From the East Wing, With Sophia's email, The Bells of Springtime and The Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork

Greetings to all, and welcome new friends to the East Wing.

For all of those who offered to come to the aid of the Calico Republican Cat, not to worry, I assure you the cat can hold her own, not only with the 2girldogs but the rest of the world, with one paw behind her back. Sophia is fine, and no, the 2girldogs didn’t get physical with her. It was a verbal attack only. The fur didn’t fly, the cat didn’t die. Good thing Sophia chose not to get physical with the 2girldogs, else I’d be looking for new girldogs.

Last week’s e-mail truly amazed me at the number of people who were truthfully concerned for the safety of Sophia The Republican Cat. Good thing I didn’t list an emergency help phone number for Sophia. The best email came from a fellow in Texas, it was only two lines, but it seemed to sum up the sentiments of a large majority of last week’s e-mail, it said:
NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO COME TO THE AID OF THE PARTY.
YOU GO – GIRLCAT SOPHIA !!!

It could be one of the things I liked ‘bout that email was it somehow reminded me of 1st year typing class, and I don’t know why. I taught myself to type when I was in the 7th grade, a neighbor gave me a little portable typewriter, a Royal. Don’t remember where I got the book, but I got hold of a first year typing book and the rest is history, taught myself “home row” and stuff like that. How many people still know ‘bout manual returns, when the bell rang? Needless to say, when I got to high school I took typing I and II. Think I learned to type early ‘cause I had things to say, still do. I like to type, it’s kinda like talking with your fingers.

Received a gift Friday last, a dandelion, that pretty little springtime friend of mine. She always comes back to grow and play in the green, green grass of home.

I’m so enjoying the sounds of springtime nights. So much so that the other night I decided to go out and visit those little sounds of the night. They’re frogs, ya know, those sounds that come to your ears from the darkness, from the nighttime. Those sounds come from little frogs called Spring Peepers.

Little fellers, them Spring Peepers, smaller than your thumb. But happy boys indeed, happy to be alive in the springtime. All the sounds from all those little boy frogs remind me of sleigh bells ringing. In fact, these little guys are called the Bells of Springtime. They’re certainly music to my new ears, those Bells of Springtime. This year is the first time I have heard the Bells of Springtime in a long time, a long time, and it’s still pretty music to my ears.

When the crushing cold of winter starts to yield to warmer times, as it does every year, even when we think it’ll never end, it does, and on a cold night, the wind is still, and the frost is heavy. The moon, a bright yellow ball hanging in a cloudless sky. While the air is so crisp ya could break with a hammer a movement starts under the dead leaves of autumn past. Life resurrecting.

First one eye, then the other, one leg moves, then the another. In a matter of minutes everything is working just the way he left ‘em when he dug deep under the leaves to freeze to death for the winter.
The little frog is coming back from a place between death and darkness, the twilight zone for frogs.
A Bell of Springtime is tuning up to ring.

I almost forgot to tell ya an interesting thing ‘bout not only the Peeps but all frogs. It’s the way they survive the winter. Now frogs have the ability to make their own kinda anti-freeze. I’m already starting to see some of my emails next week, laughing ‘bout the frog anti-freeze joke. Before ya start laughing, ya better check it out, ‘cause I’m telling ya I know a lot ‘bout frogs.

‘Cause one time when I was little, my Uncle Hagins took me frog hunting when I was at Southfork in the summertime. Now we didn’t go hunting for Peep regular frogs, oh no, we went hunting for the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork.

Now ya gotta hunt these Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork in the creek bed where it’s dark and almost scary. At the place where the air smells like snakes and the sun never shines ‘cause the hills are too close together. The only thing there is the water, the smell of snakes, and maybe even the snakes, and the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork, and some times, empty pop bottles.

We went right there, my Uncle Hagins and me. We went to hunt the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork. And it didn’t take long to find ‘em. We found their trail a long ways before we got to the place where the air smelled like snakes, ‘cause that’s where Uncle Hagins said the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork lived.

When Uncle Hagins showed me the Giant Bullfrog Tracks, at first I thought that it was a person’s footprint in the mud, but Uncle Hagins showed me the difference, ‘cause he knew ‘bout Giant Bullfrog Tracks and stuff like that. Uncle Hagins said if we just kept following those tracks it’d lead us right to the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork.

To tell ya the truth, I was almost scared, but I knew that my Uncle Hagins wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, ‘cause I was his favorite nephew, and he had a lot of nephews, so I just walked a little bit closer to him and didn’t tell him ‘bout me being almost scared an all. ‘Cause when you’re seven years old and out hunting Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork where it’s dark, that’s almost like being a man, so ya can’t say you’re afraid of anything. But I was, almost.

Then Uncle Hagins said “BobbyRay, you smell snakes?” That really, almost, made me scared. I said “yah” Uncle Hagins said “me too” I could hear my heart beat in my ears, but I wasn’t scared.

Uncle Hagins had in his hand a gig. Now a gig is a long stick with a prong on one end and it’s used to catch fish or frogs, and today we were gigging the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork. Well when I thought my chest was gona break from my heart beating so fast in my ears, Uncle Hagins throws his gig into the water, runs over and pulls up this Giant Bullfrog of Southfork, stuck right there on the prongs of the gig. Uncle Hagins takes the Giant Bullfrog of Southfork off the hooks and no sooner than that, he throws again and in less than a minute we have two Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork. Uncle Hagins gigged two more Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork in just a few more minutes.

Then he said it’s my turn to gig a Giant Bullfrog of Southfork. Well, the pole of the gig was a lot taller than me, but I was bound and determined that I was gona gig a Giant Bullfrog of Southfork, or die from a snake bite trying right here in the waters of Southfork.

Two time I tried to throw the spear, but it didn’t go far enough. So Uncle Hagins said that maybe if we both held on at the same time maybe that would work. Now don’t ya know, the very first time me and Uncle Hagins threw that spear together it struck a Giant Bullfrog of Southfork. We had to throw five or six more times before we got another hit, but finally another trophy.

With 6 Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork in hand, Uncle Hagins said that he thought that was ‘bout all we could carry home. We started out for home with Uncle Hagins carrying his four Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork and me carrying my two Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork. That didn’t last long, after ‘bout a hundred yards or so, I had to stop and rest, ‘cause these Giant Bullfrogs were ‘bout to weight me down to the point where I couldn’t go no more. We rested a little while an started for home again, but same thing, ‘bout a hundred yards or so, I’m wanting to stop and rest from the heavy weight of these Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork.

Uncle Hagins said, the way he figured it, at the rate we were going, we’d get home ‘bout Christmas Time, if we were lucky, so he had to do something different. Uncle Hagins cut down two Willow Trees, one bigger than the other. On the bigger one, he cut a notch on each end. He took the smaller tree and took all the bark of it, and threw the skinned tree away. Uncle Hagins took the bark strips and tied up three Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork into two bundles, he then hooked these bundles over the ends of the pole with notches. He raised one end of the pole with the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork and told me to help lift the other as he raised it to his shoulders. And I did, as Uncle Hagins picked up all the six Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork on his shoulders. We didn’t have to stop any more on the way home.

Talk ‘bout being surprised. Well they sure were surprised to see so many Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork. Uncle Hagins told ever body how good I was a gigging Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork, and how he was just lucky to get two and how I gigged four, I didn’t tell anybody the difference. I just thought maybe Uncle Hagins forgot who got who.

One of the down sides of hunting the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork, is when ya catch ‘em, ya gotta clean ‘em. I’m not gona talk much ‘bout that, ‘cause that’s not as much fun as the gigging part. When ya do the cleaning, it’s kinda like cleaning fish, but ya don’t hear your heart beat in your ears though.

Well the thing that people eat from Bullfrogs are Bullfrog legs. Now regular Bullfrogs have little Bullfrog legs smaller than chicken legs. Not the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork, these Bullfrog legs were the size big hams, each one weighing maybe 20 pounds apiece. Since the Bullfrog legs were so big, Lou said we should smoke ‘em in the Smoke House like Uncle Hagins did the hams when it was time to kill the pigs. Everybody thought that was a good idea. That night we put the cleaned Giant Bullfrog Legs of Southfork in the coldspring and went to bed. I could hardly sleep, thinking ‘bout me gigging those four Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork like Uncle Hagins said.

The first thing in the morning me and Uncle Hagins wrapped the Giant Bullfrog Legs and hung ‘em up on hooks from the top of the ceiling in the Smoke House. Then Uncle Hagins build the fires under the Smoke House, he knew how to do all that stuff, my Uncle Hagins knew how to do a lot of really neat stuff. He was my favorite uncle, and like Uncle Hagins having a lot of nephews, well I had a lot of uncles too.

I don’t remember how long they had to stay in the Smoke House, but we left Southfork and went home, and I started into the first grade at Weeksbury. We didn’t go back to Southfork till Thanksgiving. When my Aunt Gladys and my mama cooked our Thanksgiving Dinner, we didn’t have turkey, and we didn’t have goose, we had one Smoked Giant Bullfrog Leg. There were ‘bout 15 or 18 people there for dinner, and most everybody took leftover Smoked Giant Bullfrog Leg home for supper. Big frogs, those Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork.

But getting back to this frog anti-freeze thing, during the winter, a frog’s body temperature falls and its metabolism drops. Its heart can even stop beating and start again in the future. Too bad we the people can’t do that little trick. And we think we know magic. ‘Course we can do a lot of things frogs can’t.

Many frogs dig into mud or deep holes to escape killing frost, but some do practice controlled freezing. They produce excess sugars or starches to prevent damage to sensitive tissues while the remaining water in their bodies turns to ice. The North American wood frog, including the Peeps, live as far north as Alaska. They can survive with 65% of the water in their body frozen solid. I guess ya could take those little fellers, put ‘em on sticks and have Peepsicles.

Now those Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork, to this day, don’t ever worry ‘bout freezing in the wintertime, no, they just build themselves a campfire, sit around and tell stories ‘bout how little boys used to wade in the waters of Southfork looking for ‘em in the summertime.

Setting on the back of the chair, Sophia read the story as I typed, laughed so hard she damn near fell off the back of the chair, twice. Said she never knew frogs got that big. Told her they didn’t in Indiana. It’s a Kentucky thing.

Stay Safe in Iraq and Afghanistan

From the East Wing, With Sophia’s E-Mail, The Bells of Springtime, and the Giant Bullfrogs of Southfork

I wish you well,
BobbyRay