When Mexico's Popocatapetl volcano erupted last week, I was taken back 16 years, to the summer of 1997.
Popo, as the Mexicans call it, had been stirring that summer, too, blowing smoke and water into the air, just as my six-week stint of teaching in Loyola's summer program at the Universidad Iberoamericana was ending. I wasn't concerned enough to change my flight plans, though, and early on the morning of my departure, I took a cab to the airport as if everything were normal.
Popo, as the Mexicans call it, had been stirring that summer, too, blowing smoke and water into the air, just as my six-week stint of teaching in Loyola's summer program at the Universidad Iberoamericana was ending. I wasn't concerned enough to change my flight plans, though, and early on the morning of my departure, I took a cab to the airport as if everything were normal.
I was standing in line to check bags and get my seat assignment for the 7:30 flight to Houston when a voice over the loudspeaker reported that flights, which apparently had been grounded, would resume, though they would be delayed because only one of the two runways was in use.
I puzzled over the report; I hadn't read the morning newspaper yet, and I did not know flights had been grounded. It was only after I had checked in and settled in at the coffee shop that I read that the volcano had erupted the evening before, and the ash had blown north and west and settled onto some sections of the city, the airport included.
Both of the runways had been covered with it and, at that early hour, workers had been able to clear only one.
Nevertheless, we passengers boarded the plane on time, and it appeared that we would depart on time. Then, over the intercom, came the pilot's ominous "Ladies and gentlemen...." Because of the problem we wouldn't be pulling away from the gate for about an hour, he said. That turned out to be a good estimate.
When the plane finally eased out onto the taxiway we could see a thin blanket of white ash, scarred with the wheelprints of aircraft and ground vehicles.
I wanted to see Popo breathing smoke. The volcano is only about 40 miles to the southeast of Mexico City, and I had seen it often, when it was in repose, on my earlier trips in and out of the city. But the cloud of smog over the valley that morning hung so far down that I couldn't see the cone, and even when we were in the air it was hidden.
As the plane leveled off, the pilot came back on the intercom to thank us all for our patience in the face of what he called the "the curve ball Mother Nature threw at us this morning."
Some pitcher, that mother.
