The Eighties Online

On June 4, 1989, just 19 years ago, within sight of the 2008 Olympics Village, hundreds civilians were shot dead by the Chinese army during a bloody military operation to crush a democratic protest in Peking’s (Beijing) Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese people and the world understand how important the site is as China puts it’s best foot forward to the rest the world during this 29th Olympiad. The 4-5 billion other people on our planet are seeing China’s potential as the global economies largest player.

I have been lucky to see so many tremendously historical events, especially in the late 1980’s with the end of “The Cold War”. China will be the most productive economic powerhouse in the world. This will likely happen very quickly. Currently China is the third largest economy in the world, behind China and the United States.

I think in a decade, the U.S. will see many more tourists from China as millions “get upped” and find better lives in the overcrowded, polluted cities (growing pains, nothing more; they’ll get the smog situation figured out, I’m sure).

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Why would anyone want to murder John Lennon? I don’t have an answer for that. It is tragic that we lost such an artist and human being as John Lennon.

The last day in John Lennon’s short, prolific life was like a death in the family for more than Lennon’s wife and son, Julian.

John Lennon’s murder was, is, and always will be a great loss. When John Lennon was assassinated on Dec 8, 1980, many people, old enough to remember, would recall today exactly where they were, who they were with and what they were doing when they heard John Lennon was killed.

It is interesting to speculate, as a music lover, how much wonderful music Lennon would still be making today.

I listened to the Beatles as early as 1972. I remember spinning “hand me down” vinyl LP’s on my plastic phonograph. I was blessed with copies of The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” and the 1966 masterpiece, “Rubber Soul”. They were well played and scratched, but they sounded awesome.

Paul McCartney was going strong in the 1980s, recording hit singles with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, as well as recording several solo hit singles. I’m sure he missed his songwriting partner and childhood friend. And still does.

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The mountain’s crater had been rumbling and steaming for several weeks. I was camping near a mountain stream in the Cascade Mountain Range over 300 air miles from the mountain when it blew. What I heard sounded like blasting nearby.

Odd for early Sunday morning. But our party didn’t think much of it until we boarded our rigs for the trip home and tuned in the radio.

As it turned out, a tremendous explosion of trapped gases, generating about 500 times the force or the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, blew the entire top off Mount St. Helens.

In a single blast Mount St. Helens was transformed from a picture-perfect symmetrical cone 9,667 feet high to a flat-top 1300 feet lower. Clouds of hot ash made up of pulverized rock were belched twelve mile into the sky.

The force of the prolonged energy burst rocketed into the upper atmosphere and slapped the skies. Vertical ripples spread through the atmosphere causing lazy fluctuations in the air. Hours later in Washington D.C., scientists would record gravity waves from Mount St. Helens crossing the Eastern Seaboard.

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