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June 1, 2021
I was lying in my bed listening to the cicadas sing. The “Loreleis of the insect world,” as The New York Times called them that month, had emerged to “drum their compelling love song to herald yet another cycle of their amazing and mysterious 17-year life span.”
It was a sound so loud and strange, it was easy to think I’d strayed out of Pennsylvania and woken up in some other world.
A different world would have suited me fine. It was June 22, 1970, my 12th birthday, and the first day of summer school. For six hours Mr. Williamson that day drilled us on word problems.