Thunderstorm

Last night, listening to the biggest thunderstorm in the world roll in, I remembered something my dad once did when I was little and we were living in a row house in Philadelphia - on 20th Street, to be precise. (That's a guess at the address, but I think the green arrow is pointing at the right house.)

It was a pretty cool house, though I guess the neighborhood was declining. It had a small brick yard out front with a maple tree. I used to gather up the winged seedpods and pretend they were fairies. The teenaged girl who lived next door sometimes babysat me. She was a student nurse, and once gave me a little white nurse's cap with blue velvet strips across the top. Why don't nurses wear those cute little caps and white dresses anymore? Scrubs just really aren't all that sexy.

The house had sculpted avocado-colored carpet in the living and dining room, and pink and black tile, and a skylight, in the main bathroom upstairs. Behind was an alley, below street level, with a garage off the basement. In the kitchen there was a little compartment in the exterior wall with a little door on the inside and a little door on the outside, where the driveway to the alley was. This was for the milkman. He must have been so tiny!

My father's room was in the front, overlooking the street, and mine was in the back, overlooking the alley. Normally at night the sky was a nice reassuring orange, but sometimes there were thunderstorms, which were terrifying. I hated the big brilliant flashes of strange light, throwing the room into unnaturally shadowed relief, and I hated the echoing thunder. So I used to run into my dad's room and sleep in his bed.

Small children make terrible bedfellows, what with the kicking and punching and hogging all the covers, so my dad - who was at that time a psychology professor - decided to try an experiment. One night during a storm he took me downstairs to the kitchen, in my pj's, and gave me a big bowl of sherbet to eat, with all the lights off, while he sat and talked with me quietly, and the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed around us. He wanted to build a positive association so that thunderstorms didn't frighten me anymore.

I don't know if it really worked. I'm only slightly frightened by thunderstorms now, but they still terrified me for years after that incident. On the other hand, I really don't much care for sherbet.

This morning it's still raining buckets, and much colder than it was last night. February weather... But everyone else is sleeping and the apartment is silent, except for the sound of the rain. And there is coffee. I really love coffee.

Maybe my dad should have given me a nice big mug of really strong coffee instead.