I saw the greatest minds of my dead end street running into the blue mist of the sweet-smelling cloud behind the Essex County Mosquito Man's Jeep.

Summer in the 1960s, and the living was good.

It was best to be a kid on those hot days. Butterflies flew in on their magic carpet colored wings and lit on the damp clothes on the back yard line.

Some days we found red ants in the cracks of the sidewalk. We'd watch them for hours. Or stomp them. Other days we watched black ants carrying crumbs off to a hole in the pavement. Sometime we tried to get a war going between the red and the black ants.

Then Grandma came out with the pot of boiling water and we watched the ants float away.

On hot July nights, besides world famous New Jersey heat and humidity, you could count on mosquito bites and fireflies in the night.

We could never find a mosquito truck when you need one.

On our dead end street we kids stayed out as late as we could. We played hide-and-seek or if we had a big ball, we played Sputnik -- assigning each kid a letter and throwing the ball up and calling a letter, yada, yada.

After playing, we'd come in and pour the calamine lotion on the bug bite welts. The rich families on the block had a window fan or two. The rest of us awaited a summer breeze through the window screen and the gossamer curtains.

We probably had the same cycle of boom and bust years for critters then as now, but, frankly, there weren't nearly so many houses in our suburbia. The critters had their place and we had ours. I wonder where the critters go in their off years, and what calls them back in those great numbers when they are on?

It must be a lot like the lightning bug. Around here we only see them in June and July. They light up fields and back yards in summer with their private fireworks.