I mowed on Monday evening, then Kindra and I sat on the porch and watched the lightning bugs float through the dusk.
We have a good crop of them this year and they come out every evening to put on a show just for us. It is hard to estimate how many might be in the yard at any time. Hundreds, at least.
So, Monday we were watching them, when something thumped my arm.
Woah! It was a mosquito, and a solid twopounder, just from eye-balling it. He gave me a glare, then jabbed me with his proboscis.
Dang. So much for the firefly show. With all the rain we’ve had, this is a good year
With all the rain we’ve had, this is a good year for flying insects in general and, candidly, it doesn’t take that many mosquito bites to fill my quota.
So, it was back into the house, slightly lightheaded and ruminating on how these North Rock Creek mosquitoes compare to the Washita River mosquitoes I encountered as a kid.
My best friend’s grandparents lived in Ravia, a short distance from the Washita, so we spent many a summer day and night at their house, hanging out and playing baseball during the day and running limb lines with Pa in the evenings.
Pa, as he was known to everyone even if you weren’t his grandkid, had lived in Ravia all his life and knew where and how to catch big catfish.
He drove a grader for the county and probably was plenty tired when he got home in the evenings, but he never turned down a request to take me and McSwain to the river after supper.
There were some big catfish swimming the Washita, but they were wimps compared to the mosquitoes that lived in the surrounding bottoms.
These mosquitoes fed on barn swallows and purple martins, inverting the food chain in a way that edged a bit too close to the Twilight Zone.
When we ran the lines I spent most of my time slapping mosquitoes instead of baiting hooks, but Pa took little notice of them.
I distinctly remember one that landed on his shoulder and sat upright like a parrot, yet he didn’t flinch or even stagger under the weight.
I wondered how he could do that. Mosquito bites have always raised quarter-sized welts on me and itched for days and I envied his apparent immunity.
To ask his secret would have been to admit my own inferiority, so I didn’t.
The mosquito that landed on my arm Monday wouldn’t have gotten much notice if he showed his hairy little face in the Washita River bottoms, but he was big enough and thirsty enough to make me wish I had some of Pa’s magic.
Whatever it was.