Today is the 14th anniversary of the day Mt. St. Helens blew.

I remember that day quite well...my family was barbequing in our back yard when we noticed that it was eerily quiet. It was snowing ash, I remember a baseball helmet on our deck was dusted white.

Missoula got quite a coating of ash. We weren't allowed outside for four days (eternity for nine and ten year-olds) and the cabin fever was brutal. No one went outside without surgical masks, and except to ride a bike to the store for water and emergency supplies (the fine ash would ruin engines and easily find its way into your lungs) or to hose down the house, cars and yard.

The thrill of extended school closures quickly dissipated once we learned that those days would have to be made up on Saturdays or in the summer. School in the summer? I felt sick.

Finally, we were allowed outside. The ash was everywhere. My little brother scooped it up in jars, convinced that those jars of ash would be his ticket to fame and vast fortunes in a few years when he could sell them as souvenirs.

How funny that you can still buy gargoyle statuettes and other knickknacks made from St. Helens ash, alongside the huckleberry taffy, mini indian purses and agates at the 10,000 Silver Dollar Bar along I-90.

I wonder what he did with his jars of ash?