I decided to try a total solar eclipse 1998 February 26 on a ship off the coast of Aruba in the Caribbean. The experience was fulfilling enough that I have since seen fourteen more total solar eclipses and have gathered a community of eclipse friends. That community lost a dear member, Bill Speare, 2024 May 24, just a few days short of his eighty-eighth birthday.

     I was on the same tour as Bill 2002 December 4 in Woomera, Australia, but I'm not 100% sure we met then. I have neither pictures nor recollection of meeting in 2002.

     2006 March 29 in Libya I have pictures. Bill was Old School. He used analogue film in his camera and he never joined the smart-phone revolution. He had a piece of wood with a solar-viewing filter mounted on it and a collection of Dymo labels with the dates of his eclipses. He didn't realize he would eventually need more eclipse-recording real estate 'cuz he ended up going to the bottom of the wood and wrapping around to the back.

     We eclipse chasers think in terms of a solar eclipse cycle of eighteen years, eleven days, and eight hours. It's called a "saros" and eclipses of the same saros are basically identical except for being eight time zones later, one-third of the way around the world. The most-recent eclipse in Mexico and the United States was the same saros as 2006 March 26, so I knew Bill for one saros cycle. Our mutual friend Howard knew him eighteen years earlier, hence they were friends for two saros cycles, thirty-six years.

     We lodged together in 2013 in Uganda with Brian McGee's new company Astro Trails which was essentially the same excellent tour guidance of his old company Explorers. I remember one moment, we had some extra time in Fort Portal, I had noticed the Tooro Botanical Garden on my morning run, so Bill and I walked over there to see the sights at the site. There was a strong sense of preservation in our tour and there was a good sense of friendship being with Bill.

     We shared a room on a ship in Indonesia. Bill wanted to do the cruise, I figured being with Bill was a good thing, so I went along and it was great.

     I have other old friends in my life. The first group I worked with at Bell Telephone Laboratories, the guys who made cellular telephone service AMPS happen, gets together a few times a year and I go back to New Jersey to have lunch with my old friends. But there is a qualitative difference between groups like AMPS and eclipse chasers. Other groups are associated with a place while we go all over the world. We identify our moments as often by where as when. It was Australia or Uganda or Wyoming rather than 2002 or 2013 or 2017. I know my next two are Barcelona and Luxor, the dates elude me without looking them up. It's a different and wonderful psychology and I got to share it with Bill Speare often.

     Prior to 2024, Bill had thirty eclipse trips with twenty-six successes (not being "clouded out") and he missed a couple of trips for failing-health reasons. With his breathing issues he wasn't going to make it to Mexico City. On the Zoom call celebrating his life I found out he managed to get to Syracuse, New York, 2024 April 8, to get his twenty-seventh look at the solar corona just before his last moments. That news gave me great joy as eclipses were so important to Bill, maybe almost as important as the friendships he forged in his many travels.

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