I remember it the same way you do.

Just thinking through this, what it really gets down to is that with high voltages, high currents and bad connection to earth ground, it's pretty unpredictable about what is going to happen. From an electrical point of view - which really is the only one that matters - you want to be at the farthest potential from the clouds (charge) that you can be. That means you want to be at the lowest potential with the biggest air gap between you and the cloud possible. You want to appear electrically like bedrock. That means that anything with a higher potential (higher voltage) than you is going to be where the lightning goes first.

So I'm not sure I agree with the crouching argument. It depends on your shoes at that point. If you are wearing nonconductive shoes then you're floating with respect to earth ground and potentially making yourself an even larger target. It is, however, a closer position to the "bend over and kiss you a$$ good bye" position. There's probably merit in that at some level.

What you do want is a very good connection to ground so that you appear to be at earth ground. You also want to have the maximum air gap you can achieve between you and the clouds (source of charge).

What probably makes sense is that you don't put both a foot and a hand on the ground as your contact points regardless of what you do. That puts a conductive path through your heart and that can be fatal with a very low current.

J.