Top Comments: the Total Solar Eclipse edition

In 1999, I crossed-off the bucket-list … seeing a total solar eclipse, after the jump...

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As a thirteen year-old in the spring of 1970, there was a total solar eclipse in eastern North America …… but not where I lived. Nantucket was in the belt of totality, and I marveled at the TV images that night. I, though, had to settle for the partial eclipse, which you could not see with the naked eye, and one had to take only a quick peek with, say, a welding mask at. That stung, and I made a decision that someday I would see a total solar eclipse.

Easier said than done, however. I learned that total solar eclipses took place (on average) once every eighteen months…. but that (especially with ¾ of the Earth being water) these often occurred over oceans or inhospitable lands (deserts, polar regions, etc.) and so seeing one in a populated area is not easy. Indeed, there are travel agencies that specialize in such adventures. These are often expensive, and one runs-the-risk of spending a princely sum …. to be greeted by either cloud cover or rain. So I placed this dream on the back-burner … hoping that someday it would appear — if not in my region — then at least in an area worth visiting by itself.

Fast-forward to February, 1998, as I was reading the Sunday newspaper. The Boston Globe travel section had a small article on solar eclipses (as there had been one just recently?). I nearly turned the page …... until I just happened to catch the last paragraph, which read something like this:

If you missed this one: the last total solar eclipse of the century will take place on August 11, 1999 — with the belt of totality going across <mentioning some cities> ….. and Munich, Germany.

At the time, I had an American friend living in Augsburg, Germany (about an hour northwest of Munich). Joe had been on-my-case, asking “When the hell am I coming to visit” ?  I placed the newspaper down, walked to the phone and (since he was out), left him a voice mail: “OK, Joe …. write down this date  …. save a place on your couch for me”.    

Interestingly, it followed the date of the travel article by exactly eighteen months. More importantly, it was in an area worth visiting even if it rained all the time: visiting Salzburg (taking a Mozart/Sound of Music van tour), visiting Munich (art museums and a sobering trip to Dachau), Stuttgart (where a friend of Joe’s lived) and Zurich, Switzerland (where I had to have some fondue, even if it was out-of-season). And so this was a vacation worth taking anyway, and I have numerous photos of those places. But now, those pertaining to the story.

  Arriving at the Stuttgart rail station … the eclipse date/time of 12:32 pm

You were certainly reminded of what was soon to take place (Sonnen-finsternis = eclipse).

Bookstore windows … filled with eclipse books

I speak very little German, so Joe and his friend (another American ex-pat) helped me out with translations. One book title, though, I was able to translate on my own: “How to Safely Watch the Eclipse” … and then my friends laughed at me.

They realized the key verb in the title was Beobachten (“to observe”) … and that as a history buff, I knew the title of the official Nazi Party newspaper in the 1930’s was the “Volkischer Beobachter” — the “People’s Observer”. Busted, I guess.

    Not difficult to translate: “Black Sun over Europe”

Finally, the day arrived … and we listened with rapt attention to the weather reports. Parts of western Europe (including Cornwall in southwest Great Britain) were due for clouds. The local forecast? “Morning clouds … should clear in time for noon”. I wore my old Celtic Eclipse t-shirt, apropos (all of a sudden) for the day.

Yours truly, taking a (VERY quick) peek with filtered lens    Some of the citizens of Augsburg, Germany that day

As far as time goes: we were only to expect seventy-seven seconds of totality … parts of Turkey could look forward to five minutes. Still, that would make for a memorable moment.

              More than 75% totality at this point If the clouds just manage to stay away ……………

I was (quietly) singing the old show tune “Blue skies … shining on me” … hoping ...

Only 77 seconds of totality … yet still fresh in my mind And then … it happened. The corona of the sun is not visible, except during a total eclipse. And when it reached totality (right on schedule) one could take off the glasses and look directly at the Sun. This is the only photo of mine that worked, but it did not do justice, of course. It didn’t last long, as noted …. but seventeen years later, it is a day that still lives in my mind. And due to its location (across a wide swath of Europe and Asia) it is considered (perhaps) the most widely-viewed eclipse in history. Twenty-nine years after I placed “seeing a total solar eclipse” on my to-do list, it finally happened. Here’s hoping your bucket-list items won’t take that long. Let’s close with the British blues-jazz-rock band Colosseum from 1970 — the very year I vowed to someday see an eclipse, and with a very apropos song title. x YouTube Video Now, on to Top Comments: -------------------------------------

From Otteray Scribe:

In the front-page story about Donald Trump on women’s work—  I almost sprained myself when I read this comment by denig (and the rest of the thread is funny, as well).

From Village Vet:

In the front-page story about R. Hudson Limbaugh III’s attempts to explain primate evolution - a hat tip to durrati for his observation (and new addition to the encyclopedia, perhaps?)

From foresterbob:

In today’s Cheers & Jeers— always a good read, by-the-by — a fun sequence began with a comment from AKALib about Planet 9, which hinted that our sun stole it from another star. It was followed by a series of comments about the potential consequences of planetary abduction.

From ericlewis0:

In my own diary by about state attorney generals who dropped investigations into Trump University— I like this comment by oruacat2.

From elfling:

In the diary by Crashing Vor on the Democratic primary race — here is a nice call for unity from xajaxsingerx.

And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........

In the front-page story about pay-day lenders— a thoughtful thread (especially about the targeting of military families) was began by gaslark.

TOP PHOTOS June 1st, 2016 Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo.   (NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.)

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:

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