Thoughts on Mount St. Helens @ Thirty

I can't believe thirty years have passed since Mount St. Helens erupted.

I'm sure the people in Skamania County, Washington can't believe it either.

I was in the second grade at Ogden Community School in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Ms. Littleford was my teacher.

It seemed that ash spread everywhere. I remember my maternal grandparents sent us a pill bottle full of ash which came down where they lived in Coleman, Alberta in the Crowsnest Pass.

Some of the ash even reached us in Northwestern Ontario although not in a very large quantity. But I remember one hot afternoon during recess become that became nearly unbearable with those tiny particles running through the air.

It was also then when I learned that the Harry Truman who died at the foot of Mount St. Helens was not the same man who was the 33rd President of the United States.

I'm sure if something that cataclysmic were to happen today some people would either blame it on global warming or would chalk it up to a conspiracy theory. But there are times when nature can humble man and this was surely was of those times.