The Back Forty
By Roger Pond

Every so often I have to confess I never took a class in journalism. I don’t know why I need to confess; it’s pretty obvious to anyone who knows anything about journalism.

It’s like the old minister used to say, “Don’t be too quick to confess your sins. If you’re that bad, everyone already knows about it.” My lack of training explains my difficulty writing good leads for stories. The famous writer James Thurber described a similar defect in a classmate of his.

Thurber’s classmate, an agriculture student, had a terrible time coming up with anything interesting to write about. In desperation, his journalism professor sent him over to the university horse barns to dig something up.

The professor’s instructions were, “This university owns more horses than any other school in the Big Ten. Now get over there and find something interesting – and I want to see a catchy lead this time!”

The ag student did as he was told. He soon returned with a hot story about a disease that was causing blisters on the backs of horses in the university herd. His story began: “Has anybody noticed the horses’ backs lately?”

So, what’s wrong with that? It reminds me of the frogs around my house. Has anybody noticed there’s a ton of frogs around my house?

It seems a person can hardly pick up a magazine or newspaper these days without reading about the demise of the frogs. They’re going extinct, growing extra legs, jumping sideways. Somebody needs to tell my frogs they are going extinct. These frogs are reproducing like crazy, crawling under everything and jumping straight up and down – just like they always have.

My frogs have all of their appendages, too. That’s because these are little bitty tree frogs. If they were big fat bullfrogs, this might be a whole different story.

I’ve always considered it a mistake to get too sentimental about frogs, anyway. If they want to croak, they croak. They’re like sheep in that respect.

I suppose the magazine articles are about particular species of frogs, but there must be similarities between these creatures. Biologists blame ultraviolet light, pesticides and global warming for frailty in frogs. We have all of those things where I live, but we’ve got frogs coming out of our ears.

I counted two on the outdoor faucet, one in the flower boxes, two in a carton of pop, two in the dog’s water dish and several more hiding in the door frames. If that’s going extinct, I’d be really worried if the population recovers.

Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.