Shake, Rattle & Roll

First, let me say (in case anyone wanders in here who doesn’t know me and thinks I am completely insane) that I am not in any way diminishing the seriousness of the earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. It was a horrible tragedy and my prayers are with the people affected by it.

That being said, it is time to move on to my son and our conversation today. (Luckily, he does not read my blog.) He said he was woken up early yesterday morning when the bed shook. His bed is lofted. He had no idea what was going on so he decided to sleep on the couch after that, not being too anxious to be on the bed if it collapsed.

He went all through the day with whatever it is seminarians do when they are off from school and planning a trip. It wasn’t until today that he found out it was an earthquake.

Me: “How could you have no clue it was an earthquake?”
Him: “It’s not like I have a TV in my room.”
Me: “It was all over the Internet.”

Apparently he doesn’t read the news online. Nor in the Italian newspapers, for that matter.

We spoke a bit about his upcoming trip to Ireland, where he will spend Easter & stay for a little over a week. Then he signed off and went to have dinner. A few hours later, he signed back on and IMed me again.

“We were at dinner, talking about the earthquake. Suddenly the table started shaking. I thought it was one of the guys screwing around until I looked up and saw the lights shaking.”

Those must be some powerful aftershocks if they can feel them 70 miles away in Rome. He is quite glad to be leaving tomorrow and hoping the earth will have settled down by the time he gets home.

Then he tells me how there’s a fault line that runs throughout Italy. That way I can have something to be concerned about for the next 4 years…