11 WHY FROGS DON'T SMOKE

One day my brother and I learned a great lesson from a frog. While living on the goat ranch, we had learned that the best way to catch a frog was to sneak up on it with a fishing pole in hand. As a frog sat on the bank of the stream or on a pond lilly, we would dangle a baited hook back and forth in front of it's nose. Frogs do have noses you know. The frog, thinking this was a tasty meal flying by, would leap out and snag the bait. In a split second it was hooked and we would reel in our catch.

Our mother would cook the legs of the big frogs for dinner if we would bring 5 or 6 frogs back to camp. For some reason the frog legs would hop around the frying pan as they were being cooked. At first, we thought that they were still alive and mom and Aunt Edna would tease us a lot about the "jumping frog legs." Later we learned that it had something to do with muscle contractions. Actually frog legs are kind of tasty, especially when one is really hungry.

Well, one day we went out to catch our supper. We didn't have much success for some reason. However, after several hours of trying, we snagged a huge frog. I suppose that when the frog was stretched out it probably measured a good 12-14 inches from head to toe. We took the frog back to camp in an old gunny sack. It hopped and kicked all the way.

Since one frog was not enough to make a meal, Richard and I decided to try an experiement. We snitched a cigarette from Uncle Curly's coat pocket. We then took the frog out of the sack and sat it on the fender of our old car. The adults were over at the other side of the camp visiting under the shade of a large oak tree. They could not see what we were up to.
The frog was very tired and just eyed us with a suspicious look. It didn't try to jump away. We held it and lit the cigarette and put it into the frog's mouth. We stood back to see what would happen. We thought the frog would spit the cigarette out, but I guess frogs can't spit. The frog just sat there with the cigarette sticking out of it's mouth. It looked really funny and we began to giggle and laugh. Then the frog took a deep inhale of smoke. We thought that it would let it out and maybe blow some smoke rings like Uncle Curly did, but it didn't. In a few seconds it sucked in another big gulp of smoke and then another and then another. As we watched in amazement, the frog began to puff up and soon looked like an odd shaped balloon.

We were laughing our heads off, not knowing what was going to happen next. Suddenly, the frog let all of the smoke out at once in a loud, strange, squawking explusion of air. It's eyes rolled around several times and then it flopped over on it's back; shook and died right before our eyes. My brother and I stopped laughing. We poked the poor frog with a stick to make sure that it was really dead; it was. Sure enough that old frog had really croaked! We stood there for a few moments staring at the frog. Richard broke the silence with a soft, "Wow."

Then we leaped into action! We grabbed the dead frog and the cigarette and buried them both on the other side of the camp before the adults found out what we had done. We knew that they would probably be hopping mad if they found out what we had done. We were really scared and didn't tell them until years later.

LESSON LEARNED

I'm not sure about my brother, but I decided on that very day that I would never smoke. Every time I was offered a smoke in the years that followed, I could see in my mind's eye a distant memory of that poor frog, puffing up, rolling it's eyes and dying dead away in front of two startled boys. It was easy to smile and to say, "No thanks, I don't smoke." Thanks to that old California frog, I have never smoked during my life time. I still feel sorry for the frog that gave it's life to teach two young boys an important lesson of life. I might also add that my brother has never smoked either and has lived a clean wonderful life.

SMOKING CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH!