Driving home from work tonight, Mt. St. Helens was visibly smoking in the distance. Although it doesn't seem like it, it's been just over 25 years since it erupted. Frankly, it's bizarre to me to think that I have a clear memory of anything that happened 25 years ago, but I do.
I remember the dusting of ash that made it all the way to where we lived in Portland. That was that spring that my ash allergy became apparent. I remember my mom and her friend buying masks for me and the friend's son, Randy, because both of us were sneezing so badly from it.
Having run out of the normal white ones, the store only had oddly shaped green ones left in stock. Never one to make trouble, Randy good naturedly accepted his bemasked fate, whereas I refused to wear mine on the grounds that it made me look like a frog. I suppose that alive and amphibious is better than incessant sneezing (let alone dead and coated in lava), but even at 11, I had a keen fashion aesthetic that did not include emulating Grandmother Toad. It is a rule of couture that continues to served me well.
2 comments:
That is a great story AND a great picture. We lived in Florida when St. Helens exploded and watched it on TV/ listened to my uncle talk about it. We still have the jar of ash that he saved for us somewhere in the basement.
Thanks, man. Having just gone back when Karen was here, memories of the mountain keep popping into my head. I'd like to go back again sometime soon, so I can actually go inside the visitor's centers. We had all the dogs along with us. As much as I love the furry little monsters, they do get in the way of actually going inside places.
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