It's amazing I still remember what I was doing the morning of the eruption. But I do! If I live to be 100 (which is unlikely) I will always remember what we were doing that morning. I remembered I had been hearing on the news, in school and my parents all talking about the mountain erupting, so I knew basically it was going to happen soon. No one knew when though. Even though I was only 6 years old, I knew it was going to happen. Simply because for a couple of months previously, it had been so active in shooting out ash, steam and rocks. It was surely attracting a lot of attention. I never knew it would happen while we were away from our home, and my kitties were still in there. I was the first one among us who noticed the plume of ash from that major eruption as I looked out the window. That was why I begged my ma to take me back so I could get them. Fortunately we had relatives in California, where we fled to. They welcomed us in.
Eventually we did return to Toutle, where we used to live. But then in 2000, we moved out and haven't been back since. We moved instead to this crap town called Lakewood! UGH!! I hated it there! I never wanted out of a town more than I wanted out of that one! That's why we didn't last long there and moved to Olympia a year after. I want to make a few corrections. In the video I said Kelso (where we had breakfast and met some of my ma's friends) was 20 miles from Mount St. Helens. Well, Anna told me that it's much farther away from there than 20 miles. Ah! My coordinates have never been good! But anyway, it was quite a way from the eruption. I do remember there was no sound, just a view of an enormous gray cloud getting bigger and bigger! Then the sight of helicopters surrounding the eruption like mosquitos surrounding a camper! I also know we were lucky to have made it out when we did.
Anyway, here's the videos I created. I even found the video of the Mount St. Helens opera, which first aired on KIRO 7 in Seattle during the 10th anniversary special in 1990. It's good! I like the combination of video and music. The part of the video after the initial eruption, where they show the ash cloud reaching into the sky, that part always gets to me! Makes me think of the apocalypse with that morbid feeling in the music! I had to cut that short because with this video, I already overextended YouTube's 10-minute limit. But I have so much to say about Mount St. Helens. It is a major part of my life. That's why I extended this special of my own over 2 videos. I was shocked that the first part was not deleted by YouTube! It runs for 10 minutes and more than 30 seconds! I couldn't make it any shorter! I took out a lot just to fit what I have on there now. Because of it, I have 2 incomplete videos! Of course I could make a 3rd video! But took me all day yesterday to create these and I wanted to have both of them up on Tube today. Today is after all the day of the eruption's anniversary.
Mount St. Helens is a major part of my being. I even have 3 stories in my collection inspired by Mount St. Helens. Either I wrote them, or I helped to write them. One of these stories even includes INXS, my most favorite band, visiting the mountain. It's a fantasy story! Not meant to be taken as real, as all my stories are. Though some of them are based on some actual events. Like the old saying goes, good fiction is based on facts. But this INXS/Mount St. Helens story is not meant to be taken as real. Though in some cases, I did try to capture the real personalities of the men. In some cases!! I think I made Michael more of a flirt than he actually was! And I know I teased Jon a bit because of him being the youngest member of the band (at the time I wrote the story). But it was supposed to be more funny than real. Well anyway, I was satisfied with the sketches I did. Like the one of Timmy playing his guitar on a pile of rocks from the eruption! hehe! Another story I made involved Mount St. Helens in the Metazoic world. That is IF it will still be active by then! That story too is meant to be nothing more than fantasy. You can surely tell that because I included humans in the story as rehabilitators. LOL! Humans aren't supposed to be in the Metazoic! But again, it makes it a good story. Well, for those who do not take things too seriously!!
Anyway, here's the videos I did for today:
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