Fireflies

While I was still in high school I went with a group of older friends to a Grateful Dead concert at Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center. There were a lot of us, about a dozen I think, and we rented a large minivan to make the drive. We drove pretty much all day and into the night and finally arrived where we were going to camp. That ride was up until then the furthest I had been west. I thought the Buffalo area must be the Middle West because it was so flat and there were farms everywhere. Lake Ontario looked like the ocean to me.

We camped, and drank beer, and sat by the fire and eventually ended our long day by crashing out in the tents. The next morning we got up and prepared ourselves as best we could for the coming day. We piled back into the van and joined the long line of hippie traffic into Saratoga, and when we parked we joined the throngs of brightly colored, brightly lit people spinning in galactic arms around the vortex of the stage. We vied for a good vantage point to stake out our spot, and when we found one we put our backpacks and stuff in a central point on the ground and we hung out around the pile. People came and went throughout the duration of the show, jaunting off to get a better view or to share some of what they brought with someone new, and returned back to the central hang out. By the time the show was over and it was time to find the van we straggled back to it in twos and threes. When I got there a couple people had it opened already and were reclining and soaking in the atmosphere. I went to the open tailgate and was fetching a refreshment when suddenly I was accosted from behind. I was clutched heavily by a cold but sweating guy who was obviously in great distress, but who was doing me physical harm. I heard soothing words coming from inside the van, saying that the speaker understood the way the assailant felt, but it was unacceptable for him to have grabbed me like that and then, BAM! The guy went flying off me back into the parking lot and I stayed right where I was. George, a big football player who had accompanied us had launched himself out of the rear of the van and knocked the guy about ten feet, after explaining its necessity in dulcet tones. I didn’t feel bad that the guy got nailed back into the parking lot. He obviously didn’t feel at all bad about choking me.

The rest of our party dribbled back over the remainder of the afternoon, and that was fine, because there was no way we would get out of that parking lot before dark anyway. We hung around the van drinking our cold beverages and playing hacky sack and Frisbee when the space permitted. When we eventually took the final headcount and piled into the van, we all had a post-adventure, job well done feeling. It was easy to find the campground; all you had to do was follow the line of hippies right to the only place to crash out there in the country. Finding our camp site took a little longer.

Once we had singled out our clutch of blue and tan dome tents from the sea of other blue and tan dome tents we restarted the fire and went about cozying into our site for the night. I had run off to a convenient thicket to release some of the beverages and was called away by a voice in the dark. It was a good friend from our site who had happened to see me skittering by. He asked if I wanted to join him for a last relaxing smoke to round off the night, and I did. As we lit up we found a dry spot in the thicket and shouldered our way through. The noise, and campfires, and movement, and drumming were suddenly all behind us. What lay ahead was a pristine night meadow, quiet, serene, and populated by a cloud of blinking fireflies. It was spectacular.