My grandparents moved to a nice subdivision on a golf course when I was a kid. Going to visit them was like going to another country. I had never seen such a large manicured property with cart trails and little ponds everywhere. The grass was green, all the bushes were trimmed, and the flowers devoid of weeds. It was the kind of place you go to and you just know that you need to have good manners, none of this backwoods country kid stuff was going to cut it around here.
One evening as we were over for dinner, listening to classical music, and eating some lavish meal that required silverware, my Dad stopped mid-chew and stared off into the distance. He shooshed us. “You hear that?” Immediately I was mortified I didn’t hear anything but I knew anytime my dad asked that question that something was about to happen that I probably wouldn’t agree with.
“You hear that? You hear them frogs? They’re bullfrogs” Sure we all heard frogs we were surrounded by mansions and little ponds. “Guess we better go frog gigging!”. I had no idea what this activity was but it didn’t sound good.
It was getting dark at this point. My Dad got up from the table and disappeared out the door. Within two minutes he comes back with a long cane pole with a piece of styrofoam stuck to its end, an old pillowcase, and one of those flashlights so bright you could signal the space station. He then removed the styrofoam from the pole to reveal 4 or 5 long spikes. Whatever was about to happen wasn’t in the frog’s best interest.
He led us to one of the ponds in the dark and we stood by some tall grass by the bank. We had to stand completely still and silent. Slowly the frogs started croaking. With the flashlight in one hand and the pole in the other, he shined the light down on the bank and with a quick jerk, plunged the pole in the water and started laughing. What came back up was an impaled frog still moving around. That escalated quickly.
For the next few hours, we went from pond to pond and he acted like a man picking up trash on the side of the highway on his last hour of probation. He was dancing around and spearing these frogs, one by one, and placing them in the bag. When we got back to my grandmothers he dumped his haul in a bathtub, half of them still squirming about. Now what I thought?
I’ll spare the details on the horror movie that ensued. The next night I was treated to what I was told was a delicacy. Frog Legs. As I was forced to eat one, I thought about how much it tasted like chicken, that and how all the mansions and ponds were a lot quieter now.