I am definitely happy when I look at this map.
It looks like the farthest south the 17-year cicadas will come is at least a hundred miles north of where I live.
Since I lived in California in 2004 and Colorado in 1987, the only contact I ever had with this particular infestation was in 1970. I was living in Northern Virginia that summer, and while my memories from half a century ago fade more and more every year, I do remember the incessant noise.
My most vivid memory was my sister Laura’s high school graduation. The noise from the cicadas never stopped. The strange part of it is that even though I have a lot of memories of the spring and summer that year, that day in early June is the only time I remember the cicadas.
Wikipedia says the cycle only lasts about five weeks, so that might be one reason. I don’t know how far back they go, although they are mentioned in Homer’s Iliad and in China as far back as the Shang Dynasty.
I was alive and living in Ohio during the 1953 infestation, but I think I can be forgiven for not remembering my fourth summer on Earth.
Unless I live to be 88, I shouldn’t have to deal with another visit from the 17-year cicadas. Not that they’re the most annoying thing about summer. We aren’t even in June yet, and it was 91 degrees outside. Knowing what summers here in Georgia are like, I would gladly trade five weeks of cicada noise for a milder summer.
Of course nobody’s asking me.