The Cicada Ball

I am fascinated by these cicadas. They're so Biblical. Just yesterday I emailed some friends this great op-ed piece about them. (I'd give you my login, but I can't remember it. I'll email it to you if you like.) I've received some colorful, delightful responses I just had to share. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

From Jason:
The locusts really nail MD, and I remember when I was 9, they were everywhere. You gave up getting grossed out by the crunching noise under your feet when you walked outside because the other option was not to go outside. I'm really blown away by the the 17 year clock. Who knows what that's all about...

From Jim:
[...]don't we have cicadas every august every year? if not, what's the buzzing we hear at that time? in oklahoma we had lots of them every summer but their noise was a slow crescendo, very lazy. i associate the sound with dead dry grass, baked clay fields, hot hot breeze from the southwest, and at night the smell of the 'peanut plant' - a big mill where Spanish peanuts were sorted, packaged. Durant was once the 'Spanish peanut capital' of the US. spanish peanuts are the little red ones, not the larger yellow virginia peanuts.