Where Was I on October 17, 1989, 5:04 PM?

Every time when I say that I came to Santa Cruz in 1989, I will inevitably be asked where I was on October 17, 5:04 pm, when 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred in northern California, the same way people born before November 1963 will be questioned where they were on 12:30 pm, when JFK was assassinated.

Unlike many locals who performed extraordinarily heroic feats by rescuing earthquake victims, or properties that day, I had a very ordinary experience, watching Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey, as one of the Film Experience Class students at the Science Building of University of California, Santa Cruz. The film was not finished until months later. At 5:04 p.m., the earthquake struck the moment a scientist from the film started to speak: his voice not only boomed through the whole building, but shook the cement ground under our feet and broke many window glasses.

I had just started my American college life then and ignorantly skipped many extracurricular activities, such as group discussions and evaluations. When gathered on the lawn opposite to Porter College, I made a special effort to turn over a new leaf by asking my TA (Teaching Assistant) if we should go back to our classroom to evaluate the film. "Absolutely yes," she replied and told me and the rest of class to wait for the shaking to pass.

We never resumed our post-film discussion that evening as my TA estimated. Very soon we realized that the shaking was more serious than she expected: we lost electricity, saw smoke and fire down in the city, and chaotic traffic on Bay Avenue.

There was no city or school bus for me to leave the university to return to my home at Live Oak Avenue. For the first (and last) time in my life, I learned to hitchhike, and a passenger car transported me to downtown Santa Cruz, not far from where Paul lived. On seeing him standing at the back of the house on Clay Street, I breathed out a sigh of relief.