A Piedmont Porchlight Story
There are some things you don’t notice until they stop happening. The last watermelon. The first cool morning. That first leaf that don’t quite look as green as it did the week before. And if you’re lucky enough to spend an August evening on the front porch, the last lightning bug of summer.
I was sitting in my old ladderback chair one evening, watching Centre Avenue settle down for the night. The traffic had thinned out. Somebody a few houses over was grilling hamburgers. A screen door slapped shut. Way off in the distance, I could hear the freight train making its evening run.
Funny thing about trains. You don’t always hear the whistle. Sometimes you just hear the town remembering it’s there. I was about halfway through a glass of sweet tea when I saw him.
One little flash. Then darkness. Another little flash. Then nothing. Just one lonely lightning bug drifting across the yard. When I was a boy, there’d have been hundreds. Maybe thousands. Whole fields blinking like the stars had decided to come down and spend the evening with us.
We’d run through the grass with Mason jars. Punch little holes in the lids. Catch a handful, and hold them up like we’d trapped magic itself. In a way, I reckon, we had.
Mama always made us turn them loose before bedtime. “Those little fellers’ve got work to do.” She was right. They did. They had to convince little boys that summer lasted forever.
Funny thing is, it almost did. At least it seemed that way. School was somewhere way off in the distance. Shoes were optional. Supper didn’t happen until somebody hollered your full name from the back porch. Life was measured in skint knees and by how many lightning bugs you could catch before supper.
That little fellow drifted over toward the magnolia tree. Blink. Darkness. Blink. Darkness. Almost like he was waving goodbye. I got to wondering if children still chase lightning bugs.
I surely hope they do.
Lord help us if we’ve reached the point where a screen can outshine a summer evening. About then, a little girl walked past my house holding her daddy’s hand. She stopped right in front of the yard.
“Daddy!” “I saw one!” He smiled. “Go get him.” She let go of his hand and took off across the grass with both hands cupped in front of her. The little lightning bug blinked once… twice… and floated just out of reach.
She laughed. Not frustrated. Delighted. Like she’d just been invited into the game. After a minute she came back. “He’s too fast.” Her daddy smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just trying to stay wild.”
They walked on. I watched them disappear around the corner. Then I looked back toward the yard. The little fellow flashed one more time. Just once. Then the darkness settled in for the night. I smiled to myself.
Maybe that wasn’t the last lightning bug of summer after all. Maybe it was simply the first one, belonging to somebody else’s childhood.
olbigjim 