FROGS AND FORTS

I will tell you what happened.

I will tell you everything.

I will. I promise.

I just hope you won’t think I was a bad kid.

I certainly couldn’t blame you if you did.

My old tree fort meant everything to me growing up. No, it wasn’t much to look at, but it was my whole world as a kid.

I guess to other kids, things like who had the best marble collection or who had the best bike would have been important.

But growing up, there were two kinds of social currency: frogs and forts.

Frogs might seem like an odd thing to boost someone’s social status, but good frog catchers were highly regarded in the neighbourhood growing up. There is a skill to the task. It takes a fair amount of patience, so it was usually the older kids that succeeded. If a young kid was seen to be very good at the task of catching frogs, they were deemed more grown-up or mature than others. That’s probably why “froggers” were held in such high esteem.

The best fort is a little easier to understand. Just like grown-ups who put effort into having the best car or clothes, having the best fort often meant having the most money. But since kids could scavenge things from almost anywhere for their construction, there was a sort of fairness in the forts. A kid whose parents had little money could still find a piece of plywood at a construction site, just as well as anyone else.

Having a good fort was also an example of how much “freedom” you had. Mine was, of course, not much more than box made of scrap wood sitting precariously in a tree in our backyard. But it was mine and gave me a solid footing near the top of the neighbourhood social ladder.

Which brings up another important point about having your own fort. Whoever built the fort made the rules. That kid (or kids) could decide who was allowed into the fort. Or more specifically, who was not allowed in the fort. Keeping someone out of your fort was a power play. By saying who could come in, you were drawing very clear lines about who was your friend and who was not. Yes, it is mean to exclude people, but it happened, and it happened a lot.

Quite often, it would result in a kind of “arms race” in the neighbourhood. If a child was excluded from the best fort around, they would often build one of their own. If that new fort was better, then neighbourhood kids would start to hang out at that new fort, and the owner of the new fort could exclude whoever they wanted. This would force the excluded party to improve their old fort to try and attract the neighbourhood kids to return. This pattern could be repeated all summer as forts got better and better.

“Frogging” was much more democratic and less likely to get a kid in trouble for stealing wood from a construction site or “borrowing” their parents’ tools. Sure, there were plenty of mud-covered clothes and the occasional rubber boot that got sucked into the mud and had to be left behind. But “frogging” was much less likely to lead to trouble. It didn’t require stealing tools or trespassing on private property. Most of the best places to hunt were easy to get to and on public property.

There was a good spot at the local golf course. Even though it was called Falcon Lake Golf & Country Club, there was no lake. It was just a large, shallow pond that ran along the edge of the property. We’d stick to the side of the pond that was on public property, and on hot days we’d catch lots of frogs. The golf course was the perfect place for “frogging,” with just the right depth of water, somewhere between knee and ankle-deep. Frogs need enough water to keep them hidden from airborne predators like birds and dryland predators like foxes. However, the water can’t be too deep. Very deep water can mean big fish. Largemouth bass and pike are particularly fond of frogs and usually live in deeper waters.

Another good reason for frogs to stick to the shallows is that deep water is often clear water. It is easier to hide in the mud and grass of the shallow water. But if a frog is out in the deep, clear waters of a lake, it is much harder for them to evade predators. If a frog wandered out to the deep part of a lake or pond, they would become more visible to the hawks or herons flying overhead. Plus, while frogs are obviously good swimmers, in the open water they lack the endurance to avoid a hungry fish.

Keep that in mind, not too much water and not too little, and you will find the best spots.

Once you choose the right location, you want to look for signs that show you where the frogs are in the water: air bubbles floating to the surface or tiny eyes looking out from the mud. If it has just rained, you might even see them along the shore as they leave the water and hunt for bugs inland. If it’s sunny, you might find some of the bigger ones warming themselves on a rock or log.

Then you wade into the water, wait, and stand still. When you step into the water, all the nearby frogs will hide. But if you’ve picked your spot correctly, after a few seconds the frogs will begin to resurface. Remember, frogs don’t have gills. They have lungs. They have to come up to the surface to breathe. And then you can catch them, if you remember one last thing.

Frogs can’t jump backwards.

When you reach to grab a frog, it has only one way to move: forward. You can use that to your advantage. Most froggers will step behind a frog to make it jump away from them, and while it’s leaping in the predicted direction, they’ll scoop it up. Or if you have asked for the help of a friend (or insisted on the help of a younger sibling), you can have that person move behind the frog and drive them toward you. Some kids will use baskets or nets to catch the frogs, but the purists in the sport will just use their hands.

The size of your frog collection was also a sign of freedom. Most parents would not let their kids keep frogs in the yard, the typical excuse being warts. But if a kid in the neighbourhood was allowed to keep a small collection, it showed a maturity and trust that elevated them in the eyes of the other kids. No one ever kept their collections for very long. After a day or two, their parents would insist that the frogs be taken back to where they were caught and released. The frog catchers would usually say goodbye before opening the bucket or box they had been transported in. Often the “froggers” would say the frog’s name as each was taken out of the container and placed on the water’s edge.

“Goodbye, Jumpy.”

“Goodbye, Slimy.”

“Goodbye, Kermit.”

“Goodbye, Lily.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Croakfire.”

“Goodbye, Ribbit Downey Jr.”

“Goodbye, Snoop Froggy Frog.”

As I said, no one ever kept their collections for very long. But that is not entirely true. There was this one time.