(no subject)

[carmenbeaudry]

So, where were you on this day in 1980?

Comments

[gwen-the-potter.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the actual day, but I was in my first year of college, spending a lot of time in the art dept. Had not discovered clay yet. Getting a lot of the first year classes done.

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

So, no Mt. St. Helens memories for you.

[gwen-the-potter.livejournal.com]

My memory of Mount Saint Helen's was that my then Brother-in-Law was working up here as a pipe fitter, but that's about it. We saw the photos, but it's like a hurricane in Port Arthur Texas...unless you are there, you really can't experience it.

[mrq-laurellen.livejournal.com]

I was a teenager, living with my mom in Polson, MT. I still remember the boiling black cloud that rolled over the western side of the valley. The first thing I did was call my best friend who lived out in that area. The first thing my mom did was turn on the radio. We both were afraid that someone had nuked Kerr damn. Heh.

[fiofiorina.livejournal.com]

In my mum's womb...

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

Not too much older than this. :-)

I was probably sitting in the kitchen watching Mom cook while I "colored" scribbles on the back of whatever paper I could find.

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

wee house in the redwoods of Scotts Valley, CA
10th grade.
miserable.
failing high school.
spending every spare moment in the woods with my horse.
I remember watching the eruption on the news in class

the next summer we picked up and moved up here, getting a farm in BattleGround WA rather cheap since it was covered in ash....

[fear-the-cow.livejournal.com]

I would have been in the 4th Grade at Holy Name Catholic Scool with Mr. Frank. Ketchikan, AK. Closest we got to seeing the volcano was the sattelite TV we had at our house. ALthough a cousin eventually sent me a bottle of ash.

[cainder.livejournal.com]

Sitting at a Job's Daughters installation and wondering why it was pitch black outside at 3 p.m. We ended up with relatives staying for a few days until they could get home.

I was happy that we got an extra week off school - that was the year of the teachers' strike, so no spring break.

[fearga.livejournal.com]

I was awakened by my windows rattling like mad--then a bit later heard the news on the radio while I was frantically getting ready for school, because I had overslept. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

on the ridge in the Renton Highlands watching that enormous plume rise and come our way. there was ash fall on the hood of the International Harvester and our camping plans were toasted!

for some reason we decided not to go camping at LaWisWis in Rainier National Forest that weekend. go figure.

it was weird, surreal weird, to watch the news on the tv of Spokane being crippled by ash fall and to live closer and have nothing but a haze on the cars.

We used to be able to see the top of that perfect snowcone from the edge of the bluff before she blew her lid . . . not anymore.

Rosceline

[fittzwm.livejournal.com]

In highschool science class, watching some volcano, of which I knew nothing previously,erupt. I was fascinated. Did think I would ever live on the other side of the country where it happened, but here I am now!

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

The only reason I paid any attention was because a buddy's grandmother lived in Spokane. We mostly saw it on the news. And no 24hr news back then! I don't think we had cable at that house anyhow. (And CNN wouldn't debut for another two weeks.)

As a teenager who had never been out of the South, the Pacific Northwest seemed remote indeed. I think when I came out here the first time in 1982, all I knew about Seattle was Mt St Helens and Ted Bundy.

[landsknecht-po.livejournal.com]

I was playing baseball at Dunbar park (33rd ave and Dunbar st. in Vancouver). I do remember hearing the eruption though I didn't know what it was at the time. In the following days we did get some ash fall over Vancouver.

Dark skies and dusty footprints

[tigermeep.livejournal.com]

I was in 5th grade living in Redmond. I remember dark skies, and I remember heading down to Longview within a few days of the eruption and the ash all over their yards.
Later that year, we got a Persian kitten that was born that day.
Caesar erupted in wild antics every morning, we blamed it on his natal day.

[tradarcher.livejournal.com]

Here in the house. We had just got back from a trip to the coast. I wanted to stop off nearby to see Mt.St. Helen but was too tired.

[javagoth.livejournal.com]

Home. Far enough away that we only got a dusting of ash. The news was on all day and later my sisters went on road trips to collect ash.

[nmsys.livejournal.com]

Camping on Lopez Island in the San Juans. We heard the blast from the mountain during breakfast.

[hrollaug.livejournal.com]

Note the photo (taken a couple years ago)

I was building the house we live in now. I actually heard the BANG. That afternoon I was over at my sister, who then lived in Bonneylake. We could see the plume from there.

I was skipping all events that year, due to the house. So I missed May Coronet (several people had to wait days to make it back to Portland)

[cleothyla.livejournal.com]

I was 15 years old,and living in the Factoria area in Bellevue and had just come from a friend's church service when I found my family around the radio in the kitchen and telling me that Mt. Saint Helens erupted.
My dad normally took trips to the Eastern side of the State and he'd bring home containers of the ash. And I do remember some days during the summer where we got ash on the ground at home.

[katanubis.livejournal.com]

I was at the University of Washington Medical Center (for my last rotation of medical school, dermatology.)

I had friends who were hiking on Mt. Rainier at the time. I have a great picture of Mt. St. Helens that they took (after they figured out that it wasn't Rainier that was going off.)

[scratchel.livejournal.com]

I was only 4, and we were at home (in Spokane). I don't remember much, other than loving the feel of the ash and my mom nagging us to put it down. :)

[vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com]

Going 'cool" as i planned my birthday party ;)

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

I was at the Moscow Renaissance Fair watching in dismay as the ash feel on my pottery. We heard it was bad for children, so my ex-husband took my little boy home and I stayed while the ash got heavier and heavier and wrapped my pottery and put it in boxes (I wasn't about to leave it in the park although we were advised to.) I was belly dancing in those days so a friend and I took our veils and wrapped them around our faces like Bedouins while we packed and tried to take care of things.
We had a lot of friends from far away who were craftsmen at the Fair and they were not allowed to drive on the highway, so I took them home with me and we had about 11 people living with us for about a week.

The volunteer firemen, and other groups almost make me cry when I think how they were everywhere doing everything for people. Talk about a community coming together!!!!

I still have about 300 lbs of ash I collected. I used to use it for glazes when I fired cone 10. It doesn't melt at cone 6.

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

How does it work as a glaze? I think that would be pretty cool to have something glazed with Mt. St. Helens ash.

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. It didn't need any thing else but straight ash. In oxidation it turned a shiny dark brown and in reduction it was a copper brown.
Kind of a pain to work with though before it was fired.

[lilcindylouwhoo.livejournal.com]

An egg in an ovary, not sure if I was a sperm yet......

[ldy-susanna1.livejournal.com]

I was living in Victoria , B.C Canada and was in grade 10 science class and we heard the eruption as it "bounced" off the atmosphere. My teacher at once new what it was and he ran to a radio to see what he could find out - very surreal.

Zsu

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

Living in Saint Louis. However, my best friend lived in Hood River at the time, which was plenty close. She was 19 and still at her parents' place. That morning she went for an early ride on her horse and was caught out in the woods pretty far from home when the ash began to fall. She and the horse were okay, but she had to take out her contact lenses because the ash was killing her eyes. She rode home with her lenses tucked in her mouth between her gums and cheek. I'm not sure I would have been that clever in those circumstances.

I was at the May Coronet Tourney

[chacounne.livejournal.com]

that Steingrim won for Leonora.

We were, as I recall, about 40 miles away from St. Helens.

Sunday morning we all woke up a little early, without thinkin much about it. No one knew what had happened until much later in the day, during closing court when someone came from offsite and approached Amanda, who was lurking at the back of court and told her that the mountain had blown and I-5 was closed. Mom approached the Prince, Edward Zifran, and told him and he interupted court and made the announcement.

Because the mountain blew north east, it took some people in the Wealdsmere and Vulcanfeldt area a week to get home.

We realized later that we were too close to hear the sound, it went over us.

Hugs,
Melissa

[manikenxl.livejournal.com]

I was sitting on the couch with my brother and sister while my mom took a picture of us and in the background all you see is grey from the window. We lived in Missoula MT and I was 7 months old.