Texas man ready for his 13th solar eclipse
105 YEARS OLD
In 1963, Laverne Biser and his family piled into an Oldsmobile station wagon and drove from Texas to Maine to watch their first solar eclipse.
“The car was loaded with luggage and a bunch of my camera equipment because I wanted to get the perfect picture of the eclipse during our big adventure,” said Biser, who was then 45.
After that trip, Biser said, he knew he'd be putting thousands more kilometres on his car.
“That one eclipse was all it took,” he said. “I saw one and I had to see them all. I was hooked.”
Over the next six decades, he watched 11 more eclipses, travelling everywhere from New Mexico to the Black Sea for the perfect view.
Now Biser, 105, is hoping for one last moment in the moon's shadow. This weekend, one of his granddaughters will drive him from Fort Worth to his daughter's house in Plano, Tex., so he can witness his 13th eclipse — the last total solar eclipse to be visible in the United States for 20 years.
“I probably won't be around for the next one,” said Biser, whose birthday is in June. “So I'm hoping the weather will co-operate long enough for me to see this one. I'm praying for clear weather.”
He's making the hour trip from Fort Worth to Plano, he said, because there, the eclipse will have one more minute of totality, meaning the sun will be completely blocked.
“To someone who loves eclipses, that's a big deal,” he said.
Cloudy skies are forecast for much of the country during Monday's eclipse, but at Biser's age, he is accustomed to beating the odds.
“Crazy living is my secret,” said Biser, who recently shared his story with the Dallas Morning News. “I've never had a sip of liquor or a puff of smoke — just lots of chocolate milk every day. And I continue to be curious, and I like to have fun.”
Biser gave up driving a few years ago, and he now has a caregiver since the death of his wife, Marion, last year. He still enjoys tinkering with his homemade telescopes and marvelling at the night sky, he said.
“Lots of modern kids in big towns have never seen a starry sky,” Biser said. “Kids today don't know about the Big Dipper and the North Star. I always felt lucky when I was growing up to see the Milky Way every night.”
Biser said he was raised on a farm in Ohio, where he spent a lot of time outdoors with his two brothers and developed an appreciation for science and the natural world.