CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY The doom criers had thought it would happen in the late ’60s or ’70s, but they were premature. When the earth at last shrugged and farted; pushed forth a small belching of matter and covered the pretty lake; killed 50 or so and then, as though enough were not quite enough, dumped ash on Yakima; the people of the Willamette Valley were thrilled. Roof-top mountain watchers, newbo rn geo log is ts , fa i th fu l and righteous . . . they had all warned us. Now at last the old San Andreas dream of West Coast destruction was coming true. In Yakima. To the North and the East. But not here, not in Portland. Then the first ash fell on the Rose City. Face mask prices soared. Oil filters, air filters, hose sales zoomed. And then the ash fell again. Not so funny anymore. It’s one thing to come out of the hills high on wine, dope or LSD and announce that the end is at hand. That’s always the case. Its just good drama. A fun way to scare a neighbor or two. But to actually live through the petty shit of dusty streets and sore throats, red eyes and all; well that’s something else again. Still, the jogging addicts ran and ' the kids played their games in the pummy dust. The city slowly started a clean up. Softly depression crept with the fine powder into the breakfast eggs and over the berry crops and onto the marmalade. But, though the speculative real estate boom had ended, there was a silver lining. There really would be less outside money and outside New York L A San Franish alien smart ass elements in God’s now dusty paradise. But then as the moon pulled once more in the hot summer the volcano did it again. More ash in August. Not a lot, but some. A few of the Northwest’s more recent arrivals — doctors, lawyers and electronics entrepreneurs mostly — sold out for less than what once was market value. Left muttering about Vermont or upstate New York or even Mill Valley. They took with them a rich bouquet of diesel Peugeots, Mercedes and BMWs. Northwest condofication began to grind to a halt. Irvington houses became cheaper. A new condition, ash eye, became a common disorder. Kaiser had a two week backlog of eye, ear, nose and throat casualties. But the sunsets were beautiful. And the green land seemed softer with its There’s Nothing Cold as Ashes gray coat. Warm snow, gentle and soft, eating its way into lung and leather. In September, and in October for several hours once each month when it didn’t rain it ashed. It wasn’t all that bad really. Not something you couldn’t live with. By November the summer statistics were in: Murder up 26%. Aggravated assault up 34%. Traffic accidents up a whopping 47%. Admissions to mental hospitals up over 50%. At the Quandary, normally a friendly sort of watering hole, a suddenly picked up a broom and began smashing people with it. Before she could be stopped, the mad sweeper had left the bar in a shambles. Ash dust and broken glass mingled in muddy mix with blood and beer. There were even two fights at The Goose and Bud Clarke was seen urging the participants on. Any ash joke, volcano reference or earthquake comment could result in an instant black eye from stranger or lover or casual acquaintance. It became extremely poor form to even obliquely refer to the problem. When in early December the mountain exploded once more, the exodus trickle became a stream. By New Year’s Day the stream was a flood and the panic of ’81 was on. The mud slides of December closed the Columbia at Kelso. A huge shallow filthy lake rose slowly. Interstate 5 washed out for the third time and no one was saying when it would be rebuilt. As the lake rose the PR people and executive officers of the Portland General Electric Company issued reassuring releases on the status of the Trojan Nuclear plant. Even after the nuclear waste storage tanks at Trojan flooded out, the rosy prose of the PGE flaks continued to reassure. Trojan, named after a dynamite plant and built on the site of an ancient Indian burial plot, was allowed to continue operation, because in January Bonneville Dam’s hydro plants had stopped, plugged with mud and debris from the runnoff of the volcano’s late Christmas surprise. The trek of hundreds had become a rush of thousands. Homes were boarded up or just left to looters in or out of uniform. All day, everyday, it rained and rained. For the ash was the greatest cloud seeder of all. The volcano once more began to form yet another dome. Hope of relief kept locals from running. But with the Columbia silted into a shallow lake at Kelso and again at Bonneville, Portland’s waterfront began to look and smell like a swamp. The rain rarely stopped. And when the rain halted, the mosquitos attacked. DDT was poured into the low pools of water that were everywhere. The Willamette became a miasmic, sluggish, dark, still, smelly mess. Locals recalled reading once long ago that the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia had been known in pre-settier times as a place of sickness and putrefaction. Now the reasons were clear. Still the commuters in reduced numbers went to work as the city survived with a population of just under 200,000. Presumably those remaining were blessed with a poor sense of smell. The new dome in the volcano’s mouth was holding. By late spring the skies were getting bluer. People began to smile. There was talk of a Portland Renaissance. Hope and the sun were coming back. And then a plume of steam was sighted on Mount Hood. by Joe Uris Illustration by Jan Ross THIS AD GOOD FOR 20% OFF ON ANY BOOK NO DISCOUNT ON TEXTBOOKS, MAGAZINES, OR SPECIAL ORDERS opm 9 30-930 MON - FRI 10:00-5.30 SAT 1200-500 SUN THE CATB IRD SEAT 1231 SWWASHINGTON PORTLAND. 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