Moon Shadows

Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? It’s great when nature brings you that kind of limited engagement. I wouldn’t have even known about it except that it was featured on Yahoo yesterday. Seeing that article every time I went online during the day helped me remember to look to the sky beginning at around 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Last night I had my son Jesse and my nephews Hunter and Clay on the backyard rink and occasionally I’d stop the hockey game and insist that everybody look upward. It was pretty cool -- especially when it was fully in shadow, glowing red. From the ice I called my wife Wendy on my cell phone and insisted she come out and view it with us and I even called Kelley Hamilton, who’s a bit of a moon child, to remind her to step outside and take a look. Busier than most with her four-month-old, she said she appreciated the reminder. And I appreciated the reminder too. The one I got from

The one I also got from and . Now the internet is at once, a blessing and a curse. I love the instant communication. The downside of it is there’s just so much information it’s overwhelming. The web is not a place for those who are easily distracted, and I am one. But in this case, it was a tickler for us to do something outside the virtual world.

And I guess that’s the best possible use for the technology; to maximize our time with the planet and with each other. To use these tools to accomplish our tasks and still have enough time and energy to do the things that we really require; time spent together in a common experience. And as we stood there staring up at the moon in full eclipse I realized the real limited engagement was the one I was having with Jesse, Hunter and Clay on the ice in my backyard. If that sounds a little overly sentimental, you’ll forgive me; I need all the help I can get. I play hockey with a cell phone in my pocket.

Fred Nahhat

DPTV Director of On-Air & Online Fundraising
fred@dptv.org