The moon, the sun, the sons, flaming eyeballs and an eclipse to remember

Before TikTok, before even Netflix, human beings entertained themselves with the sun and the moon. This was how I sold my 11-year-old child on the idea of getting in a car and driving seven hours: How about we skip school on Monday to go and see a total solar eclipse?

Bless that curious boy—he was in from the moment I said “skip school."

Still, on our endless journey to the St. Lawrence River, I worried. I worried about forecast clouds, pushing west to east, spoiling the view and making me feel like a totality sucker. I worried about eyeballs. Warnings were everywhere: Don’t look at the eclipse without the special sunglasses. It was the last thing my wife said before we headed out. I told her to rest assured, our lifetime of clear vision would be safely protected by eyewear I bought online after a stick of deodorant.

(I was careful. The glasses were legit, certified, recommended by a careful friend who knew his stuff.)

Of course, if you know anything about 11-year-olds, the surest way to get them to do something is to tell them not to do something. My son wanted to know, precisely, what would happen if he looked into the eclipse without the proper eyewear. I told him that I’d researched this very question, and I’d learned that a child’s eyeballs would burst into flames, turn into smoldering golf balls, and roll out of his skull. My son is inescapably curious, and this only fascinated him more.

As for me, I am not typical solar eclipse material. I’m afraid of outer space, and I tend to be frightened by crowds, and mass enthusiasms that aren’t bowl games featuring the Wisconsin Badgers.

For the New Year, however, I’d resolved to spend more time looking at real things, and less time staring at screens. Like everyone, I am sick of the Internet, and I crave more authenticity. I swore to seek out tactile human experiences, and to put away my phone, except to read, write, text, talk, travel, film, photograph, check the temperature, listen to music, shop for vintage sneakers and basketball cards, and watch old episodes of “Entourage."

The prospect of totality offered lo-fi relief from our frantic digital world. An eclipse, after all, was a marvel of real life, a vestige of the original monoculture, aka stuff that doesn’t require Wi-Fi. This was a Celestial Super Bowl, outdoors, available to anyone, without commercials, and far less expensive than a nosebleed at the Eras Tour.

I did encounter skeptics—friends who thought Eclipse Mania was overbaked media hype, and not worth such travel. My father-in-law proudly announced himself as an eclipsaphobe, telling us: “What’s the big deal? It’s just one thing in front of another thing." This made me immediately want to order him a custom T-shirt: TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE 2024. ONE THING IN FRONT OF ANOTHER THING.

What convinced me was a brief paragraph I read in the local St. Lawrence newspaper, the Thousand Islands Sun. The next total eclipse over the 1000 Islands won’t occur until 2399, it read. I have been doing a lot of yoga lately, and I ate a salad for lunch last Friday, but I was not completely confident I could make it until the next one. We were all in for Monday.

We’d been invited to watch the eclipse at the house of friends, another dad and his young son, and let me tell you: This kid was just as excited at the prospect of someone’s eyeballs bursting into flames, turning into smoldering golf balls, and rolling out of a skull. The dads would spend a lot of time on eyewear patrol. The rest of our time, we watched (and dreaded) the clouds.

Eclipse weather paranoia is real. At least it was where we were, east of Lake Ontario, barely meters from the Canadian l border. By 2 p.m. ET a mostly perfect morning had curdled into something hazy and gray. As the eclipse began, we could detect it under our special glasses, but the image was fuzzy, not sharp. Soon after, it tucked behind the clouds altogether, suddenly invisible. I felt like Charlie Brown kicking the eclipse football. We’d been so close…

Then luck broke back our way, briefly. Minutes from totality, a gray haze gave way to a wispy layer of clouds, and even a hint of blue. The temperature dropped sharply and a moody darkness fell. It was here: totality! This was the main event, what we’d traveled for, a rare phenomenon, even briefly observable without glasses.

The best way to describe a total eclipse is to say I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen the Cubs win a World Series, and an airport that sold frozen margaritas to go. Before driving north I’d watched a video in which a man talked about weeping when he saw totality, and this confession intrigued me, but I did not weep. I felt too awestruck to cry.

Those couple of minutes have already claimed a permanent spot in my brain. The trip was so worthwhile. The kids rose to the occasion and stayed responsible with their glasses. No one’s eyeballs spilled to the floors. As the show ended, we could hear clapping coming from other people’s homes—laughing even. It was the sound of pure joy, no screens or subscription required. What a world it can be, when it still surprises you.

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com