Wild Awakening

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Wild Awakening

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tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45694
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 7:50 am Post subject: Wild Awakening

Radio 4 Monday 21:00 Wild Awakening
Every 17 years parts of northeast America are taken over by billions of cicadas that emerge from the soil to reproduce. Howard Stableford visits Cincinnati to witness this natural phenomenon and hear the cacophony of mating calls - with up to 1.5 million insects per acre and each male capable of making calls louder than 100 decibels, the chorus is deafening. Howard discovers how local people react - some leave town until the cicadas die off, a few write plays and songs about the event whilst others decide if you cant beat them, eat them!

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 6:59 pm Post subject: wild awakenign

do you know tahir, oneof my fonder memories of the long hot summers of my child hood in upstate new york is the sound of the cicadas at dusk ..............and then there were the fireflies as well......always fireflies that seemed to be huge and left a sort of -i don't know flourescent trail as they flew along in the fading light......we used to sit on the front porch on hot summer evenings drinking iced tea and watch the bugs................

god i've gone all "wonder years".or is it the waltons....or maybe lake wobegone..................

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45694
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 7:20 pm Post subject:
Well make sure you tune in

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 8:55 pm Post subject:
A friend of Mandy's from the U.S. rang us to let us hear them last time they were out.

ButteryHOLsomeness

Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 770

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 9:52 pm Post subject: Re: wild awakenign

Nanny wrote:

hey another american ex-pat!

i remember fireflies or lightening bugs as we called them. we used to have such fun trying to catch them! we'd put the ones we caught in a jar and use it as a sort of lantern but we always let them go before we went in.... those were the days eh?

now all we need to do is get to talking about the watermelon seed spitting contests and how lovely and juicy those 30lb watermelons were on the fourth of july picinic when we'd lay back on a blanket in the park at nightfall and stare in wonderment at the amazing firework displays....

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 7:42 am Post subject: wild awakening

how far could you spit then ...i bet i couldspit further than you could............abnd yes we did do the 4th july thing and it NEVER rained and we used to go down to the plaza and watch the fireworks from the hood of my dad's plymouth station wagon.....

and we used to go to the drive in and watch all the good movies even though what was going on in the car next to you was quite often far more interesting............you could always sneak somebody in for free by shutting them in the trunk if they dared......

and remember the crummy speakers you had to hang on the window?

and if it did rain, you had to watch the movie with the windshield wipers going all the time

they just don't know they're born now do they?

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28247
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 7:45 am Post subject:
How common was the "drive in" from this side of the pond it always struck me as semi mythical, as the idea seems so silly

ButteryHOLsomeness

Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Posts: 770

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 8:13 am Post subject:

well today they are fairly mythical however i'm 34 and we went to them regularly when i was a kid. in fact i even mystery shopped a few in texas before i left for the uk (must have been 10 years back) but they were quite rare by then.

i think the point was that you could take a lot of people for a small price, especially if you had a flat bed truck, you just backed into your spot and set up your lawn chairs! the sites usually had a swing set right below the screen so the kids could play until dusk!

actually, they're a bit like an imax screen so methinks jurassic park or star wars would be brilliant on them

they did indeed used to have this wee thing that clamped over your window however in more recent years they had their own radio frequency you could tune into which was much better

many people brought picnics with them (and alcohol

) and it was a fun and cheap night out.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 8:27 am Post subject:

A friend of mine lives next to a bird of prey enthusiast, who kept cicadas to feed to his birds. he dropped the box one day, and she had cicadas all summer, in bedfordshire. They had one living in the roof outside the bedroom window, it drove them mad. They couldn't beleive it was so loud!

She's used to odd stuff, as she lives near whipsnade, and regularly gets wallbies, koalas and more exotic wildlife in her garden though!

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 11:33 am Post subject: wild awakening

it may very well be a mythical thing now but in my youth (nearly but not quite 52 this year) they were the thing to do in the summer time.....

you drove in and up to your speaker which put your car on a bit of a slope so everybody got a good view, attached the speaker and you were away...........there were in deed swings and stuff for the kids and i seem to recall that you couldn't get a better pizza anywhere in town at the time.........one amusing aspect however was that the drivein faced onto rts 5 and 20 which at that time was a fairly busy road and one that on a saturday night had a whole lot of cars trying to park on the verge to get a view....they got moved on eventaully of course...and the other thing that amused was that they showed not only the family type movie but also adult rated movies as well.................presumably they figured that if you drove by and couldn't hear the words, it didn't matter what you saw.....

wouldn't be allowed now.......

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