My Mama grew up poor, and in the South.

This point was brought home to me often in my youth.

Every Christmas, I would get jacks in my stocking. If you are unfamiliar with playing jacks, Google it. I spent my childhood years playing jacks…until I lost the little red bouncy ball. Then one by one, the jacks would be stepped on, lost, or tossed, and I’d be ready for my next set of jacks, come Christmas.

In the summer, when we lived in southern states, we’d look for puddles deep enough to have tadpoles. Many dozens of tadpoles turned into little toads and hopped away into our back yard, fed a diet of oatmeal in their Plastic shoebox home.

My favorite thing to play with was a June bug.

June bugs are fat, unwieldy beetles that somehow manage to fly. Their flight path is slow and wobbly, and they are easy to catch.

Instructed from the memories of Mama’s youth, I’d take a long piece of string, and make a slip knot on one end. Carefully I’d lasso a leg on the hapless beetle, pulling it taunt.

The June bug would take flight, unfolding its wings from its brown shell, and I’d walk along, waiting for it to get altitude.

Once above my head, I’d swing the June bug round and round, circling my arm like a crazed rodeo entomologist.

Eventually, the beetle would have enough of the circling, and would turn itself at me, causing me to drop the string, and run screaming like a little girl.

After a few minutes, I’d pick up the string and loosen the slip from the leg, setting the June bug free to drunkenly wander off.

My favorite June bugs were the luminous green ones. Their shells changed color in the light, and caught the sun as they whirred overhead.

Tonight on the porch, I heard something tapping against the front door. I was talking to Mama at the time, and as I glanced down, I said “June bug!”

She responded it was too early for them – and it is – but she immediately began to talk of her times playing with June bugs as a child, laughing as she remembered swinging them over her head.

It’s a childhood memory that we share, decades apart, but beloved by both of us.