We’re Off On The Road to Eclipseland

You may have heard that on April 8, 2024 there will be a total solar eclipse, visible in whole or in part over much of North America.

And my hometown Cleveland, Ohio is smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.

So I created a design to  commemorate this literal once-in-a- lifetime event, iterations of which are now available in my Zazzle store! 

The artwork features Cleveland’s beloved Guardians of Traffic, re-imagined as the Guardians of Solar and Lunar Traffic, holding (L to R) the Chariot of Helios from Greek mythology, NASA JPL’s Parker Solar Probe (2018), NASA’s Lunar Roving Vehicle (1971-1972), and the rocket from the classic film A Trip to the Moon, directed by Georges Méliès (1902).

There are shirts! Mugs! Buttons! A poster!

There are red and green shirts in case you want your eclipse celebration to serve as a real-life experiment in the Purkinje effect:

“[a solar eyeglass company] explains that in normal daylight, our eyes use the cone cells of the retina to see colors clearly and function best under bright light conditions. This is known as photopic vision. As it gets darker, our eyes switch to rod cells, which are better for low light conditions, or scotopic vision. These cells pick up blue-green hues well. 

“A few minutes before the Moon completely covers the sun, we enter a phase known as the mesopic vision zone where it’s not too bright or dark and colors turn grayish or silver. During this phase, our cone cells receive less stimulation, resulting in less vibrancy or saturation of colors. This phenomenon is especially noticeable with warm colors like red and orange. 

“However, the company [also] said green will pop and look brighter against the dimming surroundings thanks to the Purkinje effect—a natural phenomenon that changes how we perceive colors in low light. Therefore, red and green outfits will provide a vivid splash against the eclipse’s backdrop in photos.”

(In the interest of honesty, I should note that the company also says that “to really see the changes in color saturation, lots of people need to wear these complimentary red and green colors. Two or five in a group of 100 wouldn’t help.” But if you would like to buy 50 or 100 red and/or green Eclipseland shirts, I won’t object.)

Also in the interest of honesty, if you’re planning to come to Cleveland on April 8th, I must tell you that there’s a possibility that Cleveland may see cloudy skies on Eclipse Day.

Okay, a good possibility.

All right, fine, data from the National Weather Service shows that April 8th has been “partly cloudy,” “mostly cloudy,” or “cloudy” … 14 times out of the last 20 years, i.e., 70% of the last 20 Eighths of April have been cloudy.

But bad odds don’t necessarily predict the future. 

And Cleveland only needs clear skies between 1:59PM and 4:29PM to experience this life-changing natural phenomenon. And when it comes down to it, it only needs to be clear between, say, 3:10PM and 3:20PM — the period of totality.

But, even if Cleveland’s view of the eclipse is obscured, everyone will have the chance to have fun while learning about science at the Great Lakes Science Center’s Total Eclipse Fest, or at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Total on the Oval.

Or you can celebrate at home with friends while enjoying uniquely Cleveland eclipse-themed food and  drinks: special pączki from the legendary Rudy’s Strudel and Bakery (available in “Solar” and “Lunar” versions), Malley’s Chocolates “Eclipse Ahoy!” (a Chips Ahoy cookie, with a white chocolate bottom, topped with chewy caramel, covered in dark chocolate and topped with “galaxy sprinkles”), and/or Vanilla Blackout Stout® beer from the Great Lakes Brewing Company.

And if you wanted to wear some eclipse-themed clothing or drink out of an eclipse-themed mug, that would be good, too. They’ll last much longer than a pączki!

Some (non-baseball related) Guardians History

In case you’re not acquainted with Cleveland’s unofficial civic symbols, the Guardians of Traffic stand watch over the Hope Memorial Bridge, re-named in 1983 in honor of William Henry “Harry” Hope, a stonemason who had worked on the Guardians sculptures. Harry had immigrated to the United States from England in 1908, settling in Cleveland along with his wife and seven sons.

Harry Hope’s fifth son Leslie would eventually change his name to “Bob,” and become a perpetual part of American life from the 1930s until the turn of the century, starring in movies, TV specials, USO shows, and along with Bing Crosby, the “Road to…” movies.

I mention all this because

(a) it gives me the chance to share the rumor which went around at the time the bridge was renamed: that the people in charge had initially meant to call it the “Hope Memorial Bridge” to honor Bob Hope, until someone pointed out you can’t call something a “memorial” if the person it honors is still alive.  Allegedly, there was a scramble to retcon the bridge’s backstory.

I like this story way too much to try and research it to confirm it’s true.

(b) I’d like to point out that I just went a really long way to justify the title of this blog post, i.e., I suspect my coinage of the term “Eclipseland” may have been subliminally influenced by the Hope-Crosby Road movies.

Bonus content!

Your reward for reading all the way to the bottom of this post: one of my all-time favorite movie moments, from Hope-Crosby’s The Road to Utopia (1945).