Eclipse With The Man From Utah

  

     

      There we stood, him and I, on the white lines of the state highway, strangers, in the dark, black as night.

     "Did you hear how quiet it got?  There were no birds," he said, standing in front of his Freightliner.  He'd brought it to a stop on the shoulder that bordered our property.   It was big, imposing.  And white.  It's grill loomed large.

      Nodding my head in agreement, as traffic calmed down, I said, "I noticed at 1:50 that everything got quiet.  No bird twitters.  No dog barks.  No noises from the neighbors goats." 

     "Spencer, my son, commented via cellphone text while driving home, "That's eerie." 

      This man, unknown to me, who I learned was from Utah, was approaching 6 feet tall, had the best grin, and was super friendly.   We shared a universal experience of a complete solar eclipse!

     The eclipse on April 8, 2024, has been on the news, proper sunglasses purchased, businesses and schools shut down, parties planned, and tourists determined to come here because we were in the path of totality!  There would be no sun for 3-4 minutes as the moon came between us!

     Between 2 and 3 o'clock, I had been getting rid of debris with the leaf blower while watching night-like shadows appear.  It was like a thunderstorm was coming without all the telltale signs of wind and lightning.

     Out on the highway, the few cars going by had on their headlights.  Then this huge truck, clean and white, and exceptionally long, pulled to the edge of the road and stopped.

    A little curious, not worried, I went down to the tree line to see if he was having trouble, or if he was watching the eclipse and needed a pair of solar glasses.  As I got closer I put my hand out and waved the glasses at him in a gesture of a question.  I could barely see his hand inside his cab waving.  I couldn't discern what kind of wave.

    He opened the door and stepped down and out, RIGHT THERE ON THE HIGHWAY!

    As we stood in darkness together, the sun now completely obliterated, he said he was headed to Red Gold, Inc, in Alexandria, and showed me his invoice on his phone.  Then he said, "I'll send you the video of the eclipse." 

    "Can you do that?  I thought our phones weren't equipped for that!"

    He just grinned real big, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "I'll buy a new one."  LOL.

    Before he sent it to me, he borrowed my glasses, positioned them over his phone's camera lens, and held it up to the sun.  He held tight, and I reached around between his elbows and pushed the big white button.  Voilá!  A photo of the sun.  

His photo, during eclipse

3. p.m.

My photos, after eclipse

   

     I took a picture of him and his "big truck". Then he helped me put the glasses on my phone's camera lens.  He shared his.  I shared mine.  History recorded!

   "My husband used to work for Schneider but he got aggravated because his dispatcher kept sending him away from home." I said.

    "Yah, you get dispatchers that'll do that.  I'm headed up I-65 to Sherierville.  I have family up there. I've just finished a delivery in Indianapolis."

    We're still chatting as traffic goes around his cab and trailer.   

    A big Ram 2500 did it's down-shifting complaint with his headlights on, one car slowed to give us the eyeball -- were we in trouble?  Others slowed, hitting the rumble strips.  We didn't care, his big hulk of a semi was our protection -- we were enjoying an experience together.

    All that while, he was waiting on his phone to do it's download thing with it's circular ring of progress, so I could have a little video.  It was so considerate and friendly of him, Steven Kaufmann.  

    He confessed, "I just had to stop and see it.  I couldn't believe how black it got!"

   A moment in time.  Made special in the sharing.  In photos, history was ours.