By: Angela Gillaspie © 2006 All Rights Reserved

Groucho Marx said, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

This illuminating quote is true for some, but I like to say, "Time flies when you're having fun; May Flies scare sisters."

Time flies when you're having fun and while this is true for birthday parties and clearance sales at Wal-Mart, it seems to me that time travels fast for old fogies and slow for younguns.

When I was small, time crawled by. School days were dull and endless, but summer break was exciting and endless. Each summer day I took my sweet time playing outside, collecting bugs, and irritating my sisters, but on the other hand, the time it took to do my chores and endure lots of punishment for irritating my sisters lasted forever.

I had two sisters and as the middle child, I used sibling rivalry as a weapon - I could drive the fleas off a goat. It was a gift, really. Momma called me creative but my big sister Sherri called me something else I can't say here - maybe that's why she was often the target of my, um, creative talent.

Every June, neither sister appreciated the painstaking effort I took to make them May Fly jewelry. My younger sister, Traci, was a baby, so I made her a bracelet, and made Sherri a necklace. I foraged for May Flies around porch lights, sorted out broken bugs, and then glued them on a string. Did I get a thank you? No. I only got crying from Traci (after she ate part of the bracelet) and yelling from Sherri.

Momma hated it when we fought. She was an only child and couldn't understand why we pinched, threw forks, and pulled hair. She'd cry, "If I had a sister, I NEVER would've called her names or put peanut butter in her hair brush, and Angel! Why, why, WHY must you touch bugs? Stop bugging your sisters!"

Sure, Momma, you would've flung cups and sharpened your fingernails into points just like your three precious daughters. Daddy never said much, but he understood the situation - he too caught bugs, and had nine sisters and two brothers to irritate, after all.

One sizzling July day, Sherri went outside to sunbathe. With nothing pressing for me to get into at the moment, I followed her - just in case she fell or did something that I could tattle about. She smoothed out her towel, turned up the stereo, then sat down and lubed up with suntan oil. I ran and put on my swimsuit and headed to my favorite sunbathing spot out in the orchard. Sherri couldn't quite see me, but I could spy on her.

She sang along to 'Muskrat Love' enjoying the oppressive heat and never sweating. This annoyed me because Momma said Southern Ladies didn't sweat - they glisten. I wasn't glistening out there amidst the fruit and bugs - I was sweating like a pig and swatting bugs like crazy. Southern Ladies didn't touch bugs, either. There was no way I could ever be a Southern Lady like Sherri - I enjoyed touching bugs! Since I couldn't be a lady, I might as well go June Buggin'.

For those unfamiliar with June Buggin', it is the sport of capturing a June Bug (a big greenish beetle that doesn't bite, but stinks to high heaven), tying a thread to his back leg, and then laughing hysterically as it buzzes in circles, landing on anything close by, be it a shoulder, tree limb, or open mouth.

The items needed for June Buggin' are a jar, strong but fine thread, and lightning-quick agility. Having only one of these, I ran back to the house and scavenged an empty mayonnaise jar and a spool of Momma's thread. I returned to my spot, chased down some June Bugs and put them in the jar. Then, like a pint-sized cowpoke, I used thread, my two big toes and a lot of bug mojo to get the bugs roped and tied. I went one step further and tied the June Bugs to a stick so handling them would be easier. It always tickled me to see those freaked-out June Bugs bobbling around. I laughed until I was belly-cramped and snot-clogged.

I clamped my hand over my mouth, biting my finger trying to stifle my giggling so that Sherri wouldn't hear me. Ouch. Peeking down, I saw her flipping her hair back and forth to Elton John's 'B-B-Bennie and the Jets'; I knew she didn't hear me. I also wondered how she avoided hurting her head.

I tended to my June Bug rodeo and waited for the right moment. As soon as Sherri went inside, I ran down to her sunbathing spot and wedged two June Bug sticks next to her suntan oil. Then I dashed back to my spot.

Sherri returned sipping a Coke and plopped down on her beach towel. Moments later, two big green bugs attacked her Coke. She waved them off and they began buzzing around and fell right smack dab on the middle of her belly. She jumped up and screamed, saw strings and knew whodunit.

"ANGEL!" she roared. For a second, I weighed the pros and cons of acting innocent versus running off. How'd she know I did it? More importantly, why didn't she laugh? June Buggin' is fun! Unfortunately Sherri wasn't appreciative of my bug wrangling and she came after me. I took off like a shot. After a good quarter mile, I climbed to the top of an oak tree and began laughing until I almost fell out of my tree.

Being banned from playing with my sisters was a minor setback to my snail-paced summer. I had much creativeness to share, like when I went next door to visit my grandparents, Meme and Pappaw. They didn't have much money since they were on a pension, so instead of a private phone line like we had, they had a party line - which is a phone line shared by a bunch of different neighbors. Sometimes you could pick up the receiver and hear a couple of neighbors discussing so-and-so's explosive diarrhea or Uncle You-know's bad back and hemorrhoids.

When a call came in through the party line for Meme, it had a different sounding ring than the ring that sounded when someone else got a call. I couldn't distinguish which was Meme's ring, but I helped her out as much as I could by answering the phone each time I heard it ring. It was so funny making raspberries and burping sounds while the neighbors talked. It wasn't very funny to Meme later on when her neighbors asked about the gas coming from her phone.

As expected, I was banned from Meme's phone, and time barely moved when I had to face every party line person and apologize to him or her knowing that they knew that I was the community belcher.

Fast or slow, time keeps on moving - never stopping, and nowadays when I see one of my four kids standing in a doorway, unable to decide whether he is coming, going, or trying to cool off the entire neighborhood, I'll try not to holler, "Shut that door, were you born in a barn?" But try to understand that he's in his own time zone, just scheming what trick to try next because time flies when you're having fun, May Flies scare sisters (not as bad as June Buggin', though).

Stay tuned for more of Southern Angel's goofy memoirs!