Lightening strike

Monday, August 11, 1975, was a typical summer day in Utah Valley. Late that afternoon a brief thunder­storm hit Provo and moved north along the Wasatch Front. Claudia was sitting in our front room nursing four-day-old Rachael. Michael Adam was next to her patting the baby. Rebecca was on her way to the kitchen looking for her grandma, who was putting clothes into the dryer.

That's when the lightning struck a tree overhanging our driveway, only ten feet from where Claudia was sit­ting. It sounded like a tremendous explosion. The sound was deafening. In the kitchen the dryer and stove sizzled before the power went out.

When I arrived home from work, there was evidence of shattered tree all over our driveway. The Provo Daily Herald had come to take pictures and ran a little story the next day with one of the fellows who lived in our basement standing next to his lightening-damaged tree holding a piece of a branch in his hand. No mention that it was really our tree.

For about three days, until the huge tree was completely removed, we had the most popular tree in the neighborhood.