For many Northwest residents who were old enough to remember it, May 18, 1980, invokes powerful, visual memories of the destructive eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Those too close to the mountain died. Other who were close enough to the mountain could actually see the eruption, and for those east of the blast, they can remember the massive ash cloud turning the sky dark and raining ash and pumice hundreds of miles away. Our house was in the path of the ash, but like most of the rest of the nation, my family watched the events on the TV news and read about it in the newspapers.
We weren't at home when the mountain blew.
We were visiting family in Nebraska. I was 14 at the time. Why were were in Nebraska at that time of year, I can't remember. My parents couldn't remember either. As dad remembers it, we heard of the eruption when we landed in Rock Springs, Wyo., for fuel. He thinks we were headed to Nebraska when we learned the news. But given that it was a Sunday, I wonder if maybe we were heading back to Oregon, and that news of the eruption turned us back.
To this day, I have bad memories of the Rock Springs airport. We seemed to have a helluva time getting past Rock Springs on our family flights to and from Nebraska. If we were ever to have heater problems or other mechanical issues, it required landing in Rock Springs. And there was absolutely nothing for a kid to do at the Rock Spring airport, which is way the hell-and-gone away from town.
I don't remember learning about the St. Helens eruption in Rock Springs, but I remember spending extra days in Nebraska, stressing about the school I was missing as a nerdy 8th-grader who wanted to get back home and not really understanding why this mountain, thousands of miles away from where we were then, and hundreds of miles from where we were trying to go, was stopping us from getting home.
Once we did get home, days later, it was a little easier to understand. There was still ash residue at our house in Eastern Oregon. Some friends had collected some of it into jars and told stories of what had happened there the day of the eruption.
I could empathize with all those European travelers earlier this spring who were unable to travel because of the volcano erupting in Iceland. I had been there too, 30 years ago. Although we were traveling by a small private plane, life and plans had to be put on hold until the air cleared.
Until Sept. 11, 2001, there had really only been 2 dates etched indelibly in my mind as major events of my lifetime. One was the day my daughter was born. The other was the day Mount St. Helens erupted.
In the years since, particularly after my daughter moved to Portland, I've gotten a bit nervous when St. Helens goes in to her more active periods. She has a might long reach when she's angry
For my family, we suffered a little inconvenience due to the mountain's wrath. Others suffered far worse. The scar left on the mountain itself is a very visible and permanent reminder of the awesome power Mother Nature can unleash when she's so inclined. Some of the Northwest's most scenic locations are a tribute to that power -- Crater Lake, all the volcanoes of the Ring of Fire in the Cascades, massive basalt flows, the Columbia Gorge. Perhaps it's knowing there is potential fire hidden beneath the icy caps of those mountains that adds to their beauty, majesty and mystique.
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