Last night's storms brought about the following recollection:
When I was about 8 or so, that is when my fascination with lightning really took hold. I was sitting in the living room of the old house, watching TV, a food tray propped up in front of me. This was a treat, I was up later than I was supposed to be, though I don't remember why I had that privilege that particular evening. My parents had picked up some beef sandwiches at Dukes, so as I sat there eating a storm rolled in. The living room had a large picture window facing the street. Suddenly, the blackness of the night-time glass was replaced with pure white, and the simultaneous crack of thunder. I probably jumped three feet. Lightning had struck the tree across the street, in front of my neighbor's house. In the morning I would see the extent of the damage; it had almost cleanly severed a large limb that ended up partway into their roof. I have to admit I was pretty freaked out.
(Back in the present) I saw one bolt in particular last night, it had to be less than a 1/4 mile away, that charred the air and left a trail of burning sparkles. Of course I kept seeing it, as a shadow on the back of my eye, for about ten minutes afterward.
2 comments:
Sweet! We don't get many thunderstorms in northern CA. I'm sure it has something to do with the topography of the area, and I'm sure someone much smarter than me could explain it. But we do have intense winds that blow trees in half, as happened to the tree across the street from my house back in March. One minute it was there, intact and bending over in the wind; the next, it had split down the middle and half of it was in the street. Several weeks later, notices started appearing on my block about the public hearing regarding tearing the rest of the tree down. Seemed kinda like a no-brainer to me.
You should have gone to the hearing and insisted that they somehow put the tree back together again.
Ahhh, bureaucracy!
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