Knoxville: Summer of 1915 -- Writing

This essay brings back the pleasure of being allowed to play outside after dark. Mother would grant me the honor at different times -- perhaps if I had eaten my dinner well that night or if I cleaned my room. Devin would say, before dinner, "I'll see you after dinner. I knew I wouldn't see her. But sometimes I would be able to. I remember once -- when my mom and dad and aunt and uncle were sitting in the backyard and aoo of us kids were running all around catching lightning bugs.

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I can feel the excitement even now of catching a lightening bug. I'd see him blink on and off across the lawn and I'd run to where he was, hoping to see him again. There he was -- I'd be close enough now to see him without his light -- a black speck with transparent wings vibrating at his sides. I'd sneak up and encase him in the hollow made from my cupped hands. There I'd feel him trying to escape, tickling my palms with his wings. I'd run to an empty peanut butter jar and open it with one hand while the other held my precious catch. There he'd drop -- to the bottom of the jar -- I'd quickly replace the cover and turn it. Then I'd examine the catch and sometimes shake the jar to make him light up.

My brother had a different technique. His first steps were similar to my own, but when he caught the lightening bug he wouldn't keep it captured in a jar, but whip it to the sidewalk and step on it, knowing that this was the secret to making "rings". I never liked to watch that, but it was an obsession to my brother and other boys.

Note:
While I don't recall reading Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which a Google search tells me is a "short prose piece by James Agee", I do remember catching fireflies. I don't think my brother really threw fireflies on the sidewalk though. My mother told me that she used to do that, so I think I incorporated it into my story and used my brother instead of my mom as the offender. Good thing my memoir was never featured on Oprah.