A word about "Mission" from...Sumshee




A mission?
Maybe a good mission would be to get more people to think in the direction of what inspired me to jot down the following:
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I remember when I was a kid, I would go to my Uncle Bill's farm in the summer, for the annual family reunion There were traumatic moments like having to pee in the dreaded OUTHOUSE, or going through the obligatory fishing-in-the-pond routine with my dad and big brother. I NEVER liked fishing, something about worms, I think. Yech! Of course, there were lots of relatives to hug and receive kisses from, most for whom I had NO affinity. Sigh!
But then there was that delicious, outdoor, late afternoon meal...mmmmmm. GLORIOUS!!! Every flavor under the sun made it's way through my young existence. And I could run off to the base of a tree and be as laden with sloppy manners as I liked. No Momma to tell me to sit up straight or remove my elbows from the table. Freedom!

Most years, after the big meal, my Dad and Uncle C.B. would get away from the cackling hens and farm equipment talk and come down to where the kids hung out and stretch out with us to look at the clouds and ponder the shifting shapes that they made. It wasn't until many years later that I learned that they both suffered from the dreaded "reefer madness". No wonder they giggled as much as did we over the crazy interpretations of the billowy wonders. I remember now that they always disappeared for a while before dinner. Hmmm. Anyway, we all had a wonderful time.

That wasn't the only wonderful event of our trips to the country. Just about night fall, Uncle Bill always took the kids, along with a few adults, out to whatever big field that was dormant that year and brought along two huge aluminum poles, about 15 feet long and a big canvas bag... a bag so big that it took four of us kids to carry it. There was always a scuffle over who got to help in carrying the bag, because IN that bag was “the trap”. We would remove from the bag a mosquito netting that was ten feet tall and every bit of thirty feet long.

After carefully laying the net out flat, we would attach a pole to either end and wait. After sunset the fireflies came out in tumultuous numbers. We picked up the poles, half the kids on one side, half the kids on the other and holding the poles upright, ran with all our might. As soon as whoever was running with a pole would get tired, another young set of hands would pick up the baton. We had to keep running so that the fireflies would remain caught in the net.
Just before we were all run out, we would, while still running, bring the two poles together, drop them together on the weeds and immediately start gathering the top and bottom lines of the netting together , shaking as many of the glowing insects as possible to the middle. When the task was finished, we would run back to the house with our bounty: thousands of glowing and throbbing lights, all of them ALIVE!
We would keep them there for about an hour and then Uncle Bill would eventually tell us to set them free. What a sight that was! They would swarm in the immediate area, all around us! Slowly spreading thinner and thinner, until the night was normal again.
After we let go of the fireflies, Uncle Bill always was careful to mention that we needed to remember what we did -- forever! We needed to remember that we could run through our lives letting the light go by, or we could gather all the little bits here and there. He told us to have fun with what we collected but remember always to let it go so others can enjoy it , too. And that if you hold it too long and too close, it might die.
Neat, huh?

-Sumshee


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