Lack of eclipse photo notwithstanding, it was pleasant outing

Missing from this edition is the photo I planned to take of the eclipse. The plan was to capture the sun eclipsed in the sky with the Cross in the foreground which would make it uniquely Batesville photo.
I failed. Former co-worker Emily Williams sent me an eclipse photo she made on her camera phone with the lens covered with her sunglasses. It was an improvement over all the photos I made from the foot of the Cross.
Otherwise it was an entirely pleasant midday outing. I unfolded the chair from my car and sat, trying shots with the open lens, with a piece of exposed film over the lens, with my own sunglasses over the lens, but none of my attempts rendered a photo that captured an eclipsed sun.
The temperature dropped noticeably as the sun’s rays were shielded. Then came a stubborn cloud that further blocked the sun and, of course, my view of it. The weird, subdued sunlight must be unique to an eclipsed sun. When I saw it I was taken back to an earlier eclipse I recalled from years back. Someone said that it was 1984, but I am not sure.
Occasionally I’d view it with my own eyes through the exposed film and the eclipse glasses that I had brought along, watching the sun’s crescent remainder as the moon passed before it.
A number of motorists on the interstate honked their horns as they passed. There was no apparent reason except that I think they were just expressing their approval for the Cross and maybe thought I’d had something to do with it being there. I just accepted the compliment on behalf of those who did have something to do with it and pass it along to any among them who might read these lines.
As the Great Eclipse Day of 2017 passes, literally, into the sunset, the part of the phenomenon that has impressed me was that with most of the sun covered by the moon — perhaps 75 to 85 percent at totality in these parts — the remaining sunlight that reached us was so bright. I’m not sure what I expected, but I think I understand the lesson I witnessed.