JOSEY DURANGO AND THE GREAT FLY SNAG


SONG: JOSEY’S THEME


BOY: I’m back with the marshmallows. Can you finish telling us the story now, Cal Frontier?

GIRL: Yeah. Where did Josey Durango end up after leaving the relative comfort of the creek where he spent most of his extraordinary adolescence?

CAL: Well, Josey walked and walked, takin’ in the amazin’ sights of the vast American frontier. And then one evening, he sat down to take a rest by the bank of a beautiful meanderin’ river. He sat himself down on a rock and gazed up at the bright full moon and listened to a bullfrog sing not ten feet away from him.

When the bullfrog was done singing that sad, mournful song, Josey said, “Yep, friend. I know what you mean.”

“What did you say?” said the bullfrog.

“I said, I know what you mean,” Josey replied.

“I know that’s what you said. But how in tarnation are you, a bona fide human being, able to speak the language of the bullfrogs?”

“Well, it’s because I am a bullfrog.”

The bullfrog laughed and laughed at this.

“Let me get this straight. You think you’re a bullfrog?”

“No, friend. I don’t think I’m a bullfrog. I AM a bullfrog.”

The frog had another good laugh at this.

“Granted,” said Josey, “I’m a human by nature, but I’m a bullfrog by nurture.”

“Well,” replied the bullfrog, “if you’re really a bullfrog, let’s see you do this— ”

And the bullfrog flung out his tongue and snagged a mosquito off a nearby rock and ate it on the spot.

Josey, who knew this routine quite well, flung out that long tongue of his and snagged him a dragonfly that had just buzzed by the bullfrog’s face. The bullfrog was quite impressed, but continued to press on.

“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s see you try this one!” And he flung out his tongue, this time all the way out to river, and he nabbed a water strider that was skimming along the surface.

Josey, excited by this impromptu contest, flung out his long tongue and nabbed three water striders in quick succession from the surface of the water with a bloop, bloop, bloop.

The bullfrog had never seen anything quite like this.

“All right, stranger,” he said. “So you know yourself a few tricks and I admit that they are of an impressive nature, but now I’m going to do one that only us bullfrogs know how to do. And if you know the ways of the bullfrog, like you says you do, than you’ll know how to catch a moonfly. I’ll go first, and then we’ll see if you really are the bullfrog you claim to be.”

And the bullfrog flung out his tongue, but this time it went straight toward the moon! That tongue of his stretched and stretched until there was a faint smack! Soon, Josey could hear the sound of that frog tongue slurpin it’s way back to Earth and when it finally came back down to the riverbank, Josey could see on the tip of the frog’s tongue, a giant fly about the size of a tomato. In bullfrog parlance, this creature was known as a moonfly. The bullfrog began chewing and said, “Now let’s see you top that one, stranger.”

Now Josey had heard of this trick before from his Pa, but he had never attempted it himself. Still, he thought now would be a good time to give it a whirl. So Josey squatted on his haunches and flung out that long tongue of his toward the moon with all his might. However, Josey didn’t realize his own strength. His tongue didn’t merely scratch the surface of the moon; that tongue of his knocked the Moon clear out of its spot in the sky! He caught it with the tip of his tongue before it could fall and held it there. “Howth tha ullrog?” Josey said.

The bullfrog was dumbfounded.

When Josey felt like he had soundly proved his point, he flung the moon back to its spot in the sky where it popped right back into place.

“Stranger,” said the bullfrog, “I don’t know who you are, what you are, or where you came from, but if you say you’re a bullfrog, I am inclined to agree with ya.”

“Well, you can just call me Josey. That’s my name.”

“So what brings you to these parts, Josey?”

Josey told him the long sad tale of his current circumstances and when he was done, the bullfrog had tears in his eyes and said, “Friend, if you’re lookin’ for a home, there are more than enough bugs here for someone your size to feast on to his heart’s delight. And I certainly would welcome the companionship of someone as truly gifted and extraordinary as you.”

This made Josey’s heart warm with affection and the loneliness he felt for his family, though it would never fade completely, was momentarily assuaged by the new friendship he had struck up.


MUSIC: JOSEY’S THEME