A Bag of Frogs?

As a child I was always a tomboy. Matter of fact, I still am.

We lived in Houma, Louisiana on an Air Force base. I was probably about eight or nine years old. My parents had gone to Bingo and we had a babysitter. It was a nice evening. When it started to get dark we were finding frogs everywhere.

My brother, sister and I were always catching frogs and releasing them. This was in the sixties and I am talking about a lot of frogs. I fear you would not find so many of them like that today.

Living on a base at that time you didn't have to worry about letting kids play outside a little after dark. Our home was on the corner and we had a big empty lot next to it. There was a street light on the corner so we could pick out the frogs very easily.

We kept catching these frogs one after another. One of us had decided to go into the house and grab a couple large paper bags. Yes, they were brown paper bags. We literally filled these two bags with frogs.

Eventually, the sitter made us go in. It was time for bathing and bed. I don't believe she really had any idea of what we were doing. We stashed our bags of frogs in the corner of the car port and went in. We were in bed by the time our mother and father came home.

The next morning while at breakfast my father came in and asked why we caught so many frogs. I guess when they came home they could not even pull in under the carport. It was wall to wall frogs. My father said he had never seen so many frogs. We all laughed so hard. He informed us that he did let the rest of them go and my mother had to go into the house using the front door. She was not a fan of frogs. Especially that many.

I love that story and I do find frogs and toads interesting. For all I know they may have been toads. They were brown, a variety of sizes and that's about all I remember. When I think back now, we were probably lucky we did not run into any snakes. I don't think they normally find the frogs very tasty but I do know they are out on warm nights. I would imagine our running around would have scared them off.

Today, in the Spring time when I am hiking with the grandchildren we always look for tadpoles. If you can find a decent water hole you can find the eggs and the tadpoles. At times we find the tiniest frogs. They are an interesting creature investigate. I also love to hear their songs in the evenings. Let's not let that fade away.