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| A Total Solar Eclipse |
It's been hard to escape the media blitz surrounding the total Solar Eclipse due next week—which will be the last one visible in the contiguous United States until 23 August 2044.
As I'll be long dead by 2044, you'd think I'd be pretty excited about the sky show on 8 April 2024—but how I really feel about it is...meh.
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| Kids using DIY Eclipse Viewers |
In all fairness, I do remember being pretty thrilled the first time I witnessed a solar eclipse. It was 7 March 1970, and my Riverside Elementary classmates and I had been instructed by our teacher on how to safely view the astronomical event with the help of a common cardboard box.
That Saturday afternoon, I ran out into the side yard, slipped a box over my head, and marveled at the ghostly pinhole image of the sun's corona projected on the cardboard inside. It would be impossible today to replicate the youthful sense of wonder I experienced that afternoon 54 years ago.
Years later, as an adult, I made a point of going outside to witness the colorful Blood Moon eclipse in the sky over Tucson, Arizona on 28 October 2004—a spectacular sight.
That viewing was a tad awkward, however, because the moon rose directly over the house across the street that night—meaning my neighbors were perturbed to discover me standing in my front yard after sundown, (seemingly) staring toward their home. Their drapes were pulled shut before I could explain my purely innocent astronomical interest.
So, how to explain my general indifference to what's been billed as the Great North American Eclipse of 2024? I suppose comic Jerry Seinfeld, in his 2020 Netflix stand-up special, 23 Hours to Kill, summed it up best:
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| The Seinfeld Shrug: "I've probably already seen it." |
"If I'm walking down the street (and somebody says)—'Jerry, check this out—you gotta see this'...I disagree. I just assume it's probably a lot like something else I've already seen..."
I'm with Jerry on this one. At our respective ages, we've both seen a lot of things in our lifetimes and that includes eclipses. No disrespect meant to Bonnie Tyler, naturally.
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| Trump in 2017: he looked right at it. |
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
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