Mosquitoes

                                     

              Long ago when motorcycles had spoked wheels 

I was driving my XS-650 across swampy coastland in the 

middle of the night in western North Florida near Perry 

when my rear wheel got wobbly and holding the bike on 

the pavement  became  difficult. The tire had been 

punctured and gone flat. I gingerly maneuvered the 

stricken machine to the side of the road, keeping it barely 

on the pavement to avoid sinking into the muck, set it on 

its center stand and dug my flashlight and my tools out of 

the saddlebag and, needing both hands for tools and the 

rim, I stuck the light in my mouth and directed the beam 

with my jaws.

            The light, unfortunately,  attracted mosquitoes. I 

am accustomed to skeeters being a long time Florida 

resident but these were an unfamiliar and extreme form of 

the pest. They were many times larger than the ones I knew, 

large enough that I could clearly see the yellow and black 

stripes on their legs.  They got in the way, not because they 

were sucking me dry, they weren't, because bugs, dogs, 

and small children don't bite me but they were blocking my 

sight.

           They were so thick in the light of my flashlight that I 

couldn't see to fix the tube. I  turned off the light and did the 

job mostly by feel, only turning the light back on very briefly 

to use the half second between "light on" and the return of 

the mob of skeeters to see where my tube patch had to go. I 

got the tube patched and the wheel mounted and was back 

on the road once more.