For Halloween – A Shocking Tale

I am forever grateful to live in Maryland. I consider it the ‘Goldilocks’ state weather-wise.

After five years with too much winter in Wisconsin (at least it was that way 50 years ago) and fifteen years in the sub tropics of Louisiana, I really appreciate four regular seasons. Sure, we get extreme events like 100-degree days and two-foot snowfalls...but...a cool front eventually breaks through the heat and the snow melts away before long. In Wisconsin back then, things cooled off completely and that first autumn snow could linger into the new year...all sooty and yellow in places.

But I digress.

Waiting For the Plow (10 February 2010)

Our cul du sac isolated by 26 inches of snow. To add to the

frustration, it connects to a street that was plowed three days earlier.

At least we didn’t lose power and the fridge was full.

However, ‘Goldilocks’ doesn’t mean perfect. We have thunderstorms and with thunder comes lightning. I’ve noted before that we live in a heavily wooded neighborhood. Sooner or later, A bolt will get close.

7 September 2018. An early evening storm blows through. After enjoying the sound and light show from under the front roof overhang, I retreat to our upstairs bathroom to relieve myself. It is a small windowless interior room with the requisite furnishings. Tub, sink, toilet and no more. As I face the wall, as men usually do at this time, there is that simultaneous flash/boom that we all know means the lightning was very close...plus a spray of paint chips flies at me from the right. What? The chips that don’t hit me make it all the way to the tub to my left.

I thought the house had been hit. I need to see if the roof is on fire...after I finish this business. Not a good time.

The good news – after dressing for rain, I could see that the roof was intact, not broken or burning.

The bad news – a tulip poplar tree thirty-three feet from the house was struck and that strike drove through the tree, crossed underground to the house and blew the paint off the second-floor bathroom wall. In between, it fried the home entertainment system in the room closest to the tree.

The Aftermath (8 September 2018)

Fanned out in every direction from that gash

were splinters from the exploding trunk.

Strike One (8 September 2018)

And that, boys and girls, is why we tell you to never seek shelter from a storm under a tree. If I was next to that tree when the bolt hit, I’d look like a fried porcupine now.

Flying Splinter (8 September 2018)

This six-foot long splinter was stuck in

the fence twenty-six feet from the tree.

      

The paint chip explosion came from around the electric socket and over the nails in the wall studs. Curious that this kind of damage only happened in this one small room (where I happen to be...as if the bolt sought me out).

Scorched Poplar Trunk (6 June 2019)

The following spring, we took down the damaged trunk. Fortunately, as poplars often do, this tree had two main trunks and the surviving sibling is doing fine. Meanwhile, I imagine the path of killer energy shooting from here to the house and what that might have been like for all the poor subterranean critters...moles and cicada larvae and other burrowing beasties.

I still like living in the woods. And it’s even more comforting if you believe what they say about lightning striking twice in the same place...