Rosalie B. wrote in
:

PS - they put us on the gas dock at Frenchman's Marina, and no-seeums
live under that dock. Little bugs are worse than big bugs because
they can get through regular screening.




White Mountains of New Hampshire, Spring of 1956 camping with my dad's
brand new red/white Chevy 210 station wagon. I was 10 years old and
sleeping across the front seat with Mom and Dad in the sleeping bag in
the back. Franconia Notch State Park, I think it was. I don't remember
the park. I DO remember the no-seeums!

It rained the night we got there, the first rain in several MONTHS. The
no-seeums took the opportunity to HATCH and were HUNGRY! Dad had rigged
plastic fly screen to all the doors with duct tape to keep the bugs out.
It worked with the mosquitoes in upstate NY, where we lived. The screens
were NO MATCH FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE'S STATE BUGS!

About midnight, I was awakened itching and scratching like crazy, causing
the car to move about, waking the angry parents. "Dammit, Larry! Lay
still and go to sleep!", Dad hollared at me. "Something's bitin' me up
here really bad, Dad!", I returned scratching fiercely. Dad said to turn
on the dome light. That was our first error of the night. The white
plastic overhead in the whole Chevy wagon was BLACK WITH FLIES!....TINY
BLACK FLIES!! BILLIONS OF THEM!!

Needless to say, we quickly got up and dressed and hosed each other down
with 6-12 Repellant that came in those little glass bottles with the tiny
drop hole in the top. Then, we undid the kitchen fly tarp from the car
and took off down the road at 1AM to try to blow the bugs out the open
back tailgate of the Chevy. When my father traded in that wonderful car
I wish I had, today, in 1960, four years later....there were STILL New
Hampshire NoSeeums stuck to the ceiling, seats, rubber floor mats and
about any place else you looked the vacuum cleaner couldn't get to.....

About 2AM we found a motel that had a vacancy in the White Mountains.
That night was the end of the camping on that trip. Even the motel had
to bomb its rooms to get the bugs away from the guests. The guy who ran
it had lived there all his life, inheriting the place from his father.
He said he'd never seen them any where near as bad as just after that
damned rainstorm!

My head itches.....even now....(c;

Thanks for the memories....(c;