Today, a few final thoughts on the Great American Eclipse.
Warning: Do not stare directly at this column without protection.
We Americans aren't great at one-off events. We like our public spectacles at regular intervals. Witness: Super Bowls, quadrennial presidential elections, seven-year cicadas.
That's why random events like last week's Great American Eclipse throw off our internal gyroscopes. In this unsettled state, we are actually more likely to open our minds and learn something.
Almost a week after the big eclipse, I believe I learned or reinforced at least 10 life lessons by watching the sun go dark for a couple of minutes.
Some reflections on the day:
Mark Kennedy-Plan ahead. About 10 days before the eclipse, we searched for tinted viewing glasses in Chattanooga and read that Outdoor Chattanooga was giving away 1,000 pairs at its River Street location on the morning of Aug. 14.
I showed up an hour early and was able to snag five pairs, enough to outfit each member of our family. There was rejoicing at the Kennedy house.
Lesson: Be vigilant; show up early.
-Take risks. On the night before the eclipse, I lobbied for scaling back our plans to venture into the path of totality. "Why don't we just stay on Signal Mountain and see the 99 percent eclipse?" I told my wife.
I was imagining an apocalyptic traffic jam. While planning for the worst-case scenario might be prudent, it's a sheepish way to live your life.
At bedtime, our 10-year-old son came to me with a quivering voice, "So, Daddy, we aren't going to see the total eclipse?"
By the next morning, I was ready to charge into "totality" with my tinted glasses in my teeth.
-Go places. I never thought I'd say "Pikeville or bust." Pikeville is a charming little hamlet in the Sequatchie Valley, but not a hot spot for my crew.
Still, according to our detailed eclipse map, Pikeville was a near-perfect vantage point for the eclipse where totality would stick around for more than two minutes. As luck would have it, we zipped straight to Pikeville, rarely having to dip below the speed limit.
We were going to be totalitarians for a day, and it was grand.
Life lesson: No risk, no reward.
-Discover new things. If you enter unfamiliar territory, you are almost certain to encounter new things.
Two signs on Highway 127 caught my attention: one said "custom slaughtering" and the other, "we buy ginseng."
Note to self: There are stories here.
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-Talk to strangers. Had I not made it a point to talk to strangers in Pikeville I would not know, for example, that Haleyville, Ala., was the first city in America to offer 911 emergency service.
Lesson: Some facts you can live without.
-Look up. We Americans spend too much time looking down. Our smartphones are making us a nation of slack-jawed, stoop-shouldered zombies.
For a couple of hours last week, we mostly put down the phones and considered the sky. Yay us.
-Enjoy the outdoors. About 30 minutes before totality, a deer ran across a soccer field adjacent to Pikeville Elementary School.
Meanwhile, the cicadas started chirping, which led to a family argument about how to pronounce cicada.
I say si-KAH-da, they say si-KAY-da.
Lesson: Do not argue with your family. They will gang up on you like a pack of hungry lions on a wildebeest.
-Sing songs. My son and sister entertained themselves in the back seat of the car by humming songs, while exhorting the other to "name that tune." They made it through "Jingle Bells" and "Jesus Loves Me" before my sister hummed some McDonald's jingle from the '60s.
Our son, who was born in 2006, looked at her as if she had just hummed the national anthem of Zambia.
-Eat well. The boy packed snacks for the trip and was munching on a Red Delicious apple before he suddenly began to gag.
"What's wrong," I asked.
"He bit into a brown spot," my sister explained.
"Oh, probably just a nest of worms," I ventured.
The gagging intensified. The apple is now sleeping with the cows.
Lesson: An apple a day is not always optimal.
-See God everywhere. For believers, it's impossible to watch a total eclipse and not notice the divine precision of the universe.
Seeing stars in the middle of the day is a powerful reminder of the vastness of the heavens and the mastery of the maker.
Lesson: Infinity is divinity.
So look up.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.