Quake Up Call

I'm writing this in the wake of the quake. As you no doubt know by now, a 5.9 earthquake centered just south of Washington D.C. was felt all along the East Coast. But not on the ground floor of our home in Verona, N.J.

My wife and I were sitting in our kitchen when our housekeeper, Sophia, came downstairs breathless, to tell us the news. She had felt a tremor while working in our upstairs den and couldn't understand why the window blind was shaking and the ottoman she was sitting moved. The TV was on and when the news bulletins came on about the quake, she understood what she had experienced and rushed downstairs to tell us.

Up to that time we were clueless and when we heard the news my wife said she felt “cheated” out of the experience of being part of an earthquake. You really don't need to go through that, even if it is minor. It's unsettling, to say the least.

I put on our TV and watched the local stations coverage of the event. Everyone was grateful it wasn't a bomb and that there was no obvious damage and no one was hurt. We heard various stories from excited people giving their versions of “where were you when...”

I sent a text to my son, who works in the Times Square area, asking for his reaction. “Stirred and shaken,”he said. “Freaky.”

Thus millions of people had a few memorable moments on an otherwise pristine August afternoon.