Sunday, May 18th, Mom and I went to church at St. Mary's in Ridgefield. It was a clear day, but kind of hazy on the horizon, so you couldn't see the mountains. After church, Mom would stay and chat with people leaving church. I would get her keys and head out to the truck to listen to American Top 40.
It was about 11:00, and when I turned on the radio, I heard, ". . . and there are about a dozen fires burning around the base of the mountain. . . ." I said to myself, "Er?" I stepped out of the truck, and if I squinted my eyes, I could make out texture to the haze and clouds to the northwest. Yep, It had erupted!
We got home just west of La Center and stayed glued to the TV for the rest of the day. The haze burned away and we had a clear view of the mountain. We had a model of the Cutty Sark on top of kind of rickety metal bookshelf. In the afternoon, the cat would start fussing and meowing, and then this model would start to rock back and forth, tic-tic-tic. We would run outside and see another huge plume blowing skyward.
A year or two before we had had a total solar eclipse on my Dad's birthday. This year I joked, "Dad, Last year I got you an eclipse. I tried to lay on an eruption for you this year, but it's harder to schedule volcanoes."
Later that summer I found work at a restaurant just off I-5 with a clear view of the mountain. Thousands would stop for a look. There was a souvenir stand selling T-shirts, like "I made an ash of myself at Mt. St. Helens!" My favorite was a T-shirt which had holes blowtorched into it, that read, "Mt. St. Helens Ski Team."
