getting together with a group of friends for our usual Sunday Brunch in downtown Lewiston. Our favorite restaurant (actually the ONLY decent restaurant ), Jannie Annie's, was below street level with skylights to allow the light in while giving a view of the bright Idaho sky. I remember looking up through the skylights right before we left & noticed that half of the sky was clear and blue...and the other half was dark and gray. It was almost like someone was pulling a dark blanket across the sky -- not jagged & disjointed like regular cloud formations...this was a straight line across the sky, separating dark from light. By three o'clock in the afternoon, dusk had fallen -- some six hours earlier than usual. At six o'clock, I remember flipping burgers on the barbeque...only that day, it was in the dark outside. And drifting down like snow from the dark sky, ash...everywhere!!

May 18th, 1980...the day Mt. St. Helen's blew.

Steve B