Texas Gulf Fliterary

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Walking more, even in the heat of the day. More butterflies this season than last, or more than I remember from the oppression of last summer's drought. The ground is dry again, the grass is brown again, but I'm hopeful that this is temporary and the rain will return soon. I've seen several rabbits (but not as many as last year), the flying insects are all about, and I've started a deer two or three times in the middle of the day near a water source. Today he was at the water and ran up the bank as soon as I turned the corner. I could hear him crash through the underbrush in the woods for several minutes, then I heard him snort, perhaps in anger, while I passed.

When I was in ... first grade perhaps ... at Marie's Day School on Winchester Rd in Memphis, we would go into the back fields for recess. There were plenty of trees and bushes, and enough areas to become invisible to the teachers for a while (we played Star Trek a lot back then. I think I was Scotty every time; this is irrelevant). That year there was a bush near the back (barbed-wire, if I remember correctly) fence that was flooded with orange monarch butterflies. There were thousands of them. I have never seen so many butterflies since, I know. We would go down there, away from the sight of the teachers, and watch and touch and chase the insects for the entire recess period.

Something happened, and the following year the butterflies didn't come back. Nor the next. There were a few, perhaps, but never in the numbers like we saw. Perhaps their nests were damaged; perhaps insecticides were used; perhaps their food sources were mowed down in the field next door.

I've been to the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Science Museum once; it's the place where a man is most likely to be assaulted by a butterfly. I need to go again I suppose.


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