According to firsthand accounts, Vick Banzler, our local herpetologist extraordinaire, was just stepping off the diner porch with one of his prize beauties hissing at the blazing summer sky, when the sheer magnitude of the moment came fully into focus. It just stopped everything down in the restaurant when Vick shouted, “Here we go again!” By that he was referring to a detached solar corona the size of New Jersey hurtling toward earth at 4.0 million MPH. But hey, it’s only the Apocalypse! Right?
Hey! The Posted Speed Limit is 4 Million MPH!
How Time Flies – When We’re Having so much Fun in the Sun
Hard to fathom, but it’s already been ten years since the occurrence of the Second Great Sunspot Dilemma. Of course, you might know it under a different name: the “Great Five-Points Highway Diner Sighting.” It was the day that little old us got put on the map.
It was right around high noon and the diner was in the middle of a typical lunch hour rush. The day was no different from any in the weeks, months and years that had preceded it. The world had finally emerged from the deleterious effects of the First Great Sunspot Dilemma, though that cataclysmic event had taught one irrefutable and enduring lesson: be prepared. No one knew it at the time, but history was about to repeat itself.
Can Anyone Say “Meltdown?”
The economy was humming along pretty well back then. The world had been forced to refocus on what was really essential. We were constantly evolving as a society, constantly gravitating toward what put us on solid ground and moving away from those pursuits deemed frivolous. But I digress. Our own Five-Points Highway Diner provided the early warning alert for the second bombardment of solar flares from above. And what a show. The explosion on the sun was so enormous, you could see it with the naked eye.
Even the Snakes were Squinting
According to firsthand accounts, Vick Banzler, our local herpetologist extraordinaire, was just stepping off the diner porch with one of his prize beauties hissing at the blazing summer sky, when the sheer magnitude of the moment came fully into focus.
It just stopped everything down in the restaurant because the minute Vick shouted the warning, people’s hearts sank to the floor. They realized: “Here we go again.” It’s hard to imagine something so playful and colorful being so detrimental. The dancing auroras were always fascinating to watch. They darted about the skyline in some amazingly multi-chromatic spectacles. They even made sounds as they whipped about. In some extreme cases, the sky was turned totally red. But that lasted only a couple minutes before it turned completely blue, then green and finally yellow.
Nothing Good Comes from Something at 4 Million MPH
Amid murmurs and cries of despair, people stampeded outside and saw the debilitating prospects of a pimple five times the size of New Jersey ripping from the frenzied face of the sun and hurtling toward earth at 4.0 million MPH. For those old enough to remember, they realized they had about 23.5 hours to prepare for another onslaught of electrical loss, desperation, disruption and chaos. Yes, life was going to change again. It always did when the sun smacked us around like this. And just when things were getting good on television again!
The second installment of the Great Sunspot Dilemma was not as fierce or ferocious as the first go-around. To be sure, we were far greater prepared for the second episode, though you’re never one hundred percent prepared when one of these babies detaches from the sun and barrels straight for you. But as long as you don’t get totally blindsided, you can stay ahead of the game. There were a couple years that were a little rocky, but we didn’t go through nearly the gyrations as the first time. That took literally centuries for us to climb back out of the solar hole.
But Hey, It’s Only the Apocalypse – Right?
I’m writing this commemorative article to congratulate the fine people of Silt Ridge for banding together and making it through this critical decade. It’s also important to reflect on what we learned from the first global outage and how we applied it to the second. Though we don’t want to think about it, we know that a third iteration will someday visit us and cause more havoc than the first two combined.
What has this taught us about ourselves? Are we as resilient as previous generations? Are we willing to make sacrifices? Are we willing to put it on the line to ensure survival so we’ll all live to fight another day? It’s up to us. Based on what I’ve seen, it’s going to take more than a torrent of solar flares hurtling from the heavens to keep us down for the count in coal country.