BEN FRANKLIN AND ME

Ben Franklin is known, justifiably or not, for dabbling with electricity.  Though not well known as was Mr. Franklin, I have been involved with electricity, but not like he was .  As a child I was fascinated by the beauty and majesty of lightning but also frightened, sometimes terrified, by the threatening sound of thunder.  These natural and common reactions escalated when, as a boy, our house was struck by lightning while we were eating dinner.  Not only did it scare all of us, it burned a hole in our water heater that was an inch in diameter.  That particular lightning strike produced an incredibly loud and instantaneous clap of thunder.  From that moment, my awe and fear of lightning’s power took a significant leap.  As impressive as was that strike, my next encounter with lightning was far more impactful.  Just after turning eight, while on my horse riding to the pasture to round up and herd a dozen milk cows back to the barnyard for milking, I had an interesting thought come into my mind.  I had the distinct impression that I shouldn’t attend baseball practice that evening.  That puzzled me.  I wasn’t very good at baseball and if I skipped practice I would fall even further behind the other players.  The thought persisted but I disregarded it and went to baseball practice.  The older kids were involved in a game on the diamond so our younger group practiced on the adjacent football field.  As often occurred during the summer, thunder clouds started to form late in the afternoon but these spontaneous meteorological changes didn’t seem to bother anyone enough to stop playing or practicing.  As our practice concluded the coach called us toward him for his normal post practice review.  The coach was standing right by one of the wooden goal posts and we were all moving toward him when a bolt of lightning struck the goal post.  When I regained consciousness I was laying flat on my back and I saw what I thought was straw floating gently down from the sky.  Actually, it was splinters from the goal post which had exploded when struck by the lightning.  I was disoriented.  Within moments adults from the baseball game came running to our aid.  Our two adult coaches and a couple of the boys were burned and hurt enough for an ambulance to be summoned.  Later, witnesses said the lightning strike had scattered us like bowling pins.  I remember being driven to the Tooele hospital to be checked and being terrified of the continuous lightning strikes all around us.  The adults tried to calm me by saying we had nothing to fear while in the car because the rubber tires would insulate us from the possibility of being hit.  Others said that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place but that bit of advice did absolutely nothing to placate my fears.  I didn’t believe it.  I was leery of lightning before that day but much more so afterward.  Being and educator required me to find an additional source of income.  I found a second job in construction and one thing led to another until a friend and I had our own business as subcontractors plastering foundations.  Preparing a concrete foundation for plaster required scrubbing the dirt from the surface so the plaster could bond with the concrete.  Having access to a water source usually required us to attach a temporary tap directly into the water line before a water meter was installed.  This was located a few feet under ground level in a cylindrical concrete tube.  This fitting required a washer to prevent water leakage while the water was being used.  However, these washers were a proprietary size and regardless of how much we begged, the water department would never part with even a few of them, leaving us to modify washers that were available but which never worked very well, often leaving the concrete tube full of water by the time we finished.  On one particular day, after attaching the tap to the water supply and connecting the hose, I turned on the water.  The leak was worse than normal and it quickly became obvious that the entire hole would soon be full of water.  We completed our job and cleaned up.  By that time, as expected, the water had filled the entire concrete tube.  I reached down in the water to remove the tap.  The water reached my elbows.  I had to grasp the coupling on the copper pipe with one hand and the tap with my other hand in order to uncouple it.  the instant I gripped both, electricity shot through my entire body, causing my muscles to contract making it impossible to let go of the pipe.  I knew I was in trouble.  I simply couldn’t release my grip on the pipe and I knew if I didn’t, the 110 volts of electricity would ultimately kill me.  My partner was on the far side of the house and not near enough to help, though I don’t know what he could have done.  My only source of help was my Heavenly Father.  In my mind I cried out to Him, asking for help.  No sooner had this thought been formed in my mind than the electrical current ceased to course through my body.  I yanked my hands out of the water.  Some may see this as a coincidence.  But I don’t.  To me it was clearly the desperate child of a loving heavenly parent calling out to his Father and the Father answering.  He truly has been so kind to me throughout my life, far beyond what I could possibly warrant.  My fear/respect of electricity has not waned during the decades since that last encounter, but my trust in a loving God has grown considerably.