I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: frogs

  • have you ever met a frog whisperer?

    have you ever met a frog whisperer?


     The sounds from our screened porch were connected to the sounds of my earliest memories of summer when I slept in a small double bed with my maternal grandmother while a cheap oscillating fan turned slowly from side to side as it valiantly tried to cool us in the hot humidity of an East Texas heat a thousand miles away from South Carolina, a heat that would not be relieved by opening every window on the porch where we slept or the random whisper of cool air from the small oscillating fan made by Westinghouse. The sheets were always clean but never actually cool.

    I never trusted the sheets anyway after discovering a scorpion hiding between them one night.

    But it was the sound of the frogs around our pool here on Cardinal Drive – particularly after a rain – that drew me to those hot muggy nights of Grimes County, Texas where I was raised. My grandmother’s wooden house made from a retail catalog blueprint had many design flaws, but its one awesome feature which had nothing to do with the design really, was the magical pond (or tank, as we called it in East Texas) behind her house.

    The tank was the focal point of my only-child imagination play stories during the day, but it was the tank’s music of those summer nights I hope will never be erased from my memory. Specifically, it was the frogs, or bull frogs as my grandmother used to call them  just before we drifted off to sleep. The low guttural sounds were always behind the house and were somewhat subdued until every light was turned off at night. But then, those frogs got louder and louder until they hit a mighty crescendo. My grandmother and I laughed out loud when we heard them.

    The frogs who live in our backyard on Cardinal Drive are rarely as raucous as the bull frogs in my tank in Richards – I think they are smaller frogs. But occasionally I hear one of those loud guttural sounds looking for something, probably safer water supplies, and I am transported to different days. To a grandmother who guided me with her wisdom and love. I was blessed with a loving eccentric family who in the end gave me what they could – so much more than I realized.

    This morning, however, a medium size solitary frog stared at me from our screened porch after he unsuccessfully jumped against the screen to flee. He looked at me as if to say, I survived the nightmare of your chemically treated swimming pool but hopped into your screen porch jail through a door that was slightly ajar. And now, woe is me. I can’t figure out how to escape.

    Never fear, I whispered. I stepped outside to get my pool scooper with the mesh frog retriever. I brought it back to the porch to fetch the frog who hadn’t moved. I carefully prodded the frog to get him to jump onto the rim of the scooper and hoisted him to safety on the deck.

    I swear this little guy looked suspiciously like the one I rescued from the pool skimmer earlier this week. Seriously?

    Regardless, I know we’ll hear him singing with his buddies tonight – we’ve had a summer rain this afternoon. The frog choir will rock on when darkness envelops them, and I will remember my grandmother’s laughter with a longing deep in my heart.

  • i’m nobody, who are you?

    i’m nobody, who are you?


    I’m Nobody! Who are you?

    Are you Nobody, too?

    Then there’s a pair of us —

    don’t tell!

    They’d banish us, you know.

    How dreary to be somebody!

    How public, like a frog

    to tell your name the livelong

    day

    to an admiring bog!

    This poem introduced me to Emily Dickinson’s poetry when I was required to memorize lines in elementary school. My dad actually tipped me off to this short piece which he also helped me memorize. It definitely qualifies as poetry, he told me, and was written by one of the best American poets ever. I remember feeling buoyed by his confidence as I recited the poem in class. I also remember the teacher implementing a minimum number of words and lines for the next assignment. No worries – my dad knew enough poems to fit every poetry exercise.

    I thought about the frog poem in the early morning hours today when my faithful four-legged companion Carl and I made our daily check of the pool skimmer basket. We check the basket every night after dark thirty and do the re-check by the dawn’s early light. The pool attracts frogs of every size and shape because the water tricks them into believing it is fresh – like an oasis in the desert. Despite the frog log we have provided for the past five summer seasons of our time here, some of the frogs lose their way and opt to swim in the pool with the passion of a Katie Ledecky or Caeleb Dressel.

    During several of our recent nocturnal inspections Carl and I have been able to rescue an assortment of the amphibious creatures who have been forced into the eternal swim of the skimmer basket. I am actually able to pull the little ones by reaching down to pull them out with a small iron handle I use to lift the skimmer basket. Carl shares my excitement when he runs around to sniff the stunned frogs but wisely doesn’t disturb them before he runs off to the doggie door, always hoping for a treat following his Coast Guard efforts.

    This morning, however, we found a medium sized frog that didn’t survive the deadly chemicals we must use to keep the pool safe for humans. Two legs laid outstretched behind his little body as if to say hey what took you so long? I swam and swam – but “Nobody” did not come.

    In South Carolina the summers are hot, hot, humid and hotter. Thunderstorms often strike in the late afternoons, early evenings. The frogs seem to multiply following the rains – their deep guttural sounds from the trees fill the night with the same noises I remember listening to with the windows raised in my home in Texas. The pond behind my grandmother’s house was quite the attraction. Thankfully not so deadly as our pool. But I never went swimming in that pond for as long as we lived in front of it.

    Tonight Carl and I will make our rounds with our usual care…holding our breaths for no unhappy surprises.

    I’m nobody, who are you? How dreary to be somebody, how public like a frog to tell your name the livelong day to an admiring bog.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned. I’m beginning this month with the goal of writing 20 posts during the month of August. I’ve gotten a bit lazy this summer.