“In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. ” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden “Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau has many essay worthy quotations, but this one struck home with me because I can relate with what he experienced.
I was able to have a similar reaction and feeling as what he had during this event. In Walden he talks about how the lightning struck a large pitch pine. It caused the tree to have a perfect spiral grove carved out of the tree all the way down. I think that just shows you how much damage a single bolt can be, but at the same time how beautiful it can make something. I think that it is amazing how something so powerful can make something beautiful in the end. Over the past summer my friends, family and myself were staying at a campground when we had a thunderstorm.
We didn’t think much of it because it is not uncommon in our area to have many thunderstorms. So we were relaxing in our camper when all of a sudden we saw and heard a lightning bolt strike a few trees. And because of this we lost power to our camper. Upon further inspection of the campgrounds we found out that one of the bolts from the lightning hit the main office building at the phone line five feet behind one of the workers of the camp. When it hit it sent power serge back down the power lines to our site. That is why we lost power at are camper.
We were looking at the office and noticed that the Wi-Fi router looked odd when we looked at it closer we noted that most of the wiring in that area was fried along with the router. Parts of the phone jack that was on the wall were scattered across the room. There is also a huge char mark on the wall where it came out of the wall. Our friend, the worker was lucky to be alive. I still think about how lucky he was not to get hit. Our friends that were camping in tents a few sites away saw one of the branches of lightning come down and hit the ground, then skip accost the ground in many different directions.
Its scary when you look at what Mother Nature is capable of doing and the amount of damage she can cause with just one lightning bolt. After all the commotion ended my family friends and workers all got together in the office and just enjoyed each other. We were thankful nothing happened to our friends and no serious damages happened to the camp. The only things that got damaged were material things that we can replace over time but we can’t replace a person. So instead of having a depressing evening sulking over the damages we instead had a little party celebrating the life that we have.
Another incidents that happened because of lightning is the house my family and I live at has been struck three times in the last six years. Two of the three instances has caused many of are electrical devices to be fried. Some include three televisions, an Xbox, two laptops and a few smaller personal items. Also during one of the strikes, if you go into our living room you can see where it hit the side of the house. We know that this is where it hit because where it made contact with the outside of the house you can see char marks going up the siding.
When you look at the exact same place on the inside of the house you can see about two inches around where the paint on the wall got blown off of the wall and creaked even more paint for about a circumference of five inches. At that spot on the wall we had a picture frame hanging and when the lightning struck the house it blow it right off the wall. My mother and myself were both home at this time and when it hit we could feel the electricity in the air from the strike. After we calmed down from the adrenaline rush that we had we looked around and saw that the house was fine.
We saw the beauty in our home still standing. I can relate with Waldens situation because I have seen a few lightning strikes but I would love to see something as amazing as the tree. Any of the strikes that happened around myself have all caused damages to thinks but we still saw the beauty in are surroundings. But to someone else they might not see any beauty in the situation. Walden showed us that sometime you have to step back from ones busy life and just enjoy what you have around you in your life.
