Thirty-five years ago I was an undergraduate student at Portland
State University. I was enrolled in six
or seven classes, one being Geology. I
kinda liked playing in the dirt a bit, so I decided to take some extra 1-credit
weekend classes. Field trip classes.
It was pretty exciting to be in a college Geology class in 1980
because there was a great deal of seismic activity going on around Mt St Helens
in Washington. For about two months we
watched steam escape the mountain and felt earthquakes shake our world. Everyday many of us would gather around the
seismic activity meter deep in the basement of Cramer Hall to watch it go a little crazy. We anticipated the volcano erupting
"any day." We had pools betting when it would erupt,
new pools when it would erupt, again when it would erupt. The
excitement was high. Yet no matter how
great the zags, how long they continued, the mountain stayed together.
The Geology department had been postponing their field trips so students
and professors could be here when Mt St Helens blew, but finally had to go out
into the field. There were graduate
retreats and field trips, instructor and professor retreats, and a nice
undergraduate field trip, all heading somewhere in Eastern Oregon. One professor stayed in Portland to run the
department. My trip with the other
undergraduates was to play in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. There are three parts to this large area around the desert-like Eastern Oregon: the Clarno--made up of ancient volcanic mud flows,
which swept up and preserved a diverse array of wildlife and plants from what
was once a tropical area, the Painted Hills--we camped with these gorgeous
colored clay hill around us, and Sheep Rock, which has glorious strata. It also has exposed fossil beds. All-in-all, there was much to see. All field trips, classes, and retreats left
PSU on Friday, May 16.
On Sunday, May 18th, we were to travel to Fossil, Oregon but instead
perked our heads up from breakfast to the yells of our professors/guides. An earthquake at 8:32a had caused the whole
side of Mt St Helens to slide off, exposing gas and causing steam and molten
lava to spew. Mt St Helens had blown her top.
We all wanted to rush home in order to hang out with news crews
and family, especially the professors, but we still had to visit Fossil.
One student said, "The whole world is changing and here we are
fossilizing in Fossil!" The leaders
finally relented and we headed home, taking the shortest route. We headed north to I-84 and straight on to
Portland. We stopped for a rest in
Biggs, where we ran into some Oregon National Guards who had been working
through some of the disaster across the Columbia River. They said it was like night as the ash blew
down through the valley. We couldn't
wait to get home.
Mt St Helens' eruption was the largest current volcanic eruption
within the United States; the mudslide was the largest landslide ever
recorded. Fifty seven people and over
7000 bears, deer, elk, and other big game, died that day. For several weeks Portland had thick inches
of ash. Over the years artists have made
many an object with this ash. Necklaces.
Ashtrays. Earrings.
Sculptures. Just about
everything. Even just little glass
containers of ash. Many people walked
around downtown wearing masks. It gave
strangers something to talk about.
And the irony is that the mountain blew while the entire Geology
department at PSU was away...
I learned a great deal from the eruption and at this time in my
life. One thing I learned is to just get
on with life. So many times we wait and
wait and wait and then finally just go/do/eat.
This anniversary is a reminder that I need to simply start living my life because stuff is going to
happen whether or not I wait.
In memory of Harry R. Truman, David Johnson, Reid Blackburn and
the 54 others who died on that mountain. In memory of all those animals and fish.
peace~~~
