"The eclipse amazing as always and weather as unpredictable" by: Mike Reddell

   MaLinda, Jessica and I shared a pair of eclipse shades Monday afternoon as we joined millions of Americans staring into the sun and moon.  
  I thought it was cool, seeing a celestial event first-hand, well sort of.   
  For me, the appeal is knowing the heavens move but never getting to see the transition.  
  The lighting definitely changed – something I was interested in seeing.  
  Texas A&M posted time-lapse photography of the campus – mostly of Kyle Field – during the eclipse, taking the viewer for daylight into darkness and back again.  
  My hometown of Kerrville was in the path of totality, and high school classmates sent photos of the city in darkness – and of the eclipse itself.  
  Kerrville had some cloud cover, but you could see the ring of fire.  
  Leading up to the eclipse the excitement from the coming event seemed to dissipate somewhat, as in the hordes weren't coming.  
  Mid-afternoon Monday, I saw a Houston Chronicle Facebook post indicating with people looking at a cellphone photo of the eclipse at the Kerr County Courthouse with an accompanying article saying the turnout was way down from what was expected.    
  That wasn't totally true according to my friend John Sample, who writes the stock market column for the Sentinel.  
  There was a huge crowd in Louise Hay Park on the Guadalupe River Monday, so the city was hardly a ghost town.  
  The cloud cover must have been a little of a bummer though.  
  Jessica talks about the eclipse in her column on this page that's worth checking out.  
  Jessica covers the tourism department for our newspaper and showed me the Matagorda County Visitors Guide request for proposal (RFP).  
  The RFP lists stories of interest – birding, fishing, kayaking, beaches, bays, river - about Matagorda County and tourism-related events.  
  The list is appropriately quite lengthy.  
  But you know what isn't listed about all the things that will be covered?  
  History. Not a lick.  
  Matagorda County is one of Stephen F. Austin's original counties, with 13 places on the National Register of Historic Places.  
  To name a few: the historic homes in Bay City's Southside Residential Historic District, Hotel Blessing, the Luther Hotel in Palacios and the Matagorda Cemetery, the final resting place for several Texas Republic leaders.  
  Another National Register destination is Christ Episcopal Church in Matagorda, the third largest city in Texas at the time of the Alamo.   
  The State of Texas lists all of the county's many historical markers.  
  I'm just curious how history doesn't figure in the planning.