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		Thanks for the nice magazine! I thought you'd appreciate the story behind the cover photo of that magazine.   The cover photo shows the ash cloud from the explosion of Mount St. Helens blowing into Ephrata Washington on the morning of May 18, 1980. That morning I was outside washing my car when I heard a very loud sonic boom -- or what I thought was a sonic boom. In fact, what I heard was 1300 feet of mountaintop blowing to bits. A couple hours later I saw the most incredible "thunder cloud" blowing in from the Southwest -- or what I thought was a thunder cloud. I said to my neighbors, "we are in for one heck of a storm!" A bit later another neighbor came out to announce: "It's Mt. St. Helens! It blew up!" I should have gone in to get my camera. I didn't. But my friend Doug Miller did. The flowering hawthorne in his backyard is on the cover.   Doug Miller was (and perhaps still is) a professional studio photographer in Ephrata. His house was 2 blocks south of mine on H Street. The town was a-buzz when we heard that Doug's photo had been selected to be published by the National Geographic Magazine. As Doug said, "It's every photographer's dream!" I guess you would assume that Doug was busy with his tripod, as soon as he saw a cloud in the Southwest. Not so. The scene on Southeast H Street was about the same as Northeast H Street. People standing around and gawking and Oh-My-Goshing and Have-you-ever-seen-anything-like-it-ing. Doug was no different, until his wife Madeliene grasped the importance of the event. She said simply, "Doug, you big dummy, go in the house and get your camera!" And now you know the rest of the story.   Thanks for your service! I've wanted to have this edition of the National Geographic for years, but didn't know where to find it until you came along.   Duane McGuire

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