I Never Knew That

Q.  What causes lightning and thunder?

A. Since Kendal was built, two handsome large pine trees in Rockwood Park have been destroyed by lightning; one was observed by residents living in the northern ends of Robert Fulton and Alida.

I was surprised to learn that, in our age of sophisticated science, the mechanisms of lightning and thunder are not completely understood. What we do know is that positively charged ions sometimes accumulate in storm clouds. When they reach a high enough level they burst out and stream into areas of negatively charged particles, creating a flash of light and electricity aimed at the ground or at other clouds. This bolt creates rapid heating of the adjacent air and the noise this makes is the thunder. The reason we hear the thunder after we see the lightning ( when actually they occur simultaneously) is that sound travels considerably slower then light. In fact, if you could measure the interval accurately, you could determine how far away the lightning occurred, based on the known speed of sound. 

Contributed by Norman Sissman

Words, Words, Words . . .

I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory. All I did was take a day off.

Buying a new toilet was a big expense for me, so I decided to sit on it for a while.

I bought a vacuum cleaner 6 months ago and so far all it's been doing is gathering dust.

I was addicted to the hokey pokey . . . but, thankfully, I turned myself around. 

I have a few jokes about unemployed people, but it doesn’t matter; none of them work.

 Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink.

It was on the news the other day that a person at my condo got arrested for stealing cement. But they had to let them go because there was no concrete evidence.

I recently took a pole and found out 100% of the occupants were angry with me when their tent collapsed.

Contributed by Jane Hart