I had no idea so many of my neighbors were frolicking outdoors well past midnight on summer nights.
And I still wouldn’t know had I not forced myself to stay up very late (for me) Saturday evening in hopes of seeing the Perseid meteor shower.
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Following the advice of NASA, I kept myself awake until Saturday had technically passed into Sunday. Then I went outside to look for a place in the yard where I wouldn’t have any direct interference from house and street lights.
Ideally I should have gotten in my car and driven out to the countryside. Light pollution diminishes city star-gazing. And Hopkinsville has the unique, added challenge of defective LED street lights that splash an eery purple glow in the night.
But I decided to make the best of it. This was supposed to be the prime night to see meteor streaks. We call them shooting stars but they are particles from comets and bits from broken asteroids passing into Earth’s atmosphere.
I pulled a patio chair to the best spot in my lawn and opened up my trusty iPhone compass to make sure I was facing the northeast sky.
Then I settled in to give my eyes time to adjust to the night sky. I had read it would take a good 30 minutes.
While my eyes waited, my ears could not ignore the sounds coming from other lawns. Chattering. Laughter. Music. Balls bouncing.
Have you ever been on a lake late at night and listened to voices carrying great distances? It sounded like that.
One of the neighbors must have good taste in music, I thought, as Elton John began to waft my way.
Time on my hands
Could be time spent with you
Laughing like children
Sir Elton’s voice was not outdone by the crickets around my house or the distant engine rumble of trucks on the parkway.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, my hearing picked up more and more — including a woman who was having a cellphone conversation as she walked up the street and passed my house.
All of this activity created a serene soundtrack to my stargazing. While I watched several meteors slice thin white lines across divine spaces, the hum of this world kept company with me.
I was charmed.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
