We were living in a house in Superior, a small town in the mountains of Western Montana about 60 miles west of Missoula.  One afternoon a particularly strong thunderstorm roared out of one of the canyons accompanied by strong winds, heavy rains and much lightning and crashing thunder.  Kevin, only about a year old, was extremely frightened by all the commotion.  In an effort to comfort him, I took him in my arms and carried him outside to the porch (covered) and tried to explain what was going on.  I explained how the thunder followed the lightning and how you could estimate how far away the lightning was by counting how long it took to hear the thunder after seeing the lightning.  He quickly calmed down and began to have a little fun with me.  All of a sudden, a bolt of lightning struck a power pole not 50 yards from where we were standing.  The light was blinding and the noise was deafening.  The top 20 feet of the power pole disintegrated and the broken power lines hit the ground and began flopping around as they shorted out on the ground.  There was also a strong odor of ozone and burning wood in the air.  I don’t mind telling you that it scared the hell out of me.  Kevin, of course, was now really scared.  He didn’t calm down again until after the storm had passed.

We moved to California the following year and I don’t remember seeing any more thunder storms of any consequence until we moved to the foothills of the Sierra in 1989.  I don’t know if this scare as a child influenced how Kevin felt about lightning, but I’m still a little leery when the thunder starts to crash.  Every storm revives my memory of standing on the porch with Kevin in my arms, and me trying to quiet his fears.