I know on previous posts I wrote about lightning strikes, and how you should not worry about them. Well this week, I put my money where my mouth is by experiencing my first lightning strike after 22 years of flying. This happened after takeoff out of Springfield , Missouri early this week. The experience can be frightening for any traveler. In fact, on this flight I had a passenger who suffers from panic attacks on my flight that I was just talking with in the terminal. Amazingly, she felt ok & wanted to know more about what happened. Their was some thunderstorms around the Springfield Airport. When we took off we had our weather radar on which show only some rain showers along our departure. In fact, the flight path look quite clear with an exception of a few clouds. In one of those clouds we first saw a flash of light then a loud kaboom sound. The lightning stuck around the wing area. After surveying the aircraft systems everything was working fine. We check back with the flight attendants who said everything was ok in the cabin.  After landing in Las Vegas we had the aircraft inspected. There was no damage. The moral of the story is to show how well built airplanes are, and that they are designed to survive lightning strikes with little or no damage.