I really thought I’d written up my story of the African Frog. I was just looking for it, and it’s not here. I will rewrite it now, because this is one of the key mythical tales of my life.

When I was a young boy living in Brockway, Pennsylvania I had a beautiful tank of tropical fish. My folks would occasionally take me to the pet store over in Dubois and let me pick out a new fish to add to my tank. On one of our trips I spotted an African Frog, and I knew right away that an ordinary fish would no longer do. I had to have an African Frog. We brought him home in a plastic bag and placed the bag in the tank overnight to acclimate. The next day we  released the African Frog into the aquarium. He seemed pretty happy swimming around in there among the angelfish, swordtails and neon tetras. A few days later, though, we noticed one of the neon tetras was missing. And the next day, one of the swordtails was gone. Each day another fish disappeared. Eventually, the only living thing left in the tank was the African Frog. And then the African Frog disappeared, too. A few weeks later, we found him under the bed, mummified in a ball of lint.