They went on forever and they, when I, we lived in Arizona and the skies always had little fluffy clouds in them and, er they were long and clear and there were lots of stars at night and, er, when it would rain it would all turn, it, they were beautiful, the most beautiful skies, as a matter of fact...
I scrolled specifically looking for this.
It was important that this be posted here.
You've done a man's job, sir!
It's too bad she won't live... but then again, who does?
Over the past few years, to the traditional sounds of an English summer, the drone of lawnmowers, the smack of leather on willow, has been added a new noise...
There were way, way, way more bugs. Yesterday I spent about 12 hours on the highway, and I didn't need to pull over to clean my windshield once. 20-30 years ago my windshield and headlights would be completely plastered after a few hours.
Me and my friends would go out at night and see how many lightning bugs we could catch. We would do this every summer night. My dad made us a couple of big containers with wire mesh lids so none ever got hurt.
We always had them filled and glowing like some crazy looking lantern out of a steampunk game. We would let them out to fly away when we were done but they would be everywhere as thick as you could see when the sun when down.
Now I think I have been lucky to catch one or two after dark.
High desert mountains are, or were, a great place to see the Milky Way. You had the mountains and the openness. It's been a few years or 20 for me, though. No idea if those places are still dark enough.
I remember stars covering the sky in a shower of light. Not just a few here and there, but the literal Milky Way band. Light pollution has grown at a concerning pace in my own lifetime and I wonder what it will look like when my children are grown.
Roughly the same. I remember more lightning bugs, though, if they count as "sky." Not sure if that was peculiar to where I was living at the time, outside Memphis, Tennessee.
There are definitely less lightning bugs now. I remember there being tons growing up, but now I rarely see them, and I live very close to where I lived as a kid.
When Laurence Olivier was filming Henry V in 1944, he had to go to the north of Scotland because of all the contrails from military planes further south.