25 years ago… I was little

25 years ago today, May 18, 1980, Mt. Saint Helens blew her top. BOOM. Gone. Spirit Lake? Giant mud puddle. More destructive force than an atomic bomb was unleashed and killed 57 people.

And I remember nothing about it.

I was not quite 20 months old at the time, so I have a good excuse for not remembering the eruption. The Webmaster was older (almost 5 year old) and lived in Beaverton at the time, and with his future hometown (and most of his mom’s family living there) of Morton so near Mt. Rainier, both places got a nice coating of ash. He can remember that much.

But I remember zip. It’s kind of depressing. I wish I could remember it. All I remember are the lyrics to “On top of Saint Helens” (to the tune of “On top of Old Smokey”) that I learned in 5th grade:

On top of Saint Helens
All covered with ash
We lost our dear mountain
In one mighty flash…

Now, 25 years later, Saint Helens is smoking again. This sends local news outlets into ADHD-like frenzys – they ignore all other news to the exclusion that they see plumes rising off the mountain’s lava dome. Oh, please. I know that it could blow again (less mass to go through, so less force this time, in theory), but do we need to cut away to every new shot of the smoking crater? Today is the BIG day – bring out all the old footage and rehash every event and talk to everyone who was there.

I’m glad it’s raining and they can’t get good footage from the top. I hope that means less news tonight.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 at 9:12 am and is filed under General.
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