Great balls of fire

Dave’s story about the lightning strike at the family beach house sounds the same every time he tells it – and that’s been for more than 70 years. He was about 5 when he witnessed something few people ever see and live to talk about.

His family – parents, sister Gloria, and his brother Linn – lived in Aldan, Pa., a small community about six miles west of Philadelphia, then spent the three months of summer in Ocean City, N.J. Except for the week of his own vacation, their dad took the train from the beach to work every day, same as he would have if he’d been at home.

Picture this family of five jammed into a gunmetal gray 1935 Chevy sedan, with running boards and wicker trunks, two ducks and a dog named Punk. One duck eventually went for a walk and forgot to come back, but Wobbly made the car trip several times before going to live with a neighbor who fancied her.

The family rented a plain-Jane, two-story, concrete house a couple of blocks from the ocean and four blocks from the bay. It was an idyllic summer spot for three kids and not much money. These were the Depression years after all, but the house, the only one like it in Ocean City, was cheap. Its owner/builder had a concrete business and knew his house would be strong and fireproof, if not right on the beach.

Since the house was built for himself, but rented to the Satterthwaites, where did the owner live or at least sleep? I asked Dave. “I was a baby,” he replied. “I remember being in the crib, but I didn’t think about where the landlord lived. Maybe in the garage out back where we kept our bicycles.”

He recalled the lightning ball clearly. It must have been about 1936. He knows there was a storm, but saw no lightning flashes and heard no clap of thunder.

“I was downstairs on the main floor and saw the whole thing,” he said. “There was a window at the top and one at the bottom of the stairs.

“I was standing downstairs and the storm came up, and while I was looking at it, a large ball of lightning burst in through the window at the top of the steps. The windows were all wide open because of the summer heat. No air conditioning back then.”

He described the way the blinding white ball entered the second story window and flew down the stairs without landing on any of them, sailed through the downstairs window, hitting the ground at least once outside, bouncing across the street and landing on a neighbor’s porch, setting it afire.

As an adult, he muses how the ball, about the size of a basketball, went through the screens on both windows. Maybe they didn’t have screens. Must have: The bugs were awful.

He might have been accused of exaggerating – little boys sometimes do – except for three things. (1) The house across the street caught fire and was damaged but saved by the fire department. (2) A blackened circle of grass marked where the ball bounced on the strip of lawn out front. (3) And the story has hardly changed a syllable in the more than 50 years I’ve listened to it.

Dave admits to being terrified. His mother was upstairs when this missile shot through her house, and ran down to see why her son was screaming. He recalls her holding him to calm him.

And for reasons best understood by Dave, every time he tells this story, he has to explain how Punk-the-dog got his name. Flash back a year or so: Dave’s mother – a free spirit if there ever was one – had picked up the Airedale-mix at an animal shelter and brought him home to the kids.

They played and romped all day, “bonding,” I guess we’d call it today. When their dad came home, parked the car and came out the back door of the garage, Punk went into defense mode, nipping at the stranger until the kids pulled him away.

“Where did you get that punk dog?” Dad snarled, going into the house.

They never did “bond.”