Sunday, July 22, 2007
Breaking News...
I'll be on a brief hiatus for the next 10 days. After that, I will begin making regular postings once again. I appreciate your continued support, encouragement, and patronage!
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Clovis Chronicles Project
I'm working on my first fiction novel and I've started posting portions to the Internet. Click here to learn more. You're invited to make comments and suggestions.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Day the Earth Crumbled....
When I was five years-old, my family and I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska. My father was an Air Force Fire Fighter there. All-in-all we spent three and a half years in Alaska and loved every minute of it. That is except for a brief period beginning around 5:30 pm, on March 27, 1964.
I can clearly recall that evening, although the event occurred 43 years ago. My father was on his 24 hour shift at the fire station that day and so was not going to be home that night. My mother had prepared dinner for the three of us (my mother, me, and my younger brother Tony). Just after my mother got up from the dinner table at the end of the meal and started to clean up around the kitchen, she turned to me and yelled across the room "Tommy, quit kicking that lamp!"
Now, I know that sounds weird and all, but I've got a perfectly good explanation. The 'lamp' was actually a table lamp that for some reason sat very close to the dining room table. My mother was always rearranging our furniture, and sometimes items were placed in very strange locations. But, getting back to my story, I looked over at the table-lamp and sure enough it was vibrating and shaking on the floor BUT I wasn't touching it. It was moving all on its own. That's exactly what I told my mother and for some reason she didn't believe me. After a few seconds, the table-lamp quit moving and I went back to finishing my dinner.
About two or three minutes later, that darn lamp started vibrating on its own again. I was really starting to get spooked. My mother, still in the kitchen, again detected the lamp moving and yelled at me once again. I called her over to the lamp and showed her that I was not touching it. I can remember the three of us starring at the thing trying to figure out what as going on when all of a sudden the whole apartment began vibrating. We had absolutely no idea what was going on. There was a deep rumbling sound under our feet for a few seconds and then everything settled down. No more vibration, no more rumbling. Suddenly we could hear lots of voices outside and so we all made for the front door.
When we stepped out on our front steps, we could see that almost everyone who lived in the apartment complex was also outside. People were looking around, some were looking up into the sky. Everyone was talking about what had just occurred but no one knew what it was. I noticed that a little girl about my age was riding her tricycle down the sidewalk toward us, suddenly she stopped and started pointing at the sidewalk and yelling. I ran down the steps to where she was and noticed many very large cracks that had appeared in the sidewalk. As I marvelled at the cracks, the little girl yelled out to everyone "It was an earthquake!".
Funny things is, she was right.
Most of the adults simply assumed that it was just a minor earthquake and therefore things would quickly get back to normal. Everyone slowly went back inside their apartments. A little bit later, my father called to check on us. That's when we found out that a major earthquake (9.2 magnitude) had struck the city of Anchorage which is located about 350 miles south of Fairbanks. The "Great Alaska Earthquake" devastated Anchorage. For days following the quake, my family and I would stare in awe at the television news footage that was broadcast.
We all also realized that the exact same type of devastation could have occurred in Fairbanks if the earthquake had struck in our area. I remember having trouble getting to sleep at night for a few weeks after that day in March of 1967. I had feared that another quake would strike and that time hit much closer to home. Thankfully, one never did.
I can clearly recall that evening, although the event occurred 43 years ago. My father was on his 24 hour shift at the fire station that day and so was not going to be home that night. My mother had prepared dinner for the three of us (my mother, me, and my younger brother Tony). Just after my mother got up from the dinner table at the end of the meal and started to clean up around the kitchen, she turned to me and yelled across the room "Tommy, quit kicking that lamp!"
Now, I know that sounds weird and all, but I've got a perfectly good explanation. The 'lamp' was actually a table lamp that for some reason sat very close to the dining room table. My mother was always rearranging our furniture, and sometimes items were placed in very strange locations. But, getting back to my story, I looked over at the table-lamp and sure enough it was vibrating and shaking on the floor BUT I wasn't touching it. It was moving all on its own. That's exactly what I told my mother and for some reason she didn't believe me. After a few seconds, the table-lamp quit moving and I went back to finishing my dinner.
About two or three minutes later, that darn lamp started vibrating on its own again. I was really starting to get spooked. My mother, still in the kitchen, again detected the lamp moving and yelled at me once again. I called her over to the lamp and showed her that I was not touching it. I can remember the three of us starring at the thing trying to figure out what as going on when all of a sudden the whole apartment began vibrating. We had absolutely no idea what was going on. There was a deep rumbling sound under our feet for a few seconds and then everything settled down. No more vibration, no more rumbling. Suddenly we could hear lots of voices outside and so we all made for the front door.
When we stepped out on our front steps, we could see that almost everyone who lived in the apartment complex was also outside. People were looking around, some were looking up into the sky. Everyone was talking about what had just occurred but no one knew what it was. I noticed that a little girl about my age was riding her tricycle down the sidewalk toward us, suddenly she stopped and started pointing at the sidewalk and yelling. I ran down the steps to where she was and noticed many very large cracks that had appeared in the sidewalk. As I marvelled at the cracks, the little girl yelled out to everyone "It was an earthquake!".
Funny things is, she was right.
Most of the adults simply assumed that it was just a minor earthquake and therefore things would quickly get back to normal. Everyone slowly went back inside their apartments. A little bit later, my father called to check on us. That's when we found out that a major earthquake (9.2 magnitude) had struck the city of Anchorage which is located about 350 miles south of Fairbanks. The "Great Alaska Earthquake" devastated Anchorage. For days following the quake, my family and I would stare in awe at the television news footage that was broadcast.
We all also realized that the exact same type of devastation could have occurred in Fairbanks if the earthquake had struck in our area. I remember having trouble getting to sleep at night for a few weeks after that day in March of 1967. I had feared that another quake would strike and that time hit much closer to home. Thankfully, one never did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
