5 - Crunchy Town Gets Crunched
Santa Cruz, Cali, October 1989
I land a job at the local newspaper as I finish my schooling at UC Santa Cruz. On the best days I'm driving around town delivering proofs to advertisers, pounding a mint chip milkshake from Polar Bear Ice Cream, absorbing the salty mist on my face cruising West Cliff Drive, or writing from the University’s cow pasture perched above the the eucalyptus groves and beyond a serene Monterey Bay.
The people are a little crunchy. They smell earthy. Recycling is constantly in your face. Women don't shave their armpits. Tye-dyes and hacky sacks are commonplace. I don't mind the throwback. What's bothersome though is when Heath's roommate bugs me about letting the water faucet pour as I brush my teeth. "We're in a drought man. You can't let that shit run."
Five weeks into the Santa Cruz experiment, a mongo earthquake rocks the town.
My First Quake: Minutes after the shaker, a postal carrier snapped this shot. That’s me on the right looking back at where I was sitting (napkin still in hand).
I'm on my late shift break, eating a sandwich, reading the paper on the downtown outdoor mall while the As and Giants are swinging away for the Battle by the Bay. When it happens.
My table shakes like it's possessed by the devil.
Storefront glass shatters down the outdoor mall, like a chain reaction.
Car tires bounce like basketballs, rocking the frames from side to side.
Second floors collapse on either side of me.
The earth does not split down the middle of the street, as expected.
An hour after the first rattle, I realize I'm still clenching a napkin.
I check in at the Sentinel and my employer calls it a night. Tells me to go home.
I walk through the town like I'm on a Universal Studio tour. Cars are lined up motionless. People stare stunned into the air, crying. I climb the hill to the UC campus where the sun is falling and drum circles are circulating some cosmic energy. Students are dancing and chanting in a tribal way. One imagines chaos, anarchy, Lord of the Flies.
Streams of smoke stripe the coastline like an industrial-era painting. It's clear we're all without power as far as the eye can see. Pins of starlight brighten and grow as a curtain of darkness engulfs us.
I miraculously run into a roommate who's driving home to Bonny Doon, if we can just maneuver around the rock slides.
Heath routinely scouts the break
My dad eventually reaches me by phone and asks if I'm ready to come home now. I declare I am not. But I question all that the demolished sleepy surf town has to offer this writer with a fire in his belly.