Fireflies, Fruit Jars and Childhood Summer Nights

During the hot summer days, I reminisce about my childhood years spent in Sutton, West Virginia, in the 1960s. Among the memories I hold close to my heart are those of moonlit summer nights I spent running barefoot through the dew-laden grass catching fireflies. Armed with fruit jars with lids carefully punched full of holes, my sister, (Carol) and brother, (Eugene), and I anxiously awaited the darkness, which always brought with it the first tiny lights of our friends, the lightning bugs.


Each of us tried to outrun the others in our efforts to be the first to fill our jar. We let the pretty winged creatures crawl on our arms and hands and tickle us, making us giggle as they attempted to avoid the jar.

Sometimes in the rush to be first out the door to catch our bounty, the jar would be dropped and broken. My grandmother did not appreciate providing more than one jar, but Aunt Judy always relented after some tearful pleading on the part of the one who had the accident.

Bedtime always seemed to come too soon, but even bedtime was welcome on those nights because we were allowed to keep the prized jar beside our beds. This would result our hoping in the room would become aglow with tiny twinkling lights. They seemed to have a calming peacefulness about them.  Sadly, we always awoke to their little bodies being lifeless, (not matter how much grass and water we had placed in the jar the night before).  But the next time, we would try again, hoping to light the bedroom with their little bodies.

Now I am a grandmother, and when I take my grandsons back with me to my grandparents homestead, so they can experience some of the wonder of the country life while it still exists in this hurry paced world - I find that I smile as they race to be the first out the door to catch the fireflies in fruit jars also.  Hoping to be able to light their bedroom at night with the twinkling lights from the tiny little bodies.  And when one of the little jars slips from their hands, Aunt Judy quietly sweeps up the broken pieces and gives the one who had the accident a new jar and as always says the familiar phase, "don't worry honey, there's plenty more jars in the cellar house".