The day the mountain blew

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.

The man with the long beard makes an unlikely Santa Claus

I haven't written a post here in about two and a half months and that post was about a trip my dad and I made to Nebraska for his brother's funeral, and in the time since that post was made two of the people we saw on that trip have also died.

The latest call came today. My dad called me while I was at work. He never does that. My parents rarely call, but when they do it's almost always bad news.

When I got the call in early November about my Dad's brother in-law Doug dying, that was not too much of a shock. He was not in good shape when we saw him in September. He was 86 and in failing health. It was sad, but not a stunning development.

One of the reasons I felt it was important to make that trip was to see and spend some time with family because I knew some members of the family might not be there the next time I was able to get back there. My dad is the youngest of his siblings and my parents are now both in their early 70s. I think I've only been back to Nebraska four times in the last 27 years. All four of those trips were for funerals. There have been funerals I've missed too, like my grandmother's. I'm not a big fan of funerals. I'd skip my own if I could, but missing Grandma's was hard, even though I had said a tearful goodbye to her when she left Oregon for Nebraska not long before her passing. I didn't go back for my Uncle Doug's funeral either, but was glad I got to sit and talk with him and hear him my dad share stories just a few weeks before he died.

The call today threw me for a bit of loop though in a very different way. Dad was calling to tell me that my cousin, Mike, had died. I have a lot of cousins that are quite a bit older than me, but Mike is not one of them. He's actually younger. It's also upsetting because a member of my family is gone and I didn't really know him that well, and now I never will. Sadly, there are far too many members of my family that I don't know very well. Too may years and too many miles separate our time spent together.

The amazing thing I experienced on the last couple of trips to see family is that the years and the miles didn't seem to matter. The family bonds are still there.

My cousin Mike served as host on the last trip my dad and I made to Nebraska together. Mike gave up his bed during our stay and he made sure we felt at home. He also helped us catch up on the happenings within the family and took us out on the town one evening.

I was quite impressed with Mike. His mother has been quite ill, recovering from a stroke, and Mike has been taking care of her. He had become her full-time caregiver. I remember asking myself: "Could I do that?"

I didn't know the answer, if push really came to shove. The best I could come up with was maybe. And then again, maybe not.

Mike had also cultivated a distinctive look for himself with an amazingly long beard. He looked like he was auditioning for a spot in the ZZ Top lineup. I kept expecting him to flip it over his shoulder, or swoosh the hairs back and forth in dramatic fashion like Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2. How did he manage to ignore that thing dangling from his chin?

I know Mike had a keen interest in music and played guitar, but I never heard him play. There is much I don't know about him. Over the years I've been much closer to some of his siblings. His sister Tammy was my babysitter when I was young. Mike's brother Bill was a little older than me, but I always looked up to him, almost like a big brother. I always wanted to hang out with Billy. I wanted to be like Billy. He just seemed so cool to me. Mike's brother Randy was older still, and I didn't know him as well when I was young, but we have got to know either other quite well in more recent years. Randy moved in with me for a while when I was living and working in Hermiston about 20 years ago. He is funny and can always make me laugh. Because he was older, and had maintained his ties to Nebraska, even over years of working in Oregon, he knew more about the older generations of the family. He was my connection to the family. Their oldest brothers, Steve and Keith, were already out of the house by the time of my earliest memories. They were more like uncles than cousins.

When we were children, I didn't spend much time with Mike. He was the same age as my brother Ron and I felt too old, too mature to hang out with the younger kids. Ironically, I did every thing I could to hang out with Bill, who was about as many years older than me as I was older than Mike. Bill was much more magnanimous with his time than I was with mine.

I regret that now. The regrets are piling up with age. I used to arrogantly tell a former girlfriend that I had no regrets. It may have been true then, back in my college days, but then there wasn't much life lived to realize the mistakes that would haunt me. Now the haunting spirits of regret emerge with frightening regularity.

I got an e-mail from Mike a few days ago. It included a whole bunch of pictures of a guy who builds scale model airplanes out of metal. I thought about writing back just to see how things were going. But I was annoyed too because all the photos attached to the message were clogging up my e-mail program and it was taking forever to see the text of the message and the photos. In frustration I just tossed the message into the trash and never hit the reply button. Hindsight, being what it is, I certainly regret that now.

If I could go back a few days, I would write to Mike and say something, anything. And if I could go back to those college days I would not be so boastful about lack of regret with a certain young woman. Isn't that how it goes? Once so proud of a lack of regrets, now here I am facing regrets about things said and things left unsaid.

It's easy to forget that I come from a big family. I'm glad I got to go back to Nebraska in September to spend some time with Mike and Uncle Doug and so many other members of both sides of my family who I now so rarely see. We don't get all the time we want to do all the things we want with all the people we want. I'm thankful for the time I got and for the chance to learn how strong family ties can remain, in spite of time and distance.

Grieving can be a lonely experience, but it's mitigated when it's shared with others close to you. I'm so sorry for the loss Mike's death will mean to family and friends, particularly to his mother who has been able to live in her own home with Mike's help.

I really haven't been looking forward to Christmas this year for a very pathetic reason. Finances are tight and I am not going to be able to buy gifts for as many people as I would like to and won't be able to spend as much on the gifts that are given. I was even thinking about not going to see my parents and brothers to avoid any awkwardness over gifts or the lack thereof. Silly. And sad that it takes the loss of a cousin to remind me of what I should already know. Certainly there will be a some grieving over this holiday season, but I shall attempt to make this also a season for celebrating life and family -- those I will be fortunate enough to see for Christmas, those far away, and those gone but not forgotten.

Mike, Steve and Keith West at graveside services for Clyde West in September 2009 at the Mitchell, Neb., cemetery.

Heading back up the Oregon Trail

My dad and I headed back to Nebraska for his oldest brother's funeral last week. It was good to see family, but I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances.