tonight i had one of the wildest experiences i've had in quite some time.

it was about nine thirty and i was at the end of door-dashing. as you may know i've become a door dasher and i like it, especially when times are good and i'm out there on the open roads; it connects me to my traveling days only now i'm collecting small sums of money a little at a time, as opposed to seeing what little i've saved disappear to my inevitable hunger. well anyway door dash has a way of sending you way out in the boonies at the end of your dash especially if you're a guy like me who takes every offer, and this one went to a little country town five miles from knoxville which is itself five from galesburg, my town. not that far, really, but in country miles, it's way out there, believe me. so i get out there with these two bags of mcdonalds and i hear this sound. it's a magical sound and one i haven't heard since my childhood.

that's right, it's the seventeen-year locusts. it's a different sound from the thirteen-year but i knew it when i heard it. it struck me to the bone and i was all excited.

the young woman who collected the bags had several little kids around. i couldn't help it and said to her something like, "you have the locusts already!" I'm not sure if she even knew what i was talking about, but she wasn't eager to hear any more about it, maybe it was the kids, and i left. but i was really excited.

i began counting back seventeen years. iowa and northern illinois would have had them in 2007, 1990, 1973...i got married and moved to korea in there somewhere and i'm not sure i remember hearing them then. but i do remember hearing them as a kid. we may have had them in ohio but we also came out to iowa several times in summers when i was a kid. 1973 maybe?

i've heard the thirteen-year ones too as they were in carbondale. the thing is, the majority of people just consider them a nuisance. they're loud, and high-pitched, and they carry on like an orchestra of violins tuning at all the wrong times. but as a musician that's what i liked about them. they were all seeking the same note and getting pretty close to it, and they had a natural rhythm built right in. most people might not hear all that much. but i heard it.

they're like crickets - the soundtrack to your childhood. like fireflies might be the backdrop to your memories, and might remind you, at some uncertain time in the future, of summer nights in your childhood. if you're out there, listen carefully. you have all summer to hear them, but then you won't hear them again for nineteen more years.

this year both the seventeen- and the thirteen- are coming out. the thirteen-years come out in carbondale and in more southern locations; the seventeen-years come out up here in northern illinois and iowa; some places actually have them both and i can't imagine what that's like. it's a god-awful racket to most people and it carries on through june and july or at least for a good part of the summer. locusts rule! play that orchestra! our world of kids needs to hear them!

the people of that tiny town, the town of gilson, illinois, got them a little earlier than we did and they may not be as impressed by them as i was. but they made my night. god's little orchestra started tuning itself for the big show, and i was there to hear it.