Worm Hell

Sometimes when I think about my childhood weird things pop into my head, like remembering that after a spring rain, huge night crawler worms would come out of the earth and collect on the sidewalk. As a kid I really thought that was neat, especially when I would run over them with my bicycle and squish them lengthwise. I hope there isn't a place in hell for me because of that, after all the nuns told us that they didn't have souls. If there is a worm abuse hell, then after serving time in that hell I would be moved on to lightning bug abuse hell. You see when I was a boy I thought it was very entertaining to go out at dusk, when the fireflies would gather in our yard like a picture in a fairy tale book, and smack them with a baseball bat just to see them fly across the yard like a shooting star. Yes, I have some beautiful childhood memories.

Here in Florida, we don't have lightning bugs, or night crawler worms that come out after a rain. I assume children here have their own memories that may include fist sized cockroaches running across the kitchen floor, or chasing down one of the millions of lizards that live in the yard. I’m sure they revere those memories just like I do mine.

A real favorite memory of mine, was waking up on a school morning to find that we had a blizzard the night before. I would run to the window to see that it had transformed the yard into a winter wonderland. I couldn’t wait to run out into that snow, and I would get really pissed if some kid came through our yard and messed up that perfect wonderland before I could get out there and mess it up myself. After all you need virgin snow to make decent snow angels.

I'm not sure what the equivalent would be here in Florida. Maybe kids get excited about being the first one to run outside after a hurricane, before anyone has ventured out to start cleaning up the mess. I suppose it could be fun to be the first one to find your neighbors roof in the middle of the street, or somebody's shed from a block away, at the bottom of the swimming pool. One other thing, do people from Florida who have moved to a cooler climate, reminisce about humidity? Do they miss it? Could those be the people you see in the steam room when you go to the gym?