Mother of all lightning strikes...or at least for me!

[Tom]

You are one lucky fella, junkyard.  I guess, if there was one thing worse than a bear that frightens me, it is lightning.

Swamp,
The squirrel is some more of Jeff's weird humor.  I like it.
That area of the hole in the stump, the word allegories and the squirrel are all part of the link.  It is just a joke that makes you follow the squirrel.  When your cursor is in close proximity to the hole, click on it.  DanG Jeff.  I laugh every time I go to my website and see that Gator, dog and squirrel.   I like it. :D :D

[SwampDonkey]

Tom,
Your rope swing story reminds me of when we was young'ns. In my uncle's barn there was a trapeze tied to the ceiling raftors. We would build a platform out of rectangular hay bales so we could jump out toward the stationary trapeze. Once we got the trapeze going we would swing as long as we could hang on. We used to play king of the trapeze and see it we could knock one another off and onto some loose hay underneath. It could get pretty rough and sometimes we would try to prevent the other from jumping and grabbing the trapeze and down he'd go into the loose hey. The way you'de thump some one off the trapeze is you grasp the guy with yer legs and apply your whole weight to his and he'd either fall off or bring you with'm to. :D One day some one was being a smart elic and thought it was funny to whip the bar up to the top hay mow where I was standing and I got the metal bar between the eyes. That ended the fun, *DanG near broke my nose.  >:(

[Ernie]

Those days were slim pickin's.  I didn't have a pot or a window.  :D

This link should go to the story, if you have time   

Guardian angel on duty that day, just as well or we never would have got the story.

[oldsaw]

Looked out the window to survey the situation, and not 1/2 second later a nice one hit the phone pole I was looking at.  Bright flash of light, immediate "POW", and some of that "just had a flash picture taken of me" thing with the eyes.  But I could still see the smoldering wood schrapnel falling to the ground.

It was kind of cool, although mine appeared to me much smaller than yours.  It was a "waker upper".