MY LIFE MEASURED OUT IN CICADA YEARS [Sa, 5-22-21]

REFLECTINONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

MY LIFE MEASURED OUT IN CICADA YEARS  [Sa, 5-22-21]

 

Although I have stopped writing, I feel I should acknowledge to someone, since I cannot acknowledge it to the cicadas themselves, that this will surely be my last cicada summer, at least for that hardy every-17-years Brood X bunch. The next time they come, I would be 101 years old. Not likely. Not desirable.

Counting back, they came last in 2004, when I had reached my main goal in life, by being a grandfather. So happy that my brother and wife and grandson had survived cancer. So sorry that my little sister did not. Bemused that my father had told me I wasn’t really his child.

Then 1987. I was living in Mattoon, IL, on sabbatical leave between pastoral appointment at Charleston, IL Wesley UMC and Arcola, IL, wondering if I would have to move to Minneapolis when I got hired to write full-time for the Prairie Home Companion radio show.

Then 1970, a campus minister at IL State U, in the midst of strife over Civil Rights and Viet Nam, with two cute grade school daughters at Oakdale School in Normal, IL. Getting ready to go off to U of Iowa to pursue a doctorate.

Then 1953, the president of my high school class in Oakland City, IN, hoping for a career as a newspaper man, hoping God would forget the deal I had made to be a preacher. I suspect the ringing in my ears is left over from listening to those noisy little cicadas at the same time I was trying not to listen to God.

I just missed them, in 1936, the year before I was born, although I did get in on the big flood that followed them. Apparently, God, or somebody, had gotten fed up with them and decided after a whole summer of listening to their constant talk about sex just to drown the little pests. We lived in Oxford, OH at the time, and the hospital was in Hamilton. My father drove us across the river just before the bridge was closed. Mother used to talk about looking out her window in Mercy Hospital and seeing items floating downstream in the flood—cars, cows, trees, houses. She didn’t mention cicadas, but they must have been there.

Now for this 17-year appearance of the cicadas, we are back home again. We have survived Covid19. We are vaccinated and seeing family again. We get to drink coffee and eat muffins and lounge around in our pajamas when we go to church. My wife is prettier than ever, and I have plenty of time to get ready to die, since I have stopped writing.

I feel a little bit bad about this being my last cicada summer. They probably do, too. They have been present for so much that was important to me, the background music for my life. At least, every 17 years.

John Robert McFarland

The cartoon, of course, is by the great Gary Larson.