December 7, 1007

The hospital flew the flag at half-mast today. It was the anniversary of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Met an interesting old vet today named JD. He was pretty funny. Had quit drinking for over 20 years. He was a slight man in a wheelchair and he had no teeth, but he was amazingly feisty.

I was thinking this morning of some of my childhood quirks...

I collected bugs. When I was 5, we lived in Pelahatchie Mississippi. We had an 80 acre farm. We had a big pond which had beaver dams and lots of turtles. We fished it with super-long cane poles. We had a big barn with a pig sty, a HUGE garden which grew all our food, a chicken coop full of chickens, a leaning wooden clapboard house, a turkey-fig tree, a two-seater outhouse, and a water cistern.

At least twice each summer, the parents had to mow down the fields. On these eventful days, the children gathered bugs. The action of the tractor made the insects go crazy and swarm all around. We were particularly interested in the largest grasshoppers and praying-mantises. We had grasshoppers with abdomens so large that they looked like striped flying bananas. We caught praying mantises and walking-sticks at about 7 inches long. Our mother, who was a college chemistry student/teacher and fancied herself a real scientist, pinned the hapless critters to her wooden bookshelves in a marching formation. She always had full-wall shelves made of concrete blocks and 2X12's. For most of my life, she had our coolest bugs pinned across the shelves.

I started public school with my bug fascination intact. I had a perfect teacher named Mrs. Bart Cannon, she had beautiful dark hair that was curled under all around her face, she loved her husband, who visited the class in a wheelchair and had fought in VietNam. Most of all, though, she took the time to look at my bugs and identify them for me. I was constantly bringing bugs in jars and she would always know what they were.

As a way of encouraging me, the school invented awards to give to me. I got certificates for "Best Bug Collector" and "Most Interesting Bug". I was really proud of them. To this day, Mrs. Bart Cannon is my favorite teacher of all time.

My future teachers could never compete or compare. I judged my teachers based on their knowledge of bugs. If they didn't know something or didn't have the patience to try, I never fully respected them. I know that acting precocious to your teachers is not conducive to good grades, but I thought teachers were supposed to know everything, and bugs are all around. If they don't know something simple like that... well.

I still have a minor fascination with bugs. I pick them up and look at them. I'll usually show it to whomever is near and point out something interesting about the bug, then put it back where I found it.

Would you consider me wierd?

MsAmber