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Southern Oregon Journal: Eclipse in a box Sunday Aug 27, 2017 at 12:01 AM By Peggy Dover for the Mail Tribune So, how about that eclipse, eh? I’m still thinking about the precise timing required for our little moon to blot out something 400 times larger than itself, like a David and Goliath story. Though smoke obscured our 93 percent, folks will reminisce over the experience around campfires and kitchen tables for years. Maybe they’ll stow the infamous glasses in a box with concert-ticket stubs and other of life’s snapshots. The Great Eclipse gave us something big to enjoy together — to distract us from our differences for two-and-a-half minutes. So, my question is, when does it end? From where I sit, I still see the same big, red ball in the sky everywhere I go. Just kidding. But the air’s been awfully thick out there lately. I’d known about the coming eclipse for a couple of years, ever since I attended a meeting of Southern Oregon Skywatchers at the North Medford High School observatory. I knew it was a major deal in the world of astronomy. So, forewarned is forearmed, as in certified viewing glasses, right? No. Not in this household. As the time drew near, I became a permanent resident on the sofa with an injured foot. I’d read about spurious viewing glasses — spectacles that some evil entity foisted on an innocent and expectant society. I ordered no glasses. About a week before the event, I asked if Lane could check some stores for a couple pair of regulation types, but everyone was out, of course. I mean, what store buyer in his right mind is going to reorder eclipse glasses? I felt irritated at myself for procrastinating, though to be painfully honest, I just wasn’t all that thrilled. Excitement built at a national level, and when I saw the path our personal darkness would cut through the daylight, it was rather astounding — right through the heart of America. I had to be a part of it. That’s when I saw a simple way of viewing the eclipse using a box, some aluminum foil, a slinky and tape. On Eclipse Eve, Lane and I fashioned our personal devices from shoe boxes — mine being a Dr. Martens model and his a Nike. An eclipse was afoot (thank you, Rick Barry, author friend). We followed the instructions faithfully, then hung up our stockings, er, I mean, waited. Eclipse Day dawned dim and smoky, but we were undeterred. Lane popped over about 9 a.m. to find the prime location and set out chairs. The timetable was definite. No 10:17, give or take a minute. I crutched my way out to my seat well beforehand to make sure this box-a-ma-jig worked. We aimed the foil aperture at the reddened sun and looked inside. Our largest star reflected on a piece of paper the size of a Pop-Tart. Then the moon began to sidle its way between us and the sun. This grand movement transpired as predicted — the sun and the moon, in miniature, met inside a shoe box. In two and a half minutes or so, normalcy returned and we released the moon and continued on our way, orbit-wise. My friend Nancy asked if we also wore tinfoil hats. I said no, but I kept an aluminum crutch nearby, in case. We sat amazed at how much light just 7 percent of the sun puts out. As an artist who regularly paints outside, Lane noticed more subtle changes in light and shadows than I did. He noticed the temperature drop first. A breeze came up, birds quieted, and we knew the eerie darkening was not the same as a cloudy day. The light showed a different personality. Looking back, I thought, "What if someone abiding in local watering hole Ed’s Oasis for a month or so had walked by without eclipse insight." They would have seen us sitting in chairs in my smoky driveway holding shoe boxes to our heads. — Peggy Dover is a freelance writer. Email her at [email protected] or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/peggy.dover