It was Sept. 4, 1996, the eve of my birthday, and the middle of what I like to call the Jenkins Birthday Season, a gloriously festive time filled with a lightness of spirit, gifts, a feeling of appreciation, gifts, an invigorating anticipation, gifts, a Yuletide kind of joy coming upon my friends in advance of the big holidays. And gifts.

The specifics of the gathering planned for the night of the 5th escape me, except that there wasn't one, as it turned out. Because shortly after nightfall, Hurricane Fran arrived on the North Carolina coast. Within about 48 hours, the devastation was unbelievable; our part of North Carolina was walloped by Mother Nature almost beyond recognition in some places. This coming Tuesday, 10 years afterward, many who were in the Triangle then and still are, and others who have since moved away, will be spending a morning or a lunch hour recalling where they were and what they were doing and who was around and then how they coped with the aftermath of this nightmare storm.

You may recall that it appeared for a while that the hurricane would follow the path of Hugo in 1989, west of the Triangle. But 'twas not to be, and it came right over Raleigh in the early morning hours of Sept. 6. Some said it sounded like a freight train. Some spent the hours of its passing huddled in closets. Some, amazingly, even slept through it.

I stayed the night at my folks' house deep inside the Raleigh Beltline. (And no, Mr. and Mrs. La-Dee-Da, not because I assumed no hurricane would dare penetrate the Beltline.) I was living in Wake Forest at the time.

Those of us in the neighborhood would speak later of how we stayed up all night waiting for the worst. Being awake wasn't a bad strategy -- there were stories from many storms of people who had been killed by trees or falling objects hitting them as they slept. In our case, the power went out, but nary a bit of damage was done to our old house. But down the street, trees were across the roads, and not little trees either.

One fellow about a block away had a huge oak on top of, and to some degree, inside of his house. Just awful. (He would be displaced for many months.) People were standing outside their yards, looking at their broken houses, weeping openly. Kids, too. That was the toughest part. After a little initial excitement over everything that was going on, they realized they'd lost their toys, their bicycles, most of what they treasured.

Quickly, and appropriately, those of us who'd been only slightly affected tried to do something for those who were hurting. In particular, it was important to remember that there were people in town who didn't have adequate insurance, who didn't have anywhere else to go, who had just gotten here and had few friends.

A day or two later, I went to Wake Forest. From the front, my house, brand new, looked fine. The guy across the street had a big tree right through his house's roof. Several free-lance cleanup crews were driving around the neighborhood, giving estimates. One of them told him $850 to move that tree. Turned out, I wasn't so lucky, either. Around back, I saw that a big pine had landed across the den roof and caved it in. Another had crashed into the deck. And so I shared with neighbors that lousy feeling of, what now? And contemplated weeks of not being able to live in the house.

But things got better within minutes. I'd never met one of my neighbors, but knew he was a contractor. His name was Franco, and since I haven't talked with him lately, I won't use his last name here. I introduced myself, asked him to take a look. He said he'd pull the trees off the house and haul them away -- for $100. An amazing act of generosity.

In the coming weeks, of course, there would be lessons, mainly about how it's OK to feel sorry for yourself but that it's important to remember that there are always people who have problems far greater than yours. That seems like a gross understatement after the flooding in Mississippi and New Orleans, and now, with the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the sights of so much devastation still affecting those people. If we're walking around and taking nourishment, as they say, we're better off than so many of our fellow travelers on the planet. And so for some of us -- not all, to be sure -- the contemplation of that stormy night 10 years ago probably ought to bring thoughts of our luck and good fortune.

And...thanks again, Franco.