TOW
06-06-2005, 22:38
Lightning Bugs
It’s lightning bug season here in southeastern Kansas like it’s black fly season up in Maine. There has got to be at least a octillion lighting up the sky around here every night after the sun goes down and it gets pitch dark.
The great thing though about lightning bugs is that they don’t chew on you like them ole black flies do up in Maine. I’ll never forget the month of June 2002. It is permanently etched in my brain for the rest of my life. Those black flies got good and fat off of my lean body. No matter how I covered every part of my exposed skin, those ferocious critters managed to get in and do some good wholesome eating. I even saw a horde of them carry a big ole fat boy into the woods while he was flailing his arms and kicking and screaming and all. It was terrible I tell you, never will forget that ghastly site. I didn’t dare go to see if he was okay. I got out of them woods as fast as I could…
Enough talk about black flies, gives me the heebee jeebees just to think about them.
I’ll never forget the the time I had as a youngster hanging out down on the bottom lands of the Neosho River with my family celebrating the 4th of July and hunting lightning bugs after the sun went down. It was so cool because the grass seem to have lit up first like it might be a fire in the tall blades. There’d be little sparks at first here and there. As the evening became more darker, there were more sparks. And as it became almost too dark to see five feet in front of you, the place would really light up!
Then as the night really came on those little sparks would begin to rise out of the blades of grass and into the night air. If you’d let your eyes just kinda wander you could imagine you were in another zone, the twilight zone so to speak.
Then the crickets would begin their crescendo until they were really kicking a beat. Backing them up would be the different kinds of frogs that hang out along the river. It was just plain awesome!
I feel like a child again just remembering that time, that era. Life was a bit simpler then, or so I imagined. And when the youngin’s of today get to be the age I am right now, they too will remember a time when life was a bit more simpler way back when. It happens with every generation.
My siblings and I would catch those frail little lightning bugs and put them into a jar seeing how many we could comprehend and all. And most of the time we would just catch them and let them go.
Now me I was a bit different about those little critters. For some unknown reason, that is only known to young lads as I was back then, I would grab one out of the sky and smash where the light was emitting from their little abdomens and see how much of the phosphorus remains I could squish across my thumb and forefinger. Then I’d chase my sisters with the gunk on my fingers as they ran screaming away, arms flailing and all. It was down right fun I tell you. Probably wasn’t a bit fun for the lightning bug though.
Yeah I had me a real good time that night. After I got tired of chasing them girls all over kingdom come, I had me a bright light go on! Yep, that’s right, flashed right in front of my eyes I tell ya! I suffered from that a lot back then and still do today.
Biggest dern lightning bug I ever saw. Ain’t seen one since either?
I got the bright idea that I would capture as many as I could and put them into that glass jar and when I had what I figured was enough I would take them out one by one and squish the phosphorus abdomens off of them and proceed to smear the stuff on my face, thus scaring the boogers right out of my sisters nose. That’s what I proceeded to do.
If I remember correctly, and this is where I will have to fill in because I am suffering a memory lapse right about now, so if I remember correctly I caught me say a hundred or so of them critters. Then one by one I snatched them from the jar and squished that gunk onto my fingers and began rubbing it onto parts of my face.
When I figured I had just about enough I snuck up on my sisters and scared the living snot right out them!
Yep I had me a good time that night. Only thing is I came out on the short end of the whole thing. The next morning my forehead and other parts of my face had yellow splotches on it. For the better part of the week I was made fun of and gawked at and all, that it left me permanently scarred for life.
I ain’t never been the same since. Yep I think I’ll go to the doc and see if I can get disability for lightning bug syndrome? Worth a try isn’t it? They give out disability for almost anything these days. What the hey?
Written by Larry Riddle Copywrite 6-06-05
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/10/10_2_19.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZUxdm020YYUS) http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/10/10_2_21.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZUxdm020YYUS)
It’s lightning bug season here in southeastern Kansas like it’s black fly season up in Maine. There has got to be at least a octillion lighting up the sky around here every night after the sun goes down and it gets pitch dark.
The great thing though about lightning bugs is that they don’t chew on you like them ole black flies do up in Maine. I’ll never forget the month of June 2002. It is permanently etched in my brain for the rest of my life. Those black flies got good and fat off of my lean body. No matter how I covered every part of my exposed skin, those ferocious critters managed to get in and do some good wholesome eating. I even saw a horde of them carry a big ole fat boy into the woods while he was flailing his arms and kicking and screaming and all. It was terrible I tell you, never will forget that ghastly site. I didn’t dare go to see if he was okay. I got out of them woods as fast as I could…
Enough talk about black flies, gives me the heebee jeebees just to think about them.
I’ll never forget the the time I had as a youngster hanging out down on the bottom lands of the Neosho River with my family celebrating the 4th of July and hunting lightning bugs after the sun went down. It was so cool because the grass seem to have lit up first like it might be a fire in the tall blades. There’d be little sparks at first here and there. As the evening became more darker, there were more sparks. And as it became almost too dark to see five feet in front of you, the place would really light up!
Then as the night really came on those little sparks would begin to rise out of the blades of grass and into the night air. If you’d let your eyes just kinda wander you could imagine you were in another zone, the twilight zone so to speak.
Then the crickets would begin their crescendo until they were really kicking a beat. Backing them up would be the different kinds of frogs that hang out along the river. It was just plain awesome!
I feel like a child again just remembering that time, that era. Life was a bit simpler then, or so I imagined. And when the youngin’s of today get to be the age I am right now, they too will remember a time when life was a bit more simpler way back when. It happens with every generation.
My siblings and I would catch those frail little lightning bugs and put them into a jar seeing how many we could comprehend and all. And most of the time we would just catch them and let them go.
Now me I was a bit different about those little critters. For some unknown reason, that is only known to young lads as I was back then, I would grab one out of the sky and smash where the light was emitting from their little abdomens and see how much of the phosphorus remains I could squish across my thumb and forefinger. Then I’d chase my sisters with the gunk on my fingers as they ran screaming away, arms flailing and all. It was down right fun I tell you. Probably wasn’t a bit fun for the lightning bug though.
Yeah I had me a real good time that night. After I got tired of chasing them girls all over kingdom come, I had me a bright light go on! Yep, that’s right, flashed right in front of my eyes I tell ya! I suffered from that a lot back then and still do today.
Biggest dern lightning bug I ever saw. Ain’t seen one since either?
I got the bright idea that I would capture as many as I could and put them into that glass jar and when I had what I figured was enough I would take them out one by one and squish the phosphorus abdomens off of them and proceed to smear the stuff on my face, thus scaring the boogers right out of my sisters nose. That’s what I proceeded to do.
If I remember correctly, and this is where I will have to fill in because I am suffering a memory lapse right about now, so if I remember correctly I caught me say a hundred or so of them critters. Then one by one I snatched them from the jar and squished that gunk onto my fingers and began rubbing it onto parts of my face.
When I figured I had just about enough I snuck up on my sisters and scared the living snot right out them!
Yep I had me a good time that night. Only thing is I came out on the short end of the whole thing. The next morning my forehead and other parts of my face had yellow splotches on it. For the better part of the week I was made fun of and gawked at and all, that it left me permanently scarred for life.
I ain’t never been the same since. Yep I think I’ll go to the doc and see if I can get disability for lightning bug syndrome? Worth a try isn’t it? They give out disability for almost anything these days. What the hey?
Written by Larry Riddle Copywrite 6-06-05
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/10/10_2_19.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZUxdm020YYUS) http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/10/10_2_21.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZUxdm020YYUS)