A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Mt. Saint Helens

The day that Mt. Saint Helens blew, I thought it was Doomsday. I spent the morning in church with my dad and when we came out around noon, the sky was dark and ashen, as if the sun had disappeared. Instead of going to the church basement for doughnuts, everyone stood frozen and talked quietly on the front steps of St. Joseph’s.

Someone said, “Well, it really happened.”

It was probably a half hour later when I finally caught on to what was happening.

The next morning, I went out with the neighbor kids and we gathered as much ash from the sidewalks and car hoods as we could. We filled up tiny bottles that formerly held Gerber baby food. Someone said the bottles would be worth money someday.

It was spring break when this happened, and when I went back to school the next week, everyone had bottles of ash to show.