When gnats attack

While working at the food bank last week, something bit me.

It was not one of my fellow volunteers, not a dog, cat or a particularly hungry person coming to get food. 

It was a gnat. They have turned carnivorous. I know it was a gnat because a little while later, Jackie announced a gnat had attacked her.

Folks along the coast have dealt with biting sand gnats for years. Err, sand gnats have bitten people on the coast for years. Ignore Peanut, who is a special case. Generally, people do not go around biting sand gnats. Peanut says it is payback when he catches one and bites it.

The idea that our South Georgia gnats are taking after their beachside cousin, sand gnats, is disturbing. It is not as bad as the Asian ladybugs that bite people, but it is bad enough.

All this reminded me of a column I wrote many years ago. Enjoy.

Camilla has the right idea. We should be thankful for the gnat.

The gnat has saved us in South Georgia more than once.

Rarely recorded in history books, the lowly gnat was responsible for halting Union General William T. Sherman and his March through Georgia to Tallahassee, the original name of Sherman’s slash-and-burn urban renewal project.

When Sherman hit the gnat line, it was like running headlong into a … well, we all know what gnats are like. Get the gnats mad, and it’s a plague like those in the Old Testament. Sherman got the gnats mad and found himself and his army engulfed in a giant, living black cloud that blocked out all the sunlight.

That’s when Sherman headed for the coast and some relief from the swarming gnats. Hence, the march was Sherman’s March To See. Yankee historians, who later miswrote the history books, titled the 100-mile dash “Sherman’s March to the Sea.”

More recently, gnats have come to our aid in keeping back the hordes of Yankees again. Take this example.

Yankees have taken over most of Florida, where sand gnats replace the regular gnat. Sand gnats are stopped, for some reason, by any doorway, open or closed, screened or not. Yankees can thusly escape sand gnats by diving through any doorway.

Concrete bunkers cannot stop South Georgia gnats, so there is no escape for the Yankee.

Yankees have also taken over Atlanta and are threatening more and more of North Georgia. The gnat does not live up there.

Remember the first time you swallowed a gnat or got one in your eye? Probably not, as it was among the first things you did after being born, if you’re native to South Georgia.

We are accustomed to gnats and accept them. Gnats are almost a part of the family to a real South Georgian. Gnats are more plentiful at summer family reunions than first cousins, and that’s saying a lot. An outdoor picnic without gnats just ain’t right.

Remember the first time you saw a Yankee and a gnat collide? Remember the Yankees’ frantic attempts to drive away the gnats by swatting, yelling, etc? Remember seeing the Yankee covered by gnats run screaming to his car, only to find it had acquired a resident gnat population? South Georgia entomologist Dr. Grant S. Eeker discovered that swatting and yelling actually attracts gnats.

“We believe it has something to do with pheromones (smells), mating and feeding. The swatting actually fans the the pheromones into the air, which attracts more gnats. The yelling serves as an audio (sound) reference for the gnats to home in on because they have a poor sense of smell,” he said.

More Yankees have been driven home by the gnat than anything else I can think of. I, for one, appreciate that.

As long as the humble gnat continues to swarm, we shall be relatively free of Yankee infestations.

After reading this, some might believe I don’t care for Yankees. Not true. I count it as a personal point of pride that I can tolerate Yankees. It just shows what an open-minded person I am, that I don’t show prejudice against people from outside God’s Country.