“Let’s go,” said Lona’s brother Larry many years ago. “I invite you all to Turkey to see the total solar eclipse for my 60th birthday.” The eclipse was going to be on August 11, 1999, literally the precise date of his birthday. I thought the birthday boy got the present! He wasn’t kidding, and Larry, Lona and I, along with Lona’s parents all trekked off to Turkey to watch the world go black with a visible halo around the sun for a couple of minutes.

The planning was impeccable. Once in Istanbul we had tickets to fly to some special spot in Turkey a few days later that was supposed to be the best place to see totality and the famous corona. But, a couple of Larry’s physics colleagues in Turkey suggested that we join them to watch on the Black Sea instead. It seemed like a pretty good birthday party for him, so we agreed without realizing that we would only get a partial eclipse from there.

1999 Eclipse over Gmunden, Austria By Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel, via Wikimedia Commons

The moon crossed the sun’s path on schedule, leaving a sliver of exposed sun, the light dimmed, but only slightly, the seagulls quieted (amazing), the boat rocked gently, and the world got bright again after a couple of minutes. That was that: no totality, but we all wished Larry happy birthday nevertheless.

Okay, not everything works as planned. Our next opportunity came 18 years later on August 21, 2017. The Internet pinpointed Anderson, South Carolina in the center of totality and reasonably close to us in Bethesda. We reserved a motel room (hurray; there was supposedly a rush on rooms). The world was going crazy. Imagine the excitement; eclipse totality! We were going to experience 2 minutes plus a few seconds of darkness – the event of the century!

Considering our miserable political state, I was eager to get my mind off this planet and into the vast universe, even if only for a couple of minutes.

We sent away for eclipse glasses from Amazon several weeks in advance, but a few days before the big event they still hadn’t arrived. Oh, my god. What to do? Ophthalmologists were gearing up for a mass of wrecked retinas and I didn’t want to join the group of patients. We called several stores, but all the glasses were sold out. Finally, we found online that B&H in New York had 5 pairs left, so we ordered 2. But what if one had a pinhole in it? The warnings were dire: don’t use them! Dangerous! So I called B&H again to get another pair as a backup, but too late. They were sold out. “No problem,” they said. “We’re getting more in tomorrow and will send them next day delivery.” Great. But we’d also asked my sister’s husband’s brother, Dick, who works at NASA, if he had any protective glasses from work, and he said he would check.

The B&H glasses arrived, but it turned out that they didn’t sell individual pairs, only packages of five, which ignorant me didn’t realize. So, with our 3 orders we had 15 pairs of eclipse glasses! It didn’t end there. Dick called. “I was able to get 2 pairs of eclipse glasses for you,” he said. We were grateful and picked them up.

Armed with 17 pairs of eclipse glasses and a motel reservation we flew to Charlotte, rented a car and drove to Anderson, South Carolina for the big event the next day. We could hardly wait. We bought a couple of comfortable fold-up chairs, a few power protein bars and bottles of water, our survival kit.

With a few hours left that afternoon, we drove to nearby Clemson University where they were starting to anticipate the eclipse with cheerleaders and music. And, they were giving away 50,000 pairs of eclipse glasses! We were so relieved to have ours.

Lona and I had that satisfied feeling that we’d thought of everything, planned carefully and actually were on this major adventure. The eclipse was scheduled to start at 1:07 PM, with totality beginning at 2:37PM. It was all so exact.

Fewer people than expected showed up to watch the eclipse at the Civic Center field in Anderson, S.C.

The morning of August 21 had nary a cloud in the sky. We went to the open field at the Civic Center of town, which was the recommended perfect spot to view the eclipse. The masses of eclipse watchers we expected never showed up. Weird. What was wrong with everyone?

A small band was blaring music and a booth was selling T-shirts marked with a picture of totality, sort of, and date. Of course I bought one. Amazingly, the T-shirt picture looked like a section of an eye (you vision experts will recognize this immediately), with the large lens in front and the rounded retina in the back. I took this as a good omen, as if the eclipse had my name on it.

“Is the eclipse still on time, or has it been delayed?” I asked the pretty saleswoman selling the T-shirt.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she answered, seriously, with a charming smile. “I’m just selling these shirts.”

“I guess the eclipse is still on schedule,” I reassured Lona.

The saleslady was also giving away eclipse glasses. We thought 17 pairs were enough, so we declined her kind offer.

Partial Eclipse

About a half an hour before the moon’s shadow started its journey across the sun, as the corona was preparing for its 2-minute act 90 minutes after that, the clouds – some puffy white, others ominously black – started rolling in, like gangsters.

I ate a power bar, hoping that would scare away the clouds, but it didn’t work. With the first shadow on the sun, the clouds started interfering and continued creeping across the sun. I aimed my trusty iPhone in the sun’s direction and took a few pictures when the sun sneaked between encroaching clouds.

Totality was perfectly timed with the clouds. It would have been difficult to orchestrate it so precisely. A new definition of totality was born: totally covered with black clouds! Nonetheless, nature was determined to give us a thrill, and that was when suddenly the world got dark, ignoring the clouds. The lights on the nearby parking lot went on, and pseudo night prevailed. Two minutes and some seconds later, sunrise occurred, and all was well with planet Earth again.

Cloud-covered total eclipse
Photos by Joram Piatigorsky

Few people were disappointed, not because they didn’t care, but because so few were there.

Well, I look at the bright side (no pun intended). I still have a perfect record: 2 total solar eclipses without seeing totality. I’m “eclipsed challenged,” as they say. And, I have a future goal – to see totality with its glowing corona in all its glory. Isn’t having a future mission more positive than savoring the past?

I regret only what I haven’t tried, so I have no regrets.

I’ll scan the Internet for the next total solar eclipse. Maybe it’ll be in Mongolia, who knows? I have plenty of solar eclipse glasses for that event.

Does it rain in Mongolia?