Crickets

The crickets have been out the last several weeks, and in the last few nights they have been very active.  We've been sleeping with the windows open nearly every night this summer and have had the pleasure of hearing these little creatures call to one another as the cool night air slowly wafts across the bed.

You all know the sound so I won't try to explain it, especially since I could not do it justice.  Let's leave it at the fact that these beautiful sounds are much more complex than can ever be described in a few words.

Cricket sounds are a gentle potion of both happy and sad at the same time, and remind me of the title of a Pink Floyd song, The Delicate Sound of Thunder.  At first, when you hear the crickets its often a small, faraway sound, and then it slowly creeps up closer to you until they are infiltrating your ears with that wonderful rumble...but you know from experience that the rain is not far behind.  As I listen to the crickets, I am thinking that this is one of the glorious sounds of summer, like the cicadas, the ice cream truck, and the joyful screams of kids playing in the sprinklers, yet it also means that autumn is not far behind.

Indeed, the air is cooler now and a bit more crisp than it was a few weeks ago and I am reminded that we must yet again brace for winter's grip on us.  Yet at the same time the crickets take me back to wonderful boyhood memories of scouting for deer prior to archery season, to a last fling with a small Wisconsin spring creek not so long ago, to Canadian fishing trips, and that childhood anticipation that came with the promise of another school year ready to begin.