When the lights went out in New York during the great northeast blackout of 1965, I was browsing with a friend at Georg Jensen, the upscale Madison Avenue silver shop. Then all us shoppers held hands, and in single file we groped our way out to the dark street. And some years later I was in a movie theater when suddenly I smelled smoke. We were told to evacuate and hurried out post-haste. And more than once at Jane Addams High School in the Bronx where I worked for...