The Chronicle can gladly report that there was nothing supernatural about the power outage during yesterday's total eclipse of the sun. As we've pieced together the story, Mrs. Hunting's cat, Tableau, was taking a nap on the sunlit porch of her home on Daisy Street as the eclipse started. A delivery van paused next to her place as driver Jason Smith  wanted to take a quick look at the event with his pinhole viewer. As totality arrived, there was a noise described as an unearthly screech of rage, and Jason's foot jerked off the brake and landed on the accelerator. The car leaped forward and hit an old cherry tree in front of the empty house next door. The tree toppled over, bringing down power lines.

"I told the township that tree was dead and needed to come down. I wrote them several times," said Mrs. Hunting. "They never did anything." And Tableau's yowl of protest? "He takes his naps in the sun seriously. I get a lot of grumbling on cloudy days."

Neither the delivery van nor the driver were seriously hurt. Mrs. Hunting points out that it is all the town's fault for not taking down the tree. She says she has copies of all her complaints.