Zot!
I saw quite a lightning blast this evening. It seemed to be a double shot, actually, but I was driving and wanted to watch where I was going and let the lightning watch where it was going.
Anyway, there I was on Route 11, coming around a bend with the mountains in clear view and this really thick bolt came out of the clouds and ZOT! something got creamed. Right after it, far less than a second, was another bolt in the same area.
The gods were angry with the people who lived on Penobscot Knob. A double play to pick off Sinner 1 and Sinner 2.
Or maybe it was just a couple bolts of lightning hitting something like a tree that would complete the path to ground. The gods get blamed for so much and neither they nor the One True God really get that much involved in exactly where lightning strikes on a certain planet revolving around a certain star in a certain galaxy. There are so many of each and what’s another electrical discharge among friends?
I’ve been twenty feet horizontal and two hundred feet vertical away from a lightning strike. Close enough to hear the spitting hiss. You don’t forget that sound very easily; it is a reminder of just how close you came to being a statistic and having your name in the newspaper along with the day and time of services. I’ve been in the eye of a hurricane, but I don’t want to be in the way of lightning.
Anyway, there I was on Route 11, coming around a bend with the mountains in clear view and this really thick bolt came out of the clouds and ZOT! something got creamed. Right after it, far less than a second, was another bolt in the same area.
The gods were angry with the people who lived on Penobscot Knob. A double play to pick off Sinner 1 and Sinner 2.
Or maybe it was just a couple bolts of lightning hitting something like a tree that would complete the path to ground. The gods get blamed for so much and neither they nor the One True God really get that much involved in exactly where lightning strikes on a certain planet revolving around a certain star in a certain galaxy. There are so many of each and what’s another electrical discharge among friends?
I’ve been twenty feet horizontal and two hundred feet vertical away from a lightning strike. Close enough to hear the spitting hiss. You don’t forget that sound very easily; it is a reminder of just how close you came to being a statistic and having your name in the newspaper along with the day and time of services. I’ve been in the eye of a hurricane, but I don’t want to be in the way of lightning.
posted by Tom Carten at 1:46 AM
1 Comments:
I've been close to lightning strikes, too. Once, in my salad days, I was working at my second job - selling beer - and a strike hit the empty lot right across the street. It was something to see, and something (more) to hear. My closest encounter, though, burned my thumb. I was watching my daughter's soccer game and it started to drizzle. I opened my umbrella and soon after, my thumb was burned in two places - exactly where the wooden handle was screwed onto the shaft. I didn't see or hear anything other than my own shout. The referee saw what happened and called the game. I'd prefer thinking that this was a cosmic accident rather than a God who might have been mildly annoyed at me.
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