A Young Man Begins College

Gary D. Grossman

Published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review 2023 v.17 #4

I
As I prepared to begin my freshman year at San Fernando Valley State College, in northern Los Angeles (Northridge), rolling waves of heaving ground shook me awake. Neither nerves nor excitement, not drunk or stoned — it was the Sylmar earthquake of 9 February 1971–6.6 on the Richter Scale — that greeted me at 6 AM with a thunderous noise followed by complete silence.

Lying in bed, the first sound I heard was the swish-swash sound of the water in our pool moving back and forth. It was an eerie, haunting noise, especially after the roar of homes and commercial buildings collapsing in our neighborhood. Mom and I lived about 10 miles from the epicenter of the quake and aside from some broken glassware and plates that had walked off shelves, we were spared injury and major loss. Our apartment building was still structurally sound and our only inconvenience was having to walk around the five foot piles of yellow cinder blocks that once stood as decorative walls.

The months following the quake were laden with both strong and weak aftershocks that caused me to race for the nearest outside door — fear flowing through my brain as adrenalin flooded my body. In the final tally, 64 people were killed in the quake. As proof that justice sometimes occurs in the here and now, the quake also destroyed Olive View Mental Hospital, where my Mother had spent six months doing inpatient therapy that consisted…