Skip to content
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Email
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment
  • Features
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
Suburban Chicagoland

Suburban Chicagoland

Original News, Features & Opinion on local and regional news you won't find anywhere else

  • About
    • About
    • Advertise
    • Our Writers
      • Ray Hanania
      • Bill Lipinski
      • Biography: Aaron Hanania
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Policy
    • Reach Out
  • Sections
    • Events
    • Opinion
    • News
    • Features
    • Seniors
    • Comic Strip
  • Library
    • “MIdnight Flight” Online Book
      • Midnight Flight Book Overview
      • Midnight Flight Introduction
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 1
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 2
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 3
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 4
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 5
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 6
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 7
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 8
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 9
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 10
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 11
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 12
      • Midnight Flight Chapter 13
    • Villages, Cities & Towns
    • Federal Office Holders
    • County Officials
    • Legislators
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Comment
  • Podcast
    • Ray Hanania on Politics
    • Two Guys on Politics
    • Hanania on Tiktok
  • News Wire
  • Archive 2004-2013
  • Toggle search form
  • Father and two daughters Jeffery M Leving
    Father’s Fight to Protect his Abused and Badly Beaten Daughters Dads' Rights
  • Illinois Senator Michael Hastings addressing the Orland Township Democratic Organization Wednesday Oct. 12, 2022
    Hastings announces $75,000 grant for Olympia Fields Bicentennial Park renovations Illinois Legislature
  • Alleged Member of Chicago Street Gang Charged With Soliciting the Murder of Senior Law Enforcement Official Involved in “Operation Midway Blitz” Crime
  • IIEC Logo
    The Energy Omnibus Bill will increase rates over the rest of this decade as Illinois families and businesses toil under higher utility costs Business
  • Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Polish hero of the American Revolution. After arriving in America in 1776, Kosciuszko joined the Continental Army. As a skilled engineer, he made significant contributions to the war by designing fortifications for several strategic places such as Philadelphia, West Point, and Saratoga. Kosciuszko later returned to Poland to lead his native military in a 1794 uprising. In Detroit, Courtesy of WIkipedia
    Cook County Treasurer Pappas showcases Polish photographer’s first-ever American exhibit and honors Polish American Heritage Month in Chicago Cook County
  • On Saturday, October 4th, Cook County Commissioner Frank J. Aguilar hosted the Fifth Annual 16th District Dia de los Muertos Resource Fair at his district office. Partnering with Commissioner Aguilar were the Village of Lyons, Lyons School District 103, Teamsters Local 777, and Rincon Family Services.
    Commissioner Frank J. Aguilar Hosts Fifth Annual Dia de los Muertos Family Resource Fair  Cook County
  • Jesse Jackson Jr July 2025
    Jesse Jackson Jr. Launches Candidacy for Congress Civil Rights
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas to Celebrate Diwali by Recognizing Indian Community Leaders Cook County
  • Andrew Boutros US Attorney Illinois
    Statement of US Attorney Andrew S. Boutros and Federal Law Enforcement Leadership in Chicago on Ongoing Criminal Immigration Enforcement Operations Chicago
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    The 5 Most Common Mistakes Homeowners Make with Property Taxes Cook County
  • Road construction cement truck. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Hastings: $123 million in IDOT projects will improve South Suburban roads through collaboration with local leaders construction
  • Source: Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
    Ratepayers will lose in the rush to approve battery storage electricity legislation in Springfield Business
  • Joyful reunion photo courtesy of Jeffery M. Leving & Assc law firm
    Leving Team Prevented a Father’s Wrongful Separation from His Child Dads' Rights
  • CTF Illinois Orland Park, 18230 Orland Pkwy, Orland Park, IL 60467
    Hastings, Giannoulias announce opening of temporary driver services facility in Orland Park Baby Boomers
  • Emagine Theater Pink popcorn
    Popcorn with a purpose: Emagine Theatres brings back Pink Caramel Corn to support Pink Fund during Breast Cancer Awareness Month Business
Solar Eclipse July 20, 1963. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Watching the solar eclipse during a different era as a child

Posted on April 3, 2024April 4, 2024 By Ray Hanania No Comments on Watching the solar eclipse during a different era as a child
SHARE THIS STORY
            
 
  

Watching the solar eclipse during a different era as a child

The first time I saw a Solar Eclipse was at O’Hare Airport in July 1963, in an era of science fiction, nuclear bombs and outer space aliens. I’m not sure the excitement is the same as today as then.

By Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania

Free/General/Tuesday April 2, 2024. It was a bright Saturday late afternoon on July 20, 1963 and I was with my mom and dad at O’Hare Airport waiting for a cousin to arrive from overseas.

Back then, with no airport security concerns, we were able to go right to the gate at O’Hare where the arriving airplane would disembark and greet arrivals.

The world has changed a lot since then, but science and astronomy has not.

That day, there was a Solar Eclipse when the Moon passed between the Earth and the bright Sun obscuring most of the Sun and darkening the sky and surroundings on Earth. It was late in the afternoon around 5:30 PM.

Solar Eclipse July 20, 1963. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Solar Eclipse July 20, 1963. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

 

Only certain parts of the Earth could see that Solar Eclipse in its totality, such as in Canada– but in Chicago, you could see part of the Sun blackened as the moon passed over it like a black object taking a bite in the northern sky.

 

It was a big deal. We were warned then, like today as another Solar Eclipse is scheduled to occur on Monday April 8, not to look at the Solar Eclipse as it happens. We have always been told not to look directly at the sun to avoid causing damage to our eyes. It’s something we all learn early in life.

But back then we didn’t have cell phones and our personal cameras were not that great. Newspapers were more influential than TV, back then, and there was a lot of information on the 1963 eclipse. One source of information that everyone saw was included in that week’s edition of the “Peanuts” Comic Strip where Linus explained the safest way to view it.

Ray Hanania’s Columns is a reader-supported publication.
To receive new posts and support my work,
consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

visit www.Hanania.com

We had a Bell and Howell soundless movie camera, but we were concerned about the sun damaging the camera lens. We also had a black box Kodak camera, too. But there was the same concern that pointing the lens towards the sun would cause damage.

Cameras were expensive back then, and still one of the great technologies we had next to the TV, stereo and telephone.

So, my dad brought two pieces of paper and punched a small hole in the center of one sheet using a sharp pencil that he kept in his shirt pocket — dad was an accountant back then with Sinclair Oil Company in Chicago. The oil giant featured the green inflatable Dino the Dinosaur toy that he would bring home.

But the Solar Eclipse was special. There was a Solar Eclipse that took place the year before on Feb 5, 1962. It turns out that NASA was sending John Glenn, one of seven Mercury Astronauts, to the moon. Glenn and Friendship 7 landed on the moon on Feb. 20, 1962 only two weeks later. Space exploration was growing in 1963 under then President John F. Kennedy.

A year later after Glenn’s historic landing, Americans got to look north and see a partial Solar Eclipse which with the maximum eclipse taking place over Canada. It was spectacular.

As a baby boomer, I grew up in an era in which the impact of nuclear bombs and radiation were frightening and often the subject of television science fiction films. Space travel was captivating.

The movie “Them!” premiered in 1954, when I was only two years old. But it was one of my favorite movies when I finally got to see it years later, right around the appearance of Sputnik and the Solar Eclipse.

But the real fright of space began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union, the Communist nation that we helped save during World War II, began the cold war and threatened nuclear destruction of America. There were several Sputniks, Soviet Satellites we feared would harm our nation. including Sputnik 3 launched on May 15, 1958.

Sputnik provoked our fears and a naive public response to those fears. In Kindergarten and First Grade, we practiced hiding under our little wood desks in our brick schools in the event of a Soviet Nuclear Attack. I remember crawling under my little wood desk clutching my box of Crayola Crayons worried that the world around us would be destroyed in much the same way that monsters were being created ad destroyed on TV movies.

By the time the Solar Eclipse had arrived viewable from Chicago, we were primed by fear, awe and wonderment by space, science and the expanding fascination of science fiction that grew out of the post war era and the emergence of baby boomers.

My dad captivated the fascination of the kids at the airport when the eclipse began. He held the paper with the hole in front of another paper, and slowly measured it apart from each other as the black image of the moon covering the bright dot of the sun formed on the second page.

It was amazing. You could watch the black image slowly cover the bright spot on the paper as the moon covered most of the sun (if I remember correctly, we couldn’t see the full eclipse in Chicago but only a major part of it.)

Outside darkened despite the full eclipse taking place in Canada that July 20, 1963. Images of big screen science fiction creatures crawled through our minds.

The solar eclipse reminded us of the expanse of the universe, the many unknowns and the imaginations of one day seeing aliens visit our planet, as they did in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” which was released in 1951 — before I was born but left a deep fascination with me as I grew through childhood.

I’m not sure children today share the same intense fascination that I and other kids of my generation shared back in the 1950s and 1960s with mysteries of space and astronomy.

It was always with me. When I was earning enough money, as a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, I purchased a massive Celestron telescope so my daughter, who was only 8 years old in 1986, had to stand on a milk crate in the back yard of our Tinley Park home to watch Halley’s Comet with its bright white tail in the western sky.

Halley’s comet reminded us of the massive expanse of the universe. The comet cycled through space around the Sun passing Earth every 75 years. It will not be back until 2061. If I am lucky — really lucky — I will be 108 years old. My daughter will be 83. The grand kids will be in their 60s.

I still have that Celestron telescope that I bought from the Chicago Planetarium for $3,700 that year. It was worth the memory.

When the Solar Eclipse happens over the U.S., again partially viewable from Chicago, and the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun on Monday, April 8, 2024, it will be another moment impacting the lives not only of young people who can marvel at the reality of science and the universe, but for us older people, too.

Moments like that make great memories.

Don’t waste it.

Leave a comment

Subscribe to Ray’s Syndicated Columns

Click this link

(Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist. This column was originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at [email protected].)


A Message from Ray Hanania

I write four (4) columns each week on mainstream American politics civering Chicago, Illinois and the nation, and also columns on seniors and slice of life humor and serious issues.

I hope you will subscribe, enjoy the columns and share your feedback on my system’s new chat format at my website at www.RayHanania.com or www.Hanania.com, where all of the columns (FREE and PAID) are now hosted and distributed.

You can subscribe as a PAID subscriber, or as a FREE subscriber. Each week at least one column is distributed FREE of charge.

Thank you for reading my columns and listening to my podcasts. You can subscribe by clicking this link:

www.RayHanania.com

Again, a Big Thank You for supporting my writings. Your support means a lot to me.

RAY HANANIA

The Ray Hanania Radio Show Live Wed 5 PM EST in Detroit, Washington DC.
The Ray Hanania Radio Show Live Wed 5 PM EST in Detroit, Washington DC. The radio show is broadcast on the US Arab Radio Network and is sponsored by Arab News at ArabNews.com the voice of a changing region.

Click here to download the Podcast

Two Guys on Politics podcast with Former Congressman Bill Lipinski and former Chicago City Hall reporter Ray Hanania www.TwoGuysonPolitics.comWatch/listen to former Congressman Bill Lipinski and columnist Ray Hanania
rip into the headline stories the rest of the media ignores. Click to view on YouTube

Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s column by clicking this link

www.RayHanania.com

newswire info
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.  

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].

Follow RayHanania at Twitter
Ray Hanania
Latest posts by Ray Hanania (see all)
  • Father’s Fight to Protect his Abused and Badly Beaten Daughters - October 9, 2025
  • Hastings announces $75,000 grant for Olympia Fields Bicentennial Park renovations - October 8, 2025
  • Alleged Member of Chicago Street Gang Charged With Soliciting the Murder of Senior Law Enforcement Official Involved in “Operation Midway Blitz” - October 8, 2025
NPV: 37
  • Tweet

SHARE THIS STORY
            
 
  
 
 
 
           
Baby Boomers, Blogger, Commentary, Environment, Opinion, rayhanania Tags:1950s, 1960s, Baby boomer, Halley's Comet, John F. Kennedy, John Glenn, nuclear war, Solar eclipse, Sputnik, the moon, the sun

Post navigation

Previous Post: What does it tell you when pharmaceutical ads dominate
Next Post: New study shines light on need for gun storage laws

Related Posts

  • Coasters for Texas de Brazil
    Orland Park’s Texas de Brazil knocks it out of the park Blogger
  • Roseanne Barr at the Hard Rock Cafe in Maui in 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
    Roseanne Barr should spin-off her own new series Blogger
  • N95 Hospital quality coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic face mask.
    Three weeks of staying home because of COVID-19 and I am ready to break out Blogger
  • How do you not remember a DUI-drug court date?
    How do you not remember a DUI-drug court date? Blogger
  • Right from the Middle: The accomplishments of Ronald Reagan “the great communicator” Bill Lipinski
  • English: Rod Blagojevich, Emil Jones and Jeffrey Schoenberg at Illinois Executive Mansion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
    Rod Blagojevich getting revenge against political foes Blogger

More Related Articles

The U.S. Congress, west view, courtesy of Wikipedia Congress cares more about foreign interests than American interests Blogger
La Crepe Bistro in Homer Glen, 13957 S Bell Rd, Homer Glen, IL 60491-8503, +1 708-966-4866 La Crepe Bistro offers genuine French cuisine in Southwest suburbs Cook County
Douglass Park is a huge street gangbanger hangout but all Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot can do is snag motorists taxpayers going 6 miles over the posted speed limit. It's about her money not your safety. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania 6 miles over limit punished more than gangbangers carrying guns Blogger
Book cover of "Reporter" by author and journalist Seymour Hersh Briefs: Seymour Hersh’s Southwest Suburban roots Blogger
Polarization in America is empowering our enemies Blogger
Store destroyed by looters and arsonists who participated in the Black Lives Matter protests in Chicago at the end of May 2020. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has abandoned victims of looting along with the members of the Chicago Police Department. Photo courtesy Ray Hanania New and extremist Chicago political Machine takes over Blogger

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Login with your Social ID
  • OPINION
  • 06-04-25 Two Guys on Politics Background Zoom LOGO with images
    Video Podcast: Trump Kimmel Kirk Great American Divide Illegal Aliens polling and Illegal Aliens and ICE
    September 20, 2025
  • Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch speaking at a West Side affordable housing dedication
    Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, one of the best candidates to become Illinois Governor
    September 7, 2025
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    What You’re Missing on Your Property Tax Bill
    September 5, 2025
  • 05-23-25 Jeffery M. Leving
    Children of divorce caught in the middle during the holidays
    August 27, 2025
  • Cook County Treasurer Maria Papas
    We Can Help You Understand Your Property Taxes—In Nearly Any Language
    August 8, 2025
Subscribe to Ray Hanania's column graphic

Enter Your Email to Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s Columns

  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png

Mohammed Faheem The Lightning Strike Radio

  • NEWS
  • Father and two daughters Jeffery M Leving
    Father’s Fight to Protect his Abused and Badly Beaten Daughters
    October 9, 2025
  • Illinois Senator Michael Hastings addressing the Orland Township Democratic Organization Wednesday Oct. 12, 2022
    Hastings announces $75,000 grant for Olympia Fields Bicentennial Park renovations
    October 8, 2025
  • Alleged Member of Chicago Street Gang Charged With Soliciting the Murder of Senior Law Enforcement Official Involved in “Operation Midway Blitz”
    October 8, 2025
  • IIEC Logo
    The Energy Omnibus Bill will increase rates over the rest of this decade as Illinois families and businesses toil under higher utility costs
    October 8, 2025
  • Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Polish hero of the American Revolution. After arriving in America in 1776, Kosciuszko joined the Continental Army. As a skilled engineer, he made significant contributions to the war by designing fortifications for several strategic places such as Philadelphia, West Point, and Saratoga. Kosciuszko later returned to Poland to lead his native military in a 1794 uprising. In Detroit, Courtesy of WIkipedia
    Cook County Treasurer Pappas showcases Polish photographer’s first-ever American exhibit and honors Polish American Heritage Month in Chicago
    October 8, 2025
John Kass Columns

Order the book PoweR PR; Ethnic Activists Guide to Strategic Communications

YOUTUBE VIDEOS

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO RAY HANANIA'S YOUTUBE VIDEOS


Click here to view the video on YouTube or use the widget below.

Follow Ray Hanania at
Twitter
Facebook
TitkTok
BlueSky
RayHanania Columns

Creative Commons License
All works on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

Categories

Copyright © 2022 Suburban Chicagoland & Urban Strategies Group

Powered by PressBook Premium theme