I continue to work as a popular science writer, and of course, the big news in Aroostook County, “the Crown of Maine,” was the total solar eclipse, which occurred on April 8th. My husband and I sat in deck chairs in perfect sunny weather, not a cloud in the sky, on our front lawn near Houlton, ME, and observed the awesome celestial spectacle from the first contact at 2:22 PM until 3:55 PM, when the light levels and temperatures returned to normal. In reading about the history of the total eclipse in North America, the earliest record of a total eclipse was by the Ancestral Pueblo indigenous people in 1097 illustrated as a petroglyph, a dagger running through the sun, a solar marker called a Sun Dagger, near the top of Fajada Butte, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.
So inspired, I composed a poem:
—The Sun Dagger —
Moon shadows,
Solar flares,
A dance between the earth, moon, and sun,
The sun dagger,
Coronal loops,
Mother Nature’s diamond ring,
At the total solar eclipse,
We gazed in awe.
4/8/24
Prior to the eclipse event, from March 1-31, there was an exhibit of “The Portland Camera Club still clicking after 125 years” at the Portland Public Library. Today there are 125 members of the camera club, ranging from high school and college students with a few years of experience with photography, to members who have been active in the club for 40 or 50 years. Our classmate, Richard W. Sawyer ’68, ‘73G (College of Arts and Science), has been a prominent contributing member with his outstanding photographs, some of which were in the exhibit.
We were sorry to receive a notice that Earle Lovering passed away on April 9, 2024, after a lengthy illness. A family member shared that “Earle was so proud to have been a Maine graduate and spoke often of his friends there. He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, an experience which he never forgot. He is survived by his sisters, Martha and Ann, and his daughter Joanna.”
This is all the news I have for this time. I hope you will stay in touch. We always enjoy hearing from our classmates.