One night last week around 10 o'clock, we had a 5.2 quake, a 10-second rumble centered about 20 miles southeast of our home. It was not a biggie by California standards, but it was the strongest shake we've felt since moving back here from the East Coast in 1993.

The 1989 quake made the network news. And we tuned in from our apartment on Boylston Street in Boston's Back Bay to see the World Series fans in Candlestick Park scurry for the parking lot, watched the fire in San Francisco, the teetering Oakland Bay Bridge and the collapse of the upper deck of the freeway in Oakland.

In our town of Los Gatos, Main Street was a shambles, houses were shaken off their foundations and every chimney came tumbling down. Just over the mountain, downtown Santa Cruz was leveled. Shortly thereafter, a bunch of folks picked up and moved to places where the ground doesn't shake.

Millions of Americans live in places where the ground shakes or the rivers overflow or twisters rip up towns or hurricanes blow. Wouldn't you think it would be smart to move to someplace where these natural disasters don't occur, maybe Bow Bells, North Dakota? But we stay where we are and keep our fingers crossed that the next big one won't come for another hundred years. And then we settle in to enjoy our families and friends, enjoy the walks to town, the picnics in the park and the simple joys that make life on planet Earth such a wonderful gift.

However, for some, life is not always beautiful. Today, I received an e-mail from an engineer in Colorado in response to my last column about dancing at our son's wedding: "I have read your column for some time and just want to thank you for bringing reality back into view. Sometimes we don't see the big picture because we let the little details of work block our view. I recently lost my wife, and I find it bittersweet to read about your wife and you growing old together. What a fond dream that would be for me! So sharing it, while difficult for me, is still a beautiful thing. Thanks."

This is usually where Frank tries to say something witty, but this time he's not up to it: fburge@cmp.com.

http://www.eetimes.com/