Thirteen years ago…
I got married, yes, but this is not an anniversary post. Thirteen years ago, in 1998, was the last time Missouri was invaded by the thousands by these…
Brood 19, or the Great Southern Brood, of periodical cicadas emerged en masse this month throughout northern and central Missouri. Every 13 years thousands of Brood 19 cicada nymphs crawl out of the ground when the soil reaches 65 degrees – sometime in mid to late May. The nymphs climb trees, shed their skins and begin their noisy process of searching for their mates. The males sing from 10am to dusk and will do so everyday for a few weeks until they die off.
Now, cicadas are around every summer here and the noise they make is a sound that is deeply ingrained in me as a sound of childhood. In fact, my dad, who has never lived anywhere but in St. Louis, has been known to open the windows at night just to hear the cicadas sing. OK. That’s a little much, but their sound truly is the sound of summer for me. The thing is, dog-day cicadas, or the ones that come out every year, are typically heard and not seen. In fact, I couldn’t pick one out of a line up. Periodic cicadas, however, are a whole different package.
Let me just say I have thought more than once about the great plague of locusts written about in the Old Testament. These nasty guys are everywhere and everyone is talking about them.
Three stories: Last week I drove to the post office and parked my car in the only available spot. It happened to be near a tree. As I opened the back door to get Opal out of her car seat, we began getting swarmed by these loud, disgusting bugs. Ira (and I)started freaking out and all I could do was grab their little hands and RUN!
Second story: Last week Joe and I took the kids to Chick-Fil-A to get some yummy grub. It happened to be “Dress your child like a princess and get a free meal” night. Needless to say the place was packed. So we took the only available table outside. There were a few other families out there already and princess screams could be heard throughout the meal in reaction to uninvited cicada guests.
Third: This week Sophia spent two nights away at a camp called Ne-O-Tez. I was honestly worried how she would handle all the cicadas there as they seemed even more intense than in our neighborhood. When I picked her up she said “Mom, a cicada landed on me and I just picked it up by the wings.” “You didn’t even scream?” I asked her. “Oh yeah, I screamed” she said.
Let’s just say I’m going to appreciate the next 12 summers that Brood 19 stays underground.
Apparently, they left TN and headed for you. We are wrapping our 13-yr invasion around here. It’s been pretty disgusting and the singing cicada choruses have been so loud as to drown out conversations completely. Lots of childhood memories come back to me when I hear them, but I’m very much over the the swarms attacking my car everyday. Ha ha ha!