WHERE DID THEY GO?

How long has it been since you’ve seen a polliwog?

I haven’t seen one in years, though I assume they are still around because I haven’t read anything recently about frogs being on the endangered species list.
When I was a little kid, almost every Sunday afternoon our family went on “rides.” We would pile in the family car and my dad would head out somewhere. We never knew where he was going, unless he told my sister and me to get jars because we would be going to a park where there the polliwogs were. His two favorite parks were in Montebello and Anaheim.

He would usually limit us to 10 polliwogs each and of course my sister and I were very selective in which 10 we wanted, so as to drag out the time at the pond. Even after seventy-some years I can recall how exciting it was to choose our polliwogs and what fun it was to watch them change into the tiniest of little frogs, so tiny they could easily get lost in the house if we weren’t careful.


Do children today know what polliwogs are and where one goes to capture them? I have thirteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren and I don’t recall any of them ever mentioning to me that they had a polliwog. But then I don’t think I ever asked them if they had one, either. Perhaps I should do that. Polliwogs may be more a part of kids’ lives today than I’m aware of. But then again maybe not. The little ones today know how to use their parents’ IPODs and perhaps polliwogs couldn’t hold a candle against using a GPS system on their parents’ cell phones.

Come to think of it, there are lots of things I wonder about. The senior apartments I live in are unique, in that there is lots of acreage – lawns, shrubs, trees, and a small 9-hole golf course that provide the setting for our apartment buildings, which are small and scattered through the acreage. There also is a flood control channel running alongside the property that always has a little bit of water dribbling through it. We’re in our fourth year of living here and I’ve never heard a frog croak at night. Where are the frogs?

And believe it or not, I’ve never heard a cricket at night, either. We get mosquitoes and June bugs but no crickets and no frogs. Where are they?

I can count on one hand how many butterflies I’ve seen flying around our place in the time we’ve been here. It isn’t like there are no flowers here; nearly everyone has flowers in their yards. But no butterflies. I know there is a problem with the loss of bee colonies, but shouldn’t the flowers around here draw at least a few bees?

When I was a little tyke, bees, wasps, butterflies of all kinds, crickets and frogs were all a part and parcel of our outdoor existence. Maybe they are still around. Perhaps I just don’t see them any more because I am not playing in the out-of-doors for eight hours a day like I used to.

I wonder if this is just peculiar to where I live? Or to Southern California? Global warming? Signs of the time? I wonder.