Fireflies

Editor's note: A young boy discovers the beauty and excitement of fireflies but realizes he can't keep them in captivity.On a summer evening I looked up from dinner, through the open window to the backyard.It was growing dark. My treehouse was a black shape in the tree and I wouldn't go up there now.But something flickered there, a moment -- I looked, and it was gone. It flickered again, over near the fence. Fireflies! "Don't let your dinner get cold," said Momma.I forked the meat and corn and potatoes into my mouth.

Howard H. Seliger, a retired Johns Hopkins University biology professor who fulfilled a childhood fascination with fireflies by later investigating the science behind their light-making properties, died of coronary artery disease Dec. 20 at his Mount Washington home. He was 88. Family members said that he was an expert on bioluminescence. He helped to show that fireflies and microorganisms found in bioluminescent bodies of water have enzymes that trigger a chemical reaction that make them light up. Dr. Seliger was also principal scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Institute from 1972 to 1989.

I've never liked being in the middle of large crowds. I don't care for loud noises, either, especially explosions. So I don't celebrate Fourth of July by attending fireworks displays. Around every Fourth of July, though, I do manage to find a field where nature is putting on a quiet light show with fireflies. Last summer a pair of fireflies apparently followed me home and camped out among our house plants. I took it as a promising sign. Legend has it that if fireflies get loose in a home, good fortune will shortly follow.

Dover, Del. Firefly Music Festival The first large-scale music festival in Dover history, Firefly's inaugural lineup has something for everyone. The three-day, 47-band event extends across a variety of genres, including alternative rock, bluegrass and R&B. A solid list of heavy-hitting rock headliners includes alternative bands the Killers and the Black Keys, as well as Jack White, who will share a stage with R&B superstar John Legend and electronic performers Bassnectar and Passion Pit. Attractions include an air-conditioned brewery, wine garden and hot-air balloon rides.

Debate has heated up lately about how much and how often grass on public land should be mowed. Pro-mowers, including Baltimore's mayor, argue that grass kept tidily short is aesthetically more attractive and discourages rats. Anti-mowers say that reducing cutting eases the budget and encourages a natural setting.Encouraging a natural setting is one of the hottest topics in gardening today. It's part of the biodiversity movement, which is part of the movement to put something back in compensation for the widespread development and paving of America.

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, and here on Earth C come emulating flies.-- Robert Frost THIS evening I am wondering about the consciousness of fireflies. My wife and 5-year-old son have gone off to bed, and I sit alone on the back porch to do the thinking. I can hear the bedsprings responding to their fitful sleep. In separate rooms, they turn this way and that, captured in a heat wave that envelopes the metropolis like an enormous plastic bag.I mop my brow and search for a flashlight to read the ancient thermometer tacked to the frame of the back door: 85 degrees at midnight.

Dr. John Bonner Buck, a National Institutes of Health biologist whose studies of fireflies' flashing began as a young man observing them in his family's Towson back yard, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Wednesday at Fairhaven Retirement Community in Sykesville. He was 92. Born in Hartford, Conn. he moved to Towson in his late teens when his father was named principal of Towson High School and completed his senior year there in 1931. While enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University, he became fascinated with fireflies and undertook an investigation into the flashing behavior of a local species, Photinus pyralis, which he observed outside his parents' Allegheny Avenue home during the summer of 1933.

You can see fall coming as surely as you can see a candle flame snuffed by the wind. At twilight, watch any grass field or woods where this summer's fireflies, nourished by a wet spring, rose in great numbers. Now their dwindling lights tell us autumn is on the way.Think of it as the lightning bugs' parting signal in a brief life of signals.Seven days on the planet between June and mid-August, that's about all the adult lightning bug has in temperate zones. Time for the males to rise from the ground at twilight or night, fly through the darkness flashing, looking for a mate.

Shakespeare and the out of doors go together naturally — not surprising, given that many Elizabethans got their first exposure to his plays in an open-air amphitheater. For the better part of 15 years, Bard fans and fireflies have taken in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's al fresco season on the meadow behind the Evergreen Museum and Library. And, for nearly a decade, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has celebrated the greatest English-language playwright with performances given at the ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute on a hilltop above Ellicott City.

Howard H. Seliger, a retired Johns Hopkins University biology professor who fulfilled a childhood fascination with fireflies by later investigating the science behind their light-making properties, died of coronary artery disease Dec. 20 at his Mount Washington home. He was 88. Family members said that he was an expert on bioluminescence. He helped to show that fireflies and microorganisms found in bioluminescent bodies of water have enzymes that trigger a chemical reaction that make them light up. Dr. Seliger was also principal scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Institute from 1972 to 1989.

Sunday, July 8 Music by the lake The Retro-Rockets, a six-piece oldies band specializing in music of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and beyond, will perform as part of the Columbia Lakefront Summer Festival from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 10275 Wincopin Circle in Columbia. The band will play favorites by Chuck Berry, Etta James, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, the Drifters, Jimmy Buffet and more. Free. In the event of rain, the performance will be canceled. Call 410-715-3127 for updates.

Fiona Apple played a short series of promotional shows earlier this year to support her upcoming album. Now, she's launching a full tour for "The Idler Wheel is Wiser" that includes stops in Baltimore and Washington D.C. Apple's mini-tour, her first series of live performances outside of Los Angeles, started at South by Southwest and garnered near-ecstatic reviews from critics who said she was giving once-in-a-lifetime performances....

I've never liked being in the middle of large crowds. I don't care for loud noises, either, especially explosions. So I don't celebrate Fourth of July by attending fireworks displays. Around every Fourth of July, though, I do manage to find a field where nature is putting on a quiet light show with fireflies. Last summer a pair of fireflies apparently followed me home and camped out among our house plants. I took it as a promising sign. Legend has it that if fireflies get loose in a home, good fortune will shortly follow.

Shakespeare and the out of doors go together naturally — not surprising, given that many Elizabethans got their first exposure to his plays in an open-air amphitheater. For the better part of 15 years, Bard fans and fireflies have taken in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's al fresco season on the meadow behind the Evergreen Museum and Library. And, for nearly a decade, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has celebrated the greatest English-language playwright with performances given at the ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute on a hilltop above Ellicott City.

The Howard County Conservancy will present fiddler and hambone artist Steve Hickman in a performance of fiddle music, rhythmic slapping and dancing with fireflies, "Fiddlers and Fireflies," from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. July 17 at the Conservancy's Mount Pleasant Farm at 10520 Old Frederick Road, between Bethany Lane and Woodstock Road, in Woodstock. Bring your own picnic and blanket or chairs. Admission is $5 a car. The performance will be held rain or shine. Information or to register: 410-465-8877 or visit www.hcconservancy.

A heat wave is the kids going to bed sweaty because you let them chase after fireflies in their underwear. A heat wave is sleeping on top of the sheets and under the fan. A heat wave is getting your morning caffeine fix from iced coffee. A heat wave is feeling like a wuss because you drank iced coffee. A heat wave is sweating even though the air conditioner is on high, because the sun is glaring in on your side of the car. A heat wave is some cheesy DJ playing "The Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, the serenity of a humid Maryland summer's night was most likely to be disturbed by platoons of net-carrying youngsters trooping over yards and fields, swooping up lightning bugs by the thousands.The tiny, graceful creatures, with their soft luminous flashings that filled the night, were as much a part of summer evenings in those years as the jingling bells of the Good Humor man, the endless hum of window fans or front porches that were illuminated by the glow from yellow light bulbs.

Summer is about standing in a darkened field, smelling honeysuckle and thick green things, sneakers getting so wet that grass sticks to them. It's about chasing fireflies. This evening, a group of children and their parents gather for the show that begins at twilight at Oregon Ridge Nature Center. Fireflies are everywhere. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of soft-winged beetles signal one another at different elevations - some as high as 30 feet in the air. There are 200 kinds of fireflies in America and Canada, says Oregon Ridge naturalist Winny Wong, and they use many different flight and flash patterns.

Forget Fireflies. Faith Hill should have titled her new album My Apology. Almost everything about the compact disc feels like a reaction to the widespread complaints that her last collection, 2002's Cry, sacrificed country character in pursuit of pop crossover sales. As this album shows, Hill did some serious soul-searching. She listened to hundreds of songs, and that paid off in at least six cases, including "Mississippi Girl," a get-back-to-my-roots exercise co-written by John Rich (of the hot duo Big & Rich)

Dr. John Bonner Buck, a National Institutes of Health biologist whose studies of fireflies' flashing began as a young man observing them in his family's Towson back yard, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Wednesday at Fairhaven Retirement Community in Sykesville. He was 92. Born in Hartford, Conn. he moved to Towson in his late teens when his father was named principal of Towson High School and completed his senior year there in 1931. While enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University, he became fascinated with fireflies and undertook an investigation into the flashing behavior of a local species, Photinus pyralis, which he observed outside his parents' Allegheny Avenue home during the summer of 1933.