Eclipse of the Heart

On April 8, 2024, we had a solar eclipse.

It was weird because it was the first time I had been in a solar eclipse and in totality.

Totality is when the moon almost blocks out the sun and it gets nighttime dark where you are.

It was fun, interesting, bizarre, emotional, and I got to share it with my kids.

It felt weird because it made me get emotional, I mean, it's a scientific fact that eclipses will happen and have happened, they're not that big of a deal, but...

It made me feel small (in a good way) and I wondered what people a thousand years ago must have felt without the knowledge we have today.

But it has happened, it did happen, and will happen again in the future and it's not some cosmic special event, but it is something that showed the perfection and fine tuning of our world, of our universe, of our lives.

It was beautiful and humbling and if I am old enough again in 20 years, I am going to try and make it to totality again.

 

(above is 3:14 PM in the afternoon, just south of Brownstown Indiana)

Becoming Grandpa Hunter

I have become Gilbert Hunter, my grandfather. 

Grandpa Hunter worked through The Great Depression, survived World War II in Okinawa, then came home and in his final years, he did not recognize the country he grew up in.

Me, too Grandpa...me, too.

I see a country that has been held accountable for its past actions, and that is a good thing, but at some point we went past what was necessary and have become...blinded...or ignorant...or both.

It is funny.

Growing up, I always loved history and saw that there wasn't really anything going on that I remember reading about in the "old days" (I know now that not to be true).

I just never thought that I would live through all of that "old days" history in just a few short years.

From a pandemic (flu vs covid) to civil rights (60's vs. BLM) to blind following of a leader or belief system (Hitler vs. Trump and Hamas). 

I often wondered how such smart people could fall for such nonsense.

But I am seeing it in real time.

Maybe it's me and not everyone else, but...

I wonder what has happened to the country that I grew up in.

Now allow me to yell at these kids on my lawn...