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Show For the most part, Pele left us alone that year. She seemed to have been appeased by the return of her lava. The days moved in and out, my father studied, though I never saw him sitting in front of any books, I completed third grade, learned Santa Claus wasn't real, and made one friend. I think what matters most about the year was what was happening around us. 1978. The oil crisis and long linesjtthg^gas pump. Not enough of anything. Carter struggled in the White House and the Middle East increasingly became an area of concern. While we didn't know it at the time, the Reagan decade was about to begin, a military heyday without parallel. After the failed rescue attempt of the hostages, you could almost feel the winds of change rushing down Mt. Rainier. Only looking back, do I see those nine months as the bridge they were, a stretch of time that separated the years before my father made commander and the years after, the last moment before mutually assured destruction made the future uncertain and bleak. In our ignorance, we played, driving up Snoqualmie Pass to tramp about in the snow or eat biscuits smothered with "Honey From the Sky" at the Snoqualmie Lodge. In warmer months, we hiked damp forests, pulling strands of bark from fallen "nurse" logs and lying in moss softer than any quilt. Because we didn't own the house, weekends were spent outdoors, in the rain, kicking the soccer ball or flying a kite, not bent over the table saw with its smoking blade. My mother stayed home and took care of us; my father only had to do well in class. Like those who had survived the ravages of a hurricane by lashing themselves to each other, we were-months away from Virginia with its trials of earth, air, and water, miles away from my mother's mother who sat on her sheet-draped couch drinking herself to death and my father's father who stalked the family from the grave- 101 |
