With zero ado, here are the local summer sounds I’m thinking about today…

June Bugs

The first auditory herald of the summer season is the humble and terrifying June bug, aka Satan’s Bumble Bee. A cursed creature, the June bug is a big, fat beetle roughly the size of a swollen foot. And beneath its hard, outer shell it’s got the most useless set of wings ever to squeak through evolution’s brutal filter. These wings are not good for flying. But they are good at producing a revolting BUZZZZZZ as the hideous thing swoops and flounders through the air – long, spikey legs a-danglin’ – before wapping into your dusty window screen. Or maybe your hair. Or maybe right into your screaming mouth.

Wildfire Hacking

As a small, handsome child growing up in the Chippewa Valley, I never heard talk of “air quality.” I have no memory of hazy cityscapes rife with the smells of burning wood. The phrase “Canadian wildfires” meant nothing to me and my tender, pink lungs. But times have changed. Now I hear my friends and neighbors hack-hack-hacking out the acidic, microscopic carcinogens that have traveled countless miles, borne upon the summer breeze to land upon our doorsteps. And I hate it.

Corn Sweat

You city folk may not know this, but you can actually hear the corn sweat. It’s true.

For all you fancy, academical types, “corn sweat” is just another way to say “evapotranspiration,” but “evapotranspiration” is a big, dumb, silly-boy word, so we say corn sweat instead. You see, the corn sweats, and that moisture vaporizes into the atmosphere around the farmlands, and that’s why it gets so goddamn humid in Wisconsin (and other, lesser States of the Union).

And you can hear it. If you stay out in the hot, humid sun all day – drinking warm Blatz tallboys – eventually you’ll hear the soft, low grunting of the corn cobs, just pushin’ out them sweats. And that, right there? Well, that’s the sound of summer.

Dark Summer Dwellers

If you walk alone at night under a blanket of August starlight, if you breathe deep and clear your mind of its constant, metallic grind … you might hear them. From the deep, dark places between your neighbor’s houses. From the dank pools of black among the ancient trees behind the cemetery’s fence. They whisper-hiss the vowels and consonants of your name in a disquieting attempt to sound human.

Or is that just me?

The Sizzle

One summer morning, you’ll wake up to The Sizzle. Mmmmmm you’ll moan, expecting to stumble out into the kitchen – wearing your footie jammies – to a giant plate of thick-cut applewood-smoked maple-butter-bourbon cherrywood honey-cured candied pecan bacon. And then you’ll remember: you don’t own footie jammies. There’s no bacon in the house. And you live alone. What’s going on?

Your kitchen is cold and empty. But still, you hear it. The Sizzle. You’ll step outside into the humid summer air wearing only your underwear, and the sound gets louder, more intense. In every yard up and down the street, you’ll see a bewildered, pajama-clad neighbor searching for the source of the sound.

And then it hits you: the County Fair. Right now, right outside of town, there are fairgrounds stuffed with livestock, carnival rides, 4-H displays, and deep fryers. Sooo many deep fryers. An army of carnies are tossing corn dogs, cheese curds, mini donuts and more into bubbling vats of golden grease. But lo! We are no longer impressed by these basic fair foods. How derivative! How tiresome! Now we dunk Twinkies, balls of mac-n-cheese, cubes of apricot marzipan, entire bánh mì sandwiches, and bouquets of edible flowers into the blessed oils.

Listen! And ask not for whom the curd sizzles. It sizzles for thee!