Lightning in the Hills

In June 1966, I spent a couple of weeks out in the Nebraska sandhills with my great-uncle and aunt, Martin and Arlene Viersen¹, while my grandparents took my sister to Houston, Texas where my mom lived.

It was the only time in my life where I could pull on my boots, put on my hat and go saddle up a horse for a solitary ride out into the hills.

School wasn’t out yet for me so I rode to North Platte and back with my cousin, Linda – who was in high school on the last few days of my eighth grade year. The high school and junior high were right next to each other at that time.  My grandparents house², where I lived, was only about three blocks from Adams Junior High, so commuting 17 miles – a third of it on a sandhills two-track “road” – to and from school was a totally new experience.

Another new experience was when Martin rousted me out of bed one dark night to take a ride with him out in the ranch.  There wasn’t really any two-track going where we went – I had ridden a horse there a day or so before – up to the top of the highest hill on the property.  There was a lightning storm close by and we were watching for lightning caused fires in the already dry sandhill grasses.³

We didn’t see any.

1. Martin’s brother M. E. “Andy” Vierson was my step-grandfather.  Martin and Arlene raised black angus on their 21 square mile ranch in the sandhills north of North Platte.
2. From kindergarten through 9th grade I lived at my grandparents’ house during the school year, some of those years in the downstairs apartment with my mom and sister.  Elementary school was one block away and I almost always went home for lunch. Seventh grade, though, was at Madison Junior High, 1.6 miles away and my only transportation was my feet or my bike – I made it to school every day, no matter how cold it was, unless I was sick, and I don’t recall being sick that year. Then, in 1965, while I was in Houston for the summer with my mom, my grandparents sold their house on East Tenth and bought a brand new place on the other side of town.
3. Looking back it may seem quite risky, sitting on top of the highs spot around in a lightning storm.  We stayed in the Scout – what today would be called a sport utility vehicle, but back then it was an off-road, four wheel drive ranch vehicle.  It was also what Linda drove to and from school.
   The outer metal shell of hard-topped metal vehicles does provide protection to those inside a vehicle with the windows closed, so it probably was safe even if lightning had hit the Scout – it didn’t. Unfortunately though, the vehicle doesn’t always fare so well.