Calamities - LBC weekly post

Its that time again. If its Friday it must be LBC day and this weeks topic - Calamities -was suggested by Ramana - himself in the middle of a home  remodel calamity. One must wonder about the timing of the topic - LOL. 

Everyone deals with calamities from time to time. The first calamity I can recall was Calamity Jane - no surprise since - like most  men my age - I was a huge cowboy fan as a kid and Calamity Jane was a legend.

I must assume my pal Ramana had something else in mind when he suggested this weeks topic though. The traditional type of calamity might include earthquakes, hurricanes, even wars and other disasters that cause great harm and destruction.

I have lived in California on the edge of a major fault - the Hayward fault - and have been through a 7.1 earthquake referred to as the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I traveled this collapsed freeway almost daily from the time I got my first driver's license at 16. The next image shows a building in San Francisco that collapsed. I included the image because my good friend Mark Stout was riding his bike and was there when that building collapsed. He was unharmed.

I was driving near our home in Hayward with my son, rolling to a stop sign. Sean and I both assumed we'd gotten a flat tire. Sean jumped out and right back into the van and said it is an earthquake dad. I looked to the right and saw people flying out of the medical offices. Upon returning to our condo, Lynn was spitting nails and cussing as a large bottle of cooking oil and a jar full of rice fell to the floor from atop the fridge. I went into the living room, turned on the TV and this is the image that greeted me -

That is when we knew it was serious.

In 1991 there was the Oakland firestorm.  No single image does justice to the destruction and terror of that event.



 If interested, read about it here - Oakland Firestorm 1991

Move the clock ahead to 2000. We were safely settled in earthquake free Ft Worth Texas. Welcome to tornado alley. On March 28, we went through a major tornado.

That was a barrel of laughs.I got out of the office about 8 minutes before downtown was hit. Sirens went off for another 30 minutes or so after I got home. Our apartment lost  power and there was an impromptu wine party on the patio between units at our complex. 

Those are the three largest calamities I have been through - unless Lynn's disease could be considered one.

The music industry is littered with songs about calamities of many types. Here are a few if you are interested in listening-

Timothy  the Buoys

New York Mining Disaster of 1941  the Bee Gees

Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald   Gordon Lightfoot

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season   Jimmy Buffett

That's it for this weeks topic. I could regale you with tales of burnt dinners, dating disasters and such but the Sharks game is about to start and it is the 7th game of a 7-game series to reach the conference championship. Gotta root for my guys - LOL.

Happy trails til next week.