Many years ago, when I was 7 or 8, my father took me onto the front porch of our modest two-bedroom, pre-World-War-II bungalow on Oak Street in Flint, Michigan during a violent summer storm.

Dark clouds were rolling.

Thunder was booming.

Lightning was flashing.

“Storms,” Dad told me that evening, “are awesome things and there’s no reason to ever be afraid of them.”

Thanks to my father, I’ve always been fascinated by storms.

I am, however, turned off by tons of other things.

Like Monday mornings and lima beans.

Widths don’t bother me, but heights scare the you-know-what out of me, which kind of rules out me ever jet-setting around the world or being an Air Force fighter pilot because the way I figure it every flight at some point or another will probably involve leaving the comfortable confines of Mother Earth.

Yup, lots of things don’t interest me in the least.

They include, but are not limited to:

Radio talk show hosts.

Too-skinny department store Santas.

Flip-flops.

Canned beer.

Scalloped potatoes.

Alarm clocks.

Wool sweaters.

TV evangelists.

Anchovies.

Muscle shirts.

I’m also not big into February, liver and onions, television soap operas, cell phones and goofy e-mail messages from people I’ve never met.