Preparing for dark times: Total solar eclipse arrives 6 months from today

A solar eclipse over Indonesia in March, 2016. (AP file photo)

ST. LOUIS, MO – (Valerie Schremp Hawn – St. Louis Post Dispatch- Click on the following link for the full story. Here is an excerpt. If you haven’t already, you might want to mark your calendars for six months from today, and make a special notation for oh, say, early afternoon, depending on your location. You’re in for one of the darker, stranger experiences of your life on this planet. A total solar eclipse — the first one in the continental United States since 1979, and the first one for most of the St. Louis area since 1442 — arrives on Monday, Aug. 21. The partial eclipse will start in late morning and end in early afternoon, with the total eclipse within the 1 p.m. hour. You may or may not have heard about the eclipse already — but folks at the Bloomsdale bank in Herculaneum and their City Hall have. They’re selling viewer glasses for $1. Southern Illinois University Carbondale will celebrate with a weekend of events to culminate in a public viewing at Saluki Stadium. & Even Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness, is in on the eclipse action: He’s performing at a “Moonstock” music festival in Carterville, IL.