No kooks or doomsayers as Hopkinsville preps for totality on Eclipse Eve
Andrew Wolfson
HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. – There were no witches, prophets, seers or spiritualists.
Notwithstanding predictions that the eclipse would be a magnet for kooks and doomsayers, normalcy reigned Sunday in downtown Hopkinsville.
The biggest oddball may have been a man who would identify himself only as “Just Jim from New York.” He wore a “The Earth is Flat” T-shirt and said he drove 17 hours from Syracuse to test his theory against the eclipse, although he said he didn’t expect to change his mind.
“I’ve traveled around the Earth and haven’t detected any curvature,” he said.
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On the eve of the first total eclipse to traverse the nation in 99 years, umbraphiles – eclipse lovers – streamed into town Sunday, staking out parking places, buying $20 “I got mooned” T-shirts and trying to squeeze into the tiny seven-stool Ferrell’s Diner.
Why did they drive hundreds or even thousands of miles for an event that will last only 160 seconds?
Chris Smith, who came from Pittsburgh with his wife and another couple, said he had three reasons.
Monday is his birthday – his 36th. He has always been fascinated with the stars. “And I wanted to get out of Pittsburgh," he said.
Jay Gerlach, who drove 545 miles from Wisconsin in a minivan with children who are 6, 11, 14, 14 and 14, said it was important for him as a grandfather to give them a moment they will remember forever.
“This is a grandfather’s dream,” he said.
Fifty-year-old carpenter Erik Bendl said he came to meet up with his sister and hold her hand in the dark.
He walked from Louisville, pushing a 6-foot-tall inflated ball painted to resemble the Earth – a trip that took him three weeks and a day.
He started pushing the blue sphere years ago to raise awareness and money to fight diabetes, which afflicted his mother, former state lawmaker Gerta Bendl, who died in 1987. He says he’s now pushed it through parts of 48 states.
In Eclipseville, as the local marketers call it, all eyes Monday will be looking upward. Or almost all.
The Christian County Jail will not be granting furloughs, and visiting is canceled.
At the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, 40 miles to the north and west, inmates will be banned from the prison yards and allowed to watch the eclipse only on TV, to protect their eyes.
But patients will be allowed outside to watch at Western State Hospital, an acute psychiatric facility.
For the first time in at least 60 years, Ferrell’s, the hole-in-the-wall diner founded in 1929, opened its doors on a Sunday.
Just for the occasion, it offered the “Eclipse Burger” – sunny-side-up egg on a double burger, with cheese and bacon. Cardio card was extra.
The place was jammed. Nine-year-old Maylee Reese, a fourth-grader who rode overnight from New Orleans with her uncle and grandmother, jumped at a reporter’s offer to sell her stool for $20. The reporter was just kidding, but the uncle, Kevin Centanni, praised her for getting into the local spirit.
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Local entrepreneurs, sensing a once-in-lifetime opportunity, took full advantage.
Centanni said he shelled out $450 for an Airbnb – “and that was the cheap one.”
A room for two nights at a Day’s Inn was $560.
Even the Christian Way Farm was charging $225 for tent camping.
But unlike in Oregon, where hotels canceled reservations when they realized that they could charge more, Gerlach, 71, the Wisconsin man, said the Baymont Inn stuck to the $58-a-night deal he struck in October.
Some things were even free. Casky Baptist Church offered free charges for your cell phone and Cindy O’Bryan was giving away Bibles gratis at the Christian County Baptist Association booth downtown.
“We’re not selling anything,” she said.
Foot traffic was lighter than expected, vendors bemoaned. “We’re ready for it to pick up,” said John Chilton, who was peddling T-shirts and other eclipse trinkets.
The only throng consisted of locals at a special outdoor eclipse service who listened to a pastor preaching that “science and religion are compatible.”
“God is the God of Science,” the Rev. Ron Hicks of Henderson Memorial Baptist told a flock of a couple of hundred who took shelter under tents on a sunny 92-degree day. “Open your hearts and minds.”
Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com.