Happy Great Earthquake!

Today is the hundreth anniversary of the Great Earthquake that hit San Francisco. In 1906, in case you're really not with it (See, 2006 - 100 = 1906). It was a huge natural disaster, I think the biggest natural disaster ever in the US, if my vague memory of the articles I read about 20 minutes ago serves. It killed between 3000 and 6000 people.

So they're celebrating. Naturally. And they started this how? By setting off sirens in the city at 5:12 AM, when the earthquake started. Man, would I be pissed. Then they got the survivors together. Who are all, obviously, very freakin' old. Do you think you'll be a cranky old person who can finally just say everything on their mind or a happy sweet old person who just lets it all slide off because it isn't worth it?

Anyway, it seems like an odd thing to plan a big celebration around, the near destruction of your city. And it got me to thinking about our own local disaster, the Great Fire. This is the 135th anniversary of the Great Fire in Chicago this year (Again, for the math impaired, this means that the fire happened in 1871) on October 8th.

Whaddya say, Daley-boy? Party time?