I was ten years old, and school was interrupted so that we could watch television. It was always incredibly cool when school was interrupted by TV, even if it was just a boring news show, as they usually were.

But this was far from boring. Before my preadolescent eyes, a pillar of black reached high up into the Washington sky and spread out across the countryside. I watched as mudslides poured down the mountains and a pristine, beautiful pine forest was laid desolate.

I was mesmerized.

In my mind, volcanoes were something that belonged to ancient history, to cities like Pompeii where the volcano poured out its wrath on the surrounding countryside, or better yet, to some ancient age of dinosaurs, replete with Brontosauruses getting scorched in the oncoming lava flow. It was not something that belonged to our advanced age of computers and space travel.

When I moved to Washington State, I sought her out. She was beautiful, and the scars of a decade before were beginning to heal nicely. She still fumed and sputtered (in fact, she had quite a healthy ash pillar in 1989, to which I was witness, but for some reason they don't "technically" consider that an eruption). Added to her mystique was that she was in the general region of both Sasquatch and arguably the most famous parachute jump of all time, that of a certain D.B. Cooper.

And now, she speaks again, to all who will listen. I only wish I was there to hear.

respectfully submitted,

Gideon MacLeish