Lightning Strike!

Our neighboring rancher to the west wore a scarf around his neck to cover the scars generated by a lightning strike. At least, so we were told, and none of us had the nerve to ask him about it directly. There were two versions of the story, each of which had its adherents. He had been on horseback when the bolt hit, living through the blast that killed his horse under him. He had been in the bathtub. Which story was true, we had no idea. We only knew he was never seen in public without that black scarf.

Fire from the sky does kill, and there are documented stories of riders surviving a strike while their mounts died under them. To a ranch raised cowboy, this seems pretty logical: Horses have big ol' hearts which sometimes blow up fairly easily, and they are in contact with the ground while (often) wearing steel horseshoes. Well, duh! If the horse was riding the cowboy and the cowboy had on steel boots, guess which one would survive then?

As it happened, growing up in the mountains and working outside much of the time meant that we didn't need to rely on neighbors with neck scarves for stories about those bolts from above. Nor did our stories require being outside at all for that matter. I was ticked off for thirty or forty years about losing my prized bed lamp. Sure, it was my own stupid fault for ignoring my parents' wise instruction. So what? At the age of ten, I could hold a grudge with the best of 'em.

That lamp was beautiful, it clipped nicely to a crossboard above and behind my head on the bunk bed, and I'd won it as a prize in a spelling contest hosted by KOPR, a radio station in Butte, Montana, located some 75 miles from our ranch house. With the storm coming in strongly that Saturday afternoon and all necessary chores being out of the way for a few hours, I paid no attention whatsoever when the old man called out for all appliances to be shut down. Minutes later, disaster: The lightning struck, traveled into the house through the electrical wires, fried the wiring in my precious lamp, POPPED!! the bulb, and from that moment forward the little conical beauty with the fuzzy outside coating was nothing but a worthless hunk of tin. Gr-r-r-r.....

After losing my lamp, I grudgingly but unhesitatingly got with the program: When a thunderstorm closed in, electrical plugs came out. End of story. Or almost the end. Despite the fact that yes, that house did indeed have a lightning rod installed, it still entertained visiting electrical discharges like a house of ill repute welcomed cowboys coming in off a thousand mile trail drive.

Knowing this, we usually did more than just unplug things if the storm was a really bad one. I vividly remember one evening after dark during a midsummer night's storm when we all sat around the kitchen table. Not doing anything, really, since all lights were turned off and there wasn't much to see anyway. Not much to see, that is, until the storm put on a spectacular light show for our enjoyment.

Mom had been doing dishes a few minutes earlier but had abandoned the sink as a danger point for the time being. It turned out to be a good thing she had. We stared in fascination as a flickering flash found its way into the log house through not the electrical wiring but the iron pipe plumbing. For what seemed like several seconds, the bolt darted back and forth between the "hot" and "cold" water faucets. If Mom'd had a hand on either of those metal grab handles, guess what? Fried farmwife.

She wouldn't even have needed to touch a faucet: Let's say she'd been running a little more hot water to warm up the--you get the idea.

The most spectacular blast from my past took place just outside the house when I was fifteen or so. The storm was nearly over--the most dangerous time, according to some studies. Dad and I were heading out to do whatever (on a ranch, there is always more than enough needing to be done). He had just stepped off the front step onto the ground. I was a step behind him, just exiting the porch doorway, when--FLASH!!!!!!!!!!!--

I don't remember the sound at all. It was like being in the center of the Big Bang some physicists believe created the known Universe: Light everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, and lots lots lots of it. We quickly realized the bolt had hit the electrical power transformer about 30 feet from our punkin heads. No harm, no foul, and we went on about our business.

That was the last of the close calls during my formative years in Montana, though my wife and I did have one such in Cochise County, Arizona, in 2006. The strike hit some miles ahead of the rain, not something we expected but which isn't that abnormal according to scientific researchers. Once again, the bolt missed me (and Pam) by about 30 feet but did core the center of a dead yucca stem some 12 feet tall. Pam's son, Zachary, figured this out a few days later: The yucca fell over, and Zach discovered the burn marks.

Lightning is responsible for more wildfires than even crazy human arsonists armed with Bic lighters. It is said to kill around 60 people per year in the U.S.A. and injure perhaps 540 more. This is being written in July, the peak month of the year for atmospheric light shows. I wouldn't be without the stuff; it makes life interesting.

Now, if I could only get that bedlamp to work....

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32