The Way of All Frogs
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e-pistle: 3 December 97
This is one of those stories that must be reserved for
a time long after the statute of limitations on inhumane-adolescent-behavior
has expired. The cognoscenti among you are already aware that adolescence, if
not adolescent behavior, is part of ancient history for your reporter -- hence
the willingness to confess this tale of youthful depravity.
Long ago, in a distant galaxy (Cisco, Texas -- if truth
be told), your faithful correspondent and two of his cousins (Truly Earl Clark
and Terry Mason) were loitering on the peanut farm owned by Truly's father Alton.
I know you're anxious to read this story, but I must
stop for a moment to tell you about Alton.
Alton was everything you'd expect a Texan to be: tall
and squinty-eyed (like me), with the cracked-leather complexion that ordinary
farmers have on the back of their necks -- only Alton wore it on every exposed
surface. He was a peanut farmer, but the government was, at the time, paying
him not to grow any peanuts. He was a slow-talking, serious kinda' guy.
When he told us a sure-fire way to catch fish, we listened.
His method was ingenious, drawing on his keen understanding
of the predatory instincts of gamefish, combined with the sort of unorthodox
make-do approach to primitive technology that most farmers practice. His reasoning
was as straight-forward as one would expect: fish -- especially those inhabiting
murky waters -- hunt more by sound and felt vibrations in the water than by
visual stimuli. What one needed to attract these fish was a way to simulate
the rapid buzzing of a large juicy bug that has accidentally fallen in the water.
Alton -- and here was where his real genius became apparent -- made the conceptual
leap to Alka-Seltzer.
According to Uncle Alton (and I am translating, for
he would never have expressed himself as I do now), the plop-plop-fizz-fizz
of the Alka-Seltzer was like Pavlov's bell for the bass and catfish in the tanks
("tanks," BTW, are small man-made ponds made for watering range cattle in Texas;
they're everywhere, and they've all been stocked with fish; Texans take their
fishing very seriously). Now he realized that you can't just stick an Alka-Seltzer
tablet on a hook. What was needed was an appropriate delivery system. His solution:
a spring-loaded clothespin. All that was needed was a method to affix the line
and the hooks.
The size of such a rig seemed a bit awkward (at least
to those of us who were more accustomed to fishing for Bluegills and Crappies),
but he said it was not a problem with the really big fish that were attracted
to this unusual bait.
Having been given this blueprint for piscatorial success,
we prepared for a massive slaughter of fish. We bought a whole bag of clothespins,
a box of large treble hooks, plenty of extra-strong snap-swivels, and several
tall light-blue-labeled jars of the secret weapon. We spent much of the night
before D-day preparing our equipment. We drilled holes in the clothespins, affixed
the treble hooks (which had been carefully sharpened, far exceeding ordinary
factory specs) and snap swivels. We tested our lines for weak spots and knots
that might fail under the strain of a truly large fish. We oiled our reels (after
rinsing them in gasoline to make certain that no grain of sand or grit could
cause them to seize during the blistering run of a big channel catfish). We
packed everything carefully, omitting only our food -- which we added, just
before dawn, as we headed out to the nearest tank.
Now, grand-dad had once caught a 45 pound channel cat
(and an itty-bitty 20 pounder) and served them in a kind of fish fry for the
whole town. He lived in Clyde, Texas -- and Clyde wasn't a very big town in
those days. Our plan was to replace that feast in the town's memory with the
most outrageous feed the mind could conjure. We had adolescent appetites and
they fed adolescent dreams of grandeur.
Alton had watched somberly during our preparations and
departure. I thought he might have been ashamed at the fish-killing monster
he had unleashed upon the world. His ability -- in retrospect -- to refrain
from laughter is still an amazement to me.
We chucked a great many fizzing clothespins into the
tank before deciding that there must not have been any truly big fish there.
We moved on to another, larger tank. Same results. As the fact of our monumental
dupery became apparent, we tried harder to make the contraptions work -- the
addle-headed idea, I suppose, being: "We'll show HIM!" It, of course, did not
work. We thought to switch to more tried-and-true methods (with the amended
plan of lying about the success of the Alka-Seltzer) -- but in order to make
room for as many of our home-made lures as possible, we had emptied out our
tackle-boxes at home. There was to be no fish-fry extravaganza.
Oh yeah, now I recall what it was that I was going to
tell you (the tanks reminded me).
Another time we (the fourteen-year-old cousins) were
laying about on the peanut farm with nothing to do, Truly suggested that we
go out and shoot some frogs. You thought that I was never going to get around
to talking about frogs, didn't you? Anyway, we filled our pockets with ammo,
each one armed with a .22 rifle. Now, I'd never actually handled a real gun
before, but that's not important to this particular story. As we headed out
to the tank, Truly warned us about the snakes. He didn't think we needed to
worry much about rattlers or water moccasins, but he did say there were a lot
of copperheads around. He said that if we smelled something like copper ore,
we should watch out and be ready to shoot.
Two of the guns came off safety immediately.
We got to the tank where many frogs were to be found.
One by one they were blown to satisfyingly small (by adolescent standards) fragments.
Many of these frogs were resting in the water, with their heads just above the
surface. A rifle bullet, fired at or near the level of the water's surface,
tends to skip wildly (this is one of the reasons why ducks are hunted with shotguns
instead of rifles). Even a .22 has a range of over a mile. I have no idea where
all those bullets went that day.
Eventually, the frogs were either depleted or prudently
withdrew to some sanctuary less frequented by armed teenagers.
We decided to take our guns into the woods to see if
there was anything else we could destroy. As we walked along a dry creek bed,
Truly Earl repeated his warning about the copperheads.
Now, I must tell you that I did not then -- nor do I
now -- have any idea which kind of copper ore he meant, or for that matter,
how those ores smelled. Nor did I then -- or now -- have any reason to suppose
that serpents of the species Akistrodon contortrix smelled like any of those
minerals. I never got to find out -- although, as he was warning us, we did
notice a snake right next to us.
Literally three feet away.
It had the characteristic brown, cream and pink coloration
of copperheads. I can't say for sure whether it was actually a copperhead (there
are other snakes with similar coloring), because we would have to have had a
good look at the head (pit vipers have a broad triangular head).
This was not possible because there was no head.
It had been vaporized, in seconds, by about a dozen
rounds fired at point blank range. The snake looked like it had been the loser
in a head-on confrontation with a power mower. There were small smoking fragments
of unidentifiable reptile spread all over that dry creek-bed. Dispassionate
scientific investigation was not an option.
I am not proud of what happened to that snake. I am
even less proud of the great frog-slaughter, in which I had been an eager participant.
I am horrified to think that dozens of bullets may have been plummeting from
the sky on some neighbors down the road. I'm just telling you what happened.
If ever there was an example of terrifying understatement, it is the phrase,
"Boys will be boys."
Sans "Not cut out to be a redneck" Cravat
Information and links about other writings.
* Dr. Sanscravat is one of many pseudonyms
affected by the dilettante who, in real life -- whatever THAT might mean --
goes by the name of Gary Allen. While he hopes that you will find some simple
pleasures here, he hastens to add that he (or his lawyers) will hunt you down,
rip out your plagiarizing heart, and roast it on a sharp stick if he finds out
you've been reproducing anything found in this website without first getting
his written permission.
Copyright 2006 by Gary Allen
pd