Saturday, August 27, 2011

A once in a hundred years earthquake

This week I was in my 3d floor office in the District when the floor shook. I looked out the window to see if a heavy truck was passing by, or if there was a flash and a blast noise out there, or if the trees were whipping about.

Nope. Earthquake!

A minute later the floor rocked and rolled under me for 45 seconds. It felt like liquid jelly underfoot.

I got the hell out of the building before the upper six storeys had a chance to collapse on me. Wrong thing to do, say all my left coast friends.

What was wrong was that my work-force marshaled across the street, to take names and check them off, under a six storey building with a four foot overhang around its upper level. Those cascading chunks of concrete could have killed me for sure if there had been an aftershock of magnitude.

So I sit here today and consider my three lovely sons, Jimmy Rogers (he changed his name on his 21st birthday he loves his Mother so), Johnny Lamberton and Danny Lamberton, whom I haven't heard from since 2003 (they were minors then when they were enlisted by her for offensive use in the divorce proceeding, they're adults now).

I paid every cent of child support for all those years, and have paid or guaranteed their full college tuition and fees in Virginia state schools. I thought they might have called to see if I was alright after the historic earthquake.

Nope, and their Mother, Sharon Rogers Lightbourne of Fairfax City, a first grade schoolteacher (!) in Falls Church, refuses to give me their addresses (or indeed any information at all about them, even if they're well or, well, dead). There's a saying, Jimmy Johnny and Danny, see ya wouldn't want to be ya!

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