Karachi Pakistan is a beautiful city. I was there in the 1970's and incredibly the means of transportation in this great city was still horse and buggy carriages. These carriages had fancy lanterns, the whole bit. Karachi was like stepping back in time. The friendly people, architecture and atmosphere... I felt like Sinbad the sailor taking a magic carpet ride.

Enchanting is the only word I can think of to describe Karachi Pakistan. Karachi is also where me and Gary Herron (from Indiana) met the Wise Man. I'll tell you all about him on the Indian Burial Grounds page.

Just before my ship pulled into port here, Karachi had a recent good size earthquake. I'm from Massachusetts, USA. I don't know squat about earthquakes. We get snowflakes.

Very late that night myself and two Navy buddies, Bruce and Michael, were just leaving a place of... well, ill respute, or something like that. It was very dark and the three of us were very stoned. Bruce was on my right side and Michael was on my left. The three of us were talking away and having a dandy time when it happened... it happened very quickly.

We approached the area of that recent earthquake, Michael and Bruce saw the big crack in the earth and swiftly jumped over it, I didn't see it and I went down into it. I dropped out of sight and went down like a rock, so fast Michael and Bruce didn't even notice I was gone.

I eventually hit the part where the crack ends and stopped abruptly. I was wedged in, bleeding and busted up pretty bad. Completely ruined my Navy whites, but you don't think of those things, you just start yelling and screaming for help.

Well, as the story goes, my two Navy buddies were so stoned they were half way back to the ship before they even noticed I was gone. Make no mistake here, I was very scared and in deep shit. I was very aware that one little rumble and tumble, shake and bake after shock - quake with a Richter scale registering about 1 - and that hole is my resting place for all eternity.

Like all United States military buddies, no matter what branch your serving in, they came back for me. Bruce and Michael saw my predicament, quickly ran back to the ship, got help and a long rope and they got me out of that dark and foreboding hole. In life there is a lesson for everything, this is the one I learned that night...

Snowflakes you shovel - EARTHQUAKES you jump over.

Course if I wasn't stoned that never would have happened. That's one stupid way to die... at only 19.

Speaking of Sinbad the sailor on a magic carpet ride, coming soon...