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Walk in the Maine woods in the imposing shadow of Mount Katahdin in the heat of summer. You’ll never forget that incessant noisome grating sing song of the No See-ums in your ears combined with their ceaseless biting. How those seemingly microscopic insects tormented me during high summer when I was a callow youth, incarcerated, as it were, in summer “camp” while my parents vacationed. I can still recall the yearly trepidation I’d feel when I’d be ushered into my father’s office and be told that, “Your mother and and I have decided that another year in summer camp will serve you best.”

Leaving, following this heart breaking news which I had to digest annually, my ears would begin to feel hot and I could swear that I began to feel those awful bugs again. When I was ten, my younger brother was also sentenced to the gulag with me and though I could impart little knowledge about the upcoming “fun” to be experienced in camp, I was able to fully explain what he’d face on the insect front and watch him blanch under the weight of this knowledge.