Since the likelihood of you seeking information contained in your local newspaper while also being so uninformed that you missed 96% of the sun’s face being blocked by the moon, I’d like to say just how cool I thought Monday’s eclipse was. I’m so happy we all survived.
Fun fact: There have been only eight total eclipses that have occurred in the US since this newspaper's ancestor — The Terminal Advance — printed its first publication in 1906, the last two having been since becoming the Double Mountain Chronicle.
While David Lee Roth was “Hot for Teacher in 1984,” I was attending grade school in Henrietta, TX. I remember our teachers taking us outside to observe the partial eclipse as the shadow of an Annular Eclipse tracked across the Gulf and across into Louisiana.
My dad is fascinated with astronomy, and I spent many nights under the night sky, gazing through the lens of his telescope at craters on the moon, rings of Saturn, or the occasional comet. So, when I got the chance to take my own elementary school child — the youngest in a long line of little ones for my wife and me — to sit beneath the shadow of an Annular Ellipse in October, we packed up and headed south for the day.
We were able to sit on the bank of the river and witness an event together that some people go their whole lives without seeing. Having a chance to observe a second eclipse with her again earlier this week was remarkable. I hope we get to share another eclipse together when it crosses over Oklahoma in 2045.
I’m sure my creditors were pleased that despite the numerous TikTok warnings that the end was near, the world, in fact, kept spinning around till Tuesday morning when the sun again broke the horizon. As I drove into town under overcast skies, lingering in the air on the coattails of the prior night’s storms, I began to think about predictions.
After the eclipse had passed and the sun had nestled beneath its nocturnal blanket, I ignored the apocalyptic rantings of societal outlanders and attended the Roby School Board meeting. There is no reason to leave unattended pots to be stirred just because the end is coming.
Turns out, the only thing coming — according to the National Weather Service — was an imminent thunderstorm, which was predicted to be in full swing before the trustees could wrap up their closed-door deliberations. Whether it was because Roby trustees are masters of discussions on the down-low with just more time logged behind the curtain than an Ozonian wizard, or that the NWS was in top form Monday night but the prediction was spot-on.
It was a fact I didn’t ponder too much until I got to thinking about how NASA was correct down to the minute at calculating the pathway and times that the earth, sun, and moon would intersect. NWS was correct with its even less predictable movements of the pressure systems that affect our weather patterns.
So many people on social media sites blew it with their predictions of the end times, it made me wonder how many of those folks have volunteered their time as pollsters during the last few presidential elections. With the degree of accuracy pertaining to the information shared through social media, I can’t help but marvel at why so many people consume the information found there as if it were a legitimate news source.
As I drove ever closer to the office in our community's legitimate newsroom, I further pondered how many of those people who were so certain on Monday felt a little silly on Tuesday. Is this something people can reflect upon and find a degree of bashful humor in their admission of it or is it more like finding someone to admit they voted in favor of the failed Fisher County Jail, despite the 75% voter approval rating?
It just goes to show how it is easier to predict the movements of the stars in the sky than the ebb and flow of the human condition. Thank goodness the calculating abilities at the tips of NASA’s distal phalanges have superior predictive abilities than even the best TikToking Nostradamus because there is plenty of editorial space to fill between now and the next lousy prediction.