By the spring of 1980 Norman was working for David Evans and Associates in Portland, commuting from Salem by carpool van, and missing Paul’s Little League games. Herk Engineering had folded when the economy collapsed in 1979 — interest rates had hit 18 percent and there was simply nothing. He had taken the Portland job to survive.

David Evans drove a Studebaker Avanti and ran a high-pressure office. Norman and Evans did not get along. One afternoon Evans sent Norman up to Vancouver, Washington, on a project errand, and let him drive the Avanti. Norman finished the meeting, walked down a hallway, and saw a bulletin board. On it: a job posting from the City of Vancouver for a plan-review engineer.

He sent in his resume. He was hired.

Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980 — just before the Harkers were set to leave. Norman remembers ash on the cars and news reports on the radio. The family was still in Salem when it happened, and Ivan, then living in Spokane, was on Norman’s mind — Gayl had been in Spokane for some reason around that time.

The move to Vancouver happened in August. Norman rented a U-Haul. Three men from the Salem Fourth Ward — Eric Sorenson, Neil Latham, and a third man named Jerry — drove up with him to load and unload. The kids were not on the truck; as Norman recalls, they were in a motel, or already up with Van and Deanne in Seattle. The U-Haul dolly fell off the trailer somewhere south of Woodburn and had to be retrieved in the dark.

The house was at 8711 NE 35th Avenue — a cul-de-sac in northeast Vancouver, about four years old, with a cherry tree in the corner, a row of filbert trees out back, a bamboo planting, and a small deck. Marilyn loved it. Norman thought it was more than he wanted to spend: roughly $150,000. They painted it green eventually, then yellow.

The family moved in on the hottest day of the year. Everyone stayed up until early morning to unload. The Salem men drove back before sunrise.