It was late—way after midnight—but I was surprised to find my neighborhood so still and quiet. With it being the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, I half expected the wind to be wafting with the smell of barbeques and the sound of bumping music at all hours. But the hum of my ‘97 Saturn Ion’s engine was the only sound entering my ear canal as I pulled onto my parent’s street. All my neighbors seemed to be tucked away in their nice air-conditioned houses, which was understandable after the complete scorcher of a day we had. Temperatures were in the upper 90’s for most of the day—it was almost too hot for a barbeque. But Memorial Day has its traditions and no matter the temperature, hot dogs and hamburgers must be consumed. I, myself, was returning from a graduation party, where my friend’s mom almost passed out from sitting too close to the grill.
But thankfully, the heat broke with dusk, and it felt nice to drive home with my windows cracked.
I shifted my car into park in front of my childhood home, then turned off the headlights and ignition. As I leaned over the passenger seat to grab my purse, I glanced out the window and saw them.
Tiny, little blips of light hovering over my lawn. Blinking on and off every few seconds, never in unison but singing their very own song. Ten or so, they moved on the air close to the trees. They hovered in the same place for a few seconds, then on they went.
Wondering if it was only my lawn, I looked across the street to my neighbor’s and waited a few seconds. And there they were again—tiny blinking stars, fallen from the heavens.
I smiled.
The season’s fireflies had arrived. Or lightning bugs, as natives of Northeast Philadelphia call them. They are the ushers of summer. The one true symbol that heat and freedom had finally arrived—dispelling the memories of bitter cold and winter. Their presence were shimmering diamonds on the horizon and beckoned all children to run and play.
Well, to me anyway.
When I was little, the streets of my neighborhood were always jampacked with kids. “Baby Boomers” had converged on a large piece of land in Bensalem, developed it into quaint single-homes, and consequently filled those houses with young families. Every single house had at least two kids under the age of ten. And during the summer months, most of those kids congregated on my street, looking for some entertainment and fun—which was my specialty.
Because I was one of the older kids on my block and had the biggest mouth, I basically became the ring-leader. Every day, I’d step from my house to throngs of kids, waiting patiently on the black asphalt, wringing their hands in anticipation for my daily plan. And I never disappointed; whether it was Steal-the-Bacon on bikes, relay races on big wheels, or detailed scavenger hunts, summer was my specialty. Games could last longer, and we had free ride of the neighborhood.
But I also had very specific rules about summer. And having the biggest mouth came in handy. One of these rules happened to be about lightening bugs.
“But school’s almost out! It has to be summer,” they’d say.
“Nope! It’s not officially summer until there’s lightning bugs,” I’d answer without a second thought.
Lightning bugs were important to me. I don’t know why but they were. Their little black bodies, red heads, and their namesake translucent tails meant the end of the tumultuous, dragging school year and endless possibilities. It meant sleeping in, no more catholic school uniforms and structured hours of disciplined learning, and hours upon hours of play time.
And because I was the oldest, my word was law: no one dared call it summer until we saw lightning bugs.
So as May morphed into June, we’d sit in vigil almost every night. Spread out over my parent’s lawn, each of us picking a section of grass, and wait. And wait. Wait until we saw tiny pops of light. We’d stare into nothing for hours on end, hoping to be the first one to see them and scream, “IT’S SUMMER!” There was never just one; they’d always appear in clumps. And the second we their blinking bodies, we’d go running like mad cats into the house, grabbing cups to hold them.
Then the game really began.
We’d have a certain amount of time to catch as many as we could—basically until our parents called us in, which was usually between 8 and 9 o’clock—and whoever caught the most was the winner of the day. Naturally, they weren’t easy to catch. You had to sneak up, palms open and still. At the exact moment that their tails blinked, you needed to snap your hand out and close it around them. One swift motion, with no breath in between. And then slowly, you had to open your fingers and drop them into the waiting cup.
A tried and true method—trust me, I was good at it.
You also never wanted to keep them so long that they’d die. That was never the point of the game and if you killed any, they didn’t count. It was also best to have a see-through cup—the better to see you captives with. Our mothers rarely let us use their good glassware, so we usually ended up using red Solo Cups—funny when I think about it now.
When the game ended, we declared the winner and we let all the lightning bugs go. They’d go flying off to their beds, as we did to ours. And the next night, it would start all over again. We’d have two and half months to catch and release as many lightning bugs as we could. Two and a half months of innocent, unadulterated freedom.
That was the first thing I thought of when I got home on Sunday. About how much I wanted to run inside, wake up my sisters, and start the game all over again. Relive our childhoods for one last night.
Then I remembered my sisters were in Wildwood, most likely at a bar and very drunk.
Summer is never quite the same after you turn 10.
Instead, I decided to sit on my lawn and just watch them fly in circles around me, like little fairies dancing on the wind.