Lightning Strikes

Part One

By Carter Crabtree

Let’s talk about good old-fashioned lightning. The kind that jumps right out of the sky when you’re not looking.

And did you know? Lightning can also jump from the ground to the sky? It can and it’s the it’s the most dangerous kind of lightning. In short, the stuff is highly unpredictable, especially when it comes a hot spot right near you.

This phenomenon is often taken for granted. As in: “Hell of a storm!” said one. “My TV got toasted!” added another. And, “It was like I was struck by lightning!” Former teenybopper Lou Christie sang about lightning hitting him along time ago. In this case, it had to with young sex and active hormones.

Chances are very high you’ve been caught in a bad thunderstorm here or there. If you live in Florida, it’s pretty much 100% guaranteed, per year. Yessir.

It’s been said many times that Florida is the lightning capitol of the world. That’s not quite true. While Florida gets the nod as the lightning capitol of The United States, Venezuela is the worldwide leader.

The chances of lightning appearing somewhere near you are also pretty high. Personally, I call it the ‘Crack-Boom Factor’.

It goes something like this: If you’ve ever been really close to a lightning strike, you hear the actual crack/scary noise from the lightning bolt(s), followed by a most-definite, very loud boom. It’s the time interval between the crack and the boom that tells the story. It’s a crude measurement of how close that son-of-a-bitch hit the Earth. As in, near you.

One other thing, the thunder rolls away from, not at you.

As a Florida Boy, I lost count of my personal crack-booms many decades ago.

The closest happened to me in a parking lot as I was about the get out of my car one fine morning. More on that in a moment .

Here’s the real news, friends: If there’s a lightning flash and you don’t hear a boom rolling away. Then you’ve likely been killed (as in dead) immediately or, if you’re lucky, badly injured or shaken like there was no tomorrow.

You just got struck by lightning. Period. You don’t get to say, “Hold my beer.”

This may sound a bit funny. But it’s not.

A man who was my mother’s boss in the 1960’s was struck and killed by lightning while standing under a tree during a storm. He wasn’t the only one standing there.

My mom cried for a week. It left me deeply affected. Then my own stories unfolded. I offer a basic one here today. As it turns out, I experienced a number of strange moments involving lightning.

More will follow this one.

I mentioned earlier about a close hit as I was exiting my Bronze/copper 1970 Pontiac Fire bird, which belonged to my dad. He got another car. He sent the Pontiac, along with me, and a couple of dollars to the The University of South Florida. Basic go-get-em, chick-magnet material.

If I recall correctly, he said, “Good luck, son.” Or some similar sage wisdom advice du jour. Yep. All seemed normal.

One day, I had just rolled into USF and was about the exit my snazzy ride when lightning struck the pavement about two feet away from the driver’s side door. As in, my driver’s side with me inside the car.

For a split second, everything went white. Then, gone. Pieces of asphalt from the parking lot rained down on my car and those around me. Sounded like popcorn. Seems I almost got popped myself.

I sat there, fairly stunned, I’d say. Then I opened the door, slowly. It wasn’t a dream or some night-before irrational exuberance.

I stood up and looked around at the parking lot next to to The College of Arts & Letters. “Wow, dude. That really just happened.” Something like that.

On the hood, top, and trunk of my bronze Fire Bird, I noted chunks of parking lot asphalt, of all sizes, had fallen all over the fucking place.

There was a freshly-blasted hole in the pavement next to me. I’d call it about 6 inches around and several inches deep. I stared at it. It gave me what sometimes is known as ‘pause’.

I looked around. In a circle of about 50 feet, other fans of the Arts and Letters building got their own taste this lightning strike, I’d say. The owners just weren’t there to see it in person.

I went to class and didn’t say anything to anyone. But, I sure felt strange.

After class, I did an arm-swipe to get the larger chunks of parking lot off the Pontiac’s hood and left. As I pulled away, I recall my empty parking spot with all these others cars coated in asphalt.

I sometimes have wondered, if other commuters later wondered, what happened to the person who was parked in that spot?

Here today, gone today.