In March 1977, Penthouse magazine published Children of the Corn by Stephen King. In May 2012, Calling The Dog, Rebel Dancer and I watched an annular eclipse in a town that very well could have been the setting of this story – minus the killing and horror. It was just a small town with vast open spaces – spaces that were occupied by hundreds of people with cameras, telescopes and lawn chairs.
Like the rest of the annular eclipsians, we were wearing our solar eclipse glasses and patiently waiting for the moon to pass between the moon and the sun. While we waited, we created our own eclipse by passing our wine glasses between the bottle of wine and our lips. Our lips were also very busy singing songs about the sun and moon – Ring of Fire, It’s a Sunshine Day, Moondance, Walking on Sunshine, and our own little parody, Annular Eclipse of the Heart. Pretty sure the latter was a crowd favorite.
Like so many other things in life, we waited with great anticipation, for several hours, for an event that lasted only five minutes and 46.3 seconds. Like a five minute and 46.3 second one-night stand, we quickly packed up our things to leave, however, discovered we had a dead battery. Luckily for us, several young Forest Service employees, with Penthouse March 1977 mustaches and attire, emerged from the fields to help out. After two jumps and a quick photo shoot – so Penthouse of us, we waved goodbye to our helpful porn stars and drove off into solar eclipse sunset.
I found this article to be very eye-opening. Thanks for sharing.