Bullfrogs and Rubber Snakes

Vivian is a small town in northwest Louisiana surrounded by pine forests, rolling hills and swampy bayous. I didn’t visit many museums or art galleries growing up, but I spent hours enjoying the outdoors that dominated my childhood.

My brother Jack and I were Boy Scouts, although neither of us advanced beyond the rank of First Class Scout. It didn’t matter because we did lots of camping and hiking. The parents of Murray, one of our fellow scouts, had a fishing camp on Black Bayou. The place was rustic, the accommodations meager. The weekend our scout troop spent there remains as one of the most frightening events of my life.

Black Bayou is a shallow expanse of dark, almost opaque water, and thus the name. It is the home of snakes, alligators, aquatic birds and every manner of fish. Murray’s little camp was an unpainted, one room structure situated on the bank of Black Bayou, sheltered by pines and cypress trees with bloated trunks that grew out into the water. A wooden dock, several rowboats moored to it, jutted out into the sleepy bayou.

So close to Vivian was the camp that we had no adult supervision that weekend. Joe, the head scout, was in charge but we had no specific agenda except to have fun. The first evening, Joe suggested we go gigging for frogs.

“We paddle out into the bayou until we hear the bullfrogs croaking. When they do, we turn on the flashlight and shine it in their eyes. The light will stun them until we have a chance to gig em.”

There were four of us in the paddleboat, Jack, Joe, Murray and me. Joe was in the back of the boat with our only flashlight and an eight-foot long, three-tined gig. A few stars were out but not much of a moon. An occasional shooting star brightened the sky a bit, but mostly we were just paddling around in the darkness.

“Watch out for the cypress trees. Water moccasins perch on the branches and if they drop into the boat with us, we’ll pretty much be goners.”

Joe’s words gave us little comfort as we soon passed beneath the low-lying branches of a cypress tree, Spanish moss draping almost into the water. Dry cypress needles dropped down the back of my shirt and a spider web wrapped around my face and neck. As I was trying to untangle the mess from my glasses, Joe began yelling and something dropped into my lap that felt suspiciously like a snake.

“Snakes in the boat,” he yelled.

Murray didn’t need another warning, tumbling headfirst into the shallow water. Jack and I were right behind him, swimming away from the boat as fast as our arms and legs could flail. The sound of laughter soon stopped us in our tracks.

“There ain’t no snakes,” Joe said. “Cept rubber ones. I got you guys good.”

Joe had spirited a handful of rubber snakes in his shirt, throwing them on us when we passed beneath the cypress tree. He rolled with laughter, right up to the moment that Jack, Murray and I pulled him into the water with us.

No frogs were gigged that night, just a few gullible Boy Scouts. Still, I’ll never forget the rubber snake that tumbled into my lap, giving me the fright of my life.

Gondwana