The Butterflies of New Jersey
By Karen L. Siletti

The story is as clear in my mind as when it was told to me.
"It happened a long, long, time ago," my father said.
"Jeez—I still can‘t get over it."

And then he told me again.

It happened in a gritty, immigrant neighborhood in Paterson, where storefronts for Greenbaum’s Dry Goods, O’Melia Signs, and Siletti’s Garage elbowed each other for room on too-narrow streets. It was Indian Summer, post-war, pre-me.
My father was taking a break from the noise and clatter of ball peen hammers, from the benzene smells of the paint room, from the incessant drone of the air compressor. Shutting the metal overhead door behind him, he leaned back against a whitewashed, concrete wall and lit a Camel.
Gazing in no particular direction, cigarette cupped in his hand against the wind, he contemplated nothing. The simple act of stepping outside took him a million miles away from the day’s labors. The street was a peaceful place then, occupied only by the occasional car or shopper; maybe a starling or two looking for crumbs from a working man’s lunch. It was warm. The sun felt good.
The air stirred, and he turned his face into the breeze. Something caught his eye a few blocks away, over on River Street, and he squinted. A far-sighted man, my father was rarely unsure about what he saw at any distance.
But this was impossible. He ran two blocks to the intersection in time to see it again—a cloud of orange and black, quivering in the heat, silently heading due south. Hovering only for an instant above the steamy, macadamized road, it rose up over century-old factories and brick tenements, a swirling mass of life. With a renewed energy, it shuddered once. And then it was gone.
"Jeez," he said, "Monarch butterflies in Paterson. They fly all the way to Mexico. I still can’t get over it."
A spellbound nine-year-old child, I watched my father as he told me about the butterflies. When he finished, he took another drag on his cigarette. His story was over, but his eyes had a far-away look.
The pure wonder of this moment, in the event itself for my father, and in the telling and retelling of it for me, would last a lifetime for both of us.
There seemed to be more butterflies when I was a child. Monarchs, Swallowtails larger than my outstretched hand, Cabbage Whites, and speedy little Viceroys were common visitors in our yard.
We learned to catch them while they sat on flowers, feeding on the nectars of Zinnias, Black-Eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s Lace. Sneak up behind an unsuspecting butterfly, wait for the right moment as they pulsed their wings open, shut, open, shut. Gently pinch as the wings come together, and slowly lift off the flower. Legs flailing, they were helpless in our innocent, youthful hands.
"Don’t rub the wings, they can’t fly without the powder on them," my father said, supervising our first experiments in insect study. "Look at them quick, and let them go." 'Catch and release' applied to all living things in our yard, but there were tragedies, too, painful lessons in the fragility of a species.
Clumsy hands or nets maimed some, and dispatched others. Too-strong a pinch, and the tiny, colorful wing scales would shimmer on our fingers, leaving the veined surface of their wings semi-transparent in spots. Some of our captives could still fly after our inspections. Some could not.
The dead were treated to elaborate, state funerals involving the theft of cotton-lined jewelry boxes from our mother’s dresser. We had a designated graveyard in the flower garden, tucked under the blue hydrangea. Tiny, stick crosses and pebble headstones adorned their resting places. Feral cats would dig up the boxes from time to time, but we had good intentions.
This was years ago, and in between came the spraying for gypsy moths and the bulldozer. Fields and meadows I roamed as a child were sold for housing developments. Butterfly colonies sometimes occupy a single field — mow it, pave it, and they are gone forever.
Aerial spraying of Sevin on entire neighborhoods killed more than its intended Gypsy Moth prey. Many species of butterflies are gone. More are now at risk, but there are still many hardy survivors, a few I can still identify, and others that I will learn to identify in time.
I had heard there were clubs that watched butterflies. With binoculars and books, they search out their quarry like birders, and are content with the sight of a living thing, instead of needing a trophy for a specimen case. This intrigued me enough to seek them out. I’m always happy to combine recreation with respect for nature, and happier still to learn that my all elusive butterflies are not yet gone forever.
And now, when I see a butterfly, I see them through my father’s eyes. And I’m happy to report that, Jeez, we still have lots of butterflies in New Jersey.