{"id":41220,"date":"2024-04-13T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T07:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=41220"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:20:12","slug":"he-knew-how-to-show-a-girl-a-good-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/he-knew-how-to-show-a-girl-a-good-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed: He Knew How to Show a Girl a Good Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"he<\/a>
He knew how to show a girl a good time: in 2017 Jon swept me off — to St. Joseph, Missouri, for the solar eclipse. Barbara Newhall photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My eclipse story is seven years old. It happened in St. Joseph, Missouri, directly on the path of totality for the solar eclipse of 2017. I was in the right place at the right time for that eclipse because my husband, Jon Newhall, knew how to show a girl a good time.<\/p>\n

When Jon and I were out on the town — dinner at a white table cloth restaurant, a night at the San Francisco Opera, a baseball game at the frigid Candlestick Park — he’d sometimes turn to me mid-evening and ask, “Am I showing you a good time?”<\/p>\n

\"he<\/a>
In the right place at the right time in 2017 — Jon decided that St. Joseph, just north of Kansas City, was the place he’d take me for the total solar eclipse. He bought the plane tickets, found us a hotel and made sure we had eclipse viewing glasses. NASA map<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wry smile that accompanied the question implied that Jon was kidding, that he was making an ironic reference to our 1950s teenage years, when a boy took a girl out on a date and “showed her a good time.” If it was a movie, he’d buy her popcorn. If it was the prom, he’d wash the family car and drive it to her door wearing Old Spice.<\/p>\n

He Knew How to Show a Girl a Good Time<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Jon didn’t need to ask if I was having a good time. He knew I was enjoying whatever he’d made happen that evening — the rack of lamb, the Mozart, the Giants.<\/p>\n

Still, I don’t think he was kidding when he asked, “Am I showing you a good time?”\u00a0He was letting me know, in his shy way, that he<\/em> was having a good time.<\/p>\n

On My Own This Time Around<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I was on my own on Monday when the partial eclipse made its way across the San Francisco Bay Area sky — and the total eclipse made its way from Texas to parts\u00a0 northeast.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have solar eclipse glasses, so I contented myself with photographing the eerie, crescent-shaped shadows falling on my deck.<\/p>\n

\"he<\/a>
The partially eclipsed sunlight shone through the spaces between the leaves of a nearby tree and fell on my deck in crescent shapes. The spaces functioned as pinhole cameras<\/a>. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The couple next door, meanwhile, were out on their deck, chatting and looking up at the sun. They had each other.\u00a0They also had the right glasses.<\/p>\n

I didn’t.<\/p>\n

If Jon were here, I thought, I’d have my own pair of ISO glasses right now. I’d be looking straight at the sun. Jon would have seen to that.<\/p>\n

What am I saying? If Jon were here, I’d be in Texas.<\/p>\n

More about the — rainy — 2017 totality at “A Totality Disappointment in St. Joseph, Missouri.”<\/a>\u00a0 What to do and feel now that we’re getting older and older? Read “Religion Scholar Huston Smith at 93 — ‘Be Happy!'”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"dimmed-sunlight-during-partial-eclipse\"<\/a>
The partially eclipsed sun threw a bizarrely bright yet partially dimmed light on my California backyard on Monday morning. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"he<\/a><\/p>\n

I was in the right place at the right time for the 2017 solar eclipse because my husband, Jon Newhall, knew how to show a girl a good time.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2013,1995,2752,34,260,29,82,1035,2419],"class_list":["post-41220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-widowed","tag-1950s","tag-astronomy","tag-dating","tag-dont-miss","tag-eclipse","tag-jon","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-teenagers","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48799,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41220\/revisions\/48799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}