I have only had the oportunity to witness it five times in my life. And of those five possibilities I only remember one. I’m 7 years old and we are cruising along the rugged sun swept summer seacoast of Maine. I’m in the back of a white 1964 Chevrolet Biscayne with an AM radio , three speeds on the column and a metal dashboard. My two younger sisters are squinting out the window, skyward towards the rare event that can turn a sunny Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1959 to few minutes of darkness. Its a full solar eclipse.

I’m worried. Some were some how in the days before Google I had heard that you're not suppose to look directly at a solar eclipse. And here I am with my younger sisters driving down the coast of Maine with parents in the front seat oblivious to the fact that their daughters are going to go blind as they view the solar eclipse from the back seat of our Chevy and I seem to be the only one concerned about this upcoming, preventable tragedy.

Things may be different now because I can remember a photo of a former President seemingly taking a page from sisters book on how to view a solar eclipse by looking directly at it.

Well my sisters didn’t go blind but I still worry about things. I can remember sitting in first grade at St Thomas Elementary School and watching one of my fellow students suddenly get up and start dancing on the top of his desk once the nun had left the room. I remember thinking “ dosen’t he realize that if he gets caught its curtains for him” Well he did get caught and was thrown out of school the next day. A lesson for all of us.

Does worrying help anything? My sisters grew up healthy and are all wonderful adults. My dancing elementary school friend left my school for greener pastures and grew up to be an adult who forever tested authority and there was nothing that I could have changed about that thru my worrying.

I still worry. But these days I worry about whether my grandson will grow up in a world where his house is waterfront property because of global warming even though he lives in a suburb of Worcester Ma which is about 80 miles from todays ocean. I worry about the end of rock n roll because of the use of auto tuning.

But I really dont worry as much any more. I dont worry about what I can’t control. My sisters aren’t blind, my grandson and his mom and dad will probably enjoy having a beach house and Rock n Roll will never die!!!