Total Eclipse of the Sun

The last total eclipse of the sun visible in the eastern United States occurred on June 8, 1918, the same year my father was born.  So I have never seen one in my lifetime, although I have a vague childhood memory of viewing a partial eclipse through a cereal-box viewer, probably on June 30, 1954 when one was partially visible in New England.

Despite the huge signs which the D.O.T. had erected an all the major highways leading to Highlands, there was surprisingly little traffic and plenty of parking.  (That private parking lot near the Post Office offering spaces for $20 per car was not used at all, and I find this highly satisfying.)  Perhaps the signs and the local newscasts frightened them away ("90,000 expected in Macon County!" the WLOS headlines blared in alarm).  I drove to Town to check things out around 9:00 a.m. and was surprised to find a Walhalla Road miraculously free of uphill traffic for about two miles until I came upon the quintessential Eclipse Viewer, driving an SUV with many bicycles strapped to a rear carrier and a luggage pod on top, going 15 to 20 mph, braking in all the curves, but then speeding up to 45 mph on the straightaway where I might have passed.  I was able to park only a block away from my usual place and completed a nice four-mile run, coming upon a man who had run in the Twilight 5-K who visited here often and who expressed an interest in joining the running group on Saturdays (always trying to recruit new runners).

By the time I finished up, though, it looked like there were hundreds of people headed toward Founders Park, carrying chairs and blankets and wearing black eclipse-themed shirts.  I hurried home, showered, and then Martha and I returned and set up our chairs and watched the parade of visitors making their way to the Park.  I recognized some local faces, but many seemed to be visitors who did not know that the building with the rusty roof was a restroom, and therefore were using the porta-johns lined up at the end of the street.  But the numbers were far fewer than predicted.   Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bob Kieltyka - who had told me an hour ago that they were down to one-lane traffic at Rabun Gap, and that cars were parking all along I-40 - seemed disappointed.  He said he was going to drive around and check things out.  I walked around a little, too, partly to move my stiff legs and partly out of curiosity.  Main Street was deserted; I may have seen a tumbleweed rolling sadly across its far end.

But we enjoyed some delicious Mountain Fresh Barbecue, benefiting the Literacy Council, and sat watching people stroll by with their tiny cardboard-and-plastic eclipse glasses in hand.  A trio of little girls was practicing cartwheels.  A laid-back jazz group was playing quietly on the stage.  The young ladies from Entegra Bank began tossing down from on high behind the Park little rubber balls cratered like the moon, and then came down among us to pass out glow-in-the-dark bracelets and paddle-fans.

Then it began to cloud up.  There was a kind of restlessness as folks began walking out in the street, scanning the horizon anxiously to the east and the west where a faint gleam of blue sky lingered just beyond reach.  "I think it's going to be a washout," Marty called to me, as I made my way back to the car for an umbrella.

The magical hour of 2:35 p.m. was fast approaching, and it seemed to me as if the sky was beginning to become a little darker.  I began to wonder if those visitors staying in the (allegedly) $1000 per night rooms at Old Edwards Inn this weekend had remembered their Eclipse Insurance.  I could detect a little grumbling going on around us, but after all, what did we expect on an August afternoon?  "Couldn't they have scheduled this for October, or for a weekend?" I had asked Bob earlier.

But then something truly awe-inspiring began to happen as it grew darker and darker, so dark that the streetlights came on, and darker still, as if it were 10:00 p.m.  People began to cry out in delight.  (We were not in a location to experience this, but others later told me they heard crickets and katydids, and bats began to flit around.)  What an incredible thing!  And then the clouds parted just a little, and a little more, and we all hooked our little cardboard classes on and watched as the moon drifted across the sun - not full totality, but just as strange and lovely, that just after moment.  It reminded me of that Wallace Stevens poem:

"I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after."

There was some scattered applause, because I suppose that is how we express our appreciation at anything these days, even a phenomenon of astrophysics.  I had a crick in the back of my neck after awhile as I kept hooking on my glasses when the clouds parted and gazing upward, watching the moon slowly unblock the sun and return to where it belonged as the normal afternoon light returned.

There were some pretty expensive cameras set up all around us (and at least one cereal-box viewer), and I wondered if any of them captured it as well as my own little iPhone, protected through one lens of my eclipse glasses:

That's the best I could do:  an image that looks a little like a bright star that has fallen into a lake of clouds.  Totally extraordinary.