My Father and Flies

Fathers Day is approaching and I thought I would write a memory of my Dad. My Dad is a biologist/entomologist and was a professor for many years. My brother and I spent many hours in my Dad's laboratory on the weekends and in the evenings. It was in the basement of an old biology building and I can still remember the smell and the interesting things that were in that building. My Father's research centered on flies (Big meat eating flies). I feel bad that I don't know all the details (I was really young) but I do know that he was dissecting flies and putting electrodes in their hearts and then would monitor their heartbeats. I know it was a big deal because he had an article about his research in the San Jose Mercury News. One Easter Vacation he paid me money to take care of the flies. Part of my job, entailed putting a can of dog food in with a bunch of these huge flies. They would then lay eggs, the eggs would pupate and the pupa would turn into these HUGE maggots. I was not a brave girl when it came to insects (much to my Father's dismay) although I was pleased to making some really good money for a kid. I was moving these boxes of maggots about the lab and I dropped a huge box of maggots on the floor. There were maggots from one end of the lab to the other. I just wanted so much to walk out of the lab and never come back. But I knew these maggots were important to my Dad's research and I didn't want to ruin his experiment. So I found a broom and dustpan and swept up all the maggots and put them back in their box. I am not sure if my Dad even knows this story.

I saw one of these huge flies in the backyard the other day and it made me think fondly of my Dad.

Happy Father's Day Dad