The songs of summer

Nature blessed my boyhood summers with music. Cicadas’ rising-falling singsong gave days rhythm. Katydids chimed in evenings with a nightshift song backed by cricket twitter. The call of a whip-poor-will drifted through the night. Rain frog trills lifted my spirits while bullfrogs’ chorus gave me peace. And though they made no sound, lightning bugs pierced the darkening with rhythmic light.

Rural Georgia, 1960s—I loved summer evenings more than anything. Days reeled from heat, humidity and commotion. Across the field from home, my father’s saw shop whined and screamed throughout the day. Log trucks rumbled down the Augusta Highway. During lulls, I could hear cicadas. The sun wilted the lawn and cracked our dirt driveway’s mudhole near a plum tree. Small, perfect tiles of red clay resulted. Tessellated. The heat and noise made sunset and its long shadow, evening, a welcome time of delight. Those days live on in memory and literature, and, thankfully, songs of the Southern summer still bless my summer days and evenings to this day.

James Dickey described cicadas in Deliverance. “Lewis killed the engine, the air came alive and shook with insects, even in the center of town, an in-and-out responding silence of noise.”

Cicadas love the heat of day, singing best during sultry hours. The volume and pitch rises and falls—that in-and-out responding silence of noise.

Katydids go back to boyhood when Mom told me they got their name from their repetitive song. Just what did Katy do? Mom didn’t say. Must have been bad. The years rolled on and then one day an emerald, blade-thin grasshopper landed near me. Bright green, greener than grass. No wonder it’s so hard to see in the treetops. They belong to the family Tettigoniidae, which I have no clue how to pronounce, but when you hear that repetitive accusation, “Katy did,” it’s nighttime. Cicadas own the day.

Crickets’ refrain give us a classic nighttime sound plus the temperature according to Dolbear’s law. Temperature (F) equals the number of cricket chirps in 15 seconds plus 40. And that is cool even when it’s hot.

3 a.m. long ago. I looked out my bedroom window to see eyes of foxfire. A whip-poor-will had perched upon a post. I could not see it, but from it came the most melancholy song. Just like that, I was so lonely I could cry.

“Rain” and “tree” frogs’ calls come on the heels of the first crack of thunder. A musical trill, it can be an ascending rasp, pleasant also in a rich acoustic way. I’ve seen emerald tree frogs, and I’ve seen mottled gray frogs known as Cope’s tree frog, which can also appear green. Storm chasers. Rainmakers, these songsters.

A pond fringed with cattails and sedges provides a concert summer evenings. I can hear the bullfrog calling me. Daddy sang bass; mama sang ... well you know that song, too.

Dusk ... gold orbs float over and around grasses. Lightning bugs stipple the edge of woods, hopeful males flitting and flirting with females. Males, making their distinctive rise-glow-fall mating dance, fill the air with sparks, a soundtrack of light.

Rural Georgia, 1960s, again—We were so poor we were rich. Even if they had existed, we could not have had iPhones and Androids back then. We read books. We didn’t have a pool. We had a garden hose. We didn’t frequent fancy restaurants. We dined on homegrown tomatoes, corn, okra and peas. We didn’t use big box AC units. We used window fans. Nor did we go to movies. A musical played night and day. I remember it well. I had a front-row seat. The musical’s still running.

Free admission. No parental guidance necessary. Adults welcome.

"Tom writes about the South, its people, culture, land, natural wealth, and beautiful detritus—ruins and abandoned places. He travels back roads looking for forgotten places, captivating people, and vestiges of bygone times. Much of that work finds its way into books, columns, essays, and features." - tompoland.net