Another New England October Earthquake Story

"I was in Truro on  Cape Cod, in our old farm house, sitting in Mother's Chair (we call it Mother's Chair because it was Mother's chair) when suddenly Mother's Chair began to rock.  I knew that it must be an earthquake causing Mother's Chair to rock and not Mother, who had long since departed this earth.  And I knew because many years ago, I had been with Father in the South Sea Islands sitting on a chair that suddenly began to tremble beneath me; it was unearthly, but Father said it was very earthly as it was an earthquake that was causing the chairs, and those sitting in them, to tremble."

A WOLVERINE, THE EARTHQUAKE, AND FLYING SQUIRRELS IN WILBRAHAM

The earthquake wolverine story (scroll down to see yesterday's blog post) is not so difficult to imagine for those of us who once lived in a cabin on the top of Wilbraham Mountain, the cabin taken away by the tornado of 2011.  In addition to the cries of coyotes calling into the night, one late evening, thumping and shaking on the corner of the cabin's roof awakened the family, and soon, flying squirrels came flying through the roof, crawling down the walls, not as shy as one might think a wild creature to be.  In fact, not shy at all.  The family felt not only trespassed upon, but clearly threatened.  Shouting and waving did nothing; the creatures were fearless.  The only object slightly resembling a weapon in the cabin was a flashlight, a weapon not to be thrown, but to be used as it was meant to be used.  Shining the light directly into the eyes of the flying squirrels stopped them, literally, in their tracks,  and caused them to flee  . A light shining in the darkness proved to be as effective as holding a cross up to ward away the evil spirits.  In fact, perhaps what the flying squirrels saw in that light was a cross, a cross which made them decide to take to the woods, literally.  

More on the earthquake as experienced in Newton Corner and Auburndale

Yesterday, catching up on errands, Marash Girl stopped at the bank in Newtonville.  Greeting her favorite teller, Marash Girl asked  whether or not she had felt the earthquake the night before.  "Earthquake?" she replied.  "So that's what it was! I  called my husband (who was driving at the time), and he said he had felt nothing; I called my son (who had been playing tennis) . . . no, he had felt nothing.  I was holding onto my lamp so it wouldn't fall off the table, it was shaking so badly!  I thought that perhaps it was a car crash or an accident of some kind -- but when I looked there was nothing!  I never thought to check the radio or TV to see if anyone else had experienced the roar and the tremor!" Marash Girl is convinced that the bank employee was secretly relieved to learn that it was only an earthquake that she had experienced, and not the experiencing of a newly arrived ghost in Newton Corner.

And then there was Marash Girl's friend in Auburndale who thought that a wolverine had just broken through the roof of her house and had fallen along the length of the wall, only to land behind the sofa in which she was sitting . . . 

Earthquake in Newton Corner 5 minutes ago!

Just felt the earth quake, shake, rattle and roar, here in Newton Corner, MA  for  about 3 seconds.  Heard and felt our house shaking!  Felt in Burlington, MA and in Springfield, MA by family members.  Please record your earthquake experiences in the comments below!

Tornadoes? Earthquakes? What's going on?

So we were on our way to Wilbraham to take a look at the post-tornado clean up operation that was in progress on top of Wilbraham Mountain -- the clean up of what was left of the trees and the cabin (see posts for June 1 ff.), when we got a phone call from our daughter.  "Are you alright?"  What?  "Did you feel it?"  What?  "The earthquake that hit 17 minutes ago."  What earthquake?  "It's epicenter was in Virginia, but folks in buildings in Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Natick and Springfield say they felt 5 to 15 seconds of shaking!"  So for the next hour we were trying to reach family in Takoma Park, Maryland, and New York City, although all the telephone lines were tied up, as we barreled across the Massachusetts Turnpike, going west.  I guess if you're driving at 65 miles an hour, you don't feel any more tremors than the car going over the Turnpike provides. My brother was the last to call to find out if we were okay.  He recalled, laughingly, that when he was living in Southern California, they were experiencing tremors like this one every other week!

What was hard to believe was that we were driving towards the cleanup from the devastation of one natural disaster (the tornado) at the very moment that another natural disaster (the earthquake) was in progress.