A Matter Of Perspective

  Oh, so many years ago, I was irritated by the sound of frogs and toads in the pond.  You see, the "Frog Pond" at that time was designated as a "Fish Pond" and was home to a dozen or so very large gold fish.  The fish had been one of my rescues!  A young man who came to visit my son for the afternoon asked if he could "float" a baggy of tiny goldfish in the pond while he was here.  Knowing he had a large aquarium at home, I agreed to let his fish stay in the cooling waters.  When he was ready to leave, I asked why he bought "plain old goldfish" when I knew he had exotic fish in the tank.  "Oh, these are to feed the other fish!".  Well, that was not happening!  Even though I knew he was going to go right out and buy more goldfish, I convinced him to let me have the little squirts.  I released them into the pond and that was only the beginning.  Those tiny (1 inch) fish quickly grew to about ten inches!  I had the most beautiful pond ever!  Then came Hurricane Katrina and the fish were never seen again.  For the longest time, the pond sat vacant until the frogs moved in to set up household.  FROGS!  Loud frogs!  And toads!  Very loud toads!  Our Fish Pond turned into a Frog Pond.

  After the frogs and toads claimed the pond, I complained of the nightly serenading.  My once quiet Bayou was now resonating with the mating calls of several thousand frogs and toads!  The noise was so intense that it sounded as if the frogs and toads were inside the house with me.  Sleep was a thing of the past.  I fretted.  I tossed and turned.  Even though I grew up with a large pond full of frogs calling at night back on the farm, there was something irritating about these rascals.  So I cajoled the sons to scoop the loud critters and haul them to a neighbor's pond (in the dead of night, no less!).  The next night, the screaming critters had found their way back to the Fish Pond (or Fish-less Pond by this time.)  Then, one night, I could take it no more and got out of bed to sit in the old porch rocker.  Something had to give. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep.  As I sat there rocking, I started noticing how many different songs there were, how the tones were different and how I would hear critters respond from far away.  

  Then came to mind a framed poem penned by my grandmother as she sat in a rocker on my folk's screened porch.  "The Froggy Symphony" was her way of coping with the loud serenading of the frogs and toads in the pond back on the farm.  It dawned on me that it was pure silliness for me to let the sounds irritate me so as, in a sense, I was a recipient of an untold blessing.  I COULD HEAR!  Yep, the critters' cacophony suddenly changed from a mishmash of calls to a "Froggy Symphony" of beautiful music.  

  Tonight, the tree frogs are calling. The toads are trilling.  The bullfrogs are adding the bass.  The nightly symphony starts with the first few warm nights and lasts until the first frost of the year.  I have learned to embrace the noise as part of the charm of the Bayou.  Add in about a billion or so crickets, a hoard of cicadas and dozens of assorted owls and the night is downright soothing!  I can hear!