A Great Day for Frogs

Our backyard play scape in the morning rain

"Look at that rain!" I say, noticing it after helping the boys get dressed for their second day of Raider Baseball Camp.  "Oh well, it's a great day for frogs."

It's one of those things I say a lot.  One of those Dad Things.  I'm not sure where I got the phrase; must've heard it somewhere.  It's one of those things the boys roll their eyes at -- like when we're at our favorite Chinese restaurant, Happy Dragon in Round Rock, and I draw their attention to the string-heavy traditional music playing on a loop and say, "Hey, do you guys like this song?  I wrote this."  They pretend to be pained by my corny jokes, but their vague smiles suggest they will one day be nostalgic about it, just as I am with my own brother about the many, many phrases, quips and bad jokes our father repeated through the years.

Any way you classify this weather, it signifies a rain out -- a re-thinking of plans.  A re-boot of our day.  Jeanette has already left for work, and it is a Guys' Day.  The boys immediately go for their Nooks, and begin constructing houses that will keep them safe from the zombies who creep around the perimeters of their virtual homesteads.

Jackson and Diego playing Minecraft on a rainy morning in June

I grab my tablet and get back into the novel I'm currently reading, until I feel a pleasant sleepiness come over me.  I put the device face down on my chest, the way I used to leave an open book there when I'd get drowsy.  Then I nap, until one of the boys comes in to show me the houseboat they've been working on, and ask me about going to the movies.

I get on the computer and buy e-tickets for the 11 o'clock matinee of Man of Steel.

It's all great stuff.  I'm not a troglodyte who pines for the days before there was this level of technology. I will say, though, that I grew up in a place and time that found me often out in the rain.  My friends and I were explorers, and we were lucky to be surrounded by acres of relatively pristine land.  When I think back on childhood rainy days, I feel the cool droplets on my skin, and I smell the earth, replete with wildlife.  Earthworms were the most obvious, but we also saw salamanders, moles, chipmunks, and yes, frogs.  Lots of them.

Maybe that's where I got that from.  Hmm.  I am feeling somewhat inspired to take the boys out on a nature walk somewhere.  Perhaps I'll do that.  After the movie.  Go out on a trail, in search of some frogs.

Before They Grossed Me Out: Little Creatures, Then and Now

The sun has come up on Shadowglen and the grackles have begun the grim daily task of ingesting those Junebugs too slow to have taken cover. Last night, when J and I were enjoying a nightcap on our back patio, the Junebugs pestered us relentlessly, so they’re getting what my mother, in her down-home way, would have called their “come-uppance.”

The last time I wrote about insects was in an earlier post, when I complained, in true Suburban Squire Style, about my ant problem. Come to think of it, I’ve also written about my New York roach issues. I once wrote a poem that describes a man whose one-bedroom apartment has somehow become infested with flies. One of my best pieces of narrative was the opening of a short story that describes a woman who has just had an exquisite shower. She steps into her living room, feeling refreshed, when a cockroach skitters across the floor, taps her foot, and skitters away again. She sighs before removing her towel and bathrobe and getting right back into the shower.

Does this periodic return to the subject of bugs add up to an obsession? Could be. It might not come as a surprise to some who knew me as a child. Obsession is too weak a word to describe how I felt about the insect world as a kid. It wasn’t the exasperated state I seem to communicate in my writing. Instead, it was a real fascination – a scientific curiosity with what the little buggers were up to, moment to moment, day to day. It wasn’t unusual to find me or my buddy Richie Mahoney squatting down over an anthill, or with our faces peering, just inches from a spider web.

We were drawn by the combat of insects, often pitting ants and beetles against one another. Red ant versus black was one of our favorite match-ups, because despite being considerably smaller than the black carpenter ants, red ants were a whole lot tougher, a dynamic we could relate to as children. We were accustomed to being underestimated.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl was one of my favorite books. I loved the idea that a boy could fully enter the lives and stories of bugs. I even had dreams about shrinking down and hanging out with insects myself.

Of my own two children, Jackson is the one who is more like me when it comes to bugs and animals. He’s likely to seek out interesting creatures under rocks and tree stumps. If he sees a gecko, for example, he won’t just remark on it, he’ll go ahead and get it, so that he can turn it around in his hands and inspect it.

Jeanette and Diego fall into the other camp; they’re grossed out and would generally prefer that the world’s wildlife stick to themselves and leave us humans alone.

Not that Diego lacks the scientist’s curious mind, however. Two of his favorite books contain graphic close-up photos, of snakes and reptiles and of insects, respectively.

I often wonder what old Richie Mahoney is up to these days. My hope is that he’s a dad like me, observing the behavior of his children, continuously comparing their experiences to what was a pretty idyllic childhood, looking back on it. Maybe, as I write this, he’s crouching beside a son or daughter, their faces just inches away from a spider web, their eyes wide, as they wait for the action to unfold.