Thoughts of strange and beautiful things

Thoughts of strange and beautiful things. What makes people love frogs? What makes people collect them?
Do all frog collectors have some sort of fairy tale image of them? I actually kissed a frog yesterday, it was an immediate reaction! Of course, he was being held up to my face by a nine year old who was thrilled to have temporarily captured him. How gorgeous! Strong was he, and steady were his eyes. A handsome frog indeed.

I have a very limited frog collection, I love my frogs, I admit it. There happens to be some pretty dreadful frog art in the world, outstretched frog arms and legs, in silly poses, Frog Buddhas, Santa with frogs. Once a well meaning beau gave me a Christmas of everything frog, the relationship did not last, he did not get the 'it' of good frog collecting... one simple well done frog piece would have been welcomed, instead I was faced with a house and garden full of wierdo frogs dancing and jumping in every room, yikes! It was bad enough to put me off frogs forever, until a true frog collector took the dancing lot at a yard sale, whew! Occassionally there is something that I spot and must have, and sometimes it's even a toad.

As a kid, in a rural village, a big day in summer was when my neighbor Tommy would pull a great big frog out of 1st Pond, 2nd Pond or 3rd Pond and we would all gather round to admire his splendid find, then all the children would enter their own big frogs for a frog jumping contest after dinner. I remember reading Mark Twain's story about a celebrated jumping frog named Daniel Webster and thinking that was a good story. Ours was not a small southern town, but we also took bets, drew lines out of chalk and set our fiesty amphibians off. I can't ever remember winning a frog jumping contest, but clearly remember those long extended graceful legs and transluscent webbed feet hanging in the air as they took off and just kept going, going, going, across the finish line, across the grass and straight back to their ponds. The race course was always set in the direction of the ponds, to motivate our competitors. At night, the sound of a multitude of croaking bullfrogs is a heavenly chorus to go to sleep to, if you are used to it.

Not that Newport resembles my small hometown in any way, except for the fact that here we call our beaches 1st Beach, 2nd Beach and 3rd Beach... is it only in Rhode Island that we name our geological locations by number?.... and the sound of bullfrogs is replaced with the fog horns of spectacular cruise ships as they leave the harbor.