Fireflies in California!

While it is generally pleasant that here in California we seem to have fewer insects than on the East Coast where I grew up, one thing I do miss are the fireflies that would come out around July 4th.  Wandering around just after sunset you would see these little yellowish lights blinking on briefly then off again.

These were just "normal" fireflies, not like the synchronized ones of Southeast Asia and apparently the Great Smoky Mountains.  Still there's something magical about them.  And, just like Dunkin Donuts, they don't seem to exist on the West Coast.  Surfing the web, I have found people who claimed that long ago at various locations in the West they did see fireflies.  Who knows how reliable those accounts are, but I've also heard that there are fireflies in California, but most of them don't glow as adults.

So imagine my surprise when the other evening around dusk I caught a glimpse of something glowing in the air just outside the sliding door of my house here in the Bay Area.  A Bay Area firefly?  Couldn't be!

So, I went outside to where I thought I had seen the glowing object.  I didn't see anything at first, but then I felt something brush against my fingers.  I looked down and saw an insect tumble onto the ground.  I managed to find it and picked it up again.  It looked like a cross between a soldier beetle and the fireflies we used to see in the Baltimore area.

And sure enough after a few seconds, it started to emit a faint glow!  I was so excited - I called my wife to come and take a look, and I thought to myself, "Boy, I have to write about this on the Internet!"  There it was, a firefly whose light I could see blinking faintly on and off right in the palm of my hand outside my house in California.

And then I woke up.  Darn, I guess there are no fireflies in my backyard here.  But at least I did remember to write about it though.

Goodbye, Gwyneth

I was visiting my parents in the Baltimore area in March 2012 to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday, and on the way back from the airport I noticed trees with many red flowers and no visible leaves.  "What are those?"  "Those are redbud trees."  "Is that a kind of cherry tree?"  "No, they're just ... redbuds."  I had grown up in the area, but for some reason had never noticed them before.

Later, my wife and I were walking by an REI near my parents' house when I noticed one of these redbud trees.  We had lost our inflatable travel pillow on the flight over, and we had purchased it from REI which we were members of since living several years ago in the Seattle area where REI is based.  So I stopped to take a closer look at this mysterious redbud tree, trying to see if it looked like some other tree I might be familiar with.  Then I looked down and noticed a sign that said, "In Memory Of Gwyneth Jones Spangler."

Huh.  I went to school with a Gwyneth Jones many years ago, but certainly this must be someone else.  After all she would be around my age.  And there are a surprising number of people named Gwyneth Jones, including a famous singer and a well-known novelist.

Later, at my parents' house we were looking at some old photos, including some grade-school class pictures, and my mom mentioned something about Gwyneth and cystic fibrosis.  I didn't remember her having cystic fibrosis and had no idea what that disease was, but I decided to Google Gwyneth Jones Spangler on our Kindle Fire.  An obituary article from the Baltimore Sun popped up.  She passed away in 2008, four years ago.  It also mentioned that she grew up on Seminary Avenue and her mother Drusilla - sure enough this was the Gwyneth I knew a long time ago.

I don't remember exactly how we met but it probably involved our parents looking for carpool partners at Lida Lee Tall Elementary.  I went there from 1st through 3rd grade, which is when Gwyneth and I hung out the most.  And then I transferred to Timonium Elementary.  At that point we kind of lost touch for a while.  Until she agreed to be my high school prom date.  But of course, it's a really long time between age 8 and age 17.  We had both changed and I don't think there was any real connection at that point unfortunately.  And it didn't help that I was a shy, geeky teenager, and after six years of all-male schooling, completely hopeless at interacting with girls.  I last saw her at another friend's party shortly after that, which was a reunion of ex-Lida Lee Tall students.

After finding the obituary, I started trying to remember her from back in my early grade school years, but there's not too much remaining in my brain from age 7 - just some vague snippets and random images.  Some memory about a card game popped into my head - I don't really remember the game, or what it had to do with Gwyneth.  I remember she liked telling classmates that she had naturally curly hair.  I remember her red house on Seminary Avenue.  There was an area near her house that we thought was haunted.  She gave me a ring once that said I love you.

But one memory that sticks out is when she told me not to cry.  It was just after school and we were waiting for our ride home.  And with wisdom typical of 7-year-olds, somebody, I don't remember who, had the idea that it would be fun to hide from whichever parents were picking us up that day.  So we hid for a while.  And when we came out nobody was looking for us.  I got scared and started to cry, and Gwyneth tried to reassure me, wiping my tears with her jacket.  After what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like 5 minutes, the parents found us, and we rode home.

Even though it had been such a long time, finding out that she's gone was strangely haunting, possibly because she's the first classmate I know of who has passed away.  Ah, Gwyneth, thanks for being a good friend, and for all the fun times way back when.  And thanks for getting me to my high school prom.  Goodbye, and rest in peace....