Lightning

A childhood memory

I was about 8 years old. It was a lovely fall day, still warm and summery. My younger brother Barry and I were in the front yard collecting acorns. There were lots of oak trees in the front yard and they had given forth a bumper crop of acorns. These were fresh from the tree and very colorful with vivid bright greens and yellows. We were having a contest to see who could find the biggest and most colorful nut. We would scurry about on our hands and knees picking up every acorn in sight and depositing them in a central pile for later comparison. Every once in a while one of us would come across a particularly good specimen and bring it to the other’s attention with an exclamation of “look at this one!”.

We had a pile of several hundred acorns already, but we were consumed with the next great find. It was this obsession that made us oblivious to the rumblings of an approaching storm. We were both scrambling around like rabid squirrels when it hit. There was no thunderclap at first, just the sharp sound of electrical frying and wood exploding. A tree just a few yards away had taken a direct hit. The electricity flowed through it and into the ground where it spread out and dissipated. We were far enough away that the jolt we both received was not lethal, but very discomforting. We were completely paralyzed for a good 5 seconds. During that pause the thunderclap sounded. It was more loud and terrible than any I had ever experienced.

When we regained mobility it was difficult to move, like we were in slow motion. We started yelling our heads off for Mom and tried to run to the house. It was like running from a monster in a dream where no matter how hard you try you can’t get any decent speed built up and it feels like you are moving through molasses. We finally made it inside and it took Mom at least 5 minutes to decipher our incoherent babbling and crying. At this point we were chastised for not having sense enough to come in before the storm. Just what a traumatized youngster who barely escaped death needs, a good lecture.