Friday, August 20, 2004
"Like Snot Through a Flour Sifter'
By The Erudite Redneck
JASPER, Texas -- Yikes! This is deep East Texas.
The sign at the gate of Martin Dies Jr. State Park made that much clear:
"Beware: Alligators Exist in this Park. Do Not Feed or Annoy. Stay at a Distance."
Noooo problem.
But then, I thought: "It would be kinda neat to see a 'gator -- if it didn't see me."
The guy at the gate seemed bemused by my curiosity. After all, I'd just driven 400-odd miles, just for the fun of it -- and on a mission to find real woods -- and I didn't realize exactly how far I'd come.
"Are you serious? There's really alligators in this park?" I said.
He said: "Yes." He surely thought: "No, moron, we just put the sign there to fool people."
"They won't hurt you will they?" I asked.
"Well," he allowed, "There was one guy who got mangled some that time last year. But he got down in a nest and was fooling with the babies. But she didn't kill him. She would've if she'd wanted to. She just broke his leg."
"Don't blame her," I said, anxious to get on into the park, but glad to have somebody to talk to after the long drive.
But on in I went, relishing the dark-gray shadow that only tall pines can afford, squinting to see through the trees and around the curves in the park road.
A 2-mile hike provided glimpses of wildlife, but mainly of the growing-in-the-ground variety. You could almost watch the mushrooms and other fungi grow in the rich blanket of needles and leaves and cones and other decaying -- nurturing -- matter on the forest floor, especially after the drenching rains of the night before, which, I feared, might ruin my hiking and exploring.
After all, in central Oklahoma, a drenching rain usually means slickened clayey dirt. But here, of course, the spongy soil, covered and protected by nature's offal, soaks it right up.
Ahhh. The air is thick here, amidst the old-growth pines. Humidity? Sure. But it's part of the mystique of this place, near the Angelina National Forest, one of four national forests in East Texas, all of them a short drive from the Jasper County seat.
Wonderful. But no 'gators revealed themselves, although my throat tightened at one point, a mile-plus away from the truck, on a small island in B.A. Steinhagen Lake. The silence of the woods was broken by a big "SPLOOOSH-SPLASH," which surely was a 'gator gettin' away from the curious human trudging through its neighborhood.
What there was plenty of around here was "lovebugs," something explained by another sign, this one at a car wash in town:
"1 Plus 1 Lovebugs Equals Zillions. Brace Yourself."
The car wash people weren't kidding. On the way in, near Zavalla, about an RC Cola's drive southeast out of Lufkin, they hit with one fell swoop. This is gross, but it's what came to mind: it was like somebody slung a flour sifter full of snot on my windshield. Really. Damndest thing I ever saw.
I thought they were mosquitos, at first. But when I stopped at Zavalla to see about a nonexistent motel room, I saw they were something else. Weird somethings, until you know they call 'em "lovebugs."
You never see one lovebug, always two, attached, flying sort of like the helicopter-like seedpods from a locust tree -- around and around in loopy circles. They don't bite, thank God -- because they literally fog this country during their spring and fall flights, I found out from a woman park ranger from the Texas Panhandle, who was as fascinated as I was even after being here for a couple of years.
According to Texas A&M University, their scientific name is Plecia nearctica, from the Hardy Order Diptera, whatever that means. Here's a better description of them than I could discern from the blur:
"They are about 1/2-inch long, black with an reddish-orange area on the top of the thorax, and a pair of smoky colored wings.There are many other species of Bibionidae, called March flies. Other Texas species are generally black with clear wings and become abundant in certain periods of the year. They are all weak fliers. ... Large numbers of adults emerge primarily in the spring (May) and fall (September)."
Here's where the "lovebug" nickname comes from:
"Males and females fly and couple in open areas along roadways, appearing to swarm in weak flight," according to Texas A&M, in a description that sounds sort of like the weekend behavior of a lot of the kids I knew in high school. "Adults fly mainly during daylight hours and feed on nectar and other moisture sources. They are naturally attracted to open areas such as roadways through wooded areas. ...
"High numbers in flight over roadways can be annoying, causing bug-splattered windows and radiator grills that can lead to obscured vision and engine overheating; medically harmless."
Interesting, but such writing is why science seems boring to some people.
An Erudite Redneck woulda put it like this: The goldarn things are so thick that when you drive through a swarm of 'em what's left on yer dadgum windshield looks like snot through a flour sifter.
END
JASPER, Texas -- Yikes! This is deep East Texas.
The sign at the gate of Martin Dies Jr. State Park made that much clear:
"Beware: Alligators Exist in this Park. Do Not Feed or Annoy. Stay at a Distance."
Noooo problem.
But then, I thought: "It would be kinda neat to see a 'gator -- if it didn't see me."
The guy at the gate seemed bemused by my curiosity. After all, I'd just driven 400-odd miles, just for the fun of it -- and on a mission to find real woods -- and I didn't realize exactly how far I'd come.
"Are you serious? There's really alligators in this park?" I said.
He said: "Yes." He surely thought: "No, moron, we just put the sign there to fool people."
"They won't hurt you will they?" I asked.
"Well," he allowed, "There was one guy who got mangled some that time last year. But he got down in a nest and was fooling with the babies. But she didn't kill him. She would've if she'd wanted to. She just broke his leg."
"Don't blame her," I said, anxious to get on into the park, but glad to have somebody to talk to after the long drive.
But on in I went, relishing the dark-gray shadow that only tall pines can afford, squinting to see through the trees and around the curves in the park road.
A 2-mile hike provided glimpses of wildlife, but mainly of the growing-in-the-ground variety. You could almost watch the mushrooms and other fungi grow in the rich blanket of needles and leaves and cones and other decaying -- nurturing -- matter on the forest floor, especially after the drenching rains of the night before, which, I feared, might ruin my hiking and exploring.
After all, in central Oklahoma, a drenching rain usually means slickened clayey dirt. But here, of course, the spongy soil, covered and protected by nature's offal, soaks it right up.
Ahhh. The air is thick here, amidst the old-growth pines. Humidity? Sure. But it's part of the mystique of this place, near the Angelina National Forest, one of four national forests in East Texas, all of them a short drive from the Jasper County seat.
Wonderful. But no 'gators revealed themselves, although my throat tightened at one point, a mile-plus away from the truck, on a small island in B.A. Steinhagen Lake. The silence of the woods was broken by a big "SPLOOOSH-SPLASH," which surely was a 'gator gettin' away from the curious human trudging through its neighborhood.
What there was plenty of around here was "lovebugs," something explained by another sign, this one at a car wash in town:
"1 Plus 1 Lovebugs Equals Zillions. Brace Yourself."
The car wash people weren't kidding. On the way in, near Zavalla, about an RC Cola's drive southeast out of Lufkin, they hit with one fell swoop. This is gross, but it's what came to mind: it was like somebody slung a flour sifter full of snot on my windshield. Really. Damndest thing I ever saw.
I thought they were mosquitos, at first. But when I stopped at Zavalla to see about a nonexistent motel room, I saw they were something else. Weird somethings, until you know they call 'em "lovebugs."
You never see one lovebug, always two, attached, flying sort of like the helicopter-like seedpods from a locust tree -- around and around in loopy circles. They don't bite, thank God -- because they literally fog this country during their spring and fall flights, I found out from a woman park ranger from the Texas Panhandle, who was as fascinated as I was even after being here for a couple of years.
According to Texas A&M University, their scientific name is Plecia nearctica, from the Hardy Order Diptera, whatever that means. Here's a better description of them than I could discern from the blur:
"They are about 1/2-inch long, black with an reddish-orange area on the top of the thorax, and a pair of smoky colored wings.There are many other species of Bibionidae, called March flies. Other Texas species are generally black with clear wings and become abundant in certain periods of the year. They are all weak fliers. ... Large numbers of adults emerge primarily in the spring (May) and fall (September)."
Here's where the "lovebug" nickname comes from:
"Males and females fly and couple in open areas along roadways, appearing to swarm in weak flight," according to Texas A&M, in a description that sounds sort of like the weekend behavior of a lot of the kids I knew in high school. "Adults fly mainly during daylight hours and feed on nectar and other moisture sources. They are naturally attracted to open areas such as roadways through wooded areas. ...
"High numbers in flight over roadways can be annoying, causing bug-splattered windows and radiator grills that can lead to obscured vision and engine overheating; medically harmless."
Interesting, but such writing is why science seems boring to some people.
An Erudite Redneck woulda put it like this: The goldarn things are so thick that when you drive through a swarm of 'em what's left on yer dadgum windshield looks like snot through a flour sifter.
END
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Ah, the lovebugs. In my undergrad days at Stephen F. Austin State University, just a short ride from Jasper, those critters were everywhere. Ruined everybody's paint job to no end.
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# posted by 
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