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How’s this for a conversation starter: “Have you ever had a chigger bite?” I’d be interested to know if there’s anyone in this area who wouldn’t unleash a torrent of stories about their experiences with chiggers.

Chiggers are not insects; instead, they are a relative of spiders and ticks. It’s the youngster nymph stage that causes us grief. They are only about 1/50th of an inch across, about the size of a pinpoint.

If you looked through a magnifying glass you would see it is red with six legs, just like an insect. But if you would capture a chigger and watch it pupate into an adult, you would see it has eight legs, making it a relative to other arachnids such as spiders. (How about that for a science fair project?)

The immature chiggers feed on birds, reptiles, and mammals. They live in grass and shrubs and like warm, humid weather between 77 and 86 degrees and will die in the lower 40s. Similar to most of us, they don’t like temperatures above 100 degrees.

A small comfort is dispelling the myth that they burrow into your skin. They do not. What causes the itching are the enzymes in digestive fluids that the nymph injects into the top layer of your skin. This fluid causes your skin cells to liquify, which the chigger sucks up.

Our skin reacts by forming a hard tube -- called a stylostome -- that the chiggers use like a straw to suck up more skin cells. Yum. A comforting thought is that they only bite once and when you scratch or wash these pesky critters, they die.

Another myth to dispel is that chiggers spread diseases. None of our North American chiggers have ever been reported to spread any type of disease.

So what can you do to protect yourself from this sleep-depriving itching? Wearing protective clothing somewhat hinders them, but they are very persistent and head for thin skin, which is easier for their piercing mouth part to penetrate: around the ankles, behind the knees, the groin, waist and armpits.

Spraying with insect repellent containing DEET before you venture outside will help deter them. Afterward, wash your clothes and take a warm shower. If some welts show up, rub a drop of liquid hand soap on the spots. Repeat if necessary.

One source I consulted recommended spraying your yard with carbaryl or Sevin. Don't do that! It’s a death knell for pollinators, especially honeybees, and has limited effectiveness. Instead, mowing and removing weeds will decrease chigger habitats.

If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that such a minute creature can climb all that distance. If you have nothing else to do, figure what that climb would equal in relation to its size in human measurement. (Another part of the science fair project.)

If you have questions about your garden or landscape, contact a master gardener at the University of Illinois Extension office in Mattoon at 217-345-7034. Be sure to visit U of I Extension's horticulture website extension.illinois.edu/ccdms and like the Master Gardeners' Facebook page.

From the Nov. 22, 1992, Journal Gazette, this photo of Cosmic Blue Comics in Mattoon; where I spent virtually every Saturday afternoon for about two years. That small back room you see just off to the right of the Coca-Cola sign was where they kept the many, and I mean many, long-boxes of back issues. I still own my bagged copy of "Tales of the Beanworld" issue No. 1 that I found back there. Sadly, this location is now just a "greenspace".

Pictured, Shelbyville's Bob Murray from the June 2, 1982, Journal Gazette, displaying his dominance over the TRON arcade game at the "Carousel Time" arcade at the Cross County Mall, later to be the Aladdin's Castle, soon thereafter to be not a thing anymore. I spent just about every Saturday at that arcade, perhaps with that exact same haircut. No overalls, though. I was more of an "Ocean Pacific" kind of kid.

Pictured, from the Nov. 28, 1988, Journal Gazette, Icenogle's grocery store. Being from Cooks Mills, we didn't often shop at Icenogle's...but when we did, even as a kid, I knew it was the way a grocery store is supposed to be in a perfect world, and that's not just because they had wood floors, comic books on the magazine rack, or plenty, and I mean plenty, of trading cards in wax packs.

I had long since moved away from Cooks Mills by the time this Showcase item about Adam's Groceries ran in the June 13, 1998, Journal Gazette, but there was a time when I very well could have been one of those kids in that photo; for if it was summer, and you had a bike, and you lived in Cooks Mills, that's where you ended up. At last report, they still had Tab in the Pepsi-branded cooler in the back. I'm seriously considering asking my money guy if I could afford to reopen this place.

Pictured, from the July 16, 1987, Journal Gazette, this ad for Mister Music, formerly located in the Cross County Mall. I wasn't buying records at that age, but I would eventually, and that's where it all went down. If you don't think it sounds "cool" to hang out at a record store with your buddies on a Friday night, a piping-hot driver's license fresh in your wallet, you'd be right. But it's the best a geek like me could do. Wherever you are today, owners of Mister Music, please know that a Minutemen album I found in your cheap bin changed my life.

Portrait of the author as a young man, about to throw a guitar through a target at that year's Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest, from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette. Check out my grunge-era hoodie, and yes...look carefully, those are Air Jordans you see on my feet. Addendum: despite what the cutline says, I did not win a guitar.

Pictured, clipped from the online archives at JG-TC.com, a photo from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette of Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest winner, and current JG-TC staff writer, Clint Walker.

Here today, gone tomorrow, Vette's Teen Club, from the June 20, 1991, Journal Gazette. I wasn't "cool" enough to hang out at Vette's back in it's "heyday," and by "cool enough" I mean, "not proficient enough in parking lot fights." If only I could get a crack at it now.

FutureGen: The end of the beginning, and eventually, the beginning of the end, from the Dec. 19, 2007, JG-TC. I wish I had been paying more attention at the time. I probably should have been reading the newspaper.

Illinois Extension leads public outreach for University of Illinois by translating research into action plans that allow Illinois families, businesses, and community leaders to solve problems, make informed decisions, and adapt to changes and opportunities.

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