Close-Up #4 Saturday 26 August 2016   With all you have seen and heard about Monday’s solar eclipse, that at 1,500 miles an hour swept in totality across a swath of the USA and caught the rest of us watching at various percentages, here’s a quick  unrelated tidbit:

“Eclipse, one of the most famous of English race-horses, the great-grandson of DARLEY ARABIAN, foaled 1 April 1764. He ran his first race 3 May 1769, and from then until October 1770 ran in eighteen races, never being beaten. His skeleton is preserved in the Royal Veterinary College, London. His fame gave rise to a saying applied to a person of outstanding ability who outstrips all rivals, ‘Eclipse first and the rest nowhere.'” Can’t you just hear a race announcer’s raised voice spitting out that last sentence?

That quote comes from The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase & Fable: the quintessential guide to myth, folklore, legend and literature (Wordsworth Editions Ltd., Cumberland House, Crib Street, Ware, Herefordshire, 1975).

Makes me wish I’d have seen the harness racing at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair last month. That would have included the three-year-old trotters, in addition to the draft horse hitches, the horse-pull, and especially the multitude of 4-H show patterns sponsored by the 4-H Saddle Club. Noted for 2018.

I am glad I did see the solar eclipse on Monday, both 90 percent live and totality live on a large screen in Central Park, Elkhart.

The solar eclipse, on screen from Oregon, Illinois, and Elkhart, Indiana

Scenes from our walks in town this week

Mmm, Mmm melons, from Mongo in LaGrange County

Smile

An organizer in Carbondale quoted Dr Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Timely words, indeed.

Stay calm and  keep the faith.

John

Among the outstrippers