Here come the buzzing, munching, mating cicadas, after 17 years underground.
I just checked out Cicada Mania—recent Feedster Feed of the Day–and started thinking–what was I up to, the other times those bugs showed up?
- 2005 – 17 = 1988
- That spring, in a house on a Santa Barbara canyon, I was planning the next year’s sabbatical. How I worried that both children would have big school transitions (9th grade for Mickey, kindergarten for Mira) in faraway Cambridge, MA. Now, as you may have noticed, it’s where we all live.
- 1988 – 17 = 1971
- That spring I was getting ready to graduate from college and planning a road trip to Alaska with my little brother Kevin. I wouldn’t have noticed if giant woolly mammoths had crawled out of the NH soil and taken wing.
- 1971 – 17 = 1953
- I do remember cicadas during that summer. We had invited some family friends from Manhattan to spend a summer week in the relaxing countryside. After one night of New England bug serenades, the Rosenblatts packed up and headed back to NY.
- 1953 – 17 = 1936
- Too early for me–see if you can find somebody else who remembers the cicada season of 1936.
| Here they come! |  |
4 responses so far ↓
1 Liz // May 5, 2004 at 6:12 pm
I’m confused. Why are you starting with 2005, if they’re emerging this year??
Wouldn’t it be 1987, 1970, and 1953?
In 1987 I was living in DC, working for the Library of Congress, and meeting my first husband.
In 1970 I was eight years old, and don’t remember much about the cicadas.
For some reason, I remember the cicadas of 1979 and 1980 more clearly, probably because I was working as a camp counselor those summers.
2 Betsy Devine // May 6, 2004 at 4:30 am
LOL–amazing. 2005 was a typo, on which I carefully built all the rest of the calculation.
3 Brother K // May 9, 2004 at 6:39 pm
I’m so glad that Liz adusted the dates, as I was quite concerned that my memory of the summer trip to Alaska was in the summer of 1970. But what’s a year here or there anyways? It was still a wonderful trip. And I don’t recall any bugs that summer except for the mosquitoes of Alsaka, which seemed the size of Horse Flies as I recall.
4 Betsy Devine // May 9, 2004 at 9:12 pm
What indeed is a year here or there? (I told you my brother was sweet.) Those mosquitoes were indeed enormous, almost as huge as the giant can of honey and enormous jar of peanut butter we relied on for bargain meals throughout our journey.