Twenty-nine years ago today Mount St. Helens exploded sending significant portions of its mass rocketing into the atmosphere in blatant disregard for the stipulations of gravity, the EPA, and the Federal Stationary Scenery Act.
I know this because I was there.
Well…not technically on the mountain, but 50 miles away in Portland.
Okay, not actually in Portland, but rather next-door in Aloha.
Listen, when it comes to geological cataclysms the “you are here” dot covers a pretty big area.
Let’s just say that I was close enough to discover the gutter-clogging, paint-stripping, yard-blanketing properties of volcanic ash first hand.
Witnessing an event like that really makes you question the intentions of “mother” Earth. In fact, even after having fled the wrath of nature across the country to Memphis, I still don’t feel safe.
After all, if a benign landscape feature can suddenly go all Mt Doom like a Lord of the Rings sequel, what’s to stop the Mississippi River from erupting in a tsunami-like herd of muddy-brown horses, sweeping rush hour traffic from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and visiting yet another wave of water-logged cars upon poor New Orleans?
"Bye Y'all. Which way to Louisiana?"
Tell yourself it can’t happen if it makes feel better. If it helps you sleep at night.
That just what Harry Truman said.
Ahhh – can’t take the memory away.
Gee -we were still neighbors at that point & time.
Did you go to EH too?
(Why is it I remember you at CM, Mt.V and AHS, but not EH? Must’ve been the ash.)
I believe Harry Truman.
I believe he was wrong.
I was hoping you’d join me in the wayback machine, and now you have. I keep telling people that connotations invoked by saying the date “May 18th” are just as strong as those of “September 11th” but nobody believes me…Kids these days.
And yes, I did grace Errol Hassell elementary with my presence, but just briefly. Which is probably why you don’t remember. I didn’t do anything memorable (like kill the lights in the middle of The Miracle Worker‘s big scene) until I got to middle school.
Well, if you were my age and grade (of which I am fairly certain), you only graced EH for one year, as they opened for our 6th grade year. Which, as I recall, was the year Mt. St. H erupted. Thus, the bunny trail.
I’m sure we’ve discussed this at some other point, of which I don’t recall, but weren’t you also memorable in The Boy Who Changed The World ?
I was in the poster but somehow didn’t make it into the play. I was the super-permed caveman laying across the laps of the girls, a premonition of future greatness that I didn’t recognize at the time.
Okay, I still don’t recognize it, but let’s call it greatness just the same.
Maybe your mother panicked when she saw you in the poster and pulled the plug on your caveman playboy image.
Mother Nature is a moody bitc…
*tornado rips through house, and tosses him 10 miles east*
Don’t you ever watch vintage commercials? “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature…”
Nah, you shouldn’t need to worry about a volcano in TN, just an ~8.0 earthquake from the New Madrid fault. Kind of like punching yourself in the face so you forget about the pain in your stubbed toe, the MSH eruption should flee to the background of memory….
;)
You’re right. There is nothing like new trauma to flush all that old trauma to the back of the hippocampus.
Talk about looking on the bright side.
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We lived in Spokane at the time, but I was in Chicago visiting relatives when that mountain went kablooey.
-It’s weird to think we could’ve practically been throwing rocks at each other already … :)
Foreshadowing fo’sure.
Now, where did I leave my stones?
I was just remembering this with my sis.
Made quite an impression on us as well,
although it didn’t scar us as much as it did you.
Good Lord, Tennessee?
We were sitting around waiting for my mom to finish getting ready for church and she thought I was banging the rocking chair into the wall because of the way the house was shaking.
Yes, that is right, I blamed for volcanic level of damage.
Talk about early portends…
Sounds like your mom was on to something. Have you triggered any other seismic events recently? Has the government attempted to recruit you as a weapon of mass destruction? Do you give tremors to other people?
Perhaps Tennessee isn’t quite far enough away after all.
Stopped the pre-made salad crew I was leading that morning to watch the plume cloud from Sherwood OR..
I guess my memories are of my first true love more than the Mountain blowing. Every discussion of St. Helens reminds me of her, and the good times we had around then. She was part of that crew and my life then.
Now my honorary father, he was up on Helens checking out the work his logging crews had done on that fine early morning. As he said, he owes his life to the 1972 F250 4X4 with the 600 plus horses under the hood ( A true loggers truck). He felt the rumbles and was barely ahead of the blast racing off the mountain that morning.
Yes I do remember both May 18th and September 11th and can recount where and what I was doing for both, with graphic memories imprinted to my life of memories!