Hammering, loud peals of thunder had startled me into consciousness. As a young child of six, the storm had roused me from the comfortable oblivion of my deep sleep. The booming rolls of thunder had woken my father as well. His head peered from behind the door. Finding me awake, we went onto the porch of our summer cottage, which was perched high on a sand dune overlooking Lake Michigan. There, we had a panoramic view of the angry storm. Lightning split the black void of night. The brief, searing flashes of brilliant white light lit the boiling waters of the lake. Dark clouds crouched menacingly above the enraged water. Waves, lashed by the fierce wind, roared onto the sands of the beach below, and could be heard above the din of the storm. The wind moaned and wailed in the fragile screens of the small porch. We watched in reverent silence as the storm clawed its way across the whipping waves. When the storm reached our cottage, earsplitting and bone jarring cracks of thunder amplified the nearly simultaneous jagged strikes of lightning. As a young child I was awestruck by the naked power of the thunderstorm. At the age of six, if my father had told me that ‘gods’ were hurling thunder bolts from the sky I would have readily believed that.