Just 5 Days After He Gets Here, He Experiences a Real Earthquake

All right, is this some kind of weird hazing process or what?

Maybe I’m taking this too personally, but I’ve been here all of 5 days--out from the chilly Midwest to visit the home office and bask in that easygoing California life style you folks are always bragging about--and look what happens.

I get off the plane at John Wayne and the mercury immediately soars to numbers approximating the national debt. My car overheats. So do I. Seeking relief from the mean, hot streets of Orange County, I duck into Fashion Island for a shot of air conditioning and my best opportunity to date to observe the native Newportite in his/her natural habitat.

I’m in the food court, just about to choose between the spinach salad and the lobster Newburg quiche and, whammo, there’s this loud crack and I start shaking as badly as Uncle Mort after sampling some of Aunt Sudie’s 6-day-old souffle surprise. Perrier and pasta salad start flying off tables around me, jars of Grey Poupon and cocktail olives crash to the floor at the nearby food store, and, as I instinctively revert to the fetal position and wonder whether I accidentally tipped over a display of cans or something and caused this horrific chain reaction, I see this mad dash of designer skirts and lime-colored trousers scurrying out the door. A trained observer, I follow.

So that was an earthquake? I never would have guessed.

That’s right. I admit it. My first temblor, and I turn out to be a quake wimp. For years, I’ve been kidding colleagues in California about what they’re going to do when the Big One comes. In the calmest of voices, they casually reassure me with bromides such as “It’s no big deal,” “You get used to it” and the ever-popular “If my house hasn’t been damaged by now, it can survive anything.” Maybe.

Actually, in a perverse way, I’m glad I endured this ultimate California experience. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been the butt of that favorite Southland pastime, “Let’s Call Up the Folks Back East When It’s 65 Below and They’re Huddled in Packs to Keep From Freezing Their Beheejees Off and Brag to Them About How Great the Sun, Weather, Food, Scenery, Leisurely Life and Everything Else Is Out Here.”

Next time I get one of those calls, I’ll be prepared with some clever rejoinder like: “Oh, yeah? Well at least I’ll be in one piece, beheejees or not, when the Spring Thaw gets here by June.”

I also got my first glimpse of what I presume are some ly rituals peculiar to California. For example, there’s the “Let’s Guess How Strong It Was” contest. As soon as their knees stop buckling, people from all walks of life seem to start shouting out numbers as if they are traders in the hog futures pits at the Chicago futures exchange.

Then there’s the “Where Were You When It Hit?” syndrome. Everybody feels compelled to tell everybody else the precise position in which he/she was standing/sitting/kneeling/lying when the quake hit. “I was at my desk.” “I was in the car.” “I was in the bathroom.” Well, you get the idea.

The quake also gave me a chance to see that Californians are more compassionate and far less shallow than we snide Midwesterners try to make you out to be.

For example, Joe Moran, a commercial real estate broker, seemed quite agitated by the situation as he waited for clerks to reopen the Neiman Marcus store at Fashion Island, where he wanted to pick up a coat.

Moran said his week-old Mercedes had begun to shimmy violently as he waited for the light to change at the corner of Jamboree and Bristol. “I thought my new Mercedes was on its way out,” he said. “I couldn’t decide whether to go on and pick up my sports jacket or head right to the dealership. I was upset.”

So was Gretchen Lyon, but for a different reason. The Bloomfield, Mich. resident has spent the past week vacationing in Southern California while her husband, Lyman, a patent lawyer, was seeing a client. She was shopping for dresses when the temblor hit. “I spent 5 days in Palm Desert and it was 105 every day and now this . . . . I just hope my husband felt this ‘cause he wanted me to move out here. I’m ready to head home. I don’t care if it’s 25 degrees.”

I don’t either, Gretchen. Can I hitch a ride?

Secter is visiting Orange County from The Times ‘ bureau in Chicago.