I went to Pennsylvania for the first time in my mid twenties. When I saw fireflies, it affected me in a way writing about it can only hint at. A sense of surprise and wonder that I haven’t experienced since childhood - maybe not even then. I haven’t experienced anything like it again, and I suspect I never will.

Intellectually, I knew they were ‘a real thing’, but that in no way prepared me for the reality.

Since then, it’s always been reassuring to look back and know that such wonder can still be felt by a grown adult.

We called them "lightning bugs" in rural Texas. We used to have ice cream after dark in the back yard with the parents and grandparents and neighbors, amidst a swarm of moving stars. It seems magical now, as though I'd dreamt it. But back then, it was just a typical Saturday night.

we like to call them "lighting bugs" back here on the east coast ;)

We called them "lightning bugs" when I was living in Pennsylvania (as I recall), but since then I've lived in North Carolina and Virginia and now think of them as "fire flies".

Maybe it's a north/south thing, too.

I grew up in Miami and what we called lightning bugs were a beetle with a pair of green glowing dots on the head:

https://youtu.be/7MMleTEQoo4

I now live in NC where the bug is called a firefly and it has a single yellow glow near its tail and looks more like a fly.

I'm from NY. We call them fire flies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I grew up in NC where we called them lightning bugs. But, I also grew up on the internet.