Walking Sticks and Praying Mantises
Roly-Poly Bugs and House Flies
June Bugs and delicate, lacy Dragonflies
Butterflies and Lovebugs
Lightning Bugs and Stink Bugs
Wasps and Bees
Ants and Worms and Tree Roaches and Spiders
Cicadas and Katydids
Crickets and Grasshoppers
Moths and Ladybugs
Water Striders and Caterpillars

These were some of the bugs of my early childhood here in Louisiana. Mosquitoes and Fire Ants didn't show up until I was older. My first memories of insects are lovebugs floating in cohesive pairs in the summery daylight, some landing on the sheets the lady down the street was hanging on the line to dry. I built a castle of stray bricks, and peopled it with about one hundred roly-poly bugs that escaped almost as fast as I deposited them. We chased the lightning bugs on summer evenings, and caught the Dragonflies known as Mosquito Hawks in our bare hands to study their iridescent colors. We fell asleep, the bedroom windows open, to the music of crickets and katydids.