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Aren’t they though? I remember being a little kid, probably maybe six or seven years old closer to six I think. I live down in Virginia, in northern Virginia. It sure was different back then than it is now.

I lived in Fairfax, Probably less than a quarter mile from George Mason University. Back then, up Beaumont Hill They were building the university while I live there.

I went to Green Acres Elementary school, only a few yards from where I lived. Those Northern Virginia summer nights were warm and gentle. to a six-year-old kid.

I remember being outside, sun had already gone down, and the bushes near my house were alive with fireflies. On the other side of that fence was an enormous pasture owned by a farmer. There was one gigantically tall for tree in the middle Of that pasture.

I vividly remember walking slowly around a firefly trying to capture it. And then, when I captured it, I remembered that instant before you open your hands. You have them cupped together and there’s something fluttering about inside.

In the darkening air, I slightly uncupped my hands, And there was a small glowing firefly. I vividly remember. Seeing the skin of my hands illuminated in a small area around that tiny insect. I could see the fingerprints and the creases .

Yes.

Fireflies are definitely magical for me.

Then, I would hear my mother banging on the big triangle that was attached to the outside of our house in the backyard. It seems so ridiculous now. Who would do it now, right? They’d probably call them on their cell phone.

But I could hear her furiously banging away at that big triangle, the metal must’ve been at least an inch and diameter. She had a big metal rod that she would use on it.

It really carried. You could hear that along way off. There are parts about my childhood that I do really like.