Wednesday, October 12, 2005

What Happened to the Lightning Bugs?

As a child growing up in Alabama, one of my favourite things to do in the Summertime was catch lightning bugs. I think they are mostly known as fireflies, but we always called them lightning bugs.

It stayed daylight up until after 8pm in the Summertime,and we would stay outside until it got nearly dark. We would have our mason jars in hand, waiting for the first little flickers of light to appear. There would be
just a couple at first, then all of a sudden there would be hundreds of them.

I always wondered where they came from. Were they hiding in the grass? How come you never saw them except at night? We caught them in our jars by the dozens. We just loved to sit there and watch them light up one by one.

We would eventually let them go, but it was always funs racing around the yard trying to catch them, and see who could catch the most.

As I got older, the lightning bugs seemed to fade as years went by. It got to the point, I didn't see them much, if at all. Where did they go? Was it because the little girl had grown up, and that lightning bugs weren't as fascinating to her now?

It wasn't until right before I moved to Canada that I saw a few one evening, but it still wasn't like it was in the mid 70's when I was a young girl.

We don't have lightning bugs in BC, as far as I can tell. I haven't ever seen one.

I would love for my future children to have memories such as this, and I hope that one day the lightening bugs will come again.