|
|
| A friend of mine mailed me your January 27, 2005 column on the Quake of
1980. It was a joke between us. That earthquake changed my life. I was teaching
at Livermore High School at the time. I was in a portable classroom when
the quake came. It looked like someone took a rolling pin and ran it under
the ground. It was like a wave running across the room. My students and
I got under desks and waiting for the "all clear" bells, which
we had practiced so many times; but since there was no electricity, there
were no bells. We finally went outdoors. I remember in the following few
weeks, many latchkey students were upset and scared to go home after school.
They feared another quake and being alone. As for me, I decided I didn't want to experience another quake, and put in my papers for a leave of absence from the school district and left at the end of that school year in June 1980. This was the strongest quake I had experienced during my ten years in California, along with the one on Saturday night, January 26. My best friend got married that Saturday evening and I was her Maid of Honor. While we were getting ready in her apartment, which was an upstairs apartment, the quake came, and we were on the floor. We couldn't even hold on in the apartment. I went back to New York in June for my one-year leave of absence, met my husband, and never returned to Livermore High School. The rest of my life is history. My husband had since retired from the New York Transit Police Department and we moved to Greenville, SC, in September 1985. I currently have a daughter, who is a freshman in college at the University of South Carolina in Columbia studying pre-pharmacy. I taught part-time at a junior college for ten years and then went on to teach in middle school, where I am still employed. I have to say that something good came out of something bad. The earthquake changed my life for the better. My friend Rosemarie (Lucido) LaFrancesca, who is still teaching in Livermore, drove to New York with me that summer. Everyone laughed at my reason for leaving the Bay Area. Thank you for writing it, and giving me memories of that week. Marlene (Fox) Dowd Senior Class Advisor '80 Livermore High School |
sbcglobal.net
