By Rick Houser-
In the middle of summer and on evenings after a hot day, I like to sit outside at dusk and just take eerything in. As a day draws to an end, it is enjoyable to look at the world around you while the sun is setting and the temperature is coming down, some time to evaluate your world. With a calm breeze and some of the moisture from the dew, maybe you are suddenly noticing one more thing.
As I look out across my yard, I see a light rising up from the yard or maybe even the woods. Another light, and then maybe two more follow that light. Before you really have time to take it all in, the light show for the evening has begun. Yes, the lightning bugs are appearing just as they do almost every summer evening to fill your world with a light show. For the majority of my life I have taken for granted the evenings filled with twinkling lights from what seemed to be horizon to horizon. You knew it was just a common event and something that happens every summer.
On a regular basis the light shows appear without interruption and they really are something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. If you watch in the evening at just about dusk, the lightning bags seem to float up out of the weeds or grass as though gravity has no rule over them. They will rise and then move from side to side or will gather and form a group that gives an impression of a constellation of stars.
I did some googling and learned that a lightning bug is from the beetle family and likes to live in damp and warm places. They live about one year. The tail part that lights up is caused by three chemicals that I in no way can pronounce so I will save you all trying to read them. (Bottom line it is a chemical reaction.) I also learned that the lightning bugs are also called fireflies and in England, they are referred to as glow worms. In parts of the United States, they are more referred to as fireflies and around here, we use lightning bug. Therefore, with that information delivered we all know how to be politically correct in what they should be called. In addition, I learned that their population is decreasing as we remove lands where they would exist for us to build on.
As a boy, I couldn’t wait to get an empty pint peanut butter jar (Skippy Brand) with a screw cap lid and then poke holes in the lid so they could breathe and then set my sights on filling that pint jar to the top with lightning bugs. Just think how bright that jar would have been. I always thought that the glow would be a grand sight to behold. You all might not believe this but I never did get a jar filled to the brim, just one more of my life’s goals I failed to accomplish. Most summers when my cousin Walt would be living on their farm we would team up and with two peanut batter jars we would try to empty the yard of all the lightning bugs that were there and again here is another failure in life’s goals. However, we would collect a lot of them and as we did that, we enjoyed a warm summer’s night and a never ending light show.
One summer evening Walt and I gathered what might have been our largest catch ever. When we finished we sat the jars down in their living room and went off to do something else with every intention in the world to return and release the bugs as we always did. However, that evening we forgot and left them in his Mom’s living room. Fortunately for the lightning bugs we had made the air holes too big and they were able to let themselves out. Unfortunately, we had left the jars in the living room so all of the lightning bugs had escaped into the house. It was not a good place to be for a few days until the bugs had all gotten outside as Walt’s’ Mom was not happy with us. (Safe to say we didn’t ask her for another peanut butter jar to use for quite a while.)
The lightning bug was and still is a part of our lives, even if it is only for a couple of months each year. Just as the leaves turning in the fall for a display of color, so does the the lightning bug deliver its display. I thought to myself recently just how many people when they were a child did’t chase a lightning bug. I feel very safe in saying that number must surely be very small. As I said, I caught the fireflies when I was young. I have watched my children take a jar with holes in the lid and capture some of the fluorescent critters and then hold that jar up and study just what miracles they had captured. These days I am going to say my grandchildren chase after the fireflies also and probably marvel at what they have captured. Just as man has been around for so many years, I am going to guess that the lightning bug has been, maybe even longer.
I have no idea what their real role in our ecology is other than they light up at dusk and like tiny lanterns rise up from the earth to entertain us. Some nights I really do not notice them but other nights I ask myself just how could I not notice them. There is a lot around us that Mother Nature has placed and each item has a rhyme and a reason and like in so many instances, we don’t really know why, but we know they need to be here. I guess we just wouldn’t have a real summer if we did not have our free light shows every evening. Therefore, since the price is good you should stop and take a look for a few minutes. My guess is you will enjoy it.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you would like to read more of his stories, he has two books on the market. Or if you want just contact him at houser734@yahoo.com. Or just write to him at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio 45106.