First Grade Frog Races

Every year the first graders have a frog race as one of their units of study. As you can see Jalen's frog would not leave the start line. We found the frog the night before the race under a roll of field carpet behind the university football field. It was a very cool night so he seemed a little sluggish when we first got him but as he warmed up he became active. As he tried to climb the sides of the plastic jar we had him in one of his legs would kind of flutter trying to get traction and that would make Jalen say " look Jackson, my frog is tap dancing" and then Jalen would bust out laughing. I don't know why that was funny but it was.
Here is the classic portrait with Jalen and his frog before he let him go back to the wild outdoors.

One of the things I love about blogging is that as I tell current stories it reminds me of stories from my past.

I am remembering being probably 4 years old and my Mom calling me in from the back yard because she needed me. As I came in she showed me a frog not unlike the one Jalen is holding in the picture above. My Mom was a nurse so she was tough but as she had that doubled up paper towel in her hand and she would reach down and with all of her nerve try to grab that frog it would hop and that would just freak her out. She looked over at me and asked if I would grab that frog and put it back outside where it belonged. I did, but I have never forgotten the moment when I realized my Mom was truly afraid of something.

My Grand Dad built a pond out in the pasture and stocked it with catfish when I was a little kid. When I was older I would go and fish by myself. We would tie the rods in milk buckets that my Grand Dad had dug into the banks of the pond. After putting out two or three rods I would grab my bb gun and go looking for frogs to shoot at. One summer there was a bumper crop of frogs. There were so many frogs that they were just stacked up on top of each other. I shot 400 frogs one afternoon and the reason I know that is that my bb gun would hold 400 bb's and i ran out of bb's. My Grand Dad would shoot down the bank with a shot gun and then take a big yard broom and sweep the frogs out into the water. We had a bunch of turtles that summer as well. It was only that one year but I don't think I will ever forget all those frogs. Made me wonder about Moses and the plague of Frogs in Egypt.

A couple of years ago we had been shopping in Little Rock and decided to eat supper at Cracker Barrel in NLR. After we ate, I walked out and sat in a rocking chair while Julie looked around the gift shop. Josie spotted a tree frog on the arm of one of the rocking chairs and wanted to take it home. I went in and the hostess gave me a to go box and we got the frog and took him home. We put him in a big plastic jar with some grass and a tree brach to live on. After a couple of days he was not looking good so we went to the pet store to find out what frogs eat. We got a little box of baby crickets and fed those to him and he was happy again. After another week we took him back to the pet store and the owner said he would just put the crickets straight into the jar is she wanted. He put in about 5 crickets and then Julie and the kids ran to Wal-Mart to grab a couple of things. When they came back out the frog had croaked. he had eaten all of the crickets and the last one was only half eaten. It was a sad end to our pet frog.

Jackson and some Basketball Memories

Here is another of my film shots. I envisioned this portrait of Jackson holding the basketball with the goal in the background being out of focus. Shooting with my old Canon T-70 with a 50mm F1.8 lens nearly wide open that was easy. I remember being a kid Jackson's age and playing basketball. Our goal was mounted to our garage which was at the back of the backyard. The yard sloped down to the garage so it was not level at all. We kept the boat, go kart, lawn mower and bicycles in the garage. There was a small uneven concrete slab in front of the goal which was set at abour 8 ft. On the left side of the goal were pine trees and the fence. Behind the fence was a wooded field where we played and shot our bb guns. You had to be careful not to put too much air into you ball or it would bounce over the fence and it was a real pain to get your ball back because it was often muddy behind the fence. So needless to say we always shot from the right side of the goal. Over time as the ball hit the rim on the right side it would loosen the rim until it would start tilting too the right. When my dad would tighten it back up and you couldn't hit anything for a few days because you had adjusted to the tilted rim. Other things I remember about basketball as a kid. We also had a nerf goal mounted to the door at the end of the hall. I remember my mom playing nerf basketball with me. i also remember in those early years of nerf b-ball that I would re-enact Memphis State games on my nerf court. Keith Lee and Phillip "Doom" Haynes were the players that I liked the best. Jack Eaton, the Channel 5 sports caster, did the play by play for the tigers and I loved listening to him call the games on my old clock radio. In 3rd grade ( the grade Jackson will be in when school starts) our team won first place in basketball. I think I scored 4 points all season. All the Harding Academy elementary schools formed their own league. The star of our team was Trey Nolan. Trey's dad was the coach. In 4th grade we were the worst team in the league because Trey played in a city league. I distinctly remember playing Quince Road that year because we lost the game 20 something to 6 but I had all 6 points. I hit three jump shots from the right side. I guess all the shooting from the right side payed off in that one game. My best year as a basketball player was 6th grade. I don't remember our record but it wasn't that great. I think I averaged about 8 points a game and a few rebounds. I was as tall as I am now in 6th grade so I was considered tall back then. Our coach was our 6th grade teacher, Ken Roberts. Ken is also part of my family, he is married to my cousin Barbara. Ken was a fun coach. One of his many talents was juggling. One afternoon after practice he was juggling 2 basketballs and asked me to toss in a third. Well I didn't toss the ball in, I threw the ball at him so he would drop the other two and then I ran because I knew he would get me. As we walked across the street back to school I was walking about 30 ft behind Ken and the rest of the team because I knew he was going to get me. Well he looked back at me and I stopped. He turned around and started walking again and as I started walking he threw a basketball over his shoulder in my general direction. I wasn't paying a lick of attention and the ball hit me in the mouth which had just been fitted with braces about a month before. It freaked him out that he had hit me and he was worried to death about screwing up the braces. The braces were fine but the inside of my lips were all cut up from the ball hitting my mouth. This story sounds horrible by today standards but back then it was just a teacher and a kid horsing around. In Jr High I gave up basketball because I wasn't that good. My friends and I would play pickup games after lunch and we would usually play 21. I had to learn to become a shooter because I could hardly ever get a rebound. But if I ever got the ball and hit a shot I could usually win because I could hit the rest of my points to 21 in free throws. Eventually my friends instituted a 5 point free throw limit to help make the games a little more fair. Well so much for the basketball memories. The kids love to play basketball in the gym after church. Jalen really loves to play speed with the big kids. One final picture of Jackson. He wanted me to take a shot as he made a layup. Unfortunately, just as he went up the ball slipped out of his hand.

Emergency and Fire Station Memories

Looking around YouTube I am amazed about what is avaliable. I used to watch Emergency every Saturday night. This was a must see because my Dad was a Fireman in Memphis. This was the next best thing to going to the Fire Station to visit him in person. Sometimes my Mom would take us up to the Fire Station on Sunday afternoons to visit for a little while before church. I remember being little maybe 4 or so and I was standing by the dispatch desk and the alarm bell went off. The bell seemed like it was 24 inches in diameter and it was really loud. I froze scared to death. Firemen started running past me to get on the trucks to go out on a call. In the middle of all that chaos my Dad picked me up and sat me on the desk and told me to stay put that everything was going to be alright. He then told me to push one of the buttons on that console and when I did the giant garage doors started going up and the street light changed to Red for the traffic and green for the Fire Trucks to leave. My dad kissed me on top of my head and he ran and jumped into the drivers seat of Engine 44 and started it up flipped on the lights and drove off to the fire. I knew at that moment that I had the coolest Dad in the entire world. Other Fire Station memories include station number 10 because it had a pole you could slide down. When I was in 2nd grade the Fire Department was having a coloring contest and the color page had the Seal of the Fire Department. I really was excited and I got busy coloring it the best I could. Dad came in while I was coloring with his jacket that had that patch so I could see what colors to use. It was too late I was too far gone. Looking back I see now that he was disappointed but I remember him putting his jacket down and laying on the bed beside me and telling me I was doing a great job( I really did have a cool Dad). A few times my Dad worked at the Mid South Fair in Memphis and we would go and meet him at the Fair when he got off and that was always fun. Sometimes at night before he worked I would help him get his uniform ready by pinning the badge and name plate on and putting his Cross pen and pencil set in the pocket. I always liked how those gold pens matched his badge. One afternoon Dad and Mr. Aires a fireman that lived across the street put out a grease fire in the house next door before the Fire Department got there. I couldn't believe he ran into that house with all the smoke that was coming out the front door. The last day my Dad worked before he retired we went up to the station and had a party with a cake and as a surprise gag my Mom hired a Belly Dancer to come and Dance for my Dad. He was so embarrassed as she started to dance and the guys at the station were heckling him and all of the sudden the alarm sounded and he jumped up and ran jumped on the Fire Truck and responded to a car fire. I took photos of that last fire call as the truck pulled out of the station. I wish I could remember who put my Mom up to getting that Belly Dancer.

Update

That was a neat story Jeff. Kind of swelled my head but it will go down. I think Sue Cochran was to blame for the belly dancer. Also the alarm didn't go off until she left. I was praying for an earlier one. I also want to know where the pictures are. Probably in one of Mom's photo album here.
Love
Dad