Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 27, 2022

The folks who managed the pool where I grew up said that the pumps and pipes were FAR too good a ground to make it safe. That was their story and they stuck to it.

Why would someone be outside watching ducks during a lightning storm? It’s likely the ducks would be taking cover in the bushes. Google confirms this – unfortunately with a quote from a site about duck hunting.

No ducks, but when lightning struck the metal lifeguard stand at Duke Power State Park, hundreds of stunned and dead fish floated up. That’s when we lifeguards started getting everybody everybody out of the water at the first hint of thunder.

A friend reports that he got a shock standing with one foot on shore and the other in the water. And that was fresh (weakly conductive) water.

origin of duck a l’orange?

My father was a lifeguard when he was a teenager during a particularly horrifying season where there were deaths.

I guess that’s one Daffy didn’t see comming.

Today’s colorist managed to keep the colors consistent.

Do ducks stay in the water during storms? Now some poor researcher has to go out in the storm and look for ducks. Oh, and since geese are taller, wouldn’t they get struck more often than ducks, if either stayed on the water.

Ooo, sizzling electri-fried duck, extra crispy.

A flash of light. A puff of smoke. A smell of Sulphur. Oh. Never mind. It’s my old boss.

OH NO.

Widespread undetectable duck demises.

Uh, lightning doesn’t evaporate its victims.

In the old West, when lightning rods were first being introduced, churches (on whose steeples were the crosses that were usually the highest objects in town) disdained them, secure in the knowledge that they were safe in the arms of the Lord. One particular congregation learned that they apparently should’ve prayed a lot harder when their own church, safely ensconced between a saloon and a bordello, was the structure that was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.

On the cover of a textbook about lightning, there is a picture of a lightning bolt striking a beach. The photographer was taking a picture of the sunset with one of those old-fashioned large cameras when lightning struck about 20 meters directly in front of the camera. I always wondered how the photographer remembered to close the shutter before they left the beach.

Sure, getting hit by lightning is a one-in-a-million likelihood, but I’ll make the effort to turn it into zero-in-a-million.

“Evidence of said unfortunate duck?”

Plumper fishes?

Any of those ducks named Roy? Most lightning strikes survived by a person is seven. Roy Sullivan, a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977, is known to have survived the most number of lighting strikes, according to the Guinness World Records.

Ducks are too smart to stay out in a thunderstorm.

A swimming duck can also be a sitting duck.

Makes me think of the time my dad shot a gopher with the varmint rifle (22/250) he usually used on groundhogs. We did find evidence, though: a small piece of backbone. Everything else was gone.