Eclipse Day

Day broke with the forecast changed from “times of sun and clouds” to “mostly sunny”.  The early morning sky was so blue and almost cloud free.  The sparkling wine was cold, ice was in the chest, and breakfast was coffee, followed by apple turnovers and Cook’s.   We had chosen the right place to go!  (Texas as a whole was prime real estate for eclipse viewing price gouging.  To see only clouds after spending $1,000 for three days of campground, with or without water and electricity, surely rankled many.  Its campgrounds were fending off countless demands for partial refunds.)

Kat drove us over to the Lake Gillham dam and we settled into a parking spot on one end.  There were already nearly a dozen parked vehicles and 30 or so people milling around or parked in folding chairs.  I met Roger from Van Buren, AR and inquired about his green and red Boston Red Sox cap.  He told me there are lots of Irish in Boston, and indeed Kat and I got directions to Fenway 30 years back from a cop with a strong Irish accent.  There was Gladys from Wyoming, with whom we discussed the thrift of our forebears who lived through the Great Depression.  Her people ate a lot of wild game; I asked her if any enjoyed raccoon or opossum; “No”.  She was on her way to converse with the three Italian astronomers nearby with big cameras on tripods.  I suggested “Ask them if they have eaten possum; then caught myself adding “Better not; they might misunderstand.”  (That earned a hearty laugh.)   Our seating neighbors included Tom and Hazel from somewhere in Oklahoma.  Many among the audience had witnessed the 2017 total eclipse and a few had tried to but were clouded out of the excitement.  The mood was festive, a bit like New Year’s Eve on Bourbon Street – there were no strangers in this crowd.  We all were excited at the prospect of experiencing totality.

Then someone noticed the cloud cover which had blanketed the sky in a matter of minutes.  Hey, it’s an hour and a half until the beginning of the eclipse!  Optimism reigned but nevertheless, the clouds persisted.  Kat and I dined on tuna sandwiches and Doritos, finishing the last of the Cook’s.  12:30 p.m. came and went.  The event was underway above those clouds yet completely unnoticeable to all of us.  A few people on the other end of the lot packed up and left.  Many who remained called friends trying to watch in other locales.  One asked the crowd “Where is Lake Ouachita?  They have only a few clouds there.”  But that’s a hundred miles east, and the roads may be packed.  No one else left.  But the mood of the dwindling multitude had soured.  The reality settled in that some of us will never see a total solar eclipse.

Totality was to begin at 1:46. Almost an hour into the event we had not seen a single patch of blue sky in the cloud cover.  The next total eclipse will come to the USA in 2044, far too distant for many of us.  Our mood darkened as the reality sank in:  We all spent a lot of time and a decent sum of cash coming here, and for nothing. 

With 20 minutes left before totality somebody looked up and spotted the sun with a big chunk bit out of him through the clouds.  Excitement returned as here and there glimpses of light blue began to show up.  And then the skies parted between our band of would-be witnesses and the sun and moon which was about 2/3 into totality.  Eclipse glasses became necessary and our show began.  But would it last into totality?

The clouds began breaking up here and there, but most of the sky remained obscured.  Yet hope had returned as the dominant mindset in our crowd-think. 

Eclipse glasses are essential to watch the progression of something eating the sun.  Intellectually one knows he must use them and despite their cheap build, they allow a fine view of a vanishing Sol.  And the clouds continued to part as totality approached.  We had a good 20-25 minutes of watching it progress toward totality.  That crescent of brilliance became increasingly smaller.  Even as it shrank to a mere sliver of orange those E-glasses remained essential.  The last sliver suddenly disappeared and with glasses on we were blind.  Take off those glasses and watch with the naked eye!  Oh wow!  Look at that ring of white fire, and what is that red protrusion on the lower edge?  A solar flare?  From those Italians came a loud exultation “Bellissimo!”

Magically the air turned much cooler.  As totality had approached we heard the Canada geese discuss flying to roost as they do every afternoon, this time several hours early.  Pretty soon after totality they all began to honk, their super majority reached and off they flew honking en masse to a sleeping place.  The swallows that had been chasing insects 500 feet above us had disappeared minutes before, returning to their nests.  To the right of the eclipsed sun Venus quickly became highly visible; to its left a less bright planet, probably Jupiter.  And for over four minutes we all witnessed that ring of fire, or diamonds, as you like.

Then totality ended, and the return of normality felt less interesting than its loss.  Kat and I headed on back to camp trying to digest the meaning of it all. We had seen something rare and beautiful for sure, but what did we feel?

I felt a connection with our ancestors, back to the Stone Age and Dark Ages.  What did they feel?  Fear followed by relief?  Was it a need to sacrifice something precious to the gods?  Or was it more along the lines of what we felt – a mixture of awe and wonder? 

Here’s music from Pink Floyd, “Total Eclipse/Brain Damage”.  And the reality, if not the meaning, struck me after listening to this legendary chunk of rock history:  we had just seen the dark side of the moon.  Ah, the images of the sun being eaten away by the moon ending in that ring of diamonds are pretty close to what we witnessed.  And maybe, just maybe, the band Pink Floyd flew to some obscure locale to experience a total eclipse of the sun.  If so, they found it inspirational.