Lordee, we finally got a little rain last night, but it was in the middle of a sho’nuff spectacular lightning storm, the kind that son Adam and I love to sit up on the balcony and watch come in, until the rain begins to fall.

Just as the ten o’clock news was about to come on, there was this close tremendous explosion outside, followed scant seconds later by what sounded like a shotgun blast, and the lights went out here at the house, although our neighbors across the road and across the pasture still had lights.

I immediately surmised that our transformer had blown out, or blown a pole breaker switch.  Betsy calmly began to light oil lamps and candles, while I grabbed the big flashlight and looked up Delta Electric Power Association’s number in Indianola.

After a few rings, a lady answered (at ten p.m.) and I reported what had happened, adding, “Betsy is filling the bathtubs with flushing water, and first thing I did was run enough water for morning coffee, so we’re okay for tonight. Don’t worry the guys about coming out here in the dark.”

I had all the water hoses at slow run on shrubs for a week, so I knew my well tank would soon run dry, but wasn’t fixing to go outside to cut them off in a lightning storm.    

Only a month ago, I had walked into Janitor’s Supply to hear a guy on the other side of the counter talking to a customer who had obviously revealed his intention to buy a lottery ticket, for he was exclaiming, “Do you know that the odds on your winning the lottery are almost exactly the same as the odds of your getting hit three times by lightning?!!”

As I mounted a stool next to the customer who was receiving that information, I volunteered, “I’ve been hit three times by lightning!”

The customer never missed a beat. He turned toward me with his billfold in hand and asked, “Would you mind buying my lottery tickets for me, please, Sir?”  The speaker behind the counter countered, “You have? Really?”

I actually have: once I was in a vehicle, and wasn’t hurt, but twice the bolt came through a wire (one barbed wire, one a microphone) that I had aholt of, and in both cases, knocked me twenty feet away. The strike through the mike stopped my watch, an expensive one that never ran again.  

Matter of fact, when I took it to a jeweler for repair, he popped the back off and exclaimed, “Man! What’d you do, get hit by lightning?” Took a week for the hair on my arm to lay back down.

But last night, after making all the preparations which country folks know to do in case of a loss of power, Betsy and I departed for bed, and I was just dropping off to sleep about midnight, when I heard a big truck pull up into the driveway. It was still drizzling, so I pulled on swim trunks and a cap, and went to meet the DEPA men.  

“I told that lady that we were okay, so for y’all to come out during the daylight, tomorrow,” I declared, shaking hands with the yellow-rainsuited men.

One of them grinned, “We appreciate that, but a lot of customers are out of power, and you’re just on the route, so we’re checking to see if it’s an easy fix.”  

Sure enough, it was a blown switch on the front pole, so they focused a spotlight on it and got out that long fiberglass-looking extender rod and began to try to stick the thingamajiggy on the end of the thirty-foot rod through the silver-dollar-sized hole in the switch doo-maflachy. That ain’t no easy job, for I have had to do it myownself.  

A lot of rural homeowners did things they never wanted to do, and ain’t wanting to do again, during that month without power after the Great Delta Ice Storm of 1994. I do have a generator, with a pigtail 220 plug-in on the garage wall going directly to my breaker box, but during that time I sho’nuff learnt to appreciate electricity that comes into the house without making a noise!

Finally, the thingamajiggy went in the doo-maflachy, and the switch closed. We had lights again! I cheered as the DEPA men headed for the next storm victim.  Bless their hearts, for coming out in the dark and rain, to provide silent electricity!