The Big One

April 18th is the 100th anniversary of the "great San Francisco quake" and they're talking about it a lot this weekend of course.

For me, the "big one" happened in 1971 when the greater Los Angeles area was shook up something fierce. I was sleeping at the time (soon enough I would have to be up to face another day at Louis Pasteur Junior High) and for the first couple of instants I just incorporated the earthquake into the dream I was having.

And then I woke up...and I rode it out under my blanket. My brother, sleeping in the bed across the room, did likewise.

My mother, an early riser, had leapt up out of bed and ran down the hall telling us not to panic. She needn't have bothered...neither my brother nor I came up from under our blankets until we were sure the shaking was over. Outside I could hear the crackling of downed powerlines and the combined murmuring of people who had run outside their houses and were now recounting the experience.

Parts of the city were heavily damaged but we, our little house apparently located in a hardy part of the sprawling metropolis, had nothing much to complain about (one drinking glass fell off a kitchen counter and broke and a small crack appeared in our driveway.)

I grew up here in Southern California and I've experienced a good number of quakes...I don't take them for granted but neither do I sit around waiting for "the big one" to turn us into the island state of California (most of us who've lived here for any good length of time tend not to think about quakes much...at least until one large enough to actually get our attention strikes...)

One day the next "big one" will indeed strike (the slumbering giant that is the San Andreas Fault will wake up sooner or later, there's no getting around that) but until it does life goes on (knock on wood :-)