Brood-X Cicadas and me

My daughter spent the past week in Maryland and witnessed the cicada Brood-X emergence. Known to have loud mating calls up to 100 decibels, she said yes, they are loud! She compared the volume to that of the frogs’ mating calls we heard last month during our walk through the woods, that we at first mistook for a house alarm.
She didn’t enjoy how the cicada bodies landed on her car and made a mess of things. She exclaimed how the roads and sidewalks of Bethesda were covered with splattered bug guts.
They are emerging in New Jersey, but not around here so I’m missing out on this periodical happening.

I was a teenager when the first-in-my-lifetime emergence happened outside of Cincinnati where I lived with Jean and Dad. Everyone I knew called them locust. It would be decades before I would learn the correct name.
Jean was terrified, one could maybe say phobic, of most insects especially any that flew. Her hand was marked by an ugly scar caused by a wasp sting that scarred more than her hand.
Our yearly summer vacation back in 1970 filled poor Jean with terror. She dreaded being outside and ran to and from the car as if her life was endangered. Even though she knew she was safe, she trembled at the sight of them. Her voice would quiver. She was an emotional mess. They are only around for three or four weeks, but our vacation’s two-weeks coincided with their coming out.
Dad was a prankster and teased her about it. He made quick jabbing hand movements toward her, pretending to be holding one. She would scream and he would laugh.

I found the cicadas interesting to see. Although, the nymph stage is particularly unappealing to me and if someone put one of those on me, I would want to cry. I’m most fascinated by the hollow shells they leave behind.
I remember visiting my maternal grandparents in Kentucky during the summertime and finding the shells stuck on the trees. Apparently, a few annual cicadas from different broods emerge every year. As a child I would collect them and line them up on the floor of the front porch. Then Big Granddaddy would begin talking about the large population that would make their appearance every seventeen years. The aunts and cousins on the porch would chime in and predict the timing. It meant little to me and I couldn’t envision or remember what year they said it would be.

I can see myself sitting in the back seat of the Pontiac and looking out the car window at all the locusts. I see Jean in the front seat being frightened and I see Dad behind the wheel chortling. My mind now is at one with my mind then and I recall my thoughts. I was thinking about being a little girl on the front porch with my mother sitting nearby and giving little care about the insects. Mom was unflappable about any pests, they were simply something to be killed. She had little difficulty being the one who eliminated them. As teenage-me sat in the car and remembered little-girl-me, I thought how much had changed in my life. I wondered where I would be for the next emergence.

Since that time, I’ve seen maybe a handful of shells of the annuals and have not seen any of the Brood-X emergences. I feel slighted by that actually. They are harmless and I find them interesting and I like witnessing infrequent natural occurrences.

I’m struck by how much has changed in my life. My adult daughter driving home from Maryland talking with me from her car from a smartphone using either the speaker or airpods. She looks from her car and sees the cicadas and we talk about the cycles, both past and future. I mention I’ll be 100 years old for one of those future happenings. She doesn’t want to talk about that. I get it, but we’ve had a few centenarians in the family and I can see myself being around then.

Who will I be talking with about cicadas when I’m 100 years old? Of all the experiences I could have and plan to experience when I’m 100, is seeing the cicada Brood-X even one of them? Will it be from a car or on a front porch? Will there be a little girl nearby and will she want to see them and touch them and line them up? It seems like a sweet and quirky little scene.

That’s quite a distant and far away time. Right now there’s actually an app (of course there is) that maps out where and when the nearest cicadas are. People can send pictures of their sightings and be part of the mapping. Maybe, I’ll get to see this year’s emergence after all.

Looks like I have a little safari to plan.

(the end)

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