My Blood Red Moon

A couple of out-of-town visitors from Vineland crashed here last night, the night of the celebrated Blood Red Moon. We ate dinner at the Bagdad on Hawthorne, walked around the blocks, checked out the absurdly named “Goodwill on Hawthorne” (gentrified thrift shop), and headed up to Mt Tabor to view the moon.

A month or so ago, I watched Ang Lee’s film “Taking Woodstock.” When we got up to Mt Tabor, the film came back to me. The crowds up in the park reminded me of the famous concert scenes: lines of cars, people walking, bicycles, strollers, guitars hanging from shoulders, something celebratory in the air – the moon, though not yet; as it happened, someone exaggerated how early the first views over the Cascades would open, and some people had apparently waited a couple of hours for the show to start. But what the hey; it was a free concert.

We drove up from the west, past the cinder cone, around the upper swings, and over to the east side road that up rises from 69th. We might have been in line at Woodstock. The road was moon-jammed. The east-side picnic area looked like the media corral at Cape Canaveral. There were tripods with exotic if not phallic telephoto lenses. People were spread out on blankets, enjoying a bottle of wine, coffee from a thermos, bread and cheese and apples and grapes, on lawn chairs and beach chairs, reading, talking, watching, people sitting on the picnic benches and on top the tables, people crowded along the paths, clustered together in spots where the views of the Cascades open up through the near tree tunnels, no shortage of dogs, tail gates open, everyone gazing east, anticipating the moon on the clear evening, a touch of fall mist rising off the distant mountain range. In short, it was a party.

By now, you probably have seen a picture of last night’s Blood Red Moon, if you didn’t take your own, so I won’t bother posting the one I took (instead, I’ve included my photo of the moon marble on a blood red bell). Never before has the moon been snapped by so many cell phones on a given evening, and it won’t happen again, I heard, until 2033. Everyone I talked to had calculated how old they will then be, a math problem I did not want to contemplate.

Back down on 69th, the Line 15 bus was unable to make the turn east from Belmont, was stuck fast diagonally between lines of an overflow of questionably parked cars, and traffic was being diverted. A tow truck arrived with red lights flashing. The night was darkening, the Blood Red Moon rising, gradually turning white, everyone in the streets, watching, Woodstock wonky-like. I’m thinking tonight I might walk back up into the park and see if there is still a moon.