Moony over tattoos tied to the eclipse

LATROBE, Pa. - You think full moons make people a little nutty?

Monday's solar eclipse already is affecting people's behavior, including that of a Latrobe librarian who was moved to get a moon tattoo on her ankle to sort of match tattoos on the wrists of her anti-tattoo librarian sister and her niece. And her nephew and his wife plan to also get commemorative moon tats when nine family members gather this weekend in South Carolina to experience the total eclipse.

Tracy Trotter, director of the Adams Memorial Library, is a self-described astronomy and history geek who helped organize this Pittsburgh family expedition last year in lieu of Christmas presents. The plan was for relatives to stay in an affordable beach motel they booked early in Myrtle Beach and, on Monday, drive two hours farther south into the "path of totality" in Charleston, where they aim to experience the total eclipse from at or near Fort Sumter.

Getting tattoos there to remember this rare celestial event was the idea of the nephew, J.P. Oldfield, and his wife, Cerina, of Pittsburgh.

"I said, 'That's pretty cool, but we all should get them,' " says Trotter.

Most of the group said yes, enthusiastically.

Trotter, of Hempfield, is 53, and this is her first tattoo: "I've always wanted one, but I've never had a reason to get one."

Armed with the story of a total eclipse that's long been on her bucket list, she drew up her own design and took it and herself to Dave Plummer's brand-new shop in Latrobe last week, when the other ladies joined her. They wanted to give their tattoos time to heal so they could safely swim in the ocean.

Being a librarian, "I had to add a touch that tied it back to a book," Trotter says, explaining, "My favorite book is Watership Down, a book with characters who are rabbits, so in front of the crescent is the silhouette of a tiny rabbit. This also fit the theme because many cultures don't see a 'man in the moon,' they see a 'rabbit in the moon.'

"I was also born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit," she notes, "so I thought a bunny worked all the way around."

Did it hurt? "It did."

She says her sister - Leslie Oldfield of Youngwood, who also works at the library - is less keen on her first tattoo, in part because she's always railed against them, but Oldfield's pink-haired-and-pierced musician daughter, Ellie, and Trotter are juiced.

And so are the few other people who've glimpsed Trotter's ankle at the library, which is buzzing with eclipse programming anyway.

The Latrobe ladies snapped photos of their three new moons, but they plan to take more, better ones after the tattoos heal and everybody else gets theirs.

"My idea was not to tell anyone until after we came back," says Trotter, who is really into this eclipse, even planning to submit photos to the Eclipse Megamovie Project. "I don't want to jinx it."

But the $50-each tattoos do take the pressure off souvenir hunting through all the T-shirts and other Great American Eclipse tchotchkes that are flooding the market. "I don't need to buy anything. I'm done!"