Shelli Poole (far) and Audra Parsons (near) view the eclipse from the distinct vantage point of the Sevier Street sidewalk by Retro Rose Records in downtown Benton Arkansas.
I feel like I need to address something because I think people are getting it wrong about the eclipse. People on social media are so mad because “the media lied” and “tricked people” into “being afraid.” They are also saying they were told by media to stay home. They say it was all “hype” that there would be a lot of traffic. Ok let’s get into it.
I haven’t seen any evidence of media advice for people to stay home. That doesn’t make sense considering we expected visitors to tour our state. Why wouldn’t locals be encouraged to do so as well? Maybe this idea got started because kids were out of school for the day. That decision was made so that kids could be with their parents to enjoy the eclipse – and schools could avoid the liability of having one teacher watch 30 kids and trying to keep them all from staring at the naked sun and damaging their vision. You know it would happen, and some school would get sued.
So all the parents had their kids with them, and they had to be off work for it. Unless all of those parents decided to travel somewhere on Monday, you’ve got a significant amount of vehicles that are absent from their normal routine. “I didn’t see any extra traffic.” Of course you didn’t. Teachers and coaches and teens weren’t out there driving. Many government offices closed. Bank lobbies closed. Many small businesses are already typically closed on a Monday.
Photo courtesy of Shelli Poole on Android phone. (Not an iPhone!)
And then there’s the fact that Saline County is not a known tourist area. Yes we have a lot of beautiful areas where people can stop to view an eclipse. But we don’t have lakes and casinos like other Arkansas cities. We don’t have an office of tourism either. No one specifically paid for the kind of advertising that would have brought people to Benton or Bryant or anywhere in Saline County as a destination.
I had to practically beg businesses to tell me what they were doing for the eclipse so I could give them a FREE listing on our eclipse pages. There were a few special events going on, but there were not a ton of participants, because people didn’t know about them. I’m talking about locals who could have been out there having fun in their own community. Again, I wouldn’t expect tourists to choose Benton or Bryant over other cities, not just because of normal tourism, but also because we weren’t solidly in the middle of the totality zone. We were off to the right side. If I was driving miles away from my home for a celestial event, I’d choose to land in a spot that’s dead center.
Photo courtesy of Audra Parsons on Android phone. (Not an iPhone!)
Now somebody is going to say there wasn’t nearly the amount of people we expected in normal tourist hot spots either. Well think back to the early weather forecast we were getting. Cloudy. Rainy. Not great conditions for getting a clear picture of the sun or moon or both. Locals weren’t the only ones who saw that forecast. Word spread. And what would you do if you were an eclipse chaser wanting to make sure your trip was worth it? You’d go to where you were certain it would be clear skies.
My view in downtown Benton was perfect. But it had been partly cloudy that morning, and before it was evident exactly where the clouds would be located during the eclipse, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see the main event clearly. I was watching with friends at Retro Rose Records and we saw people wandering around downtown or sitting on the courthouse lawn. We also saw quite a few people at the party that Natural State Market had going.
As time drew near, several people had music wafting out of their car or business. Of course, at the record shop, owner Audra Parsons had Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” blaring out the front door. Meanwhile, her husband Brandon Parsons made a pinhole in a piece of cardboard and in the shadow, you could make out the shape of the sun with a bite out of it… projected onto the telephone box at the sidewalk! So stylish. Down the street, a convertible was playing Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light.” When the moon fully covered the sun for totality, we heard cheers from around the block.
Brandon Parsons created a pinhole eclipse viewer and held it up to the nearest vertical object, a phone box. In the shadow, you can make out a tiny shape of the sun, with the moon making it into a crescent. Photo courtesy of Shelli Poole.
But downtown still looked a little dead because… a) it was a Monday and lots of businesses are normally closed and, b) people weren’t at work because they were watching the eclipse at home or at the river or in a field somewhere. I did see people hard at work as usual at Burger Shack – and I helped them get rid of a cheeseburger and fries yesterday. ?
All this to say no one tricked you. There’s no reason to do so. The government and the media both want our economy to thrive. When people shop and dine out, the business owners get paid and buy homes and cars and they shop local too. The tax revenue comes in and governments are able to pay for better roads and parks and more (and the electeds get re-elected).
Yes, the government emergency teams wanted to be prepared for the worst, so they advised of the extreme possibility. Imagine the outcry if they didn’t prepare and then something happened. Just like a doctor will give the worst case scenario and then it’s usually good news… the public needed to know that there was a possibility of much higher traffic and numbers of people in our midst. It was each local individual’s choice to stay home if they did. I surveyed people ahead of time and many said they would watch the eclipse from home.
Yes of course we made a silly video during the eclipse… https://www.facebook.com/arkansasshelli/posts/pfbid0yuLe4j7NaLiLmWZeyRYtr6xypnZydcJL6eQE2sC4vRmdPjoAzNg9hxVLeapsUsGCl
So it was Monday, it was partly cloudy, schools were avoiding a liability, parents were parenting, and locals just wanted to stay home and see the eclipse from a lawn chair. That’s it. Oh wait just kidding – there was also no alien invasion. I only saw one or two during the whole day.
That’s my report for the #totalsolareclipse2024. See y’all on August 23, 2044, for the next one in the United States.
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