A 105-year-old Texas man who's seen a dozen solar eclipses says he's still excited by the prospect of watching Monday's celestial show -- especially because he'll be able to do it close to home.
LaVerne Biser told People magazine that he was 45 when he decided to drive his family 2,000 miles to Maine for his first eclipse on July 20, 1963.
"I guess before we went to Maine all of 'em were so far away we couldn't go. We can't drive to China," he said during a video interview. "But in '63 when it was in Maine, I said 'We can drive there!'"
Since then, Biser said, he's witnessed every eclipse visible from the continental United States, as well as few others he watched from cruise liners.
"We drove to Santa Rosa, New Mexico; Beatrice, Nebraska. We drove to Alabama. We made it part of our vacations," he said.
The centenarian said his enthusiasm for eclipses stemmed from growing up on a family farm in Ohio.
"Back on the farm, it was really dark, so you could see the Big Dipper, Orion, all the constellations," he says. "We were well acquainted with the sky. I hate that kids nowadays have never really seen a sky like that."
A detailed travel diary kept by his late wife reportedly shows that Biser even told his daughter that going to Canada for the July 10, 1972, eclipse took precedence over her wedding, for which she'd selected two dates.
"If you want me to give you away, it will have to be on June 3 because I'll be at Prince Edward Island on July 8," he said, according to Marion Biser's notes.
The couple's last trip together before Marion Biser died last year at 97 was to watch the "Great American Eclipse" of Aug. 21, 2017, in Nebraska.
LaVerne Biser studied mechanical engineering at Ohio State University and family photos show him tinkering with elaborate camera gear in various locations to capture images of the moon passing in front of the sun.
In the most recent, from 2017, he posed in a field next to a tripod with multiple cameras while wearing a sun hat and a souvenir T-shirt commemorating the eclipse.
Biser, who lives in Fort Worth, said he planned to spend Monday with his 76-year-old daughter, Carol Biser Barlow, at her Plano, Texas home, which lies in the path of totality.
His only concern, he said, was the weather, which is forecast to be partly sunny with a chance of late afternoon storms.
"I'm afraid we won't see it because of the clouds. I've seen 12 of 'em and I always want to see the next one," he said with a grin.
