Astraphobia... a fear of lightning and thunder.

According to Wikipedia (yes... I figured this is the only place I would ever actually quote Wikipedia, more because I can really), lightning is "an atmospheric discharge of electricity usually accompanied by thunder..." I know, I wasn't very impressed either... maybe that's why I never use Wikipedia as a source. Well regardless, hopefully if I say lightning, you know what I'm talking about. If not, look at the picture, if you still don't know, I'm sure there's something on YouTube.

When I was younger, I was deathly afraid of lightning. I used to attribute it to the fact that I had two relatives that were struck by lightning. I remember as a kid spending nights on my parents' bedroom floor because I was afraid of the lightning. Anybody from Texas can tell you that as a kid, lightning and thunder that will shake your house can be pretty scary. I am not sure what it was about my parents' bedroom floor, but it made me feel safer. I remember some nights where all three of us younger kids in the family would be piled on the floor together.

I do not remember when exactly, I think maybe when I was about 10 or 11, my perception of lightning started to change. Part of it probably had to do with the fact that I began to not like being mocked by my father and older brother, and part of it was I began to be fascinated by the way nature could light up a whole room. My house at the time had a large game room with a cathedral ceiling. There were two large windows, and I remember sitting with members of my family with all of the lights off, watching the flashes out the windows.

One of my favorite lightning stories took place when I was a director of Fish Camp in 2006. It was my session, and as the Director of Operations and Risk Management, it was my job to go out and check the fields after a rain storm to see if we could play intramurals on them. As I was checking the field house with a co-chair, a new storm began to blow in, blowing the cups from the water cooler all over the place. We were laughing hysterically as we chased all of these paper cups in this caged field house. Then there was a crack and a boom! Lightning had hit a tree about 200 yards away from us... resulting in two grown men hitting the ground with rapid heart rates and fear that they had soiled their pants. The fear came back... but soon subsided as we began to laugh at our current state lying on our stomachs. We sat and watched the storm move in, only to soon be reminded that we were sitting inside of a large, metal field house. We retreated to a covered area to watch the rest of the storm. Like most Texas thunderstorms... it was all over in about 30 minutes.

So why am I writing about lightning? Well, in the past month I have had some pretty cool experiences with lightning that have caused me to think about my journey from fear to fascination. On my flight home from my visit to Bowling Green State in early February, my flight was delayed for an hour as we had to circle the DFW Airport while it was "pummeled" by a Texas thunderstorm. That night it was a full moon, so as we circled, I was able to sit and watch the storm from above. It was quite honestly one of the coolest things I have ever seen (also seeing another plane in the air at the same time... that was a first... and a little scary). On my trip to visit Appalachian State a couple of weeks ago, I spent an hour on the runway in Atlanta as a storm hit the airport and rocked the plane before we could take off. People on the plane were scared, nervous about flying (let me just say flying through that storm made Space Mountain at Disney World look like a kiddy ride at Chuck E' Cheese), and I was calm. I sat in fascination and watched the storm hit.

Unfortunately that same storm I was fascinated in resulted me sitting on the runway in Charlotte for 2 and a half hours while the airport was closed because of the storm. I guess everything has its down sides. Now it seems my recent over exposure to lightning is being put in check as Dallas hasn't been hit by a good storm since my flight from Detroit circled. I'm still waiting, but I am sure it will come... they always do... and usually when I'm at work in my basement office or sitting in traffic... but hey, you can't always get what you want right?