Lightning Rod Craze
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Title |
Lightning Rod Craze |
Subject |
Lightning |
Transcript |
The Lightning Rod Craze Eli Merriman, one of the founders of the Caller-Times and a longtime newspaper editor, once wrote about the lightning rod craze that hit Corpus Christi in the 1880's. Two competing lightning rod salesmen arrived in town and proceeded to try to outdo each other. They went door-to-door convincing people of the awful destruction that lightning could bring to their lives, although no one in town could remember any example of destruction caused by lightning. But the salesmen were persuasive and soon almost every house in town sported a new lightning rod. A woman on Mesquite, Merriman wrote, had two lightning rods put on her home and another on her carriage house. Merriman said the spires, which stuck up two to three feet above the roofs, were very ornamental, decorated with balls of various colors. Merriman said that a bet was made with one salesman that he would never get a certain resident to buy one because he was so stingy. The salesman took the bet. Just before noon the next day, the salesman made his call, telling the owner that he was in the lightning rod business and would like to talk to him. The man invited him in to have lunch. During the meal, the salesman, sitting next to the man's little daughter began to cry. The owner of the house begged him to quit crying and asked him what was so bad. The salesman said, "I'm sorry, but I used to have a pretty little daughter just like yours and then a storm came and lightning hit my house. It killed my little daughter and burned up my house." The stingy owner bought two lightning rods-----one for each end of the house ------ and the salesman won his bet. Murphy Givens: KEDT Radio Scripts |
Author |
Murphy Givens |
Publisher |
KEDT Radio |
Date |
January 24, 2003 |
Type |
Sound Recording |
Format |
WMA; Length 1 min. 58 sec. |
Language |
English |
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