2003-03-06 - 1:52 p.m.
We just had a thunderstorm move through here. I grew up loving thunderstorms, then I spent 6 years in Southern California where thunder is a rare occurrence. I'm excited to be back in a place where one must consider the weather before running a computer.
Here's a thunderstorm related story. I was going to qualify it with "good", but I'm not so sure it is. It's just a story I've heard all my life, and I might as well put it down here.
My father grew up in a small community in East Texas. When he was 6 years old, he was on the party line with his grandmother down the road. It was in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm. His grandmother suddenly heard a scream and the sound of the phone being dropped. She called my father's name, but she didn't get any response. She panicked and came racing over, as they lived only a few houses down, to find no sign of my father and the telephone swinging from the cord. She was beside herself, dripping wet and breathless after her sprint.
His parents calmed her down when they related that he had suddenly installed himself under their bed and refused to leave. Apparently, lightning had struck the telephone wire. A "great big ole ball of fire" (at least in his 6 year old mind) came out of the receiver my father was holding, causing him to scream and run to the safest place he could think of. It took several hours and the promise of a trip to Dairy Queen to coax him out of his hiding place. To this day, he never talks on the phone during a thunderstorm.
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