You are the light of my life

On two occasions the light of my life was tens of thousands of volts. My first experience I can recall was on the typical insane camping trip our family took. In the mountains at Horseshoe Bend State Park the day had gone by pleasantly. Late in the afternoon we set up my fathers newest invention. In some flash of brilliance my father came up with the idea you could make a huge tent out of a parachute. All you had to do was get the parachute water proofed. Now with your water proof parachute you simply throw a line high into some tall tree. With people spread everywhere, and probably somewhere in the mix a automatic handgun. Since sometimes my older sisters would be the only adults around at night they were left with a gun. There is no better reason I can think of for gun control. No sooner did we start to sleep than one of the worst mountain thunderstorms imaginable hit. It was immediately evident there was not one once of waterproofing in that parachute. As we became soaked the need to move to shelter became apparent. So we packed everything we could in a metal car top carrier and headed for a picnic shelter about a hundred yards across an open field. For some reason at that time I had a broken wrist. On my arm was a steel cast to hold my wrist in place. I recall four of us walking across the field with a steel car top carrier and a metal wrist cap in a terrible lightening storm saying strike me dead Jeesus. About half way across the field a bolt of lightening came right at us. It was very strange. On the end of the bolt was what looked like a glowing florescent green soft ball. For no known reason it stopped in mid air before it hit us. We made it to the shelter and spent the night. The next day there were stories that someone had been killed nearby in the storm.

Many years later I was deep in the boonies in Ritchie county with my brother Colin. I must have been old enough to drive. A bad storm came up and I decided to wait it out before heading down the dirt road. As Colin and I sat on the couch on the front porch a bolt of lightening hit the phone line less than twelve feet away. To this day I can distinctly remember what it looked like. The bolt came horizontally out of the wall. It appeared like a glass tube about eight inches in diameter filled with cotton balls. The storm subsided and I headed to Wheeling. Later I talked to Colin and he said lightening hit the phone two more times after I left. Strangely nothing was damaged. Later it was reported the phone line which ran a mile down the valley under ground was improperly grounded. A lighting rod one mile long lead to our farm house.

Since those days I have been sailing in many lightening storms. I have never enjoyed it. Once while sailing in a race a lightening bolt went across the sky. A sailor in a competing boat yelled up at the sky " You missed". The next bolt hit his boat. There was no damage, but he was more respectful.