You're "IT!"

"I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred. I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. "
Emerson

Growing up, one of the favorite summer evening pastimes was 'chase'. For the uninitiated modern, this was our name for tag. We started in season with the lightning bugs because catching them at dusk as they rose majestically out of the cooling grass almost always deteriorated into tagging someone 'it' and squealing in delight as we raced away. We of course, were all barefoot, something looked upon just short of horror by modern moms. I guess that is probably for the best. We all endured our share of bee stings and stubbed toes and scorched soles from dancing across incredibly hot asphalt. But still, there was nothing quite like pulling our socks and shoes off on the last day of school as a ceremonial salute to the freedom of the summer days ahead, broken only by Sundays in thin nylon socks and cramped patent leather shoes. But back to chase.


The game always began spontaneously. There would be five or six of us lounging around after supper, watching the boys play pick up ball or riding our bikes before it got too dark to see. At the edge of dusk, just when it got too dark to follow the softball's arc, the lightning bugs would begin to rise. In my memory there were thousands of them. They moved slowly, as if they knew it was required, so even the smallest child could eventually catch one. Their ascent created a raggedy curtain of twinkling lights beginning the performance of evening. We would cup our hands around them and go off looking for jelly jars, punching holes with a nail from Dad's workbench in the basement, which periodically led to banged thumbs. The jars would end up by our beds, crawling with bugs flashing their lights into exhaustion through the night. The lucky survivors got released the next morning…if we remembered. I can still conjure up their buggy beetle smell when the lid came off the next day.

The boys quickly bored with simply catching. They were more interested in pinching off the light on some of the bugs while they were still lit to make rings. Of course, catching the light when it was 'on' took several sacrificial tries on the part of the bug. It was not a pretty sight. Scaring the girls with their incandescent jewelry with the threat of actually touching the girls with it, led inevitably to chase, I'm sure to the collective relief of the remaining lightning bug population. Remembering all this reminds me of another story about what happened to a granddaddy long legs spider…but that I'll save for another telling.

If you have not lived in the South, then you cannot fully comprehend what summer was like 'BAC'—Before Air Conditioning. The words hot and sticky will never be able to convey the character of the atmosphere. We called it liquid air. It was. There might be a 15 degree difference in temperature under a shade tree, but the air would still be this wet denseness all around you. To run around screaming in it soon turned everyone into red faced guppies heaving for air, dripping wet and covered in grass stains. We loved it.

A flashing front porch light was our signal to wind things up. Not long after we would come thundering into the house, itchy, hot and thirsty. Soon the sound of running bath water would start as we raided the refrigerator for Kool-Aid and jostled for position to watch Zorro or Bonanza reruns until it was our turn in the bath. Finally, hair wet and smelling of soap, we were sent off to bed to be lulled to sleep by the whirring of the attic fan and the yellow green light from our jars.

Many years later on a particularly beautiful summer evening when the trees seen through the upstairs windows were full of twinkling bugs, I woke each of my boys up at one time or another to see how beautiful it was. While their summer evenings were different from mine, I'd made sure they had jelly jars, and opportunities for stubbed toes and grass stains and of course, all children are born knowing about chase. I was hoping to pass on through them, how rich and valuable these little moments are in a life. I wanted them to know it is good to tumble into bed worn out from physically embracing the richness of the world around us clutching a jar of lights. And even though much of modern life and especially urban life, lessens the chances to experience this, the great outside is still there, always waiting. Maybe holding their sleepy little bodies in my arms and talking about the twinkling trees was my way of making sure we would both remember.