A raging thunderstorm blew through the city the other evening. The same storm that wreaked so much havoc in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest, the storm had hardly the fury it did back west as it moved and blew out into the Atlantic, but its presence was felt nonetheless. Thunderclaps of such intensity are rare in a person's experience. Flash and boom in an instantaneous dance, creating out of all of us an audience for a spectacle that was not played afar, but shook the floor below our feet, the windows in their frames, and the cars in the street. I'm reminded of the long odds of being struck by lightning, but when the repeated closeness of the strikes threatens to do real and visible damage, the probabilities mean nothing. Shelter indoors is clung close to, and nothing short of a fire makes even the stout go outside. The foolish also found wisdom that day. The streets were deserted.