Chasing Fireflies

Last night, I sat outside on the porch after I put Ella to bed. It was still light out, so I grabbed the baby monitor and my Bible and went out to read. As evening rolled in and it started to get dark, I looked out into the yard and watched as the fireflies were turning their “lights” on and off. I set my Bible on the chair and walked out into the yard to just watch the magic of these little bugs.

As I stood watching them, a memory came rushing back to me that I wanted to write about before I forgot about it. It took place when I was probably between 5 or 7 years old. We moved to a new house in 1976, and I know there is a picture from this trip with me in a shirt from my old elementary school, so that narrowed the time frame down for me.

Our family borrowed my grandpa’s pickup truck, which had one of those campers that sat in the bed of the truck on it. It kind of looked like this:

We drove it to Ohio for a trip to King’s Island and Sea World. My mom had an old friend that lived in Ohio and we visited them on the trip. My mom’s friend had three daughters and two of them were twins. I think this was the first time I had ever met twins and I probably always got their names wrong. This picture is of my brother and I with the girls in the camper.

We only have one other picture of us all together and I am going to guess this was at Sea World because I think this is supposed to be a walrus. Not sure who the two guys in the back were, but I remembered hating that they were in our picture!

Any way, I remember we spent the night at their house. I am guessing we stayed in the camper, but I am not certain. At any rate, I remember their back yard was huge. There were train tracks that ran along the back of their property and we actually got to see a train come through.

That night was first time I ever saw a firefly. We we all outside playing and the fireflies started flashing. I asked what they were and the girls told me. They seemed surprised that I had never seen them before. As I recall, we all got jars and began to catch them in our hands and put them in the jars. I remember being amazed at these things.

I remember not being afraid of them (I was afraid of wasps and bees). I remember watching them in my hand and in the jars. They just kept flashing away. It wasn’t until a few years later, that we learned that the fireflies were signaling each other in search of a mate.

We have plenty of pictures from our trip to Kings Island and Sea World. However, we have no pictures of us chasing the fireflies. Yet, this memory came back to me as vivid as ever. Go figure. I probably stood out in my yard for about 5 or 10 minutes just watching nature’s light show, remembering a very enlightening evening!