Today is the 47th anniversary of an event that changed the course of my life. On March 7, 1970 I witnessed my first total eclipse of the Sun. I was still in high school and had only been driving for a few months. Fortunately, my parents permitted me to take the family car and drive 600 miles south (unchaperoned) to place myself in the path of the total eclipse. I was completely unprepared for the exquisite splendor of standing in the Moon’s shadow and immediately realized that I wanted to do this again. Nearly 5 decades later I’ve traveled to every continent to witness totality 27 times. I know that several people on SEML (Jay Pasachoff, Glenn Schneider, and a few others) have witnessed even more TSEs. I'm sure that a number of you on SEML also saw or got your start with TSE1970. In any case, there will be many new inductees into the ranks of eclipse chasers on August 21, 2017.