The Toad - Hunting Story.
*dusts off blog* Ok, been a while here. Too long, some might say.
So the time has come to tell you all the Toad Hunting Story.
My Dad grew up on a raisin and cotton farm in Wasco, California (between Fresno and Bakersfield) and I was lucky enough that it was a going concern when I was growing up, so we could regularly visit during the summer.
This was particularly fun for me and my younger brothers because we could hang out with our two cousins and get up to whatever mayhem 5 boys can do with relatively little supervision.
Now, for those of you who don't know Kern County, allow me to describe Summertime out there: It is hot. So hot. Mad dogs and Englishmen hot. If it weren't for the irrigation setup out there, it'd have no chance as a farming community. And for residential life, having a swimming pool isn't so much a luxury as it is a necessity.
But, as in all things, there is a downside to having a pool. To wit, toads. You see, at night, the toads would come from pretty much everywhere to the pool and jump in since, to them, it's just a pond. However, since there's an edge, the toads can't get out and they eventually drown.
So, our job was to go out after dinner with flashlights to seek the unfortunate, lumpen creatures, grab them from the back yard, and remove them. Often, between the five of us, we'd get about twenty at a time.
As for their removal...
Well, part of the issue is we needed to get these toads out as fast as possible, and the back yard at the farmhouse was enclosed by an eight foot high cinder block wall with an extremely heavy, rusted, thick gate. So we simply went with the most expedient method of expelling the toads: throwing them over the wall as hard and as far as possible. I must presume that most of the toads survived our attentions, because there were no shortage of them.
Now: I've told you this story to tell you another one.
On Dad's side of the family, I have four first cousins. And two of them grew up back east, so I've only met them twice.
On Mom's side I have thirty-two first cousins. I think. Even I gave a hard time keeping track of them all. And I'm right in the middle of all of them, age-wise. So for our family reunions, we need plenty of space for all of us to play football, tear around and shoot off firecrackers and whatnot.
One family reunion, when I was about fourteen, we were at my Uncle Owen's place in Sacramento (I did not have an Aunt Beru). Now, Uncle Owen is a pretty successful guy. A former real-estate developer and author, he usually had access to a lot of nearby fields and the like. This place had a vacant lot nearby where we had a pickup game of football going and, during the course of said pickup game, I developed a bloody nose.
I sat down on a railroad tie at the side of the field, staunching my noble wound, and was joined by a few of my boon-cousin-companions as the game wound down. And during the course of our conversation I looked down at my feet and - Lo and Behold! - there was one of the familiar toads from Wasco.
I picked up the creature and told my cousins the story I just told you all.
And then I looked up across the lot to the fence around my Uncle's back yard. And, though I couldnt see them, I coukd hear the party beyond. With all my Aunts, Uncles, half of the cousins who weren't playing football, ten or twenty of my Uncle's business associates, a buffet and a live band.
And then I looked down at the toad.
I'm sure my cousin Nicole, sitting down to eat barbecue with my parents, never expected anything to fall out of the sky into her lap, much less a bewildered and terrified toad the size of a peach.
And that is the toad story. Cousin Nicole went off to have a full and productive life, I grew older if not wiser.
The Toad's whereabouts are unknown to this day.