Fireflies of an Evening

Because the daytime buffalo gnats (blackflies) have been so bad here in central Illinois, I have lately been taking my slow walks on the home trails during late evening, just after sunset. With clear skies, there is just enough light to find the way. Over the vegetable garden and one-acre prairie, the sky opens up from the surrounding timber, and sometimes a bat flies overhead. Owls and nighthawks may occasionally call, but not every evening. Then as darkness gradually takes over, flashes of light from numerous fireflies grab my attention.

        The fireflies have a curious effect: that of transporting me back to the mid-1960s to a little neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. It was my childhood home. Large shade trees lined the city blocks of closely packed modest homes, separated from each other by gangways, with small back yards and even smaller front lawns. Unless it was raining, my brother Bob and I spent most summer evenings outside. For amusement, we caught fireflies in our hands and held them until they flashed. Sometimes we would play tag with two or three neighbor kids, running as fast as possible over the sidewalks and across front lawns. At that point, it was not unusual to hear, from inside an adjacent home, an old person yelling, “Get off the grass!” But my recollection is that many neighbors spent at least part of the evening on their front porches; so in this way, certain individuals became familiar by sight, if not name. In my mind’s eye, I see my grandmother watering her garden; and with her keeping watch, I was smart enough to stay off our own grass.

        A special part of each evening was when the ice cream truck arrived. The truck played a string of bell-like melodies from a loudspeaker to announce its presence, which we heard from blocks away. When it finally arrived near our home, scores of children of all ages would somehow materialize from every shadow and converge at the truck’s side window for a few precious moments to place an order in a very serious, business-like manner. There was definitely a fear that if the order was not placed with the proper respect, it would be rejected, followed by public humiliation.

        During those formative years, my world consisted of only a few city blocks that included home, school, and a park. I knew every crack in the sidewalk on my block. We walked or rode our bicycles nearly everywhere; ran errands on Saturday evenings to a nearby newsstand for the Times and Tribune newspapers; and collected discarded soda bottles from all over the neighborhood, bringing them to the corner mom-and-pop grocery store to exchange for candy or caps for our toy guns.

 

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        Since becoming a serious birder over thirty-five years ago, I have been highly attuned to the natural world. So I often wonder what birds were around in my old Chicago neighborhood, birds that I missed completely, simply from having my attention diverted elsewhere. My grandmother pointed out European starlings, house sparrows, American robins, and once a downy woodpecker that nested in a tree cavity outside the kitchen window. All of the other species were unnoticed. Yet certainly there must have been abundant nighthawks on those warm summer evenings, as this species is very common in city landscapes where it nests on flat rooftops. Chimney swifts must also have been highly numerous. Blue jays, black-capped chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, and mourning doves must have been part of the local bird community. Of course, these days I could travel to that very neighborhood at any time to see what birds are there, but that would reveal little about what might have been there fifty years ago; there would be no certainty, only conjecture.

        I regret not paying more attention to the natural world when I was young. But as an urban child, there were many influences pulling me in different directions, not the least of which was television, which brought the outside world daily intruding upon, what seemed to me, our peaceful little neighborhood. Most vividly, I recall news footage from the Vietnam War and discussions of Soviet nuclear missiles. I was often reminded of this at school during air raid drills, when all of the students would be directed to calmly file into the hallways, then quietly stand against the wall to await the bombs that never came. In 1968, on the day of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the skies over Chicago were black with smoke from race riots. Soon our television screen brought us scenes of the National Guard being deployed, with nightly curfews. The hippy counterculture was simply bizarre. So the adult world at that time appeared as a scary place, on the verge of self-destruction. However, news of manned space flight, though difficult to relate to on a personal level, suggested otherwise.

        To a child today, the world must seem equally unhinged, with politicians daily contradicting each other wielding alternative facts and trading coarse insults, threats from a nuclear-armed North Korea with Iran not far behind, exported terrorism from the Middle East, growing numbers of refugees clamoring for entry into western nations, school shootings, out-of-control drug trafficking, flash mobs organized through social media, virtual reality on tablets and smart phones, the hypocrisy and fear-mongering of doomsayers, and the confusion of non-judgementalism and political correctness placing society’s moral compass on a soggy foundation without a reliable true north. It must be even harder for today’s urban youth to notice nature than it was for me.

 

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        Flashes of light from the fireflies are like a game added to a summer evening’s walk, trying to predict where and when the next flash might occur. And this sometimes fills my thoughts with memories, triggered by the same game I played as a child; at this phase of life, with over six decades behind, there are few observations that do not remind me of something out of the past. Yet I prefer to focus on the present and the future. So maybe it is time to learn more about the fireflies. How many species are there? What causes the flash of light? What messages, if any, are being communicated? What roles do fireflies play in the ecosystem?

 

Comments

[Thomas V. Lerczak]

Thanks Jane. It was a stream of consciousness kind of writing.

[Jane Ward]

Your descriptions brought me back to my own childhood in southern Illinois (Mt. Vernon). Fireflies were always big parts of my summers. Your shift into politics took me by surprise, but I understood as I read your words.

Thanks for the contemplation, Tom.