This week's edition of the Chronicles was supposed to be about the search for the next "Lost" and how it's asking the wrong questions, and while it's a worthy topic it's not at the top of the list any more, given recent events.

You see, we've had a pounding good thunderstorm here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, one of those spring gushers where the energy comes up from the southeast, seeming to bank off the Smoky Mountains and barrel across these small towns with unbridled ferocity.

Seeing the lightning making the western sky fairly shimmer with its frequency, I shut down my computer. I once had various important parts of a PC fried when a bolt of lightning hit a building adjacent to the one in which in lived in an apartment complex in Houston, and ever since I've been rather cautious.

This left me with nothing to do but go out on the porch and watch the storm come in. It wasn't long before my older son, Alex, who just turned 5, wandered sleepy-eyed from his bedroom. I stepped inside, and he and I stood at the storm door and watched the trees whip, the rain sheet down and the lightning rend the clouds.

Many kids are scared of thunderstorms. It's understandable. The noises are bigger than big, the lightning is brighter than bright and the rain on the back of your neck can be devilishly cold.

From the time Alex was young enough to understand what a thunderstorm was, though, I've done my best to help him see the sheer wonder in them that I, as the son of a son of a sailor, have always seen. Destructive as they may be, there is a savage and undeniable beauty to the approach, crescendo and departure of a thunderstorm that is found nowhere else, with the possible exception of a birthing chamber.

There is no sensation on Earth like that of standing with bare toes in wet grass, arms thrown wide, mouth open to the torrent. (Note: This is best done after the lightning has stopped or before it begins.) I have tried my best to teach this to Alex. His natural instinct for self-preservation is quite healthy, and I encourage it, but I also help him to see he doesn't need to cower in fear from the thunder like a Neanderthal worried that the Sky Monsters are angry.

The novelty of being allowed to stay up and watch the storm soon waned, and Alex began to rub his eyes. The fact that he's comfortable enough with rumbling thunder to actually get bored with it fills me with no end of pride.

After Alex went back to bed, I stepped back onto the porch as the storm continued. Pea-sized hail fell briefly, giving me a few nervous moments of watching the car and van windows. Rogue gusts of wind brought ominous sounds of cracking limbs from the woods out back. The deluge soon overwhelmed the French drain I installed two years ago to keep the water from ponding in front of the house and my hand-laid stone walk was submerged.

No matter. I wasn't going anywhere. With a storm to watch, the porch is the best place to be in the whole wide world.

Next time, we'll get back to the Island and the survivors of Oceanic 815.

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