Monday, July 31, 2006

Lightening up! : )

Wow, after posting some heavy thoughts the last few days, I feel like lightening up a little.

Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and an almost right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Well and good, but I love lightning bugs.

Ever catch some and put them in a jar? I used to as a little girl in Virginia. They're so remarkable. I'd study them awhile then let them go.

As an adult living in Virginia again, I drove with my husband and some neighbors to see the West Point Light. It seems this train man lost his head along the tracks and occasionally went looking for it. LOL All I saw were the most enormous fireflies in the woods along the train track.

But then there were the Marfa Lights way down in Marfa, Texas, where they filmed "Giant." On vacation, after eating at Chuy's, the only restaurant for miles, back then, we sat beside the highway with our kids one night and stared across the prairies. There were farm lights out in the fields, and quite a few planes landing, blinking as they passed behind the trees in the distance, as we waited to see the Marfa lights.

After about half a boring hour, one of the prairie lights suddenly jumped toward the other and back, and the other light did the same. Startled, we realized there were also no big trees out there, it was desert, and those were not blinkin' airplanes.

We had been watching the Marfa Lights.


Anyone else out there ever seen them?

Those occasions were fun, but the best memories were in our front yard as kids with a few little bugs in a jar.


Click here to enjoy some Lightning Bugs! Thank you, Tom.

Comment about your own lights and lightning bug memories if you like.

3 comments:

Marion Kelley Bullock said...

Margo,
I, too, remember summer nights when my sister and I chased lightning bugs, put them in jars with ventilated lids and ran around, holding them up like flashlights. When it was time to
go to bed, we turned them loose to light up the sky.

What a magical time is childhood.

Marion

Margo Carmichael said...

Isn't it, though. : )

Anonymous said...

Margo,

Just put this movie up a few days ago. Shows the ML's as they were seen from the Official Area on Aug 25, 2000.

Includes radio comm. with aircraft that flew overhead during the recording.

On Google: marfa_lights_2006


john janks
giveme3steps@earthlink.net