28.07.07
5. Smokey Helen
I had to look twice. Photo so beat up, so grainy, you’d think it was from Krakatoa, not St. Helens.
We missed the big one. Our whole class was down in desert country, Malheur, bird watching. I remember the teachers filing into the cavern where we’d gathered for lunch. I remember the tall ceilings, metal beams, caged light fixtures.
She blew, they told us. Helen blew.
And we, panicky school kids, spent the next twenty-four hours convinced Portland was completely buried under mountains of ash.
