First Quake

Disclaimer: Though the following article has a "punchline" it is not meant to belittle or trivialize the situation the people of Japan are going through right now. My heart goes out to them & I hope I myself never have to experience what they are facing. Please remember the victims in your prayers. It's because of this I was reminded of  "incidents" of my own having to do with earthquakes.

                                                              
                                                       First Quake

                                                               by

                                                                  Jay Agan

      An Ohio Saturday afternoon in a Spring of the late 70s & there I am in my Mt. Vernon, apartment watching a flick on ch 10 (WBNS). The fight scene is raging & I'm skarfing a Coke when the house shakes a little. Funny. No truck went by. In fact it was dead quiet outside. Wasn't much of a shake but it felt ..... strange.

      Thirty seconds later it happens again. Now I was sure it wasn't something normal. Earthquake? Couldn't be positive as I had never experienced one before. I get up & dash out of the subdivided house & take a quick look up & down the street. Everything normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.

      I go back in & click on the radio. Within minutes WMVO had the scoop. A couple of tremors hit over a several county area including Knox County.

      A couple days later I'm talking to youngest brother about it & he related the same thing. His two dogs also got to howling a little after.

      My second quake was when I was with the parents in New Jersey while attending tech school in '85. It's about 5 AM Saturday morning when I hear what sounds like a freight train then a slight lurch to the house. Then neighborhood dogs get to barking & howling for a minute or two. "Musta been an earthquake." & I go back to sleep.

      Later that day it's off to the movies. I pass Computer Processing Institute on Rt 4 in Paramus where I attended school, & I notice quite a few cars in the lot. On a Saturday? I didn't think much of it & continued on. At the theater there was a long wait as tickets were being "processed" by hand. The computers were down due to the quake. I figured that was why there were so many cars at the school. This was confirmed there Monday.



Steve Reeves in Hercules Unchained. It was about at this
point in the film when the quake hit. I swear, it's true!
Credit: Warner Bros.


      Oh. The movie I was watching when I experienced my first quake? Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves. Honest! Go figure.

                                      Article copyright © 3-12-2011 Jay Agan


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