There weren't too many Frog stories told on the Lily Pad, except Hynka's parodies of Grandpa, my parents, and Southern Comfort. I'm in the mood. I'm in the mood. Shut up, kids. Shut up, kids. Not tonight. Not tonight. Don't Don't. These were the songs sung by all types of frogs on Loch Lebanon and I absorbed them all.
"What are they singing now, Grandma?" I wondered with my head tucked under a neck. "Tell us more."
No one told me I was a Frog at the time. Even so, such stories cracked me up (croaked me up?), just like the portraits that hung in the guest room of three cats - one for my Uncle Sam, another for my Aunt Bobbie, and a third for my father, Butch. He was the Siamese one being drenched in the rain with a miserable scowl on his face. The other two chased butterflies, books, and rainbows. Funny how they were hung at camp, yet there was none of my mother, even though she was the only child. She was the one that lived with the Guy Lombardo records, cousins, uncles and aunts, and the Colgate nerds who invaded her town every year.
I see the birds and the birds see me. Damn cars. 5 points.
No, I didn't actually become a Frog myself until I was 26 years old. I was interning at the Beargrass Creek Nature Preserve, across from the Louisville Zoo, and they had frog backpacks on clearance so I swiped one to carry my books. You lifted the frog's head, saw the giant red tongue and tonsils, and put your items inside his mouth. Yes, it was made for kids, but the humor of such a backpack attracted me and that is how I transported by books. It came with me to the Brown School and very early, that first year in 1997, I began getting "Dear Frog Letters."
This is a true story. Letters from Chipmunks, Turtles, Dragonflies and Skunks. Some from Loons, Woody Nymphs, and Crickets. Many, many butterflies, rabbits, and squirrels. For over ten years, fellows of the pond wrote to Frog. Frog responded best he could as everyone on the Lily Pad had questions, curiosities, wonders, and worries about the pond-life thing. Frog didn't have a clue, but responded as best he could. There was Bryan the teacher, but also Frog, the fictional daemon that seemed to exist beyond him. Writing to Frog was their way of healing, and letters to Frog, they wrote. Word spread. Frog got letters from all over the place, even beyond school (this was when letters were sent via mail, too). No one told me that being human came with teaching, but it did. And to be human, kids adopted personalities as other creatures. Wild. When you teach good books, ask great questions, and aim to represent the diversity and inclusiveness of ALL the beautiful creatures, suddenly the need to know becomes important. It became heavy.
Exiting caves comes from this inquisitiveness and such curiosity carried on for over a decade, until Umbridge, care of Voldemort, Sauron, Darth Vader, and the darkness that exists everywhere in the universe, arrived to the school where I taught and started saying things like, "How does curiosity, inquisitiveness, exploration, and creativity have anything to do with State assessments?"
So, Frog hung up his lotus flower, and decided to do a Ph.D.
Frog stories disappeared for a while.
Ah, but then Frog met Pelican, and admitted to her, "I need you to hear my story," and suddenly hope was restored. Pelican sent him a Frog a sculpture: a Papa Frog and a little Frog reading together and it was put it on a shelf. Pelican knew the Eagle, and I guess Eagle had Frog pajamas. The metaphor worked. Little Frog is a metaphor for the work Frog tries to do.
Books. Ideas. Journals. And appreciation for the prompt that came from a wonderful, purple-backed Starling. The pond is about Togetherness. I am, because we are.
And the stories begin with us. Thanks for the prompt, Evan. #EveryDayIWrite
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