Around 1962 when I was a foolish 16 year old country boy trying to cope with city life, I enjoyed the rain. Quite often, I would go for a walk in that nice warm summer rain storm. It mattered not if there was thunder and lightning all around. I would just count, one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three and so on. As long as I could count, that told me all things were safe. When it got so I was down to one thousand one, I would begin to consider this might be the time to seek shelter. But I could still count, so in my foolishness, I still felt safe.  There was a time or two, there was just no counting between the flash and the sound. Even every hair on my body began to stand up and point to the sky. I quickly figured best to exit that spot and seek shelter. I was always intrigued with the power in that lightning strike. Being young and foolish, I began to plan on how I could capture just one strike and store it. Old Ben Franklin caught some with a string tied to a kite, why couldn’t I. Well the plan began to form on this little endeavor. Some of my friends cautioned me about such a plan as that. They stressed I just might not survive such a silly plan as that. But then, life sent me on many other challenges. Along this journey there were many times, I came quite close to death for many reasons. But I never did step across that line. So the thought began to fester in my ole brain. I began to think that just maybe they would prefer I stayed on this side of that proverbial curtain. They know my habit of stirring the nasty pot of life. They probably voted to keep me out as long as possible. So putting that thought together with catching a big bolt of lightning began to take on more impetus. My house has been hit three times as though it is calling me.  Catch me if you can, catch me if you can. Sort of a challenge. I do so like challenges. I lost count of the computers and monitors I have lost thanks to lightning. There was once, it was just a flash of light and no sound. There goes another monitor. You are probably thinking get ya self a surge protector. Well I tell ya this folks, when it comes down a tree, across my lawn, blows part of my porch off, goes through the house and pops the main circuit, a surge protector is not going to stop that. The big question now is how big does the storage container need to be. There is such a thing as a Leyden Jar. It will indeed store small amounts of electricity. Heck, even the old cathode ray tv tubes used to store up a healthy spark or two.  This, I know personally. Ya just can’t say oops and drop the darn thing. All you can do is shudder and shake a bit and voice your opinion about yourself. I tend to think this is the foolish part of me that is not afraid of electricity.  More than once, I have been given a tingle or two because the circuit really was not off.  I had shut off the wrong circuit breaker. Now, there are folks that this tingle would mean bad news for them. I guess I am just lucky and get only a little tingle. I tend to believe this is why those fancy watches do not like being on my arm. I have just too much electricity in me.
Now that I am practicing being retired, I need more challenging projects to do. It seems as though I am in the right spot, because lightning likes my house. So when the next big storm comes along up by the airport, I just might have to go fly a kite, or just raise a nice tall metal pole attached to something and see just what happens. The more I talk about this, the more of a challenge it becomes. Best I stop talking and go outside and play. It is not raining  yet.     Ken White mountainman COB  C= crazy for sure.

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