DOODLE BUGS
As kids we used to search around the yard and garden for dry, sandy spots. If you could see tiny swirls of sand grains descending into the surface in neat little eddies you knew you had discovered the dwelling place of a host of doodle bugs
Exactly what a doodle bug looks like, I cannot say, because I have never actually seen one, nor do I know of anyone who has ever seen one, but the holes were drilled by some tiny critter, bug or beast and until I'm told differently, I will go on believing they are made by the curious little, mysterious and unseen bug called the doodle. To deny them would be like saying Santa Clause does not exist.
I wonder if we do might owe our universal tendency to draw little designs and non-sense objects on anything available as we talk on the telephone or wait for something to start or stop at the office or at home. So, bugs can doodle too, if it helps them pass the tedious times of the day.
But, when we kids mentioned doodle bugs we were usually making reference to the game of hunting their homes and to, by means of the spoken word in the form of various mystic charms to cause them to crawl out of their sandy hovels.
As I recall it, we had just one such incantation which we used to to try to get the bugs to come up to the surface, but I have since found that other children has various sets of words which might do the trick. That may be why I never got to see a doodle bug, and I also tend to distrust anyone who tells me he or she did! Our charm had an emergency quality about it which others seemed to lack.
To call up a doodle bug, you got your face down as close as possible to the sandy surface. Then focusing one of then tiny, eddied holes , you first whispered, then spoke softly or yelled, depending on who was watching, I think: “Doodle bug! Doodle bug! Your house is on fire! “ repeating as seemed necessary. Some times rhythm and rhyme were added ” “Doodle bug! Doodle bug! I ain't no lie-er! Come out quick! You're house is on fir-er!”
Very often, you saw immediate results, too!
Right before your eyes you saw a few grains of sand displaced and you could see them slide down the slope into the whirlpool where the bug lived! “He moved! He moved!” you might call out and the vibrations from your voice and heavy breathing, caused yet another grain or two to dislodge and cascade into the hole, taking others with them.. That was taken to be proof that you had awakened the doodle bugs (which were always sleeping, it seems) and he and his family were taking your warning seriously moving around, dressing, getting ready to ascend.
Once you realized you were making it all happen yourself, you no longer engaged actively in the charming of doodle bugs from their homes, but you continued to help smaller children to learn to do so.
It was sorta like summer-time Santa-thinking, wasn't it?
A.L.M. October 17, 2002 [c545wds]
