Austin is currently crawling with crickets. And they are not named Jiminy. They don’t quite have Jiminy’s charm, his staunch set of personal ethics, nor his spiffy wardrobe. Also, thank goodness, so far none of them have stood on top of my shoulder or given me a good lecture. No, these crickets are definitely not Disney material.
The crickets I speak of swarm the West in various regions all the way from the Rocky Mountains to the High Sierras. They are called Mormon Crickets, though obviously, they are not Mormon. Just to be contrary, these little imposters aren’t even crickets! They are actually shield-backed katydids. And they aren’t little either…sometimes they’re 3 inches long.
I’m not purposely making this confusing. Really!
The story of their naming goes something like this: Way back when, swarms of these critters were eating crops planted by early Mormon settlers in what is now named Utah. It was a tragedy. What would the settlers eat when winter set in? Then, suddenly, like a miracle, a flock of seagulls descended from above. It must have been a very large flock, because the seagulls ate all the insects, thereby saving the crops.
Yay, seagulls!
Mormon crickets travel in large groups, marching along relentlessly, eating everything in their path (including their fallen comrades; this is why I question their ethics). When they cross a busy highway and get run over, their fellow insects stop to eat them. And then they get run over…
In some places the roads become dangerously slick… I know. Ugh. A local man, now retired from the road department, told me yesterday that some years ago his crew had to use a snowplow to clear away the detritus and then many, many gallons of detergent to wash Main Street.
This is our second summer here in Austin, and my husband and I are trying to take the current invasion in stride, but I admit it’s a bit of a challenge what with our yard and the outside walls of our house being covered in an ever-moving mass of large insects. Still, I can not blame the Mormon Crickets for being Mormon Crickets. Their life is no trip to Disneyland.
During moments of quiet contemplation, I fondly remember the seagulls of Kenosha gathered on the shores of Lake Michigan. Always so many. So lovely on the sand, on the waves, and in flight.
And like Elizabeth Warren, I persist.
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