Dry Spells and Frog Legs

By Gaylord Cooper
sagagenealogy@gmail.com

We hear all this talk about global warming these days about how the earth is heating up. But we have had hot spells before.

I remember back when I was growing up in Limeville hollow in eastern. It got hot. Real hot that one summer. I remember one summer's full moon my buddy Frederick and I went down to an old farm pond frog gigging. We were after frog legs. When they are fried right they taste just like chicken.

When we got to the pond we found that the pond was dry from the heat. We decided to come back the next day when the old bull frogs could not hide and collect all we needed.

The next day around noon we got back and found all the frogs laying around dead. It had got so dry that the poor little frogs' skin began to shrink and they couldn't close their eyes or wiggle. If you don't close your eyes and sleep, you die. We gathered up a dozen or so in our tote sacks and carried them home.

When we harvested their frog legs and loosen the skin, their eyes would snap shut. Next thing I knew they fell asleep and started snoring. We felt humiliated. We got the family together with some soft pine wood and started whittling prosthetic wooden legs. My uncle Dan, an old time watch repairman, gave us a box of tiny watch springs. We loaded those springs into the wooden legs.

By the time the frogs woke up, we had already attached their new prosthetic legs. The frogs loved the fancy prosthetic legs. They could jump up to 35 feet, and you know how frogs love to jump. Afterward, when the dry season passed, every time the cows and horses came to the creek or pond to drink, the frogs would hop up on their backs and take a ride. Later, they started their own rodeos and races. I admit that was strange. I do not talk about it much though, because from rodeos and racing the frogs took up gambling and drinking.

The drinking is what caused their downfall. A drunk frog is a careless frog. You just can't drink and jump 35 feet without having accidents. They were crashing into each other, crashing into trees, even going out on the highway and playing chicken with the cars and trucks.

A drunk frog just can't time a jump over a semi-tractor trailer and hope to survive. It was sad and gruesome to behold. They all turned into road kill. To this day I will not eat frog legs.

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Gaylord Cooper is the Director Southern Appalachian Genealogy Associates; Is married, living in Kentucky, took early retirement from Norfolk Southern Railroad. Now a freelance writer and photographer, wrote column on Eastern KY for the Lexington Herald leader Newspaper. Published short stories, poetry and political opinions in various magazines. Gaylord has also written political commentary, and major articles for newsmagazines about Vietnam, as well as a lot of local history of the rivercities.

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