Rant #3,326: I See the Light

So, we had the eclipse ...

I don't know if it was a completely nothing event, but I personally took it for what it was, and I simply stayed indoors and watched TV when we had totality. 

Now that it is pretty much over, that's the end of that.

I guess if you actually witnessed this thing in an area of totality, you received a bigger bang from the event, but personally, I just went about my business while this was happening.

I did some work, I watched TV with my son, and yes, did turn into a few of the news specials that were on to highlight the eclipse, preferring the local, New York reports to those produced nationally by CBS, NBC and ABC.

But the theme was clear on all of these shows: no matter our race, our background, our religion or anything else, this was an event that we all felt, that brought us together as one.

So even though that was a quasi-political statement--making a scientific event into one that satisfied an agenda--I really couldn't argue with that theme.

I mean, the same thing could be said about last week's earthquake, but that was an event that took us all by surprise and scared and worried many of us ...

The eclipse was more of a happy event, so if it brings smiles to our collective faces, who can argue with it?

If people think that this event brought us together, even for a brief moment or two or three, what's wrong with that?

I just hope that people listened to what they were told, and watched the eclipse safely.

But you just know that there will be reports of some people damaging their eyes by looking at the eclipse without protection.

I knew a fellow who damaged his eyes years ago by looking very briefly at a partial eclipse while he served in our military.

He was a victim of Agent Orange, had no idea what he was doing ... and it only took a second.

And what about the opportunists ... those who take advantage of the situation both legally and illegally?

Of the latter, those who were selling "counterfeit" glasses to unsuspecting people so they can ruin their eyesight-- 

These criminals should be apprehended and forced to watch an eclipse with their supposedly protective glasses.

And then you have the legal opportunists, like Newsday, my local.paper. They had the nerve to have a special eclipse insert in the Sunday newspaper. I thought they would have a few articles on the eclipse, mixed with ads, like they do in their baseball season preview each year, where they profile the Yankees, the Mets, and the upcoming MLB season--

But all it was was wall-to-wall, paper-to-paper ads, and had nothing to do with the eclipse.

One is illegal, the other is legal, but to me, they are all.opportunists, and a pox on all of them.

But now, the 2024 eclipse is nothing but history, a footnote on all of our lives.

Me, I pretty much took it all in in my own "totality" ... just pretty much totally ignore it while it happened--

And it happened, and left us, as quickly as it came.

And those glasses?

They go in a drawer now, safely tucked away, to be stumbled upon every now and again with a "I remember these things and the eclipse" as they get stuffed back into the same drawer and forgotten about--

Until the next time.