Did you ever have something you had once learned,
but forgot, instantly return to you in a moment of
clarity?
Happened to me
today.
We were doing a
BOGSAT(1)
this afternoon in the boss's office when the earthquake
struck.
Oh, it wasn't so very bad as
these things go - 5.2 or 4.7, depending on what news source you listen to. Some
45 miles southwest, off Baja California. Apparently they felt it in Los Angeles.
We were a rocking and a rolling there for a bit. Conversation stops of course,
while everyone who's lived in California for any time at all wonders, "is this
it?" (It wasn't). And in that moment of silence, this thought springs to the top
of my consciousness, unbidden, unwelcome: The ground itself liquefies during an
earthquake.
You step outside just
because it's a beautiful day, and see that everywhere up and down the
waterfront, people are stepping outside too. Just to enjoy the sunshine. I'm
sure none of us was wondering the second thought that comes to mind, "is that
it?" (it was). No thought at all about going outside to get out fumunda, I'm
sure.
Did you know that the richter
scale is measured logarithmically? It is - which means that a 6.1 is not 12 per
cent stronger than a 5.1 - it's ten times as strong. So next time you hear of a
7. anything, heave a prayer for the departed
souls.
The seismologists say that
there's only a 5% chance that it's a foreshock to a larger earthquake. So we've
got that going for us. Which is
nice.
The phones start ringing at both
ends - "what was that?" or "did you feel that?" Mine went north - "Everybody all
right?" "Is the house still standing?"
Yes, and yes. Yes,
yes.
We lived in central California for
the first part of my flying career. About 40 miles away from a modern little
town called Coalinga . Coalinga was a left-over from the coal fired steam engine
railroad day. Coaling Station A. Coaling A.
Coalinga.
Not much to recommend it
these days. Except it did appear pretty modern. Turns out that an earthquake in
1983 pretty much left no two stones standing on top of each other. So everything
you'd see in the town had been built after. People rebuild - it's home, I guess.
Rebuilding is what you do.
We left from
there to go to Key West, Florida. No earthquakes there. Hurricanes, though. We
did get hurricanes.
The last really
epic fight the Hobbit and I got into was when Andrew
came through with a vengeance in 1992, struck just north of us in
Homestead. I got her and the kids to bug out of the islands (I had to coordinate
the hurrevac of our airplanes - airplanes try to take off in hurricanes, even
when they're chained down). She had enough and stopped in Naples, just up the
west coast of Florida. I wanted her to keep going, to, I don't know, Ohio maybe.
You learn exactly how much influence you have with only a phone in your hand,
and your best persuasive patter on the line. She stayed in Naples.
Homestead? Andrew wiped it pretty much
slick. The folks there picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and rebuilt
the town. It's what you do.
So then we
moved from Key West to Japan, where they have both earthquakes and hurricanes
(only the call them typhoons). They used to wake us up sometimes in the middle
of the night - short, sharp shocks - like someone had lifted your four post bed
six inches off the deck and dropped it down. The Hobbit and I would sit bolt
upright and wait for a moment - was that it? Then we'd hear three chimes from
one of the local loudspeakers, and some unintelligible Japanese.
Smurf-snuff-dess-onegai-shimasu. Kung-smark-flow-kudasai. We imagined this to be
the all clear signal and went back to sleep. So far as we knew, it could have
been a message to prepare to meet our ancestors.
We chose to take the more optimistic
interpretation. That's what you
do.
-------------------
Oh,
in probably unrelated news today, the median price for a family home in San
Diego rose to $450,000. That's a 21% rise since last
year.
That's
crazy.
And there was a four SUV pile-up
on the merge today. Ugly.
Posted @
07:15 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
