Notes from a Brat: June Bugs

When I arrived back in Canada after an RCAF dependent's tour of duty in then West Germany, I noticed some things were missing. Not in whole but in part: wasps, June bugs, and thunder & lightning.

Part Two: June Bugs

"The skies were black!"

"You're exaggerating."

"Perhaps I am, a little bit. Okay, there were strips of black against blue sky. I've never again seen anything like that in my life."

My strongest such memory is of me sitting in the back parking lot of our Iffezheim apartment building. On a beautiful mid evening the darkening skies were blue, except where there were those "strips of black": mass flights of June bugs. As I sat on a concrete block I looked up at the dramatic aerial display above. Occasionally, the pretty brown little insects would drop about the ground around my outstretched feet. Mid-air collisions, perhaps. The bugs buzzed and rattled as they ended up on their backs, little feet outstretched. Of course, when one is young one looks with boundless fascination at nature; and its occasional random acts about. (As one gets older, one gets grossed-out.)

My return to Canada taught me something about nature: Canada, southern Ontario, at least, lacks June skies of certain bugs.

The skies were black!

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Part One: Thunder & Lightning