After that trip, Biser said, he knew he would travel thousands more miles in his car.
“This one eclipse was enough,” he said. “I saw one and I had to see them all. I was hooked.
Over the next six decades, he observed 11 more eclipses, traveling everywhere from New Mexico to the Black Sea for the perfect view.
Biser, 105 years old, now hopes to live one last moment in the shadow of the moon. This weekend, one of his granddaughters will drive him from Fort Worth to his daughter’s home in Plano, Texas, so he can watch his 13th eclipse — the last total solar eclipse visible in the United States. United for 20 years.
“I probably won’t be here for the next one,” said Biser, whose birthday is in June. “So I’m hoping the weather cooperates long enough for me to see this one. I pray for clear weather.
He’s making the hour-long drive from Fort Worth to Plano, he said, because there the eclipse will still have one minute of totality, meaning the sun will be completely blocked out.
“For someone who likes eclipses, this is a big deal,” he said.
Cloudy skies are forecast for much of the country during Monday’s eclipse, but at Biser’s age, it has a habit of defying the odds.
“A crazy life is my secret,” said Biser, who recently shared his story with the Dallas Morning News. “I never had a sip of alcohol or a puff of smoke – just lots of chocolate milk every day. And I continue to be curious and like to have fun.
Biser stopped driving a few years ago and now has a caregiver since the death of his wife, Marion Biser, last year. He still enjoys tinkering with his homemade telescopes and marveling at the night sky, he said.
“Many modern children in big cities have never seen a starry sky,” Biser said. “Today’s children don’t know about the Big Dipper and the North Star. When I was a child, I always felt lucky to see the Milky Way every night. »
Biser said he grew up on a farm in Ohio, where he spent a lot of time outdoors with his two brothers and developed an appreciation for science and the natural world.
After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University, he designed airplanes at General Dynamics near Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth for more than four decades.
He and his wife frequently took their three children on long road trips in the summer, stopping at historic sites along the way. Biser’s daughter, Carol Biser Barlow, said she had visited 49 states by the time she graduated from high school.
Barlow, who will welcome her father to Plano this weekend, said she particularly remembers that long trip to Maine when she was 16 years old.
“We went straight north from Texas, crossed into Canada, and then returned to the United States,” she said. “My father loved to travel and he was so impressed by this eclipse that his goal became to fit as many eclipses into his vacation schedule as possible.”
Barlow, 76, remembers scheduling her wedding around the 1972 solar eclipse.
“I talked to my parents about two possible dates for my wedding: one on June 3 and one on July 8,” she said. “My father told me: ‘If you want me to betray you, you will have to choose the earliest date. I won’t be there on July 8th. He had to go to an eclipse.
Biser has witnessed solar eclipses everywhere from Nebraska to Brazil, but he said his favorite trip was one he took with several friends to Williston, North Dakota, in 1979.
“I was able to document it perfectly, even though I was pointing my camera at a black sky,” he said. “Safety always comes first to avoid injury to your eyes. I was really excited when I saw that my lens was good and I was able to capture the eclipse in its entirety.
On Monday, he said, he will be ready to take more photos and enjoy every phase of this rare celestial event.
“It’s really something: There’s nothing like that dark sky in the middle of the day,” Biser said. “I always feel lucky when I see him. It reminds me that no matter where we are in life, we are all just a small speck in the universe.
washingtonpost
