The day of the eclipse started out like many of my Mom’s road trips except that we were up kind of early for a Saturday. As usual, she boiled a pot of water and used what didn’t become coffee to pour on the engine block of her little green MGB-GT to warm it up more quickly. When she told us where we were going and what we were going to do, I thought that it sounded neat. I didn’t really understand what an eclipse was, but she was acting like it was something special so I was excited.
My little sister and I climbed into the car and we took the back roads heading south out of Alexandria. We traveled to Virginia Beach about 4 hours away. It was a long ride by kid standards, but if the eclipse turned out to be a dud at least we would be at the ocean!
When we got to VA Beach, we made our way down the boardwalk and on to the sand. With the high-rises and motels as a backdrop, I began to look around. There were groups of people hanging around waiting for something. I was struck by the fact that nobody was dressed to go swimming. Heck, it was still March and too cold to go in the water, but I was not used to being on the beach without at least wading in the surf.
There were all kinds of gadgets set-up. There was everything from tripods with cameras or telescopes to cardboard boxes cut up to serve as pinhole viewers for the eclipse. I think my Mom had some doubled over strips of unused black and white film* from her photography class for us to view through. We shared a pinhole viewer with another family nearby.
For me, the brief moments of eclipse became loaded with sensory memories. As the moon began to cover the face of the sun, an early dusk fell upon the beach. The wind began to stir and cool. I remember hearing some birdsong as twilight approached. The light on the waves became flat as the sun’s sparkle was replaced by shadow. The air freshened with the scent of the sea.
The early partial phases of the eclipse weren’t all that interesting to me. I just wanted to see what happened when the sun was totally blocked out. I heard someone talking about the “diamond ring” and looked through my piece of filmstrip* to catch the sun’s rays peeking through gaps in mountains along the limb of the moon. In another moment the beads of light blinked out as the darkness deepened. Now, with the moon directly in front of the sun, a faint glow slowly began to emerge and brighten.
A shimmering gossamer veil surrounded the black disc of the moon. I recall seeing it as a silvery whorl of light that gimbaled around the dark center. It extended outward in an ever-changing jagged circumference transforming the sun into a magical halo in the sky.
After the spectacle of totality, I paid more attention to the remaining partial phases of the eclipse. I carefully watched every moment of what happened as the moon retreated from the face of the sun. The air began to warm as afternoon returned. The shadows on the water brightened back into dancing sparkles. I didn’t want the eclipse to end. What does one do for the rest of the day after seeing such a thing?
*(I was very lucky...remember it is never safe to view the Sun without proper filtration. Smoked glass, exposed film or mylar are not acceptable substitutes.)
