Watching a brief storm rage from the safe harbor of an open doorway is a lot like going to church where the sermon is really, really convincing, where the sacraments of fear and doubt and redemption are annointed upon us in 45 minutes to an hour. Where, afterwards, the presence of a rainbow is felt long before it is sighted. A violent storm watched from safety is a religious service of sorts; reverent, scary, awesome. And afterwards we all get to go home impressed by what we've seen and felt. But lately this summer it's felt like every afternoon and evening has been a Sunday morning service in the Church of Mother Nature Gets Pissed Off. On the day that Center City got got a taste of the wrath of the Dopplar diety, some 420,000 suburban Philadelphians had just had their electricity restored from the nightly storms that have wracked the region since Tuesday. Farther west, the majority of the residents of our sister city of St. Louis have been without electric power for upwards of a week.

It's one thing to witness the majesty and mayhem of a violent storm while it's happening. It is quite another to live for days and nights in the calm humid aftermath of a summer tempest without electricity. For me the adventure got old immediately when I returned to our home in West Philadelphia around five o'clock to discover my family huddled in the kitchen in candlelight. It's odd how dark a house can get on a cloudy summer afternoon. Somehow that candlight only accentuated the pale glow from the windows that would only grow darker by the minute. The first step, of course, upon discovering a power outtage at home is to walk to the hall closet and get out the flashlights. And the first step after opening the hall closet to find the flashlights is to click on the hall closet overhead lightswitch. CURSES!

Yes, nothing can transform a 21st Century sophisticated urban male into feeling like a twit merged with a cave man faster than the loss of electricity. Let's turn on the TV and find out what's happened. . . . CURSES! Let's check out the Peco website on the internet. . .CURSES! Let's use my cell phone that only needs a quick recharge. . .CURSES! Let's walk over to a neighbor's house and use their. . .CURSES! When I got home I knew our power was out even before I noticed the lack of lights because our neighbors were out on their porches. This is what Philadelphia rowhouse blocks looked like before the invention of electric fans and air conditioning. People hung out on their front porches or steps. The coolest place in the house was outside. For the two steps forward in comfort provided by air conditioning, the retreat of neighbors inside their homes is the one step back. Funny what Mother Nature can show you without even trying..