Penguins Update: The Big One’s Comin’

I was a seventh grader attending classes at Jonas Salk Middle School in Sacramento the day the “big one” was supposed to hit. An earthquake so violent, so devastating, it would shear California off from the continental United States and cause it to sink into the Pacific Ocean.

According to an online source, the catastrophe was supposed to occur on Friday, April 4, 1969, at 4 p.m. Since my family didn’t arrive in California until the fall of that year (my dad was on a temporary six-month assignment at Aerojet General) the date doesn’t jibe. The man who made the prediction, author Curt Gentry, may have revised his original doomsday forecast, pushing it back slightly.

I do recall the event…vividly. I even remember my teacher that day, Mr. Butler, a buoyant, barrel-chested, gray-haired man.

He stopped class to perform a countdown. Five, four, three, two, one…

The next thing I knew, kids bounded out of the classroom and scrambled into an adjoining courtyard. One tossed himself on the ground and began to execute a faux breaststroke.

All in great fun.

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