Fifty grinning frogs greeted guests at the collectors' fair Saturday at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale. These frogs live with me, and represent not even a drop in the pond of my collection. The museum's outreach coordinator Susan Young asked me to exhibit in the fair when she heard about my fondness for frogs.
"You know, you can't not smile," I told viewers. The lips of even the most stoic curved upwards.
Director Allyn Lord, Young and other staff members at the Shiloh Museum say the collectors' fair is their favorite event of the year. "What I like is hearing how people started their collections," Lord said.
Many people in Springdale know I collect frogs, but they don't know why. We'll start at the beginning.
The first frog I remember is a plastic soap dish. He would hold bars of soap in his big mouth and his cupped front legs. This sat in the built-in ceramic soap holder in the bathtub where my brothers and I took our baths. Many years later, this frog is covered with a bit of soap scum, but he stands ready in my bathtub, in a bathroom decorated with frogs.
I also remember a frog (and a skunk) with google eyes made from painted English walnuts bought at a school fair, stuffing fabric frogs with plastic bags for a Girl Scout service project and a random child's necklace with a colorful frog charm. And, of course, Kermit the Frog from "Sesame Street," although I was "too old" to watch the show like my brothers.
But Saturday, I began my story by pointing to a black-and-white flier from the National Wildlife Association that years ago crossed my desk. This frog on the sheet was not smiling, and most people would not consider him "cute."
Meet bufo houstonensis, the Houston toad, an endangered species that lived in my backyard in southwest Houston. My dad planted some fig trees and built chutes to direct water to the roots. When he watered the trees, these guys crawled up the chute to above the water level. Watering the trees became a favorite chore, and occasionally, one of the toads left his hidey hole to hop around the yard.
The collection got started thanks to a crush on a boy. In eighth grade, I was a member of the newspaper staff, and a fellow member played on the football team and in the school's hottest rock band. The newspaper teacher placed us in alphabetical order, with him sitting right behind me.
When the production process allowed downtime, newspaper staff members used the class as a study hall. My science book was open in class one day when the boy saw a picture of a frog. He said to me, "Frogs are ugly." Not a fanatic yet but a frog fancier, I immediately jumped to their defense: "Frogs are beautiful!"
A yearlong campaign and a lifetime hobby grew from the tadpole stage. I made it through the dissection of frogs in science that year, telling myself I wanted to know as much about the frog's insides as I did their outsides. I bought a pin of a frog in purple shorts and boxing gloves on a shopping trip with a friend.
A few years later, one of my drill team mascots was a frog, and we members gifted each other with these glorious green creatures -- many of which I still have. Each year at Christmas, I put out an ornament of Kermit the Frog, sitting on a yellow package holding a neck tie.
Frogs continue to jump into my pond. Every birthday and Christmas comes with frogs as gifts. And I even backpacked a live one out of biology lab in college.
When I displayed a few frogs on my desk at work, coworkers gave me more -- and continue to do so. I name each frog after its giver and keep it on my desk. I've even had folks rescue frog items from garage sales and the garbage. I will live forever because even people who pass out of my life tell me they can't look at a frog without thinking of me.
As a teacher, I decorated my fifth-grade classrooms with frogs. After 4 1/2 years, I left school with five garbage bags full of stuffed frogs -- gifts from my students -- not to mention the many knick-knacky kind. I do have some favorites, but I love them all.
The largest frog on display Saturday was a squat, round frog holding a heart. On Valentine's Day 2010, the school office called a student out of my class to meet his father. The boy walked back in with a frog for me -- sized and shaped exactly like the student -- and a proud grin I always will remember.
I spent Saturday looking like a proud parent over my frogs. Every frog is a memory of good times and friends and family.
Laurinda Joenks is a Features reporter for the NWA Democrat-Gazette. She can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWALaurinda.
NAN Our Town on 01/15/2015