Yep, Monday’s solar eclipse day

We’re getting close to a pivotal day – Monday’s long-awaited 2024 total solar eclipse.

Hi, I’m Mike Staton and I authored this blog post.

Here in SE Ohio in the village of Beverly, it won’t be total. It’ll be close, around 95 percent of the sun will be blocked by moon starting at approximately 3:09 in the afternoon.

Weather forecasters are not cooperating, though. They’re calling for cloudy skies in the Beverly area. Too bad the eclipse isn’t happening on Sunday afternoon. The forecasters say the skies will be partly cloudy. Let’s be optimistic. At least they’re not calling for rain.

We don’t need any more rain in this area. Right now we’re experiencing flooding. The Muskingum River has overflowed its banks. Twenty miles to the south, the county seat of Marietta is inundated in floodwater where the Muskingum flows into the Ohio River.

Come Monday in the USA, some people will see a total eclipse; others will see a partial eclipse. Of course, it all starts with clear skies.

Back to the solar eclipse. A total solar eclipse occurred on July 20, 1963, although it wasn’t total where I lived at the time – Rialto, California. I was 11 years old in July of that year. I was absorbed in Little League baseball that summer, but was aware enough to know that a solar eclipse would happen on July 20^th.

I’d done some reading, and knew I shouldn’t look directly at the sun during the eclipse. It could damage my eyes. Somewhere I’d read about how to build a viewing box that would allow me to see an image of the eclipse. So I built the box.

This time, though, I intend to view using special eclipse glasses. From what I understand, the local branch of the county library will be providing glasses while they last.

Up at Wolf Lake in Michigan, some of my cousins built box contraptions to watch the 1963 solar eclipse. In California, I did the same.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, totally or partly obscuring the sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon’s apparent diameter is at least the same size as the sun’s (or larger), blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. I can’t wait.

#    #    #

I’m Mike Staton and I’m an author with six published novels. Three are sword and sorcery novels, and the last three have American Civil War settings. The latest, which debuted on May 1, takes place during Reconstruction in North Carolina, and stars a newspaper editor, and his wife, a graphic artist. It’s part of a four-book series that will see my main characters head westward into the American frontier in the final novel, now being written. I’m currently writing that fourth book, which I’ve titled ‘A Wyoming Dawn: A New Beginning.’