How I set a trend of the "spiky" look to hairstyles...way back in 1977!!

1977 was NOT my year.

I had gotten a job at Ohio's premier amusement park, where I was a ticket taker. "Tickets, take your tickets here..." Our team motto was, "It's what up front that counts." Guess they meant guest count...I don't know.

Anyway. I don't know if God was mad at me or something, but that was the year I almost got hit by lightning twice & indirectly struck twice.

The first "almost" experience, I was off duty, so I was persuing my favorite after-work activity...riding the rides! (We got free admission to the park. Whoo-hoooooo!! LOVED riding the rides anyway, what a perfect job for a person who loves amusement parks!!) I was riding the Frontier Lift, a sky ride. It was a cloudy day, kind of mild...actually, quite nice.

That WAS until a bolt of lightning forked down & struck the power box of the Frontier Lift...blew it clean off the tower.

YIPE, YIPE, YIPE...I lay down on the floor of the metal car & asked God, "Please don't do that again..." Confessed my sins right then & there. Took about a half hour for the back up engine (a Volkswagen engine!!) to bring all of the cars into the loading station. That whole time, I was praying there wouldn't be any more lightning...thank God, there wasn't.

The second time was a week later. ONE week. Running from clocking in at the office, I was headed towards the front gate when lightning hit the building behind me, bounced overhead & hit the building in front of me. Me? I fell out in the middle, wondering what I had done NOW.

The first time I was indirectly hit, I was sitting in a metal chair under an awning. There was a tree about twenty yards behind me. The ground was wet from a recent summer shower...

Yep.

FLAAAAASSSHHHHHHHH!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

The lightning hit the tree, the ground conducted the electrical charge into the metal chair I was sitting in, & suddenly my ass was flying off the chair!! My hair looked absolutely gorgeous. NOT!!!

WHOO-HOOOOOOO, whatta shocking experience!!

Peggy, my supervisor, came over to see if I was okay. I told her, "That's IT, I QUIT, right now." She asked why. "I've been in a tornado, almost been hit by lightning twice, & now get zapped in the ass. SomeOne is trying to tell me I don't need to be working here!" is what I told her. She begged me not to quit, I was her best employee, I'd work 12 hour days day after day & not complain, etc. (Betcha she said that to all the employees. Whatever, it worked...I stayed through the end of the season.)

The day after I got home (you see, if you lived more than 30 miles away from the Park, they'd provide you with an apartment--for a small rental fee), it happened again.

A storm blew up suddenly. Daddy yelled at me to go shut all the windows in the house. I ran to the second story, those were all closed. The first floor windows were mostly closed...shut the few opened ones. Ran to the basement, the southeast window was open. I went to shut it...

ZAAAAP!!!!!!!!!

Lightning hit REAL close...wouldn't be surprised if it hit the house.

I had had my right thumb & index finger on the lock; was in the process of locking it when the lightning hit. I went flying across the basement.

Mom had just stepped out of the bathtub & was in the upstairs hall. Dad had just unplugged an electrical saw he'd been using. They're yelling at each other, "Are you okay???"

Karen, my twin sister, said, "You better check on Karla. She's sitting on the ground & her hair is standing all on end!" You know the noise Chester Cheetah makes when he's shaking his head? That was me....

To this day, I don't have normal feeling in my finger or thumb. Can move them, but they sure feel weird!!

No, 1977 was NOT a good year for me. Well, maybe it was...I survived it, anyway!!

Still wanna know what I'd done to tick God off...