thought the second
> > >         coming was occuring right there in their bedroom.
> > >
> > >         There ain't much that scares me, but lightning turns me
> > >         sheet-white.  I learned how to teleport from my back porch
> > >         to the middle of my living room in what seemed under one
> > >         second when lighning struck my back yard, not 30 feet from
> > >         where I stood.  My hair was literally standing straight up,
> > >         I was so scared.  To get the the living room you have to go
> > >         though the porch, a 20' square kitchen, and a short hallway.
> > >         I moved like an olympic athlete that day.
> >
>
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