I remember May 18, 1980. At the time and after a lengthy stint in Mexico, Catherine J. Currier (my maternal grandmother) lived in Vancouver, Washington, maybe forty miles away from Mount St. Helens as the crow flies. Soon after the sucker blew its top, the volcano began dropping ash on her abode for quite a little while. A couple years later, when my sister Linda and I drove out there to see her, we saw the devastation around Mount St. Helens for ourselves -- I remember Blondie's aptly-named "Atomic" was playing on the tape deck when we got to the observation post. It most definitely looked as if an atomic bomb had razed the area.
Anyone who ever heard the story must surely remember the incorrigible octogenarian Harry R. Truman, who'd refused to leave and perished on May 18; just the day before, he'd said: "I had some people ask me why the hell I stayed, what I be doing up there. That's my life -- Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens -- my life, folks, I lived there fifty years -- it's a part of me. That mountain and that lake is a part of Truman. And I'm a part of it." -- And so he was, and so he remains.
Ash cloud from Mount St. Helens. Some of it fell on parts of Oklahoma, and some circled around the entire globe in a matter of two weeks and a day.
Cover of a library book that triggered the memory -- not to mention that it's the thirtieth anniversary this year, 1980-2010.
Today's Rune: Journey.
4 comments:
And his remains, remain? I have a friend who lived close enough to get ashed by the eruption. She remembers it well.
I remember all of that like it was yesterday. And I remember thinking that Harry Truman was batshit crazy.
I go out that way a lot, but haven't seen Mt. St. Helen's yet. There was an article in National Geographic recently about how much nature has recovered in the area around the eruption in the last 30 years.
I HAVE SOME POTTERY MADE FROM THE ASH OF MT. ST. HELENS, USED TO HAVE SOME ACTUAL ASH BUT IT GOT LOST IN THE LAST MOVE I GUESS.
There's something about the Mt. St. Helens blast that really intrigues me. Even seeing the images I realize I'm not "getting" the real SCALE of the event.
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