I have a funny story about the Perseid meteor shower:

When I was a child, ten or twelve, I was asleep on a hot August night and my Mom came yelling into the house and dragged me and my brother out of a deep sleep into the night. She was crying and carrying on and I couldn't figure out what in the world was wrong. She dragged us out onto the top of the cellar and told us to get down on our knees and pray. Now, my Mom was a religious woman but she didn't talk about it much so this was very unusual behavior. She was crying that the world was coming to an end. It took me a few minutes to get over the shock of the moment and get awake enough to look around me to try to figure out what she was talking about. From my knees, I looked up to see the most amazing thing I had or have ever seen. It literally looked as if all the stars were falling out of the sky. It was at the same time as scary as it was beautiful. Looking back I can understand why it scared her. I don't know if she didn't know about the Perseid or if she had just forgotten. We stayed outside for what seemed to be a long time and then when the world didn't end just went back in to bed. We heard the next day on television what it was.

I have never seen another meteor shower that even came close.

But, we are watching tonight to see what happens.