Where were you when The Mountain blew?

Well, I was eating breakfast with my family.

It was 25 years ago today, a calm Sunday morning in spring. Considering I was just shy of six years old, I have a remarkably strong image from that day and the days that followed. The day, of course is when Mount St. Helens blew its top (actually, its north face) in an ashy eruption, killing 57 people, darkening skies for miles and sending a cloud of ashy debris across several states.

I recall that we had slept in late. I remember my dad and mom cooking pancakes or waffles or some other batter-on-griddle breakfast that we would sometimes have on Sundays such as these. I remember it being about 11 a.m. when we walked to the windows to see the sky becoming dark as night. It is one time when the TV blared the Emergency Broadcast System tone -- and it was not a test.

School in Ellensburg was cancelled for a week. I just went half days to Mrs. Bull's kindergarten class at Washington Elementary, but it was a big deal nonetheless. In the days that followed, I remember we made art projects, and my brother, then age nine, laughed at mine because my watercolor of a volcano looked more like Abe Lincoln's top hat. Just another example of how he was a jerk to me in my youth.

My brother and I did cooperate to clean up our neighborhood sidewalks of the fallen ash. We swept up the ash, a quarter an inch or so, as I recall, and placed it in big trash bags. I'm sure he got to sweep while I held the bag, as always. I never got to use the broom, just hold the bag. The process proved to be foolish as the ash was heavy and the bags nearly broke. We also got to wear cool masks that my grandpa brought home from his job at the Department of Transportation. Everyone had a kerchief or a mask because, obviously, breathing ash is not that smart -- even though millions of people do it every day and tobacco companies make a lot of money as a result.

We saved some in our garage in coffee cans as if it were some sort of precious artifact. I'm sure we probably thought we could sell it someday. If only eBay had been invented, we could have struck it rich. We did send little medicine bottles of ash to relatives all over. After the initial thrill, all you have is a jar of ash. Lava, now that woulda been something.

My sister was not involved in the ash salvage because she had been born just two months earlier, on March 18. I also remember making a card to celebrate that, but I have no idea why two months seemed like a card-worthy milestone. Maybe it was because I had to stay inside all day and had to be kept busy.

So, here I am 25 years later, writing about an event that is as much a benchmark in my life as a birthday, graduation or funeral. Most people my age and older who experienced May 18, 1980, know exactly where they were and what they were doing when The Mountain blew. The Mountain has spent the last few months becoming more active. We may see if a new generation gets to see an eruption.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.