After months of buildup, the 2017 solar eclipse is over.
This reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon from years ago that showed Charlie Brown talking
about his “Post Christmas letdown” on the day after Christmas.
On the day of the eclipse, I received emails that signed off
with “happy eclipse day.” Oh, dang! I forgot to order eclipse cards. Come to
think of it, I didn’t do any eclipse shopping, although I did go in a few
stores that offered eclipse sales and discounts.
Americans love any excuse to throw a party and celebrate,
and an eclipse is as good an excuse as any.
And let’s face it, a solar eclipse is an amazing phenomenon.
It brings us closer to outer space in a way. Eclipses have been going on for
millions of years, and will go on for millions more, and there’s no way we can
mess that up.
But then all these thousands of people who traveled to the
totality zone are probably going to leave a load of trash. Sure, they’ll buy
food and gasoline, but they’ll probably leave burger wrappers and plastic bags.
Mainstream media folks left Washington and New York long
enough to learn that there’s another part of the country the sun shines on. That
can’t be all bad. They might learn something.
Or they might be the reason the local media feels it has to
warn people not to drive while wearing the eclipse glasses. That’s kind of like
driving blindfolded, but evidently some folks need to be reminded or they might
end up in the hospital – or in court.
We’re not the first people to get hyped up over
an eclipse. According to Time, Inc.’s web site, “In June 1878, the Chicago Times began reporting of the “mammoth
excursion from the [Great] lakes to the mountains." In Denver, many
businesses closed, and people poured into the streets. The Colorado Chieftain reported
that the windows in church steeples that would face the eclipse had been leased
for 50 cents, and tents in the Garden of the Gods public park sold for 25 cents
each. … The best view was at Pikes Peak, but it came at a price. Some
scientists got to the area a week in advance to climb up and set up camp there,
but were plagued by snowstorms and altitude sickness. Cleveland Abbe, known as
the father of the National Weather Service, had to be carted out on a
stretcher. Hotels ran out of rooms, and tourists who didn't get a cot had to
beg residents of private homes to let them stay. One man reportedly slept on a
pool table. … And the market for eclipse glasses — which at the time were made
with shards of clear glass blackened over a candle or by fitting blue glass in
the bottom of boxes or the tops of old stove pipe hats — saw a boom too: One
Denver newsboy was believed to have made as much as $70 selling bootleg eclipse
glasses.”
Yet amid all the 1878 hype, Time goes
on, “A Denver sheep herder said the scene looked like ‘a black carpet sliding
over the plains,’ while a Pikes Peak observer described it as ‘a rounded ball
of darkness with an orange-yellow border fading into the light pea-green of the
landscape.’ The Denver Daily Tribune
reported, ‘Cheer after cheer echoed and re-echoed among the surrounding
mountains,’ and revelers on Grays Peak, a summit west of Denver, fired
revolvers to celebrate and broke out into ‘My Country 'Tis of Thee.’ Another
newspaper reported Coloradans were the ‘favored mortals of earth.’"
I suppose into every event a little
hype must fall. But like Charlie Brown, I feel a little post-eclipse letdown.
