Moultrie

I felt so dizzy at work, I grabbed a desk top so I wouldn’t fall. Bad news, I thought. I’m having a stoke.

A light fixture hanging in the hallway swayed. Oh, great, I thought. I’m not having a stroke. We’re experiencing an earthquake.

My story begins with an earthquake in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana and meanders in time to forest fires in Oregon. Fortunately, no damage from the minor earthquake. My concern — if there had been a major quake, how prepared were we? Those were days prior to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and seemed to have less training opportunities.

The care center staff with their identifying nurses’ caps and local emergency services with their identifying hats — police, fire, etc. — increased training. The care center at that time also served as the answering service for the fire department. The center had a shelf with two red phones. Staff answered calls with “city fire department” for one red phone or “county fire department” for the other red phone. To activate the call, staff pushed the siren button and walked outside to be sure the volunteer fire department heard the siren in town.

Why did caregiving staff deal with fire calls? Perhaps because the care center had 24-hour staff coverage — awake and sober. (In time this was moved to a 911 system.)

After a year of training, staff and emergency services dealt effectively with a simulated earthquake with a resulting fire.

Grab-and-go emergency kits — the thread that moves the story along. After a move to Oregon in a variety of settings, I encouraged residents, students, families to assemble kits that fit their needs.

To be a good example, I updated my kit. Sometimes I got carried away collecting emergency supplies.

A friend said, “You have enough first aid supplies to do a C-section on an elephant.”

Other times, I realized we’d eaten the granola bars and dried fruit from the kits. After a paper cut, I couldn’t locate a Band-Aid. I cobbled together more supplies.

Fires raged through forests and farms. In time, several fires had been contained. I hoped that our neighborhood had been spared. Late afternoon, thunder and lightning struck, the kind that rattles the windows. The kind where I realized I needed to be more motivated to improve my preparedness planning.

What to pack and grab when a disaster occurs? What about grandma’s pump organ from the Old Country? Have the kids outgrown their backup shoes? Family memorabilia? Years ago, when I came across family photos I couldn’t place, I’d ask the family’s aged, wise one who those people were in the photos. I realized I was now the aged one expected to know the answers.

Combing through stacks of old photos, a pattern emerged. Hats. Hats/caps gave hints as to occupations, hobbies, ethnicity, social gatherings, safety, etc. Hats for heroes. Hats to write about helping to preserve family history. Hats off to the military as well. Cap colors also pointed to favorite farm implements: John Deere green, Massey Ferguson red.

Expressing gratitude can come from the expression, “Hats off to —” for instance, “teachers and librarians.”

In the past, I suffered a hat crisis. A call notifying about a tour to Morocco — price reduction with short notice — qualified for my VLB (very low budget) travel plan. I scrambled to pack. Travel instruction: Must bring a hat.

I needed something adventure-classy to blend with the tans and browns of camels on the Sahara Desert. Horrified, I discovered those colors were sold out. I settled for another color and hoped no one would notice.

The others noticed. I was labeled “The Lady in the Pink Safari Hat.”