By STAN STAPP

WHEN OUR BIG EARTHQUAKE (6.8 on the Richter scale) shook Western Washington Feb. 28, Seattle's North End got off relatively easy.

When the quake hit at 10:54 a.m., I was outside de-weeding the parking strip of our home in Wedgwood, trying to finish by 11 a.m. so I could hear Mayor Paul Schell's TV News Conference regarding the previous day's Mardi Gras' Fat Tuesday rioting in Pioneer Square.

(Kristopher Kime, a 26-year-old Auburn resident, was murdered - beaten to death - while aiding a young woman who had been knocked to the pavement during the rioting. The news conference would up getting delayed by the quake.)

The earthquake started with a loud banging roar, which I at first thought was made by workmen tearing down a house about a block away to the northeast. But, no, it was louder than that, and seemingly coming from the opposite direction, southwest. (Which, as it turned out, was in the direction of the quake's epicenter.) Then when the utility poles and wires began shaking, I quickly moved out from under them into the center of the street.

I noticed up the street a young mother leaving her home, tightly clutching a baby in swaddling clothes. "It's an earthquake," I shouted, "are you OK?" She said she was. Another woman came out on her porch and indicated she was OK, also. Being a member of our local SDART (Seattle Disaster Aid & Response Teams) I considered checking out the neighborhood, but it seemed as though, this day at least, there would be no large problems in this area. So I went inside my own home to see how my wife Dorothy was doing.

Inside the house, she had moved through the kitchen to the backdoor, which opens up to the carport, staying there until the shaking stopped, for fear the carport roof, supported on one side by three 6x6-inch posts, might collapse. (Later I discovered that the three carport posts had twisted a quarter-inch counter-clockwise.)

Dorothy's noises were louder than mine - "like a lot of jackhammers pounding up and down on the roof," she said, "and then the house seemed to shake from side-to-side."

We walked through the house, first to find Kissi, our cat, and then to see if anything was broken. Kissi turned up, huddled behind the toilet, a place she'd never hidden before. Nothing was broken, but a lot of pictures on the wall were askew, as follows: A little Crooked 24, Medium Crooked 5, Large Crooked 1. (18 other pictures were still straight.) These figures include only pictures hanging on one nail.

Not included are posters, or framed pictures standing on shelves or counters, nor two signs given me by Alan Pentz, one-time publisher of the Channel Town Press in LaConner: "Beware of the Bull," and "Trespassers will be Violated." Nor my dad's sign: "Orrill V. Stapp Teacher of Piano," or "The Outlook." The first one indicated where Dad's music studio was in the living room of our home (4203 Woodlawn Ave. N. in Wallingford), and the other where the Outlook office was in our basement.

The picture most askew was of Pat O'Leary, publisher of the Puget Sound Mail in LaConner (whose newspaper I almost bought at one time - but didn't). Partly accounting for its crookedness was a full page metal "cut" depicting all of the Outlook's page one nameplates, which had been leaning against O'Leary's photo, and had fallen over. As did a small plaque commemorating the Outlook's 50th anniversary, given to us by Congressman Joel Pritchard.

Three precautions I had taken earlier: Replacing a heavy picture (Andrew Wyeth) over our bed with a poster (Maurits Cornelius Escher); bolting two 8-foot bookshelves to the wall; and filling a number of plastic jugs with water and storing in the basement.

* * *

YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THOUGHT this earthquake could be felt clear up in Anacortes, about 100 miles north of the epicenter. But it was strong enough to shake a crack in the 145-foot brick chimney of the old Morrison Mill, which because of the danger, had to be blown up several days later.

It reminded me of the day Mount Saint Helens blew up, May 18, 1980. I was living in Anacortes at the time, and publishing my little paper, the Skyliner, focusing on events of the skyline area, which is next to the ferry landing. We all heard the explosion, not sure of what it was at first - I guessed it was "bombs" advertising the opening of a Safeway super store in downtown Anacortes - until I heard a cop on my police radio giving notice that "The Mountain Has Blown."

On Memorial Day several of us residents were beginning to notice tiny piece of Mount Saint Helens ash beginning to show up on our patios and barbecues. It took the ash 12 days to reach us - just in time to make a headline in the Skyliner - and to scoop the Anacortes American! My headline read: "1,548,288,002,002 PIECES OF ASH!"

How did I know what the amount was? Easy. I didn't have to actually count EVERY piece of ash, but just those in a 1/4-inch square atop my barbecue, which were 25, multiply that into a square inch, then per square foot, etc. I admit today, for the first time, that I did alter the total a wee bit, making the final four figures in the total, 2,002, the address where my wife Dorothy and I lived there for five years, 2002 Piper Circle, that is.

Nobody noticed, however.

* * *

PETER LIPPMAN, a friend of mine, and an active member of the Advocacy Project, had to make a quick decision in relation to the earthquake, even though he was at the opposite end of the country at the time. (The Advocacy Project is an organization of international community campaigners who fight for peace and human rights.) I've written about Peter in the past after he'd visited such places as: Bosnia, Kosovo, Guatemala, Nigeria, Cambodia, etc.

His most recent e-mail was from Ecuador: "When I walked into the Miami Airport at about 3 p.m. all the TVs were talking about a Seattle Earthquake! I had about 45 minutes to decide whether to go home to Seattle, or not. I called my housemate at work and home - she wasn't there. I called a neighbor - no luck. Finally I got one of the Bosnians down the street to go up and look at the house - he did, and 'it looked great.'"

So I went to Ecuador.

* * *

SCOTTY SAPIRO, History House curator, who retired recently, died Feb. 27 of kidney failure. He was 82. (History House is located in Fremont on N. 34th St., under the Aurora Bridge.) I got to know him quite well the four years I served on the History House Board, as I did with Jim Neidigh, the Executive Director, who also recently retired. We were all about the same age, the three oldest guys on the Board, a generation or more older than the others. Thus we felt a commonality with each other. For example: Scotty and I knew what a Speed Graphic camera was and had both used one for years; and Jim and I knew who Stay-Up Stan the All Night Record Man was, a disk jockey (once played by Jim) and listen to by me. His hours were midnight to 3 a.m.

One day Scotty casually mentioned that he'd once played Carnegie Hall. I thought he must be pulling my leg. "No," he insisted, "it really happened."

He said he was living in New York and had a photo studio on the eighth floor of the Carnegie building. "One day the water went off," he said, "just as I was going to make some prints. So I called the office, and the girl there advised me to check with the Super, a Mr. Rohonhagan, who at the time was working on the stage."

Which Scotty did, finding a Big Guy there, waving a pipe wrench. "I'm busy now," he told Scotty. "Sit down some place and I'll be right with you."

"Only there was no place to sit," said Scotty, "except the piano bench - so I sat on it. The Steinway piano was so big and beautiful I couldn't help lifting the lid and peeking inside.

Scotty (who'd been taking piano lessons upstairs) finally succumbed to the opportunity, and began playing the scales. But not for long. Mr. Rohonhagan spoke up rather sharply: "If I were you I'd get away from that piano REAL QUICK! It's just been tuned-up for tonight's concert by Vladimer Horowitz!"

Reluctantly, Scotty gave up - but not before moving center stage and taking a big bow before an enthusiastic non-existent audience. (