BooMan’s story about where you live got me thinking about lightning bugs. I moved around a lot when I was growing up and lightning bugs were a part of the landscape in a number of the places I lived. Especially Pittsburgh, where my grandparents lived.
Now, we don’t have lightning bugs in Seattle. We have sphinx moths and spiders and hornets and honeybees, but no lightning bugs. So my daughter, growing up in Seattle, had to experience lightning bugs through my memories. I told her about sitting on the back porch of my grandpa’s house, listening to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ game on the radio, waiting until the light deepened just enough for that first spark of light back in the deep of the tomato patch. Of how I’d get my gramma to give me a mason jar, and how my grandpa would carefully punch holes in its lid and how I’d stuff it with fresh grass. And then, how I’d trace the bugs’ paths through the garden and catch them and carefully open the jar and slip them in, one at a time, until the jar was full. And then go quietly onto the stairwell leading up to the second floor of the house and pull closed the curtain that in the winter held the heat downstairs until it was time for bed. And in the dark of the stairwell, shake the jar so the bugs glowed, ferociously. And how I could, if I held the jar right next to the book I was reading, read by the light of the fireflies.
When my daughter was 16 she did the obligatory coming of age road trip. She and two friends piled into a 15 year old Oldsmobile and took off, south along the coast to San Francisco then east to through Nevada to the southwest and on to Texas.
She called from east Texas.
“Mom! I see them!”
Them? Huh?
“Lightning bugs! I see them. They’re all over.”
And then the confession:
“Mom, I just played along with you when you told me about lightning bugs. Bugs that light up. Yeah… Right… Sure… Mom.”
I love it here in Seattle, but I miss the lightning bugs.
What did you see this weekend?
Thanks for the memories, and wonderful description of the Grandparents/House…I can relate ; )
peace be with you and yours always
That is a wonderful story! I think for most of us who grew up in the midwest, lightning bugs are the essence of summer.
We’ve just come back from hiking the Canadian Rockies so I have to admit that our Indiana woods seem a little boring right now — and a little beat up since we had big storm last night and there are branches down everywhere you look.
So here’s a picture from earlier this summer when the woods put on lovely early morning light show.
I grew up in Philly, where, despite the fact that everyone only had a 15×20 foot patch of back lawn behind their rowhouse, there were fireflies to be caught.
One summer in college, I was a camp counselor and, on an evening off, happened to be walking along a highway just after dusk, and saw a whole field of cabbages transformed as the fireflies came out. Magical. Thought I’d had my ultimate firefly experience, but no, now I’ve really been to firefly heaven. I’ve seen the synchronized fireflies.
Synchronized fireflies are a rare phenomenon. There was an article in Scientific American about it some years ago, where they were found in southeast Asia. Here is a clip with an artist’s impression of the display in Malaysia. A reader of the article contacted the scientist in the story, and told him that he could save on airfare by coming to the Elkmont area in Great Smokey Mountains National Park and watching the display here.
The display in the Great Smoky Mountains is a little different; rather than looking like Christmas tree lights they look like waves of light traveling down a hillside and across a meadow in the forest.
here and here are two stories about the display in the Smokies. It only lasts 2-3 weeks, though, and has become quite a tourist attraction in just the last couple of years; they’ve had to institute bus service to avoid traffic jams late at night in the park.
Here is another research-oriented article.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any photos on Google of the display in the Smokeys. If anyone has a photo, please post it for the group! Thanks!
this is so cool. someday. wow!