One sunny day I was riding my bicycle down to the club because I expected the “gang” to show up within a half hour. As I was passing Fraser’s house, it suddenly got pretty dark and you could hear the wind pick up. I sped up because this meant a rainshower was sweeping in. When I was about 50 yards from the club it started pelting so hard you could hear it hitting the ground. It was coming from my back and a few drops hit me hard enough to sting, so I was going full tilt by this time. I suddenly realized I wasn’t getting wet, I was getting hit by big kamikaze insects. but I wasn’t hanging around to figure out if they were marabunta wasps. After I made it under the club, I looked out and discovered the big shadow was caused by a massive swarm of locusts. For some reason they had chosen the grounds of the club as a landing zone. I got pretty scared as the main body arrived – these things didn’t look like any grasshopper I had ever seen – they had serious wings. They ranged from 4 to 6 inches long and made a furious whirring sound as they flew. Although the main group seemed to be landing on the lawn, causing the whole lawn to seem like it was moving, there were still a huge number that “landed” on the concrete around the club. They came in about the same speed I was riding my bike and just bounced when they hit the ground, skipping ass over tea kettle 3 or 4 times before coming to a stop and struggling back onto their feet. The impacts made a solid sound and there were so many it kind of sounded like pouring gravel onto a wooden ramp. They were all coming from the same direction and it seemed like they were attacking as their momentum was carrying them further under the club to where I was backing up. There were zillions of them, so I made a dash for the changing room and shut the door. I never saw them leave, because I didn’t get up the nerve to poke my head out for 5 or 6 minutes. By that time every single locust was gone. I could not believe there wasn’t mass carnage, or at least a bunch of cripples from the way they had landed, but I never found one left behind. When the gang finally showed up, I don’t think they believed a word of my story. I have since learned that when locusts are getting ready to swarm, they grow special wings and they have some kind of genetic thing that makes them line up with their neighbors, but I have never seen any pictures on the net of locusts as big as the ones that dive bombed me, on ary with wings like these critters. This picture is a tame impression of what the swarm looked like. Just imagine they are all 6 inches long and doing a kamikaze number straight at you, complete with of lots of frantic noise.
I must have been away at boarding school, no such recollection. My memory can’t be that bad.