Eclipse Pagans

Solar eclipse mania. While sitting in the breakfast room of the Hampton Inn in Mill Hall, PA. on Saturday morning, April 6, 2024, the Weather Channel is showing non-stop coverage of the total solar eclipse happing on Monday April 8, 2024. We are predicted to a 100%, lights out, experience in Burlington, VT.

Sitting near me, close by at another table in the hotel’s breakfast room, is a dad explaining the word "totality" to his young children, a boy about five and a girl about seven. He gives up and appeals to his wife, "Mom...help me here?"

Saturday's New York Times and Washington Post are filled with stories about two things: the solar eclipse and the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the East Coast yesterday. Republican Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, said, "God is sending us strong signs to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens." Of course she did. She sounds like a high collar from the 17th century firing up the congregation.

Memo to Marjorie: It is not like science came along and predicted the eclipse. Oh. It did. It was 2,600 years ago when a Greek philosopher named Thales took the collective god's wrath out of the picture; he is credited with predicting the first eclipse of the sun.

Good news. No damage from the quake.

Meanwhile, Vermont state government is predicting 250,000 people will descend upon on our little state of only 650,000 citizens, wearing cheap eclipse proof glasses they got on Amazon. Burlington will close down the connector between Colchester and Burlington to use as a six-mile parking lot. Imagine that. Burlington is expecting 50,000-80,000 eclipse tourists. We are even renting out dorm rooms at University of Vermont for a $100 a clip.

Right now, Monday’s weather is supposed to be sunny with some clouds late in the day. But that is not my main concern. My focus is on the drive north tomorrow, on Sunday. The idea of unruly hordes of eclipse pagans invading in the lanes beside us is a little daunting. We will ride in their wake or high on the crest of their short lived wave. They are expected to wash back out to their points of origin on Monday night. We will see.

Colyn drove up from Shirley, MA. Friday for the eclipse. He plans on returning home on Tuesday. It will be good to see him.

Well, the traffic is not that bad, after all. We are traveling north on Highway 87 through New York, that's the route most of the pagans will use; that is those traveling from the southwest. It clearly is busier than a normal Sunday, but for the exception of the Albany, NY, area. It was quite manageable.

When we crossed into Vermont and went north on 22A toward Vergennes, we picked up a steady stream of cars heading north on its two lanes, as we traveled by farms and tiny villages nested in its small hills and sudden curves. Normally, I pass slow and feeble fellow travelers on the straight-aways on this stretch of road, but I didn't even bother. There was no point. The line of traffic in front of me and behind me stretched out like a long line of ants, with us stuck in the middle. The good news is that we maintained a fairly constant rate of speed, around 45 miles per hour for a couple of hours. The highways getting the most northbound traffic were predicted to be, understandably, Highway 91 and 89. The two actual expressways bisecting Vermont North to South and Southeast to Northwest. More on that later.

Monday April 8, 2024, was a beautiful day in Burlington, VT. Barely a cloud in the sky. By noon the temperature approached sixty degrees with little to no wind. With 2 pm as the predicted kick off for the initial stage of the eclipse, I decided to get a walk in with Teddi out to the approach of the Causeway. We left around noon on our four-mile, ninety-minute walk.

The eclipse pagans were out in full force. We experienced a steady stream of pedestrian and bicycle traffic headed out to the Causeway to reserve their place for prime celestial viewing. The motley cast of characters carrying lawn chairs, some smoking dope while they walked, was amazing. Costumes and shouldered bundles aside, most were wearing short sleeves, and many had short pants on, too. They were all likely to freeze their collective butts off when the sun blinked out. Although there was no wind on the trail, once one gets onto the Causeway, an old rail-line connecting the mainland to the islands, there is always a five-to-eight mile per hour wind picking up the cool breeze coming off the lake's still winter-cold surface. The ice may be out, but nobody swims in that water until July. Clearly their parents didn't dress them.

We sat in the backyard of our home to view the eclipse. Colyn helped me move the patio table and chairs onto the grass to get a more advantageous viewing spot between the two copse of trees along our fence line. We sat there for the next couple of hours, Jill sat on the mahogany bench that contains extensive landscaping and removed a few feet from the patio. She was on a Zoom video conference call during most of the eclipse with colleagues in California (and other states). They commented to her that it was certainly noticeable at their end when it went 100% dark on our end.

I smoked two cigars and shot the shit with my son, Colyn. I love having adult children. I wish children popped out as adults right out of the chute. Reasonable and fun to talk to. But I guess that's part of the inconvenience package; one must get through the first twenty-one years to get to the good part. Kind of like a hard candy with a creamy tasty center.

Contrary to what Colyn originally planned, he decided to drive home Monday night. Originally, the thought of the overwhelming traffic traveling south to Boston was supposed to keep him with us until Tuesday morning; that is until he mentally changed the calculation. But he fucked up. What is normally is a 3.5-hour drive took him 7.5 hours. He left here at 6 pm, and when we still had not heard from him, I called him. He was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and he was still in Vermont, crawling with all the barbarians back to their dens. He arrived back in Shirley, MA at 3:30 am. That is an all-nighter. I know he regretted changing his plans and making the trek home on Monday night, because he told me so. It is what it is.

There is something visceral about the prospect of a total eclipse of the sun. Something atavistic. It is hard to explain. On the rational side, however, I think I can put my finger on what interests me in the eclipse. That is, in addition to being an excuse for my son to come home. One mostly receives a proper education regarding the vast mechanics of the universe, in both secondary and post-secondary classrooms. People watch simulations of planetary and stellar bodies gliding on their gravity determined paths, with occasional rogue asteroids shooting by at cross purpose.

Yet, when one watches the moon cross, predictably, in front of the sun, the simulation is no more. It is real; in three dimensions. It is observable in context. Its majesty is undeniable, and it is easy to see that which is greater than one’s personal fleeting existence here on earth, ephemeral and transient. It is easy to understand the sudden fear the ancients experienced during an eclipse when the light flickered out. There are even tales of great battles ending, both armies fleeing the field, taking their kit and heading hurriedly home. The contest not yet decided.

At least the ancients did not have to drive south on Highway 89 with the rest of the eclipse pagans. This pagan just walked back inside and put on a jacket.