In spite of all my hopes, a look at the sky in the wee hours of the 26th of February, 1979 made me think the predictors right and my 800 mile journey to totality a bust - very cloudy. What would one expect of Portland, Oregon in February? Since we still had some space in the van, I made a few calls to see if there was anybody wanting to throw in with us on our quest. It seemed that the local "Uh-oh Squad" had managed to convince most of the local webfoots that they would be much better off to just stay home and watch the whole dang thing on the tube!

As we made our rounds, picking up the brave hearts that were willing to forsake the guaranteed safety of the herd, I could hear a strange sound, a very faint rustling noise that seemed to come from everywhere. As we drove out of the city toward the sunrise, up the Columbia River Gorge, the sound began to fade. Watching from the window as we moved towards our moment, I could sense the gatherings in the living rooms of the homes we passed. The natives were restless, gathering 'round the CRT, preparing to join their favorite commentator in chanting for the dragon to spit up their sun.

As first contact happened we were still racing up the north side of the river, searching the skies for a break in the clouds. As we drove past the replica of Stonehenge with its gathering of sun-worshiping Druids, my worries about being masked from this event faded. Where my companions' restlessness came from fear of being closed out, mine came from excitement - soon I would experience totality.

With about 20 minutes until the moment and the day visibly darkening, we decided that this was as good a place as any, pulled the van to the side of the highway and tumbled out, all our faces turned upward. We were at the western end of a huge gravel bar made of rounded, river-polished stones that seemed to range in size from baseball to bowling ball. We hurried eastward out onto the bar, stumbling in our hurry to get to the place where it would all happen. The twilight deepened and we halted. It had come. As I gazed upward, the most awesome (look it up) physical event of my life began.

The clouds parted and the thin crescent of the sun, just a minute or so from totality materialized as if by magick. Our little window was perfectly clear when the first Diamond Ring crystallized into a split-second of eternal magnificance. It was at this point that I remembered reading that the shadow of the moon could sometimes be seen as it approached, and took my eyes off the spectacle above for a second as I up and saw the blurry wall of darkness rushing towards me. Just before it got to me, I looked up again, not wanting to miss anything! As the Diamond itself faded and then Bailey's Beads came and went, I witnessed a phenomenom that I will always be able to close my eyes and re-experience. As the last of the direct light from our star disappeared, I noticed that the little light left in the sky was pulsating at a very fast rate. The rate of the oscillations slowed as the sky became blacker, with the throbbing slowed to a standstill at exactly the same instant that the eclipse became total. Though it was a visual event, It seemed that I nearly felt the throbbing of the light on my upturned yearning face. I know that I was seeing light filtered to just the few photons sliding around our moon. Did I also hear a pulsation in the sussurrus of the breeze and water noises of the gorge?

As totality happened, and my eyes became used to the darkness, our star's glorious corona spread out around the black disk of our satellite. This image will remain with me forever. The corona extended asymmetrically from the occulting moon. It extended further in the 2 and 8 o'clock directions with the tendrils seeming to lengthen and brighten as we got closer to the centerpoint of it all. As I watched the streamers extend further, slow, stop, and then begin to recede, I knew that it would soon be over, but I also knew that first I would get to see the reverse of what had just passed.

The second half of the greatest show on earth began with the return of the throbbing, pulsating light that seemed to radiate from a point behind our sun. As I first noticed the pulsations, the frequency was slow, but quickly speeding up until they were too fast to distinguish. I felt this had something to do with wave harmonics, and feel I understand the process because of experiences tuning stringed instruments, but would love to have it explained to me.

First, Bailey's bead appeared as the first rays of light found their way through the valleys of our moon. The diamond ring then appeared again and the sky began to lighten with the return of sunlight to our spot on the Columbia. As the sounds of life began to return to the earth, I became aware of just how quiet it had beconme during totality. A feeling of calm and fulfillment washed over me as day returned: I had seen it! As the sun's crescent thickened, the clouds, held motionless during the show, rushed to fill the gap that had been pried open for our experience.

With a very satisfied smile on my face, and my eyes glittering, I turned to my companions and without a word, we turned to begin our stroll through the boulder-strewn landscape back to the van. Not many words were spoken, most of us content to merely be there. As we picked our way past a lage outcropping of rock, I decided to take one of the stones of this place with me when I left, and asked my eight-year old daughter to choose one. She selected one and as I stooped to pick it up, wished that she was interested in golf instead of basketball. We later wrote the date on this memento and it can still be found at the Watcher's abode, helping to ensure that if a tornado ever did come our way, our home would be just a little more difficult to send to Oz.