By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
You know those limp squishy little things that some people have on their key rings? I think they are there to make your keys harder to lose. I should get one and see if it would help. Last week I thought for a minute I had one.
I was standing in front of the information desk of the Dallas VA Hospital. I reached for my purse and thought I felt one of those squishy key things. But it was cold. I pulled it up to examine it, and found myself meeting the steely gaze of a medium sized toad frog.
This totally blew my mind. You would think I would be embarrassed, and maybe try to slip him back in my purse before anybody noticed. But this was too amazing to not share. So I held him up to show the people at the desk and people passing by. “Look,” I said, “there was a frog in my purse!” Everybody was impressed.
There are some nice patches of grass out front of the VA, as well as some shrubbery that a little frog can hide in, so I took him down the hall, out the front door, and down the driveway to his new home and told him good bye. On the way there I told anybody who looked like they could use a laugh that I was putting a frog out and where I found him. They were impressed too.
It took me about one minute to see what I had here, other than a frog in my hand. I finally had the beginnings of a column. It was about time.
As a couple of you have noticed, I haven’t written one in a while. One reason is, I just couldn’t think of anything fun to write about, and besides, I needed a break. I’ve been doing this for a bunch of years and I needed a rest.
The other reason is that this column is called Around the Town for a reason. It originated long before I had my stint of owning the News. The idea was that the job of the newspaper owner/editor is to be looking around the town to find news. In the process he or she would pick up lots of little stories that wouldn’t make a whole news story, but still would be of interest to town folks and the column was the perfect place to put them.
These columns were mainly light chit-chat, but occasionally the town got a Dutch uncle talking to, or encouraged to get involved in some worthy cause. Sometimes when a beloved citizen passed, the editor would share personal memories of that person. I tried to follow that tradition, and when I sold the paper the new owner was kind enough to invite me to continue the column. But as I have slowed down and now spend more time in the country than in town, I don’t pick up on the little tidbits of daily life in the city of Malakoff.
Now I have the great good fortune to recruit Kristi Huls, who is so in love with Malakoff, she knows just about everything good that is going on. She has already learned more is history of our town than most of us old timers. And she loves to spread the word. It a match made in heaven. We’ve worked out a time share program — she will provide you with fun information, and I will provide you with silliness and maybe, once in a blue moon I may get serious and try to say something sensible.
Now back to the toad frog. I have no idea how he got there. I think he must have hopped in my purse which I tossed in my back floorboard on the way to Dallas. But how did he get in the car? I think it must have something to do with the Master Gardener’s class Shelly and I attend. The day before the toad went to the Dallas with me, we had taken several pots of plants to exchange at a Garden Club meeting. He must have stowed away in one of those. And if that is how it happened, he hopped out into the car, and mercifully skipped the club meeting.
I guess that is what happened. But however he got there, I appreciate his giving me something to talk about.
I hope he is doing okay in the big city.