Rick and I decided one summer night, while we camped in the
Great Smoky Mountains, to hike up Deep Creek Trail in search of the
synchronized fireflies. In the Great
Smokies, every year for about ten days, late May to early June, these little
creatures, called fireflies, display their show. The most popular place to view them is around
Elkmont, but as the crowds grew to watch the spectacle, the National Park was
forced to limit visitation, and now issues permits via a lottery system. Rick and I both had researched and had come to
discover that the synchronized fireflies were not only unique to Elkmont but
had been seen in many places throughout the National Park. One of the places mentioned was Deep Creek,
where we just so happened to be.
It was late, when Rick and I headed out of camp and
maneuvered through the woods to the trail head of Deep Creek. We left our headlamps off, not wanting to
disturb the show we had come so far to see.
As we walked, the forest seemed to come alive around
us. Cicadas sang their evening song,
crickets chirped from the shadows, and a soft breeze whispered through the
leaves.
Our hike eventually brought us to Tom Branch Falls. We stopped, found a place to stand quietly,
and waited.
Then, against the backdrop of the black forest, something
magical happened.
The hillside began to glow!
Eight seconds on
Four seconds off.
Eight seconds on.
Then off.
Hundreds, then thousands of tiny neon-green lights blinked
in perfect rhythm, as if the forest itself had found a heartbeat.
I stood there watching, and suddenly I was transported back
nearly forty years, to a night when my daughter was only five years old.
We had been sitting in our backyard watching fireflies dance
through the darkness. I suggested we
catch some, just as I did when I was a boy.
Soon we had a jar filled with them.
We sat on the patio, watching the little jar mysteriously
light up.
On-Off-On.
My daughter looked at me with the wonderfully curious
expression only a five-year-old can have.
“What makes them light up, Daddy?”
Being a pharmacist and having an extensive background in
chemistry, I launched into my best scientific explanation. I told her about chemical reactions,
bioluminescence, and how the light was part of a mating signal.
She listened carefully; her little brow furrowed in
concentration.
Then came the question that stopped my scientific lecture
cold.
With an Aire of enlightenment, she says, “Oh! So, it’s the
stuff inside them?”
I grinned.
“Yes, I said. “It’s
simply the stuff inside.”
Now, forty years later, standing beside Rick in the darkness
of the forest, I watched those same little creatures perform their ancient
dance.
Rick broke the silence.
“What makes them light up?”
I smiled in the darkness, and responded, “I once was told be
an authority on the subject, that it’s the stuff inside.”
We both laughed
And for a moment, standing there beneath that glowing
hillside, I wasn’t an old man hiking through the woods with a buddy.
I was a young father sitting on a patio with his
five-year-old daughter, watching a jar of fireflies come alive.
Some things change with time.
Some things don’t.
And sometimes, the simplest explanation is still the best
one.
It’s the Stuff Inside.
