And There It Was … a Butterfly

[July 26, 2026]  And there it was … the Dotted Checkerspot butterfly that my friend David and I had been searching for ever since his mother first told us about it. The year was 1968, and the world around us was changing dramatically and quickly. That turbulence formed part of the background for why two boys would spend long summer days collecting butterflies.

Our parents regarded the hobby as harmless enough. At least we weren’t out throwing rocks at the police, stealing cars from local residents, or marching in protest of the war in Vietnam. We were young, restless, and a little rebellious, yet hunting butterflies somehow felt right. We were driven to it in a way that still puzzles me slightly, even now.

Butterflies are a reminder of beauty. In mounting the finest specimens we found onto poster boards, we were collecting beauty itself. Human beings are drawn, almost naturally, to beauty in all its forms. Oddly enough, we had to euthanize the insects before we could display them. David’s mother suggested the word “euthanize”; it softened the blunt reality of what we were doing and let us avoid the harder word “kill.”

My brother and I shared a bedroom that was truly ours. Mom kept it clean because we were not especially tidy, yet we still tried to improve it in our own crude way. Displaying those colorful butterflies was my attempt to make the room a little more beautiful, a small counterweight to the disorder of teenage life.

These insects had entered my world by offering pure visual beauty at a time when so much else felt ugly. Racial strife, political tension, war, drugs, and violence filled the news. Traditional values of family, God, and country seemed to be slipping into freefall. Against that backdrop the Dotted Checkerspot stood out as something quiet and ordered.

Jordan Peterson has observed that beauty connects us to something beyond our limited, cynical, or resentful perspective. It pushes back against the sense that life is merely short, dismal, and tragic. Establishing a relationship with even one beautiful object or space can expand outward into the rest of life. Making something beautiful is difficult, yet “amazingly worthwhile.” Great beauty can embody a collective aim that reaches beyond any single lifetime and serve as a quiet call to adventure or higher orientation.

The Dotted Checkerspot is a small-to-medium butterfly marked by a checkered pattern of orange, black, and cream. The underside is especially distinctive, showing neat rows of pale dots and spots against a more muted background. Its wingspan usually measures between one and a half and two inches. These butterflies favor open grasslands, foothill ridges, and mountain meadows. We found them in the open prairies around Abilene in central Texas.

Like so many boyhood pursuits, butterfly collecting gradually faded as we became older teenagers. Cars (and the challenge of making them faster), girls, and the restless desire to become someone better than we currently were claimed more of our attention. College followed soon after. Only then did I realize I should have spent more time mastering math and science in high school rather than chasing butterflies across the prairie.

I never collected butterflies again, and that decision was sound. Still, I gained a lasting appreciation for them—not only for their place in the natural world, but for their quiet power to bring a little light into ordinary days.

I have never regretted those hours spent in search of that beauty; the Dotted Checkerspot.  You may have seen one yourself.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).