HUMAN LIGHTNING ROD
This is Lightning Safety Awareness Week, which reminded Diary of Roy Sullivan, a onetime U.S. park ranger in Shenandoah National Park. In one 35-year stretch, from 1942 to 1977, he was struck by lightning seven times — and survived each one.
Three times, his hair was burned off. One strike blew him out of his car and knocked off one of his shoes — without disturbing the lace.
Sullivan was fishing in a freshwater pool in 1977 when the seventh strike hit the top of his head, singeing his hair and burning his stomach and chest. An unsympathetic bear accosted him and tried to filch a trout from his fishing line. Sullivan fought off the bear with a tree branch.
Florida has recorded the most lightning deaths since 1959 (463), while Maryland ranks 10th (126) and Virginia 26th (66). D.C. has not experienced a lightning death during this period.
As for Sullivan, he died in 1983 at age 71 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was reportedly distraught over a different sort of lightning — unrequited love.
BEARS IN THE HONEY JAR
At a book party on the outside terrace of Morton’s the Steakhouse on Connecticut Avenue, two men sipping cabernet were talking politics and life outside the Beltway when one offered that he was having a problem keeping black bears away from his beehives despite having an electric fence around them.
“The bears just pull it away. It doesn’t seem to work,” he said of the fence. Seems the bears had destroyed several of his hives in Philomont, Va., in western Loudoun County.
The other offered a trick he had read about to keep bears away.
“Hang tinfoil off your electric fence. Then spread some peanut butter on it. The bears don’t seem to mind the sting of the electricity on their paw, but one buzz on their tongue and they never come back,” he said as the host of the book party called guests over for his speech.
FILL IN THE DOTS
The new Rush Plus map on a Red Line train caught the eye of a bushy-haired 10-year-old, who asked her mother what the dotted lines signified.
“Oh, that’s where the trains go at certain times,” said the mother, explaining the new transit system whereby certain trains run on other lines’ tracks.
“What about the light gray dots?” asked the girl, pointing to the outline of the yet-to-be-completed, much-fretted-about $6 billion Silver Line.
“Maybe, that’s where they think they’ll want a train, later.”
MICROWAVE COOKING 101
A twentysomething was touring a rowhouse in NoMa that he found on Craigslist, and was trying to make a good impression on his future housemates. The four men chatted before getting down to logistics — what time to do you wake in the morning, etc. — and details about rent and the landlord.
Then, one started asking for the really important information: “Do you cook? You’re the only person on Craigslist who didn’t email us about your cooking.”
“I do cook. But not so well that I feel like I should brag about it in an email,” he answered. “I eat a lot of Trader Joe’s frozen pasta.”
“Yeah, those are delicious.”
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