8:53 a.m. - 2023-08-29
lights out

I was standing in line at the Mini-Mart, checking out the rotating array of crap they stock near the register (sour candy, hot pickles and air fresheners, clearance beer, koozies and trucker hats) when I noticed a display box containing what appeared to be cardboard fold-out 3-D glasses. The kind that used to come w/certain comic books or movies; the ones that would always give you a headache. These were branded w/a Mini-Mart logo on the side and priced at like, $2.99. “What gives?” I thought, wondering what possible appeal or utility a pair of Mini-Mart branded 3-D glasses might hold. Stepping closer to the counter though, their purpose was revealed...

These were eclipse-viewing glasses.

Kerrville is ground zero for next year's eclipse, and they're expecting 140,000 more visitors than the town has ever accommodated. Every hotel room in the vicinity has been booked for years; people are renting their homes out to guests and their acreage (front lawns, even) out to campers. They've held city council meetings about traffic control, and the chamber of commerce is working overtime; scheming up ways to capitalize on the tourist influx.

Not that business ever needs encouragement to capitalize on anything. Ingram, a small town just north of us, has long boasted a 2/3 scale replica of the Stonehenge monument (I felt a pang of vicarious embarrassment just typing that). RV hookups around this humble tribute to the great stones of the Salisbury Plain are going for $500 each, and parking alone will run you $100 should you choose to camp out. And I get it, the next eclipse visible in North America isn't scheduled for another 20 yrs...so for some of us this represents a once/last-in-a-lifetime chance to see 4½ minutes of midnight at midday.

I've also been to enough festivals/raves to appreciate how, even at 2/3rds the scale (and with 1/150th the history), a kitsch circle of would-be sarsen stones, under such singular celestial circumstances...under daytime stars and silenced songbirds, can well-evoke its own magic.

(I'm thinking of the diner in the tiny motel across the road from l'il Stonehenge, and wondering how many chicken-fried steaks they'll be serving to bearded dudes in full-on druid outfits that week...)

And I'll confess: I too considered surfing this wave of opportunism. After rebuilding an electric-powered pontoon boat for a client, and then researching the market price, I'd contemplated building another one to flip. And the eclipse would provide, at the very least, an opportunity to offset my costs. Because how cool would that be...you and 6-8 of your friends anchored in the lake with the canopy down, popping champagne as your eclipse set list* plays and the sky goes out? (The owner of the boat I rebuilt has already received un$olicited rental proposal$ for this same occasion.) And then who knows? Maybe some rich tech-bro from Austin falls in love with it and takes it home to tool around Lake Travis on?

The tragic variable in all of this is “anchored in the lake”. Because if this winter is as dry as The Farmer's Almanac predicts, and the El Nino weather pattern holds as expected, there may not be much lake left to anchor in. The Guadalupe south of the dam has already stopped flowing. Beloved swimming holes that should be packed w/kids in this weather sit empty now; green water evaporating in weathered limestone bowls. And it kills me. The idea that next spring, when we here in the Hill Country (one of the few scenic bright spots in Texas' otherwise boring/hostile landscape) are playing host to visitors from all parts...the idea that we'll present as but a desiccated husk of our usual, vernal, verity wounds my pride of place.

So while other eyes are turned towards the heavens, and other ears are attuned to the music of the spheres...while 150,000 guests take in the cosmic choreography, my concerns will remain terrestrial. Gravity-shackled and a bit stressed. Appreciating the eclipse of course, if only for 4½ minutes of much-needed shade.

~ ~ ~

Slippin' Into Darkness – War
Third Stone From The Sun – Jimi Hendrix
Stain On The Sun – The Bevis Frond
Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden
Under The Milky Way – The Church
(also- anything by Pink Floyd...because those dudes wrote straight-up eclipse music, basically)

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