One Eye Watered The Other Shut

"Gimme a capon, some roguish companions
A wench, and a bottle of sack
Take me to the alehouse
Take me to the whorehouse
If I vomit, keep me off-a my back"

Biking Into Mt. St. Helens Ash Cloud
June, ’80

Every time a truck passed, a cloud of ash kicked up in my face.
Everything became invisible for five seconds. When two trucks passed
me, it turned into a horrifying experience. I had my bandana wrapped
around my mouth, but I was still eating ash. In fact, the ash was
plugging up my nostrils. I was blinking my eyes continually to protect
what little vision I had. For the most part, I was running on one eye
vision. While one eye watered out the ash, the other eye kept me on
course. When the good eye plugged up with ash, I would open the teary
eye. Thank god for tear ducts. It got to a point where all I could do
was look straight down at the shoulder of the road. I was eating,
breathing, and blinking my way through the ash, trying to stay on
course, and, I might add, I was not happy about it.

The radio weatherman issued a warning—"Stay in doors. If you must go
outside, wear a carpenter's mask." I wasn't too shocked by that news,
but, the more I thought about it, the more disturbed I got. I did not
know if the ash was harming me or not; after all, I had never met a
person who had survived an erupting volcano before. The first little
town I came to, I went looking for a mask. They were all sold out.
When I passed some road crew guys on the highway, I stopped and asked
if I could get an extra mask from them, but no luck there, either.
"Tillamook," the guy said, "Tillamook will have what you need. It's a
big town." "Yeah," I thought, "it's a big town, but it's down the road
fifteen miles. By the time I reach there, I will have ‘ash pillows’ for
lungs." It was time to dig deep, and reach for my secrete weapon.
Loudon Wainwright lll was singing in my head what I needed to hear,
what I had heard so many times before as I turned up my stereo:

"My father, he thinks I am a good for nothing
And that I won't amount to much
But he's not aware of my secret weapon
I can count on myself in the clutch."

For the next fifteen miles I put my head down and choked ash.