Last year we had a real bad thunderstorm. This was not your everyday storm. In fact it affected a large part of the eastern United States. I can only imagine how many others that have their own story about the storm but here is mine.
I was sitting here in my recliner watching the Weather Channel and my computer as I tracked this storm as it headed toward me. It had already hit Indianapolis and was now slamming into Cincinnati. I told my wife to call her sister Sue up in Ohio and tell her that a bad storm was about to hit her area and to take cover because this one looked like a bad one. She later called back and thanked me for warning her but I doubt it really did her much good. On the weather map it was an ominous line of yellow and red extending from Ohio down into Tennessee and maybe even farther. I like to watch storms on the weather maps as they tear across the country because I am a sick man and I do sick things like that. There, I said it. Anyway, I knew this was a bad one because red on a doppler radar foretells of bad things in someone's life. I take these storms seriously because my property is a magnet for high winds and lightning. For some reason they love to terrorize this little piece of the planet. I have at least five trees in my yard that have been knocked down by these big lightning storms. I don't even bother to cut them up anymore. I just leave them where they are for the animals to play on.
Anyway, as the monster storm got closer and closer my family (my wife Wanda, our weiner dog Sissy, Miss Kitty (the cat of course) and I grew more apprehensive by the minute. The animals were laying on the day bed next to my recliner nervously watching the window right behind me and they weren't liking the fact that I had the window open so that I could enjoy the nice cool air blowing into the house. Blasting through the house might be a better description. But everybody seemed to be able to maintain a semblance of composure, at least up to this point in time.
This storm didn't give much warning when it hit us. A little wind of course but when it hit us it was sudden and it was hard. We had been listening to the lightning strikes to our west for some time but it still seemed to catch us by surprise when it began hitting all around us. It was bad. By now it had everyone's attention. I noticed that the Miss Kitty's fur seemed to be standing up and I was hoping the she would be able to weather this storm because she is pretty wild sometimes and can be more than a little bit unpredictable. So far she was doing pretty well. Maybe we were going to get through this one. The curtain behind me was blowing in the wind pretty much and the lightning was striking all over the valley but we were hanging in there.
And then it happened. I will never forget it. BOOM! Lightning struck just outside the partially open window and it struck HARD. It all happened in the blink of an eye. Miss Kitty leaped up into the air and landed on the curtain right behind my head. The curtain (a blackout curtain) crashed down on me and the curtain rod banged off of my head. All of a sudden I was blind. And I was deaf. I couldn't hear anything because the lightning had been so loud it almost paralzyed me.
I thought I was dead. Surely the lightning had been a direct hit and I was a goner. Goodby cruel world. It was nice while it lasted.
Suddenly I was aware of a loud squalling and the curtain that was draped across my head seemed to come to life. The cat was trying to get untangled from the curtain and I was right in the middle of it all. Well at least I wasn't dead. Miss Kitty got untangled from the terrible curtain and was nothing but a blur as she streaked across the room to parts unknown. We learned later that she had retreated to safety under the bed in the back room. I untangled myself and began counting fingers and toes and soon realized that I was all here. I was still alive. It must be a miracle. Whew! I thought I was a goner.
It's funny now. But I will tell you that my pacemaker got the workout of a lifetime that day. It was one heck of a storm. The power was knocked out for us and millions of others in this part of the country for several days. It was a humdinger of a storm. I will never forget it. Neither will Miss Kitty. Or the dog. My wife is still laughing about it. Women are so cruel. I'll get her back. It wasn't funny... at least not to me and the cat.
I thought I was dead.
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