Pre-holiday column coming in hot. Big nothing burger for you to feast on over Labor Day. I’m just not feeling very opinionated. Don’t tell Foley that this column sucked worse than usual.
Just in case you or your loved ones rely on the Kansas City streetcar for transportation, here is your notice that it is shutting down for three weeks starting Sept. 30. But don’t worry. They have these combustible engine buses that will stop at all of the same places and operate at the same hours as the street cars.
This just reminds me that if nobody misses you when you go on vacation, you probably are not needed. But we have to pour money down this hole because someone said you have to have street cars to be a major city, despite the fact that they are hugely inefficient, terribly expensive, and not effective at moving people. Other than that, they’re awesome.
I don’t have to tell Platte Countians that a version of streetcars once existed, and they deemed them as unneeded when the interstate and automobiles were improved and more readily available. You could catch a ride to St. Joseph, Kansas City, Excelsior and even Olathe, should anyone ever desired to go to Olathe.
Anyway, they figured out that people would rather get there quicker, and they gave up 90 years or so ago. Then they inexplicably began building them again.
Big city policy makers don’t read that much history and here we go again, building, extending, and pouring money into electric trains only to eventually bemoan their demise.
A buddy of similar chronological age as I am asked me by text this week. “Where have all the fireflies gone?” I theorized that we are just not out late enough to see them anymore. Is that accurate? They still exist, right? You can still rip their lighted butts off and carry them around, right? If they don’t exist anymore, I’m not sure this is a world I can live in.
I warned you about this column. This is your fault, why are you still here?
Anyway, I checked up on these fireflies. Seems as though they are really finicky. Like women or old men. My computer research tells me that “Fireflies are picky about where they live and often can’t recover if their habitats are destroyed. For example, they won’t relocate if their chosen field is paved over.”
Can’t really blame them. I don’t know if they move and just don’t come back or just quit having baby fireflies, the science is unclear.
That begets the question of birthing fireflies. How exactly is that done? You’re still here, so I’m at your service. Seems as though they reproduce the old-fashioned way. Two genders only and they mate. Not sure if they have bedrooms, or just on a bare patch of ground somewhere. According to science, the males hover low to the ground at night with their “light” (that’s not a euphemism) shining to attract females.
The females apparently post up on the ground and use their own special flash to call the boys in, then the magic happens. Presumably, the male then goes to the local firefly pub for a beverage and cigarette and the female lays up to 500 eggs in the soil, where they remain for up to two years as they “birth” and repeat the process.
Remarkably similar to humans minus the politics, really.
Anyway, that’s all we got this week. Merry Labor Day to you, yours, and any fireflies you may encounter.
(Guy Speckman can be reached researching firefly history in America)
