BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON, N.J.––With the moon swinging toward a few minutes of destiny last week, hundreds of families turned out to public libraries to take advantage of children’s programming anticipating the spectacle: a rare eclipse of the sun.
The eclipse was total in a band of shadow stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic Ocean just past Columbia, South Carolina, and beyond.
Here in the Pascack Valley, as with the rest of New Jersey, the eclipse was partial but still significant. Through safety shades town libraries supplied, of a type in high demand around the country heading into Monday afternoon, the moon seemed to nibble into the sun’s profile, then leave it, perhaps like an Oreo cookie fitting almost perfectly over a circle of spilled orange juice, then slinking away.
In addition to the Township of Washington’s Public Library, Montvale’s public library and the Ridgewood public library, which serves Woodcliff Lake residents, put on eclipse events, according to a Pascack Press survey. Montvale librarygoers were treated to a live-stream of the event as projected large-scale, in all its glory.
Games, “space bracelet”-making, cookie decorating, cereal-box projector-making, and live-streaming marked the buildup to the event in the township, filling the library with crafts and families and providing tons of photo ops.
Starting Aug. 18, the Ridgewood Public Library ran two programs for elementary school kids, one for grades K-2 and the other for grades 3-5, where they read eclipse-themed stories, ran demonstrations to learn about exactly what a solar eclipse is, and created an eclipse-themed craft.
“The kids were all so excited to learn about what was going to happen and why, and to share what they already knew about eclipses with me. The questions they asked were so clever and really showed some higher-level thinking,” said Caren Wilkins, a library assistant.
On the morning of the eclipse, Aug. 21, Wilkins ran another program for grades K-5 where they did hands-on learning about the eclipse and then decorated cookies that looked like a total solar eclipse with a bright corona. “The kids definitely enjoyed it, and worked so hard to make their cookie eclipses look as authentic as possible,” she said.
Months earlier, Wilkins applied for a grant from the Star Net organization and received 1,000 pairs of certified solar viewing glasses to distribute.
“You could feel the excitement in the air, and by the time the eclipse started there were many people gathered outside of the library and in the adjacent field. It was wonderful to see so many people gathered together for something so positive, with strangers chatting together, and glasses being passed around and shared. It was truly heart-warming to watch people uniting to celebrate and experience such a remarkable event, especially when happy gatherings like this one seem to be harder to come by lately,” she said.
Demand for similar viewing glasses was particularly high in the Township. Librarians solved the problem by issuing tickets redeemable for one viewer per family.
Spilling out into the parking lot for the main event, families and others passed around the shades and angled their cereal box projectors.
And the moon presented the ultimate photo-bomb. Though the sun is 400 times wider than the moon, it is also 400 times farther away, so they appear to be the same size in our sky.
Boys and girls and men and women oohed and aahed as the sunlight dimmed and the air cooled (just a little) as the moon’s shadow overtook us.
Friends Lucas Acevedo, 11, and Mark Minas, 9, said they loved the eclipse.
Mom Maureen Ferara helped William, 2, Tabitha, 8, and Dennis, 6, watch the eclipse safely. Maureen made sure not to watch the eclipse with her regular sunglasses, as they would not have protected her eyes from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Thomas Sanfilippo fashioned a cereal box into his eye-safe eclipse viewer.
Township residents Brian Yum and his daughter, Jenna, 8, and wife, Hyun, enjoyed the library’s eclipse programming – and this spectacular view.
Mae Pedoto took in the view too, and had kind words for the Township of Washington Public Library, which she said was very accommodating.
Westwood couple Paige Rowett and John Korupchak said they wished their students could have seen this with them. John is a retired physics teacher; Paige teaches biology at William L. Dickinson High School in Jersey City.
Township of Washington Police Lt. Richard Skinner and his kids shared a few historic moments from the grounds of the town library.
“It’s awesome,” Luke Skinner said, gazing up.
Amy Maffei and her son, Kai, loved the show. Maffei told the Pascack Press she was surprised at how crisp and well-defined the eclipse appeared through the shades. Kai said it was cool.
According to NASA, this eclipse was the first with a path of totality crossing the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. since 1918.
Photos by John Snyder