I don’t remember everything about the summers of my childhood, but I do remember some wonderful highlights. Like the pollywog pond…
“Hey Carol! Let’s go ride our bikes to the pollywog pond!”
Carol was my sister, older by more than two years – a big kid, but my best buddy and companion in nearly everything. We lived on a hill overlooking the Missouri River – the route Lewis and Clark took exploring the “wildlands” of the West. I didn’t ever think of the history of the place in those days. Our view was of the Country Club golf course on the other side of the river and of “Gore Hill”, a plateau with the airport on top. To me, at age 10, summer life was a few daily chores, adventures in and around our neighborhood, mostly with my sister, trips to Stanford, 60 miles to the east, where my parents grew up, and jeep trips whenever we could work them in. Today was the pollywog pond.
‘Hey Mom! Carol and I are going to ride our bikes to the pollywog pond. OK?”
“OK, Honey, but be careful…”
Not hearing much of Mom’s cautions, we tore out of the house to hit the road. The “road” was gravel then; paving came later. We went past the few houses in our neighborhood to the very top of the hill, where gravel pits had been scraped out to later fill in with water. The ponds thus created always had pollywogs in the early summer. I never could figure out where the frogs went when they grew up because the ponds dried out in the late summer and it was about a half mile of hopping to the river.
The air was clear and warm, with the heat of the sun on our backs as we labored up the hill on our bikes. We could smell the earth and the grasses and hear the songs of meadowlarks. At 10, I accepted the beauty as just part of life. From the top of the hill, we could see for over a hundred miles. We knew it was a hundred miles because we could see the tops of the Rockies to the west, and to drive to them was at least that far. We could also see the nearer, smaller ranges, like the Little Belts, the Big Belts, and the Highwoods.
Arriving at the pond. We unceremoniously dropped our bikes and knelt down to look. The water was clear and about one to two feet deep in the middle. The pollywogs swam together, trying to avoid us, but we dipped our hands in the water, raising swirls of mud, to capture one or more and study them closely. They were funny little brown, slimy things, nearly all “head”. I would try to imagine them as frogs, but without success. After looking long and hard, we would carefully return the little critters to the water, watching them swim “away” which was really around the pond in confusion.
“Let’s take some home and show Mom,” I said to Carol.
She, being the older and wiser sister, pointed out that the pollywogs needed water, so we’d have to get a bucket. So off we went again on our bikes to get a bucket. Going downhill on our bikes was always fun, but on gravel, we needed to be careful. We both had lots of experience with skinned knees, elbows and hands.
Returning with the bucket, we scooped up several pollywogs together with some water. Then we had to face how to get the bucket and the pollywogs home. Riding a bike with a full bucket on a tricky road didn’t seem prudent – even to a 10- and 12-year-old – so we left our bikes at the pond and walked, carrying the bucket between us, discussing how we would watch the pollywogs grow up into little frogs and keep them for pets.
When we got home, Mom was patient as usual and willing to let us keep the pollywogs, but like us, a little unsure as to how we’d take care of them. After much discussion, we rigged up the bucket with some sand in the bottom for a “beach”, dropped in some fish food, and left them on the deck outside.
In the succeeding days, we proudly showed our pollywogs to the neighbor kids, who were suitably thrilled, even though their mothers were not as excited. The “little” kid from next door (at least two years younger than I) was particularly keen on the pollywogs and went to the pond to get some for himself. He and his mom put theirs in a larger pool made from a dishpan. For a few days, it was a contest, but finally his grew into cute little frogs, and ours just died.