When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, future musician Chris Ballew – The Presidents of the United States of America, Caspar Babypants – was a 14-year-old, taking part in his Catholic Confirmation ceremony in Spokane.
On the way back home to Seattle in the family’s Ford Granada, Ballew – along with his younger brother Tim, their mom Barbara and family friend Jean Sifferman – the four ran headlong into the cloud of volcanic ash descending on Eastern Washington and bringing darkness at midday. Forced off the freeway at Moses Lake, they turned around and headed east back toward Spokane – battling falling ash, blizzard-like visibility, and fear of the unknown in the midst of an unusual, unprecedented and, at times, genuinely frightening experience.
Along the way, history-minded Barbara Ballew hit “RECORD” on a portable boombox, capturing volcano news reports from Spokane, as well as some inadvertent family chatter. Chris Ballew stumbled across the forgotten audio decades later and originally shared it (along with some photos from the experience) with the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture – “the MAC” – in Spokane for their 40th anniversary commemorative exhibit about the eruption and its aftermath.