30 years ago today, Mt. St. Helens blew its top clean off! And three decades later, the area is still recovering and scientists are still studying what happened. It was the last major volcanic eruption in the continental United States (come to that, it's probably been the only volcanic eruptions in the continental United States) and it's fascinated me ever since.
My parents have a big, huge, faded yellow book from National Geographic, celebrating 100 years of that magazine- and in it, they devoted a lot of time to St. Helens, including the last words of geologist David Johnson. I don't know what it was about reading that article and seeing that 57 people (including an old man who lived on the mountain in a cabin called, I kid you not, Harry Truman) but I cranked out a pretty good short story set on the morning of the eruption. And for the life of me, I don't know where it is today, which makes me a little sad.
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