Regarding today’s epic eclipse, cue the Peggy Lee: “It that All There Is?”
Maybe throw in a little Shakespeare: “Much Ado About Nothing.”
I know, I know, this was supposed to be the highlight of our lives. The cable TV types my wife was watching early Monday afternoon spoke of chills running over their bodies and tingling legs. This was attributed to viewing the eclipse, or videos thereof.
These seasoned professionals claimed to be breathless that it got dusky during traditional daylight hours. They ran countless shots of the sun gradually disappearing into shadow. They expressed reverence and awe so much, I thought I’d bumbled onto a televised church service.
We were supposed to be just as thrilled, amazed and awed by it all as they were. For me, not so much.
Amidst the overcast conditions here, my wife was rewarded for reclining on her back and looking skyward for long periods of time with some brief glimpses of the phenomenon.
I even slipped away from the computer a time or two to go outside and observe first a crescent of sun and, later, a mere sliver. That’s before the clouds pulled down the curtain on this much-hyped show.
Since the approved viewing glasses seemed to be manufactured in China, the topic came up that if the Chi-coms really wanted to take over the U.S., they could have forgotten TikTok and instead flooded our country with ineffective protective glasses, rendering the vast majority of the eclipse-curious blind.
Oh, well, wait until next eclipse. Then again, be alert to reports of blindness leaking out in coming days, sort of like adverse reactions to COVID vaccinations. Likely the blindness news would be similarly suppressed and censored, so maybe you won’t notice it.
On the whole, I’m glad I didn’t drive or fly thousands of miles to take in this short-lived spectacle. I have seen and heard of many who did and know of a few personally. Some (most?) spent lavishly for the right to say they were there – somewhere – to witness the eclipse.
For them I cite a couple of bon mots from Ben Franklin. First, lost time is never found again. Second, a penny saved is a penny earned.
If all had gone to according to plan, I’d have been in transit during peak eclipse viewing time today, not to watch it, but to consummate the purchase, title transfer and trailering home of a modified C4 Corvette.
But the chance to look at the car in-person was moved up to Sunday at the seller’s request and, with the notary not being available Sunday, the rest of the transaction was pushed back to Tuesday.
While driving north on I-79 Sunday, we were amused to see temporary flashing signs set up alongside the road warning drivers not to park along the berm to observe the eclipse. Presumably parking there other times for random reasons was tolerable.
I also saw evidence of various eclipse functions, including one camping area that was having a “viewing party.”
Bless them all. I hope they enjoyed the eclipse viewing and had no regrets about time and money lost on the venture.
Maybe Clueless Joe can make political capital of it all, offering to reimburse eclipse viewers for their expenses. It would make as much sense as his never-ending effort to forgive student debt for those who never bothered to repay the claims.
I’m thinking the eclipse handout would make more people happy and buy more votes.
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