Catching fireflies

   

Do you remember chasing fireflies on a warm summer evening?  I remember the thrill and the excitement I felt as a child as I ran through the back yards of our neighborhood. The sun was setting and the moon was rising. The smell of lilacs floated in the air. We had dirty summer bare feet. full of dust and dried mud. No one cared that our feet became dirty as we walked barefooted down the dirt road where we lived called Locust Court. We visited our neighbors on sweltering summer afternoons to drink lemonade, chat and say hello. We were young, tanned, and sweaty. All the joys of summer were ahead of us and were ours to explore.

IN June after school let out for the summer, the fireflies would appear. Slowly at first, we would see them one or two at a time. Their numbers increasing with each passing minute.

It was the beginning of summer when the sky was full of twinkling lights from the bright stars above and the magical fireflies began to rise from the ground. that I, my brothers, and our friends would run in pursuit of those mysterious flashes of light.  We would gently scoop up those magical creatures with our bare hands and carefully place the insects in a glass jar with holes punched into the lid for air. The jars were lovingly prefilled with blades of grass a twig or two and a piece of moist paper towel.  We believed that these items would ensure our little friends' survival until they arrived at the place where they paid children one dollar for one thousand fire sometimes we would catch fireflies in mid-flight then bragging to our friends of our bug catching skills. If one was quick-footed you could carefully pick the winged creatures out of the freshly mowed summer grass where they landed, before they took to flight again. We would run, chase, and collect fireflies until we heard the welcoming song of the ice cream man's truck. We would wait in line to choose our favorite frozen treat. I would order a sky blue pink ice pop. Although there was no such treat by that name the man in truck aways knew what I wanted. I sat with my friends in the cool grass until we were called by our parents to come home for a bath and bedtime. But until then the running catching and counting of fireflies continued. We would call out to each other after each successful capture adding to our count ten, fifteen. twenty, and so on.   Hoping each night that we would reach elusive the goal of one thousand captured fireflies. Why one thousand you might ask.  One thousand is the number of fireflies that must be caught in order to send them to the people that would pay kids one dollar for fireflies.  

We never reached that elusive goal of one thousand fireflies in that jar. Each night a parent would take pity on the poor insects and grant them their freedom. Each morning we would be told the magical creatures escaped and the chasing and counting would begin again when the sun set and the moon rose. We never received the one dollar in the mail which was a small fortune to children who bought ice cream from a truck. We did not even realize or care that dividing .that one dollar by fourteen would have resulted in each child getting a whopping seven cents.

As I look back and remember those hot summer nights, I realize we never received that treasured one dollar in the mail from the people who pay children for one thousand fireflies. But the priceless treasure of lasting friendships, the joy of having hope in a future gift, and the fullness and pleasure of the simple things in life. Are the priceless gift we received in return for a few fireflies. During this time as many of us are staying home, we can try to catch one thousand fireflies. If you do put them in a jar and mail them to the people who pay one dollar.