Ladybug Lin's Hall of Flames: THE INNOCENCE OF IGNORANCE

Living on the

east coast of the United States has, for the most part, allowed us to live in a

magical state of

oblivion when it comes to some of

Nature's

most

violent

rages.

Until last year, we had not experienced

tornados...although by comparison, ours are small when stacked against the

F4 and

5 terrorizing

Tornado Alley in our middle states, they do touch down now often enough we are no longer

wide-eyed over reports of their visits.

I grew up having very few

strange weather events. One occured when we'd gone to the

hardware store in

Newtown, PA. While we were gone,

a storm hit. We didn't think anything of it. Storms were...typical.

Thunder, lightning, winds, driving rain...the usual...until we got home.

We had a huge picture window across the back wall of our farm sized kitchen. It blew OUT, not in while we were gone.

How? We never found the answer, but Dad had to pile himself back into the car and head back to the hardware store for a healthy length of pane glass.

Another weird event happened when I was about

eight. I loved running around in the rain storms...Nature's

water game...It was pouring down with delightful intensity and so cool against my bathing suited flesh...Zig zagging like a loon, I zig zagged across the street and froze.

How come it wasn't raining over here?

Right down

the middle of our road, (Township Line Road), the rain sheeting created a

wall on one side and nothing on the other. How bizarre that was. I never learned what caused THAT

phenomenom either.

Over twenty odd years ago, the ground felt like it had

exploded and the sound made our ears hurt.

Earthquake, we all thought...until we learned a nearby

factory had exploded...we were feeling and hearing the resonating shake and

bang.

But today we found out we are not immune from the

fury of

ground shakes.

They are saying the

epicenter is near Richmond,

VA and it was a 5.9 quake at 0.6 miles deep and it spread. I am hearing from some as far north as

Toronto. I don't know about that. I know we felt it here in

NJ.

Never would have thought my

apartment building, comprised of brick and concrete was so inconsequential it would

shake back and forth and up and down the way it did.

Was it a water main break? That was my

first guess when the first

teeny

tremor hit, but the

tremeor increased. Nope, that was NOT a water main break. (We've had a lot of those...in fact we had one just last week and went nearly an entire day

without water.)

I met neighbors I had never seen before because we all raced from our apartments in a state of

mass confusion.

What happened? We were to find out shortly.

Twenty-thirty seconds that was all it took. The news stations went on full time covereage alert. We had been shaken by the rippling

fist of a quake centered in VA, and we were not the last stop in this quakes journey to remind us we are fools to think

Mother Nature cannot send our world into immeidtale upheaval any time she wants to.

Hurricanes,

nor-easters...even the rare lake effects

snow storm in August...we know them and know them well...we have come to know tornados...and now an earthquake.

When I went in to check on this quake I learned

Colorado was also hit, and yesterday

Trinidad was hit.

Mother Nature is truly flexing her punch, and although this strike was not monumentally destructive, she must truly be ticked at us.

We exist on a living, breathing, ever changing

VIOLENT planet...there's nowhere to escape Mother Nature...unless you want to try inhabiting the

Moon or

Mars. All you'd have to dodge is...well the temperature and a

meteor or hundreds.

Mother Nature NOT mankind is ultimately our Mistress, no matter how much smarter we think we are.

Now that I am shaken and stirred...(yes it does leave you