This story begins in 1992. It was my senior year of college, 32 years ago this very week. I'd learned a lot at school, but nothing quite as important as THIS realization: If I rolled up to a party with a couple crates of records, people were often willing to PAY me to play them. This strange little skill proved very valuable living on a meager collegiate budget.
So when a sorority called to see if I'd DJ their end-of-year formal, I was all in. I figured I'd worry about the logistical problems later -- like how the formal was in Cedar Rapids and I owned NO sound gear or a vehicle big enough to cart said non-existent gear halfway across Iowa.
But where there's a will, there's a way. So when the formal rolled around, I enlisted the help of two close friends. The three of us convoyed to Cedar Rapids in separate cars filled to the brim with our respective home stereos, which we then wired together into a makeshift PA system. Shockingly, it all worked out fairly well. I still have pics from that formal, and it was a good time.
The one thing we DIDN'T procure, however, were hotel rooms for the night. So after the shindig wound down and we got everything packed back into our tiny cars, we decided to hit the road and make the return convoy back to the Quad Cities in the pitch middle of the night. My friend Jeff was in the lead car, my roommate (whose name, confusingly, was also Shane) was in the middle, and I was bringing up the rear. That's when the night went wonky.
Somewhere halfway between Iowa City and Davenport, OtherShane had a tire blowout. Thankfully, he managed to pull his car off the road safely and I followed suit. Jeff, meanwhile, didn't notice a thing and kept right on driving, so that's the last you'll hear of him in this story, "How the Two Shanes Found Themselves on the Side of I-80 at 4 a.m. Attempting to Change a Tire."
"Dude," OtherShane said to me while struggling with his tire jack in the ditch. "A little help here?"
Except I didn't respond. I was frozen, eyes glued to the north. OtherShane, rapidly losing his patience, stood up and saw it, too. "Whoa." There, along the horizon, bluish-green hues danced in the sky. For the first time in my life, I was seeing the aurora borealis.
"This is amazing," I said, pulling out my phone to take some pics. Except I didn't, because it was 1992, and camera phones didn't exist. All I could do was stare in awe -- for approximately 8 seconds, before OtherShane said, "Cool, now help me change this tire, you idiot."
That was my only encounter with nature's most elusive beauty. Eight seconds of spectacle. By the time we had the spare on his car, they were gone. I've harbored a grudge over that night for decades, wishing I could go back and see those ethereal lights, even for just eight more seconds.
At least once a year, there's some meteorologist on TV telling us a geomagnetic storm is headed our way that might cause the Northern Lights to appear this far south. Every time it happens, I get excited. Every time, I've been disappointed. Invariably, clouds will always roll in or the predicted storm just won't be enough to bring the auroras down to Illinois. One time, a meteorologist was SO confident we were in for a show that we drove all the way to a light pollution-free zone in Wisconsin, convinced we were about to witness wonders. When we got there and looked up, all we saw was blackness.
So when those predictions were issued again last weekend, I rolled my eyes. Besides, I had a DJ gig that night. But as I was in the club trying to make dancefloor magic, I started getting texts from friends. I started seeing posts on Facebook, first from Europe and soon from people in Illinois. This particular geomagnetic storm didn't disappoint. Auroras were dancing in the skies above the Midwest, and I was stuck indoors. Sigh.
At 2 a.m., I left the club, half elated from owning yet another dancefloor for the night, but half dejected by what I missed in order to do it. I was heading home, literally at the apex of the Centennial Bridge, when a strange glimmer caught my eye in the rearview mirror -- but it wasn't another car catching up to me. It was the sky itself, bathed in an amber hue bright enough to see from the middle of town. Had the bridge lights not been turned off to assist bird migration last weekend, I might not have even noticed.
I was bone tired, but it didn't matter. I hit Illinois and immediately turned the car around. An hour later, I was some 15 miles north of Davenport along the darkest piece of rural real estate I could find, by myself at 3 a.m. Once again, I was pulled over on the side of the road -- but this time, there was no tire to change. It was just me, myself, and dancing skies -- and whatever was making that creepy howling noise, but let's not think about that.
Cross one off the bucket list. It only took a few extra decades, but I finally had a front-row view of the aurora borealis, right here in River City. I even had a camera phone, so I was able to record it for posterity. It was cool.
Like, literally cool. It was honestly pretty chilly, I was in the middle of nowhere without a single other human knowing my whereabouts, and I swear whatever was howling was getting closer. I didn't want this story to end with "and-that's-how-I-was-eaten-by-a-chupacabra," so I waved goodbye to the wavy skies and headed home. It wasn't the end of the magic, though.
Seconds later, while still on my way back to civilization, I suddenly watched a fiery green light fall from the skies and presumably land ahead of me somewhere. I still have no earthly idea what that light was. It didn't look like a meteorite. It looked much closer, like someone had shot off a bottle rocket -- but it was almost 4 a.m., I was surrounded by corn fields, and there were no signs of life anywhere. I probably should've investigated more, but I've seen how "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" ends (spoiler: not well for anyone,) so I kept driving. I'm happy that life still holds some mystery.
Do I have anything profound to say about my night with the Northern Lights? Nah. While a rare occurrence this far south of the pole, anyone that night who didn't live under clouds or light pollution could've seen the same show I did -- but what a show it was. Now if someone could send over some coffee, that'd be swell -- for some reason, I'm suuuuper tired this week.
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