As a Californian, my life has been punctuated by earthquakes. My earliest temblor memory is the 1971 Sylmar quake. On that auspicious day I began my first job as a high school graduate. In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, my mother lost the house I grew up in. Perhaps the rest of the country wonders why we live here, but at least our quakes deter some from moving here.
